Yearly Archives: 2010

The Recipes

Pick a Pint of Pattypans–For a Sizzling Indian Stir-Fry

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Every morning when I stock the farm stand, I try to predict what will sell—and how much of it. It’s a fun guessing game, but I rarely get it right. Still, I get a tiny thrill of anticipation every evening as I’m walking up to the stand. Will the bean basket be empty? (Usually.) Sungolds all gone? (These days, most definitely yes.) Any herbs sold? (Most days, no. Though every few days, someone comes along and buys four bunches!)

For some reason, the scallions rarely move, and it has taken a few weeks for the limey-green Flavorburst bell peppers to catch on. I understand that. But there’s one thing that really perplexes me: We have the cutest little Pattypan squash, and folks seem to eschew them in favor of the more familiar zucchini. I adore these little vegetables, not just because they’re charming, but because they have a firm texture and make great stir-fry ingredients. (In fact, they hold together much better than diced zucchini.)

Because our Pattypans (actually a variety called Sunburst hybrid) are so prolific, we harvest them pretty small (between an inch and a half and two inches wide.) So when I’m ready to cook, I simply quarter them through the axis to get nice diamond-shaped wedges. Or if the squash are a little bigger, I cut them into six or eight wedges instead of four. It’s like cutting a pie if you look from the top. I use my stir-fry pan to cook the wedges over medium-high heat until nicely browned and just tender.

I think this how-to-cut-and-cook issue is probably what stops folks from buying the little Pattypans. So I heisted some from the stand this morning, with the specific goal of making a recipe to pass along to both you and our farm stand visitors.

You could certainly put Pattypans in any basic Asian stir-fry, but I opted for a slightly Indian-style approach today, not only because squash goes so well with these flavors, but also because the Pattypan’s firm texture is reminiscent of the kind of vegetable you’d find in a perfect curry.  But if you’re not a cumin & coriander fan, you could drop them from this recipe and it would still be delicious. Be sure to include the onion and garlic, though, for the deepest flavor. (You could also try this recipe with regular zucchini. Just choose small, firm, zucchini and cut them into ¾ to 1-inch pieces.)

If you happen to be growing Pattypans or Sunbursts or any other scalloped squash, remember that large ones (4-inches across and bigger) are perfect for stuffing, too. Also, cut into thick slices, they’re lovely grilled and topped with a bit of parmesan or fresh goat cheese. The slices also work well layered in a gratin. And don’t forget roasting—either the wedges or the slices will do well in the high heat of the oven. For summer vegetable soups, add the squash pieces at the very end of cooking so that they don’t lose their great texture.

Pattypan Stir-Fry, Indian-Style

The mustard seeds, with their surprise pop-crunch in the mouth, are a fun addition to this stir-fry. But you can make it without them. I have a really fragrant peppermint growing in a big tub in my garden, so I use it freely. But if you don’t like mint, cilantro is your next best bet here. Or parsley would be just fine.

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1/8 teaspoon ground cumin

1/8 teaspoon ground coriander

kosher salt

1 tablespoon peanut or canola oil

½ medium-small yellow onion, peeled and thinly sliced (about 2 ounces)

9 to 10 ounces small (1- to 2-inches wide) Pattypan or Sunburst squash, quartered if small, or cut into 6 wedges if bigger

½ teaspoon yellow mustard seeds

1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice

½ teaspoon unsalted butter

1 to 2 tablespoons finely sliced fresh mint

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In a small bowl, combine the cumin, the coriander, and ¼ teaspoon kosher salt.

In a large nonstick stir-fry pan (or 12-inch nonstick skillet), heat 1 teaspoon of the peanut oil over medium-high heat. When the oil is hot (it will shimmer), add the onion and a pinch of kosher salt, and cook, stirring, until the onion is charry around the edges (brown in patches but still a little firm), about 2 to 3 minutes. Transfer the onion to a plate.

Add another teaspoon of peanut oil and the squash to the pan. Season the squash with another pinch of salt, and cook, stirring occasionally, until the squash is nicely browned on most sides, 6 to 8 minutes. (If the pan seems dry, add the third teaspoon of peanut oil.) Return the onions to the pan, add the garlic, the spice/salt mixture, and the mustard seeds (if using), and cook, stirring constantly, until the garlic and spices are incorporated and fragrant, about 1 minute.

Remove the pan from the stove, sprinkle the lemon juice over it, add the butter, and stir well until the butter has melted. Transfer the vegetables to a serving plate and garnish with the mint.

Serves 2 as a side dish

side dishes, The Recipes

Who’s Eating the Tomatoes? Call in CSI, please!

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There is a scene in the Nutcracker ballet where the evil Mouse king dances with his mouse-followers beneath the giant Christmas tree at midnight. When I look at our tomatoes every morning, I envision something like this having gone on the night before. There are tomatoes strewn everywhere, little bites taken out of just-ripening cherry tomatoes, and big bites taken out of bigger tomatoes. Mr. Mouse or Mr. Rat is, apparently, also joined by his close personal friends, Mr. and Mrs. Hornworm (and all their prodigy), and a flock (or several flocks) of sparrows, all of whom enjoy illicit tomato-tastings under the light of the moon. It’s not hard to imagine how fun this is—we planted our tomatoes way too close together, so the two big rows form sort of a hedge. It’s really more like a forrest, and even I can appreciate the magical wonder of that leafy canopy when I am crawling around on my hands and knees in there looking for signs of invaders. It’s like a cool fort, stocked with candy.

Today Roy bought an inflatable owl. A big one. And stuck it right on top of one of the tomato stakes.

Last night, we strung monofilament line between the bamboo stakes, and hung shiny CDs and yellow streamers from it.  I also hung a few red Christmas ball ornaments around, which are supposed to lure birds into pecking at them instead of tomatoes (and thereby discourage further pecking).

Discouraging the rats and birds might work (will keep you posted). But we’ve yet to capture a hornworm. Normally, if you look hard enough, you can spot these big, ugly (and I mean UGLY) caterpillars, but we’ve looked and looked and haven’t seen one yet.

