All posts by Susie Middleton

The Recipes

Mom’s Favorite Fourth of July Veggie Recipe – A Gratin with Tomatoes and Zucchini, Of Course!

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It’s always a good sign when your mom tells you she’s dog-eared the pages of your new cookbook. When I sent my mom, Pauletta, an early copy of The Fresh & Green Table, she sat down and went through every page, marking all kinds of recipes she wanted to try. Yay! I thought. I must have a hit on my hands if Mom likes it. First she made the Tuscan Kale and White Bean soup for my Dad, and then… well, I had to laugh at her next choice. It’s a variation on something I’ve made and she’s made many times over since I started creating veggie dishes after culinary school so many years ago. In fact, it’s a dish that is unsurpassed in popularity among my friends. Even my cookbook editor, Bill LeBlond at Chronicle Books, who has edited hundreds of cookbooks over the years, makes my recipe from Fast, Fresh & Green frequently for parties.

What is it? It’s basically a layered vegetable gratin, but in France it is called a tian for the type of shallow baking dish it is baked in. A tian often features zucchini and tomatoes in the summer, but I also make them with eggplant and tomatoes, with potatoes and tomatoes, and with lots of different herbs and a variety of cheeses and crumb toppings. I take special care with a bottom layer of sautéed onions, leeks, bell peppers, garlic, fennel or other aromatic vegetables so that when the tomato juices seep down to the bottom of the pan during cooking, they combine with those aromatic veggies and herbs to make delicious flavor. My other tip for the best tasting tian is not to undercook it! During the