All this is incredibly frustrating, as we have 40 tomato plants, hundreds (maybe thousands because of the prolific little Sun Golds) of tomatoes ripening, and so many visitors (including POTUS, of course) coming to the Island in August, that we are looking at missing our best opportunity to make a little bit of real money at the farm stand.

In the short term, I’ve taken the advice of several farmers and started harvesting tomatoes that are just starting to blush. Apparently once they’ve started coloring, the quality will not be affected by ripening on a windowsill. (This doesn’t work with rock hard, dark green tomatoes that haven’t begun the ripening process.) This is hardly ideal, but right now, leaving anything with any color on the vine seems to be an automatic death sentence for the tomato.

Roy remembered that putting tomatoes in a bag with an apple will help ripen them, too, so we tried that with a batch of Sun Golds.  We put them in a shallow bowl with a ripe apple cut into pieces and covered the whole thing with an upside down stainless steel bowl. In two days, most of the tomatoes had turned yellow and were heading for the even deeper orange color of a perfectly ripe Sun Gold. They tasted good, but some were still a tiny bit green on the inside. They’re best when they’re orange all the way through.

Nevertheless, we celebrated this small ripening feat by making one of my favorite easy summer cherry tomato concoctions last night. It’s a versatile dressing, kind of a loose salsa, that’s delicious over grilled vegetables, grilled meats, and even grilled bread. We had it atop a grilled sirloin and some grilled zucchini from our garden.

The version I made last night (below) is a variation on a recipe in Fast, Fresh & Green which I drape over a roasted pepper that is lightly stuffed with warm goat cheese. It’s a showcase for your tiniest, tastiest tomatoes, but it gets a depth of flavor from a bit of sundried tomato mixed in, too. The dressing has a Spanish-y feel, with a few minced capers, sherry vinegar, garlic, and sometimes a few sliced olives mixed in. I used mint and basil both last night, but any fresh herb would work. Fresh ginger is also a natural with tomatoes, so you could vary the dressing to include some ginger, too. Any way you make it, this no-cook versatile recipe is a fast flavor boost for a weeknight supper (or a weekend party). Of course, it’s a whole lot more satisfying with your own vine-ripened tomatoes, but take what you can get!

Summer Cherry Tomato Dressing, V2

Please don’t make this with those honking cherry tomatoes from the grocery store. They won’t taste great and will be too cumbersome for a salsa-like dressing, even if they’re quartered. Stick with small cherries, Sun Golds, Red Pears, and other fun little tomatoes. Be sure to get a brand of sundried tomatoes that isn’t marinated too heavily with overbearing dried herbs (I’ve had this experience—sundried tomatoes vary in flavor and quality a lot) as they might adversely affect the flavor of your dressing.

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8 ounces small cherry or other tiny tomatoes, halved or quartered depending on size

3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

2 tablespoons very finely sliced, drained, oil-packed sundried tomatoes

1 tablespoon finely sliced basil and/or mint leaves

2 teaspoons drained capers, very lightly chopped

4 green olives, pitted and sliced (optional)

1 tablespoon sherry vinegar

1 teaspoon orange juice

½ teaspoon minced garlic

¼ teaspoon teaspoon kosher salt

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Combine all of the ingredients in a small bowl and stir gently to combine. Let sit for 10 to 15 minutes (or up to 30 minutes) to let the flavors mingle and to let the tomatoes marinate a bit. Stir gently again before serving.

Yields about 1 ¼ cups, enough to dress up four dinners

salads, side dishes, The Recipes

It’s About the Green Beans, Stupid!

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For all the complaining I did about green beans as a child, I can’t believe I’m growing (and eating) more of them these days than practically any other vegetable. My green bean complaints started early. First, my mom seemed stuck on serving those frozen, stringy “frenched” beans about five times a week, no matter what else was on the plate. (‘Very mushy texture’ is the best thing I can say about them.) After her Julia Child-cooking enlightenment period, my mom moved on to fresh beans—but we still ate them, boiled with butter, a lot. Then my Dad got into vegetable gardening, and his pride and joy were pole string beans. I remember one summer (I think I was 10) when it seemed like we ate nothing but green beans. Ack. I’m pretty sure there was then a period of about 20 years when I didn’t eat any green beans at all.

But eventually I became editor of Fine Cooking magazine, and as such, privy to all kinds of reader feedback and issue surveys. I noticed that every time we did a feature with green bean recipes in it, the article topped the popularity scales. Finally, I had to say to myself, “It’s about the green beans, stupid.” Yes, I admitted, green beans are the most popular, most well-liked vegetable on the planet (or at least in America).

Fortunately somewhere along the way I also learned to love green beans—mostly because I began to cook them in lots of different ways. (I roast, grill, braise, and sauté them in Fast, Fresh & Green.) But there’s no getting around the fact that boiling is the quickest, simplest, and most efficient method for cooking green beans perfectly. And also the easiest way to ruin them.

There’s only one way to tell if a bean is perfectly cooked—by tasting it. Tasting as you cook is one of those concepts that chefs hammer into your head in culinary school, so I just thought I’d pass it along to you without screaming or throwing pots. There really is a practical (and rewarding) reason to taste as you cook. Actually, two reasons: flavor and texture. Unless you taste as you go, you won’t catch the subtle changes in flavor and texture that heat (both dry and wet heat) imparts to food, and you won’t be able to make the necessary adjustments in seasoning and cooking times that recipe instructions simply can’t tell you to do.

Green beans are a great example. Undercooked green beans are rubbery; overcooked are mushy. If you are boiling beans, simply begin tasting them after a few minutes. At first you will have a hard time biting through them. As the texture softens, the green beans are closer to being perfectly cooked. When you can just bite through with no resistance, they’re done. (If you walk away to check your email at this point and come back 5 minutes later, you will be sorry.) Yes, you will have to sacrifice a few green beans to tasting.

The thing is, different sized (and different aged) beans cook at different rates, so you pretty much need to taste every batch every time you cook them. In our garden, we are now harvesting “filet” beans—lovely slender green beans that are similar to French haricots verts—and they cook in just a couple minutes. But yesterday, I bought regular green beans at the grocery store to test a recipe for this blog (below), and they took about 6 minutes to be perfectly done. So tasting’s the thing.

By the way, in case there was any doubt, green beans are just as popular on Martha’s Vineyard as everywhere else. Even on recent days when hardly anything else at the farm stand has sold, the filet beans have disappeared. So of course, what have we gone and done? Planted more. (Bush beans are quick to germinate, flower, and fruit.) And the pole beans are coming, too. Yikes, I am going to be surrounded by green beans… having Jack-and-The-Beanstalk nightmares, don’t ya know. What goes around comes around.

The technique for perfectly cooked green beans is embedded in the recipe below. If you don’t feel like green beans with a Greek flavor profile, simply cook the beans and dress them as you please while they’re still a bit warm. Brown better, lemon oil, pesto, your favorite vinaigrette—whatever you like.

Warm Green Bean Salad with Feta, Olives, & Almonds and Lemon-Oregano Vinaigrette

3 tablespoons plus ½ teaspoon extra-virgin olive oil
¼ medium red onion, peeled and very thinly sliced
Kosher salt
12 ounces (3/4 lb.) green beans, trimmed
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
1 scant teaspoon freshly grated lemon zest
½ teaspoon honey
fresh pepper
1 tablespoon chopped fresh oregano
1 tablespoon chopped, pitted Kalamata olives
1 to 2 tablespoons finely crumbled feta cheese
1 tablespoon finely chopped toasted almonds

In a small nonstick skillet, heat ½ teaspoon of the olive oil over medium-high heat. Add the sliced red onion and cook, stirring, until the onion has just softened (the smallest pieces will be wilted), about 2 minutes. Set the onions aside.

Fill a large saucepan half full with water and 2 teaspoons kosher salt. Arrange a few layers of dishtowels on a work surface to drain the beans. Add the beans to the boiling water and begin timing immediately. Boil until the beans are tender to the bite but still green, 5 to 8 minutes. (Begin tasting after 3 or 4 minutes; depending on the age of the beans and how quickly your stovetop brings water back to a boil, there can be a wide range in doneness times.) Drain the beans, or use tongs to lift them out of the water, and spread them out on the towels to let excess moisture drain and evaporate, about 5 minutes.

Make the dressing: Whisk together the 3 tablespoons olive oil, the balsamic vinegar, the lemon zest, the honey, 1/8 teaspoon kosher salt, and several grinds of fresh pepper in a glass measure or small mixing bowl. Add the chopped oregano and the chopped olives and stir or whisk again well to combine.

Arrange the cooled beans on a platter or in a shallow bowl and drizzle with all of the dressing. Arrange the red onions loosely over the beans and sprinkle with as much of the feta cheese and toasted almonds that you like. Serve slightly warm or at room temperature.

Serves 4

fruit desserts, Fruits, Ingredient IQ

Peaches & Cream: A Taste of Summer in Lewes, Delaware

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Traveling is not my forte. I always pack too much, eat bad fast food that I don’t want, and wind up becoming cranky and homesick.  I like to think this is because I was born under the sign of Cancer (with Cancer-rising, too—the double whammy). This accounts for both my extreme homebodiness and my crabbiness when hungry (and when my edible options are less than desirable). Every Zodiac sign has a body part associated with it. For Cancers, it’s the stomach.

In fact, if it weren’t for things like farmers’ markets, sweet shops (freshly made ice cream or artisan chocolates, preferably), and coffee joints, you would not want to travel with me. But if a town can supply me with these three things, I’m good.

I’d have to say, on the farmers market/sweet shop/coffee joint scale, it would be hard to rank as high as a town like Portland, Oregon, where I visited this spring. I slurped deep dark hot chocolate at Cacao (kind of a chocolate bar that sells chocolate bars—as well as chocolate drinks), squirreled away fresh hazelnuts, buckwheat honey, and aged cheddar from the knock-your-socks off Saturday farmers’ market, and treated myself to a cup of my favorite Major Dickason’s Blend at Peet’s every morning. Portland has a reverence for coffee, for farming, for cooking, and for hand-crafted artisan foods like no other town I’ve seen.

So it is hardly fair to talk about Lewes, Delaware, in the same breath. As food towns go, little Lewes is not going to burn a hole in your Zagat Guide. But I’m afraid it would be on Page One of the Susie Guide. It’s a sentimental thing, for sure. My Dad’s family has been living (and eating) in this coastal town for 300 years, and it’s there that I learned to pick crabs, eat corn on the cob with my new adult teeth, make homemade peach ice cream and Beach Plum jelly with my Dad, and dig clams with my cousins. My best food memories are all right there. Or at least they were last weekend when we traveled down to celebrate my Dad’s 80th birthday.

On Saturday, when I walked down Second St. past St. Peter’s Church where all my relatives are buried in the cemetery, past the old Victorian house my great-grandmother lived in, and onto Ship Carpenter Street and the grassy grounds of the Lewes Historical Society, I got goose bumps. Here was the farmers’ market in full swing. It’s a young market—only 5 years old—but it has caught on strong, and now it attracts growers and food artisans from all over the Delmarva peninsula. I looked around, and it seemed like a whole group of unknown friends had made a secret effort to keep all my childhood food memories alive.

Right there was the white sweet corn—the very sweetest, juiciest corn you will ever find anywhere (it’s the Delaware soil, they say). I embarrassed myself by asking if this variety was Silver Queen. “No, we haven’t grown that one in years,” the (young) kid told me. “This one’s called Argent.” “Argent as in A-r-g-e-n-t?” I said. “Something like that,” he replied. (That night, I discovered that Argent, however you spell it, is even better than Silver Queen—or at least my memory of it.)

Stuffing a dozen ears into my bag, I lurched over to the big truck under the maple tree that was loaded up with red bushels of peaches. Peaches! Oh Boy! Real, tree-ripened, fragrant, soft Delaware peaches. Not my favorite white variety (they’ll be ripe next week, the nice folks from Bennett Orchards told me), but a very fabulous yellow variety called Red Haven. Bennett Orchards (in Frankford, Delaware, less than 30 miles from Lewes), I learned, grows 19 different varieties of peaches from July through early September, and I am already sad that I will not get to sample the other 18 varieties this summer. (I took my little stash home and sliced the first one up raw and drizzled it with what is arguably Lewes’ true claim to culinary fame—ultra rich, buttery yellow Lewes Dairy heavy cream.) This is the way my grandmother Honey served peaches. Peeled & sliced. With Lewes cream. Period. Nothing better.

By the time we waded out of the farmers’ market (it was 90+ degrees and 75% humidity, so we were literally wading), we also had a wedge of Talbot Reserve cheese from Chapel’s Country Creamery in Easton, Maryland, a jar of local honey, and, among other tidbits, a bumper sticker (“No Farms, No Food”).

I figured the farmers’ market would be the highlight of the day, but I didn’t know what my Dad and sister had in store for us that night: a ride out to Hopkins Creamery for ice cream. (I’d never been.) On the drive out through the cornfield-lined back roads of Lewes, Dad and Ellie kept talking about the smell of cow poo and the best ice cream ever in the same breath.

Sure enough, as twilight faded, we saw a huge silo looming ahead, silhouetted in the blue-grey sky, its painted decoration of ice cream cones barely discernible. We trolled around for a parking spot and eyed the long lines of folks outside the creamery—which is right next to the huge dairy barn full of cows. We didn’t have to get out of the car to breathe in the familiar odor of cow manure.  Judging by the long lines, this seems to be an experience most folks appreciate—knowing exactly the source of their ice cream. But it kept my mom at home in air-conditioned, odor-free comfort. Too bad, as she missed the best ice cream I’ve ever had. After our turn in a long line, I followed suit with Dad and Ellie and chose Cappuccino Delight, a coffee ice cream with bits of toffee in it. (Roy had his favorite—vanilla.) The rich, buttery, full-fat ice cream was heavenly, even better licked off a crunchy sugar cone while watching a new calf lounge in the hay of the open dairy barn.

What a great trip—sweet corn, peaches, cream, cheese, ice cream. Oh yeah, we did roast a lot of tomatoes and cook green beans, too. It wasn’t a total vacation from (green) vegetables. And I didn’t get a stomach ache; not even once.

side dishes, The Recipes

Birthday Worthy: Silver Queen Corn & Fastest Fudge Cake

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This week I had to write my own book review for the Huffington Post. A little awkward, yes indeedy. But a good opportunity, so I took it. The fun part was choosing a sample recipe from Fast, Fresh & Green that I thought a wide range of people might like—and that was spot-on seasonal. My first thought: Corn. Second thought: Corn Sauté. Third thought: Corn Sauté with Chile & Lime.

Choosing a corn recipe wasn’t a hard decision. I have a not-very-well-kept-secret sweet tooth, and I’ve loved good fresh corn since I was a kid. (The grown-up in me adds stuff like lime and chiles to temper the sweetness.) And up here in New England, the first corn is just starting to come in from the fields; so that means folks south of us are already indulging. The timing for a corn recipe was perfect.

Plus, I couldn’t stop thinking about corn for another reason: It’s birthday week.  My Dad is turning 80 tomorrow, I am turning um…well, something that ends in 8…on Sunday, and Libby turned 8 today! To celebrate with Dad, we are hopping in the car and driving down to Lewes, Delaware, where I spent my childhood summers—and first fell in love with corn.

In those days (the dark ages, I know), the highway into town was lined with hundreds of acres of corn fields. (Now many of those fields are golf courses and retirement communities.) And all that corn was the pearly white, super sweet variety known as Silver Queen. The kernels were always tiny and juicy—not only delicious, but much easier on the teeth than this tough stuff you get in the grocery store these days. I’ve been told there’s an even sweeter variety of white corn around now, but I don’t seem to find either that or Silver Queen up here much. New Englanders seem partial to Butter and Sugar (yellow and white) varieties.

When we celebrate everyone’s birthday on Saturday, two things I know for sure. We’ll have corn and we’ll have chocolate cake. It might not be corn on the cob, slathered with butter, as it used to be. It might be one of my corn-off-the-cob sautés (a little easier on the teeth and oh, so tasty!), hopefully made with Silver Queen. And it won’t be my grandmother Honey’s famous chocolate cake. (She’s the one to whom I dedicated Fast, Fresh & Green. She was such a seat-of-the-pants great cook that no one can actually recreate that cake.) But I’m planning to make one of my favorite easy Fine Cooking recipes, Alice Medrich’s Fastest Fudge Cake. Libby and I made it last weekend in anticipation of her birthday, and after I poured the fancy-looking ganache on top, she decorated it with M& Ms, gummy bears, and pieces of (homemade) chocolate chip cookies! We carried the cake to the beach, and 20 people must have stopped us along the way to coo over the cake (and Libby). I think my 80-year-old Dad will enjoy it as much as she did.

All this thinking and writing about corn was too much for me, though. I couldn’t wait until Saturday for Silver Queen, so I bought some New England corn yesterday and made one of my sautés. (Recipe follows.) I substituted a few things in the Fast, Fresh & Green recipe, adding fresh ginger and garlic and taking out the chile powder, and using purple basil (rescued from the farm stand—it doesn’t sell), chives, and parsley in place of the cilantro. Kept the lime though. (You could sub lemon if you wanted.) Wow, this one was so good—the lime/ginger/sweet onion/sharp basil thing with that sweet corn really works—that I combined the leftovers with a little goat cheese and put them in a frittata for lunch. Just for me, of course.  Sweet.

Summer Corn-off-the-Cob Sauté with Garlic, Ginger & Fresh Herbs

Don’t worry when you see a lot of brown stuff building up on the bottom of the pan. When you sauté corn, it always releases a bit of starch, which causes the browning. That brown stuff tastes really good though, so I incorporate a couple ways to get it back into the sauté. First, I suggest that you let the sauté sit for a few minutes in the pan after cooking. As the vegetables rest, they (especially the onions) will release some moisture that will loosen some of the browned bits, and you can then stir them in. Secondly, after you squeeze the lime in, you can use that bit of added moisture to get a bit more of the browned bits up. A wooden spoon works best for this.

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1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon unsalted butter

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil

1 1/2 cups small-diced yellow onion (6 to 7 ounces, or 1 medium-large onion), preferably sweet

Kosher salt

2 cups fresh corn kernels (cut from 4 medium ears)

1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh ginger

1 heaping teaspoon minced fresh garlic

1 teaspoon freshly grated lime zest

Freshly ground pepper

1/4 lime

3 tablespoons chopped fresh tender herbs (basil, parsley and chives are a nice combo)

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Melt 1 tablespoon of the butter with the olive oil in a 10-inch straight-sided skillet over medium-low heat. Add the onions and 1/2 teaspoon salt, cover, and cook, stirring occasionally, until translucent, about 5 minutes. Uncover, turn up the heat to medium, and sauté, stirring frequently, until lightly browned, another 4 to 5 minutes.

Add the remaining 1 teaspoon butter, the corn kernels, and another 1/2 teaspoon salt. Cook, stirring frequently and scraping the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon, until the corn is tender but still slightly toothy to the bite, 4 to 5 minutes. (It will begin to intensify in color, glisten, and be somewhat shrunken in size). Add the ginger and garlic and cook, stirring, until very fragrant, 30 seconds to 1 minute. Stir in the lime zest and remove the pan from the heat. Let the corn sauté sit undisturbed for 2 to 3 minutes (moisture released from the vegetables as they sit will loosen browned bits) and stir again, scraping up the browned bits from the bottom of the pan.

Season the sauté with a few generous grinds of pepper and a good squeeze of the lime. Stir in half of the herbs. Let sit for another couple of minutes if you have time. Stir and season to taste with more salt, pepper, or lime juice. Stir in the remaining herbs just before serving.

Serves 3 to 4 as a side dish

Tip: I find the safest way to cut corn off the cob is to snap the shucked ears in half first. This takes a little elbow grease, but works fine. Then put one half, cut side facing down, on a large cutting board and slice down the cob with a sharp knife using a sawing motion. Keep turning the cob until you’ve cut off all the kernels. Repeat with the other half. For convenience, I also put a large (old) dishtowel over my cutting board before I start. When I’m done cutting, I can fold the corners of the towel up and easily transfer the kernels to a bowl. Any way you do it, be aware that corn kernels do have a tendency to go flying when you cut them.

side dishes, The Recipes

Don’t Let Your Zukes Go To The Dogs

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Our first little zucchinis appeared on the scene yesterday. We picked them, put them out at the farm stand, and someone bought them. Yeah, I know. That won’t last forever. There will come a time, say mid-August, when you won’t be able to give away a summer squash, they’ll be so ubiquitous. Just don’t do what I did a few years ago and try to feed them to your dog. (Poor Gus.) Honestly, there are plenty of delicious things to do with summer squash, and I’m determined to convert a few squash-bashers (that’s you Katie and Eliza) this summer with a couple of my recipes.

The first is a really, really quick (did I say quick?) sauté that requires very little effort to deliver a dish with restaurant-quality good looks and a lovely flavor and texture. The only caveat is that you have to hop yourself over to a housewares or kitchen store and pick up a groovy tool called a hand-held julienne peeler. It’s not expensive (about $6), and is just the coolest thing. Drag it along the outside of a summer squash, and it makes beautiful zucchini “ribbons.” (Use it to make strips of Parmigiano cheese for a salad, too, or to grate beautiful strands of carrots for a salad.)

The zucchini ribbons need only a quick toss in a hot sauté pan to be perfectly cooked—tender, but still al dente (sort of like linguine!). I like to make a little brown butter in the pan first, and to finish these sautés with a squeeze of lemon or lime, a few chopped toasted nuts, and a smattering of chopped bright fresh herbs like mint, cilantro, basil, or tarragon. There’s a version of this recipe in Fast, Fresh, & Green with lemon and hazelnuts, but the one I’ve included here (below) has a nice combination of lime, cilantro and mint.

I’ll post more squash recipes as the summer goes on, but I also suggest that you check out the new issue of Fine Cooking magazine (August/September, on newsstands next week) which has a beautiful zucchini story written by my cook-farmer friend Mary Ellen Driscoll. It includes a recipe for fried squash blossoms.

Zucchini Ribbons With Lime, Garlic, Cilantro & Mint

It takes a few peels to get the hang of the julienne peeler. I like to run the peeler all the way down the length of the squash for the longest pieces, but it’s easier on the fingers to hold the squash at one end and peel half way down and then flip it around and do the same thing. The shorter ribbons are just as pretty as the longer ones.  Whatever you do, discard the core—you want most of your ribbons to have a bit of skin on them for the best texture.

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1 pound young zucchini or yellow squash, ends trimmed, washed and dried

1 ½ tablespoons unsalted butter

1 large clove garlic, smashed

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, more to taste

2 teaspoons fresh lime juice

2 tablespoons finely chopped toasted pine nuts or toasted sliced almonds

1 tablespoon chopped fresh cilantro, mint, or a combination

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Set out a large mixing bowl. Working over the bowl, peel the squash lengthwise with the julienne peeler into thin strips. Work all the way around the squash until you get to the thick seed core. Discard the core. Break the strips up with your hands, as they can tend to clump together.

In a large nonstick skillet, heat the butter over medium-high heat. When the butter has melted, add the smashed garlic clove and cook, occasionally flattening the garlic clove with a spatula, just until the butter and the garlic clove start to turn a light brown. Remove the garlic. Add the squash strips and the ½ teaspoon kosher salt and cook, tossing with tongs, just until the squash have become pliable, about 1 minute.

Remove the pan from the heat and add the lime juice and most of the chopped nuts and herbs. Toss well. Taste and season with more salt if desired. Serve garnished with remaining nuts and herbs.

Serves 3 to 4 as a side dish

Herbs, Ingredient IQ, starters, The Recipes

Summer’s First Basil Pesto—And 10 Things To Do With It

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A nice couple stopped by the farm stand early this morning while I was still getting the veggies and herbs set up. “We’re in need of basil,” they announced. “How much?” I said. “About this much,” the man gestured, hands open as if he were about to pass a basketball. “Okay, I’ll go pick it for you if you’ve got a second. You can go take a look at the baby goats if you like.”

Off they went and I headed to the garden to harvest the basil. We’ve got sweet basil, lime basil, Thai basil (right), and purple basil, all flourishing in the semi-shade among the tomato plants. Those tomatoes, so spindly when we transplanted them, are now lush and vigorous, covered with little yellow blossoms and tiny green fruits. We planted 40 tomato plants, and basil between each, so basil is something we have oodles of. I was so happy to be able to go out and harvest something I grew myself and hand it over to some appreciative folks who wanted and needed it.

This whole weekend has been like that. Out by the road, we have a new sign that Roy made, and with the crush of visitors to the Island for the July 4th holiday (and those adorable baby goats), the farm stand is hopping. This morning we sold our first harvest of fingerling potatoes, and yesterday we couldn’t keep bunches of carrots around for longer than it took to pull them out of the ground.  I get goose bumps just thinking about it—I’ve always wanted to grow and sell vegetables, and now here we are actually doing it. Only wish we had planted more, as we can already see we’ll run out of carrots (and lots of stuff) well before the next planting can mature.

Now I have another dilemma. We’re going to a potluck party this afternoon, and I, of course, have to bring something garden-y, something vegetable-y—something you’d expect the author of a vegetable cookbook who grows vegetables to bring to a potluck. But I don’t want to harvest anything we can sell!! So I thought about that basil. There’s plenty of it, and the more you pick it, the bushier it gets. So last night I made my first batch of pesto for the summer.

I had the Parmigiano and the olive oil, but my pine nuts were rancid. After swearing at the Stop ‘n Shop, I decided to make pesto without nuts.  (I don’t know why I go anywhere near that grocery store, except that last weekend I had a cooking demonstration to do at Morning Glory Farm, and needed a lot of pine nuts for a Swiss chard dish. Two out of the three jars I bought were bad. Yuck. Be sure to smell nuts before you use them, and when you buy them fresh, store them in the freezer if you’ll not be using them all right away.)

My pesto came out plenty tasty. (I added a little parsley, too, to keep it a bit greener.) So you can certainly make pesto without pine nuts, or you can substitute walnuts or almonds. But ideally, I not only like to use the pine nuts, but I also like to toast them first to pump up the flavor. Here’s the basic basil pesto recipe I usually follow (more or less!). I find the food processer easiest for making a quick pesto. Following the recipe are some ideas for what to do with your pesto once you make it.

Food Processor Basil Pesto

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A 1-inch chunk of Parmigiano or ¼ cup grated Parmigiano

1 clove garlic

¼ cup toasted pine nuts

3 cups packed fresh basil leaves

1 tablespoon plus ½ cup extra virgin olive oil

kosher salt

several grinds of fresh pepper

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Get out your food processor. (I have a smallish one I like to use. Not tiny, but not huge.)

If your Parmigiano is a chunk, cut off about a 1-inch piece and process that until it is nicely grated. (Grating Parmigiano in the food processor turns it into fine sandy pebbles, giving a bit more body to something like pesto than finely grated cheese would.) Add the garlic clove and process until minced.

If you’re using grated Parmigiano (and make sure it is Parmigiano, not the pre-grated fake stuff, which will taste like dust, or worse), start by putting the garlic clove in the processor first and processing it until minced. Then add the grated cheese. Next, add all of the toasted pine nuts and process.

Add all of the basil, a good pinch of salt, several grinds of fresh pepper and a tablespoon or so of the olive oil. Process until very pasty. Then, with the processor running, gradually add the rest of the olive oil—or as much as you like—through the feed tube to get a nice, smooth pesto. Adding the olive oil with the motor running will help the pesto emulsify a bit for a more creamy texture. Taste again and add more salt and pepper to taste if you like.

Yields about 1 cup.

How to use your pesto:

  • In a vinaigrette. Combine with white balsamic vinegar, a little lemon juice and a bit more olive oil. Drizzle on grilled vegetables, green beans or new potatoes.
  • On pizza. Use as a base instead of tomato sauce. Add sliced cherry tomatoes and fresh mozzarella.
  • In sandwiches. Sure, you can use it on bread, but try it in a different kind of sandwich—one made with two slices of grilled eggplant or grilled zucchini. After cooking the veggies, let them cool and put a bit of goat cheese or mozzarella and some pesto between two slices for a fun appetizer or side dish.
  • On pasta, of course! Toss with warm angel hair or linguine, fresh peas, and grilled shrimp. Yum.
  • With fish. Top a white fish fillet like halibut or striper with a bit of pesto and some fresh breadcrumbs before baking.
  • On crostini. Slice and toast baguette, spread with pesto, top with a slice of fresh mozzarella and a roasted or sundried tomato.
  • With soup. Swril a little pesto into a cold carrot or potato or tomato soup. Or drizzle some into a seafood chowder.
  • In a dip. Layer softened goat cheese, pesto, chopped sundried tomatoes, and chopped toasted pine nuts in a wide, straight-sided dish (4 or 5 inches across, a few inches deep). Repeat the layers. Serve with crackers or bread.
  • With eggs. Add a little pesto to omelettes, frittatas, or even scrambled eggs.
  • On tomatoes. Dress up the classic tomato and fresh mozzarella antipasto with pesto instead of fresh basil and a smattering of pitted Nicoise olives.
side dishes, starters, The Recipes

Beet Candy—Bet You Can’t Eat Just One

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It is well documented that I will roast anything that will stand still long enough. So yesterday, when I accidentally harvested some baby beets while pulling weeds, the beets didn’t stand a chance. I’d barely been home for a minute when I turned the oven on to 450°F.

While I’m happy to slow-roast beets at a lower temperature, my very favorite thing to do with them is to slice them thinly and cook them hot and fast. The resulting “chips” are so sweet that I sometimes call them beet candy. I first discovered I could make beet candy when chef George Germon let me concoct a salad for the menu one night at Al Forno restaurant in Providence, RI, where I was a cook. He had some lovely mâche (a delicate leafy green), and I thought beets, goat cheese, and toasted walnuts would complement it. But I didn’t have a lot of time, and the wood-fired ovens at Al Forno are always running super-hot, so I decided to slice the beets really thinly and spread them out on a baking sheet to roast quickly. When they came out of the oven, they were shrivel-y and a bit black around the edges, but incredibly tender and sweet—in that deeply caramelized roasty-toasty kind of way.

I’ve loved these quick-roasted beets ever since. So much so that I keep writing about them. Fine Cooking.  Fast, Fresh & Green.  Now Sixburnersue. You’ll have to forgive me, but here I go again with the recipe—in case you missed it. It’s such a great way to convert beet haters into beet lovers that I don’t want anyone to be without it in beet season.

You can gobble quick-roasted beet slices right off the sheet pan. Or toss them into a citrus marinade (after roasting) and tuck them into salads. Sometimes I like to gussy them up by making little beet and goat cheese sandwiches, which I serve as appetizers. I mix some fresh goat cheese with a small amount of chopped fresh herbs or lemon zest, then dollop some on one beet slice, and top that with another. Yeah, a little fussy, but so darn cute.

Quick-Roasted Beets

This recipe is adapted from the version in Fast, Fresh & Green. The only slightly tricky part is slicing the beets. Start with a sharp, thin-bladed knife (I love my ceramic knife). Then, if your beets are too wobbly or unwieldy to hold straight, slice a very small sliver off the bottom and the beet will stay more stable when slicing. Then just cut round slices that are between 1/8 and ¼-inch thick (3/16 is ideal!). You don’t want paper-thin, or the beets will burn, so there’s no need to get out the mandolin.  Here’s another tip: to prevent your cutting board from getting stained with beet juice, cover it with a piece of parchment paper or part of a brown paper bag before slicing.

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About ½ pound beet roots (1 bunch, about 4 or 5 small or 3 medium, stalks and leaves trimmed), scrubbed but unpeeled, very thinly sliced crosswise

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1/2 teaspoon coarsely chopped fresh thyme leaves (optional)

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil

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Preheat the oven to 450°F. Line a large (18- x 13- x 1-inch) heavy-duty rimmed sheet pan with a piece of parchment paper. Put the beet slices in a mixing bowl and toss thoroughly with the salt, thyme, and olive oil. Arrange the slices, evenly spaced, on the sheet pan (it’s okay if they touch). Roast until the beets are tender, shrunken, wrinkled, and glistening, 16 to 18 minutes. (If your beets are very small, they can roast in as little as 10 to 12 minutes.) The smallest slices will be black around the edges. Let cool for a few minutes and serve warm. Or refrigerate for up to a couple of days.

Serves 2 as a side dish or 4 as an appetizer

side dishes, The Recipes

The Gold Rush (Or Why We Couldn’t Wait to Dig Up Potatoes)

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We cheated. It’s not really time yet to harvest the potatoes, but we just had to check one plant. You know, to make sure there were tubers growing under all that foliage. Besides, it was Friday night and we were looking forward to an all-local dinner. We had just stopped to see Jeff Munroe, the Vineyard’s chicken man, and picked up a freshly slaughtered chicken for the grill. A big salad with our arugula, mizuna, lettuce, and peas was on the menu. All we needed were potatoes, right?

While I butterflied the chicken and cleaned the greens, Roy and Libby ran over to the garden, pitchfork in hand. They came back toting a potato plant—and about a pound and a half of Red Gold potatoes—in the big pink harvest bucket.  I jumped up and down for joy. Everyone giggled. Our own potatoes—how very cool is that? (We are easily amused, I guess.)

I wanted to cook them simply to see what the taste and texture was like. We bought our Red Gold seed potatoes from FedCo’s Moose Tubers catalogue, because they sounded like a fun and flavorful alternative to Yukon Golds, and because they were supposed to yield early and abundantly (we could already agree on that point). So I wound up boiling them until just tender and then frying them, cut-side down, until golden (directions below). I was surprised at how flaky the texture was for a red-skinned potato. It was almost as tender as a baking potato. And that rich yellow flesh was nutty and buttery tasting—perfectly delicious.

We’re trying to restrain ourselves from digging up any more Red Golds right now. The catalogue says about 65 days,  and it’s only been about 56.  The plant we did unearth clearly had a few more tubers forming, so we need to be patient. And then there’s that row of French Fingerlings waiting for us…

In the meantime, I guess we can line up with the rest of the folks who’ve discovered how rewarding potatoes are to grow. Our biggest problem has been keeping up with the ravenous Colorado Potato Beetle, who arrived early and with all of his kinfolk. The best way to dispatch them (in an organic garden) is to simply squish them (or their orange eggs that cluster on the back of leaves) with your fingers. Amazingly, this is an activity that Libby actually enjoys. (How many 7-year-old girls do you know who are fascinated by bugs?) So I’m grateful for that. Not so grateful that nature-loving father and daughter brought me a Garter snake as a present yesterday (to live in the garden!?). But I can hardly complain.

Golden Fried Potatoes

Choose small potatoes that are all about the same size and cut them in half lengthwise. Put them in a saucepan just big enough to hold them in one layer and cover them with cold water by at least an inch.  Add a good bit of kosher salt. (I use 1 ½ teaspoons for a pound of potatoes.)  Bring to a boil, lower to a gentle simmer, and cook until just tender, about 15 minutes for freshly dug potatoes, 20 to 25 for older potatoes.

Drain the potatoes well and let them cool for a bit on a dishcloth. Meanwhile, heat about a tablespoon of olive oil and about a tablespoon of butter in a large frying pan (nonstick works fine if it has a heavy bottom) over medium heat. When the butter is bubbling, sprinkle salt on the cut side of one potato (press an herb leaf on, too, if you like), and put the potato in the fat, cut side down. Repeat with the remaining potato halves. Cook, without turning the potatoes (but occasionally swirling the fat in the pan around them), until they are golden brown on the bottom (check carefully with a thin spatula), about 10 to 12 minutes. Transfer to a serving plate and serve warm, with or without a dollop of sour cream, a smattering of chives, and another sprinkle or two of salt.

side dishes, The Garden, The Recipes

Three Reasons to Celebrate: Baby Goats, Sugar Snap Peas, & A Second Printing

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I watched a goat give birth this morning. It was maybe the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.

I was going to blog about something else today. Actually yesterday. And then yesterday went by and now today has, too. That is how my life goes these days, here in my new world. When I get up, I think there is something so important to do that I must focus entirely on it—be productive, get it done, do my work.  But the universe always has other plans for me. And if I just remember to pay attention to that, I get to experience the most amazing things.

So while Roy and I went over to the farm especially early this morning—ostensibly to water and harvest and be out of there by 8—Basil and Snowflake, two pygmy goats, had other plans (the goat pen is right next to our vegetable garden). By the time we got there, Basil had given birth during the night to two healthy kids, both females (does). One was a little grey and white patchy thing, already cleaned up and awkwardly skipping and hopping around like a tipsy gypsy. She even managed to climb on mama’s back.  The other little girl was black with white ears, and she was much bigger (and less squirmy) than her sister.

Snowflake was in labor. Never having given birth myself, I wasn’t exactly sure by her bleating and writhing what the whole timing scenario was! Fortunately, Randy and Rebecca (the farm owners) soon arrived to check on Snowflake. Randy had been up during the night helping Basil along with the second kid, who needed a small tug to get out. Basil, though, as it turns out, is a veteran Mom. For Snowflake, this was the first time.

Randy talked soothingly to her, but let her push. Two little white hooves followed by two little black legs appeared. And then, as we all stood watching (Snowflake had positioned herself in the breezeway of the shed so we could all see), swoosh!—the kid spilled out in a tidy (wet) bundle. Not a few seconds later it lifted its head and squiggled in the hay. Bravo Snowflake!

The second kid apparently followed not long after. I missed that but came back with my camera a short while later in time to watch Snowflake lick them (a little black doe and a little black buck) clean.  Even though I had emptied the chip in my camera, I still ran out of space after a half-hour or so. I was mesmerized.

Frankly, I was just as excited about the goats (and the appearance of the first sugar snap peas in the garden) as the other news I was going to blog about—that the second printing of Fast, Fresh & Green arrived in warehouses yesterday.

I have to admit, I have very mixed feelings about bragging about my book. I wasn’t brought up to flaunt success, and yet I know two things: One, I didn’t do this book all by myself, and the folks who helped me deserve to share in the good news. I owe it to them (and these are not the people who are logging on to Facebook and Twitter on a regular basis, so they are not going to see the reviews) to keep them updated. Secondly, I know what it feels like to be grateful. In my post midlife-crisis world, not only do I get to be present for a lot of cool stuff, but I also get to know that terrific feeling of gratitude—of knowing you’re the recipient of good karma that you’re not necessarily wholly responsible for.

So to celebrate Fast, Fresh & Green (and those sugar snap peas I’m going to harvest for the farm stand tomorrow!), here’s a quick recipe, Sautéed Sugar Snaps with Salami Crisps. It’s one of my very favorites in the book for its inarguable simplicity.  And for anyone with lots of time on their hands (that’s you, Mom and Dad!!) who would like to see some of the recent coverage of FFG, there’s a list of links after the recipe. I’m particularly grateful to the articulate Tom Philpott of Grist.org for acknowledging my primary goal—to encourage people to cook at home more.  To me, there’s no better way to practice being present—and grateful—than spending time cooking (and eating) at home every day with friends and family.

Sautéed Sugar Snaps with Salami Crisps

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1 ounce very thinly sliced Genoa salami

1 teaspoon extra-virgin olive oil

½ pound sugar snap peas, tails removed

1/8 teaspoon kosher salt

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Stack the salami slices and cut them across into ¼-inch wide strips. Pull the strips apart and spread them in one layer on the cutting board; they are much easier to add to the pan when they are not clumped together.

In a large (12-inch) nonstick skillet, heat the 1 teaspoon olive oil over medium heat. When the oil is hot (it will loosen up and spread out), add the sugar snap peas and season them with the 1/8 teaspoon salt. Toss well. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the peas turn bright green, blister, and begin to turn a very light golden brown in spots, about 3 minutes. Add the salami strips and toss well.

Continue to cook, stirring occasionally, until the peas are browned in spots on both sides and the salami strips have shrunken, turned a darker brown color, and feel crisp, 3 to 4 minutes. (The salami will probably be crisp on the edges but still somewhat pliable after 3 minutes. You can stop at that point if you do not want to cook the peas further, but I like the texture of the fully crisp salami, and the peas stay crisp even when cooked more.) Transfer to a serving platter or dinner plates.

Serves 3

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Here are links to some recent reviews of Fast, Fresh & Green.This is only a partial list and my thanks go to the many bloggers who have taken FFG for a test spin and enjoyed the ride!

How to Be Fast, Fresh & Green in the Kitchen (Grist)

To Market, To Market: 10 Top Summer Cookbooks (NPR)

Book Report: We Pick 11 New Cookbooks (Washington Post)

Ideas For What to Do With Summer’s Bounty (Associated Press)

Favorite Cookbooks: Fast, Fresh & Green (Eat Well, Eat Cheap blog)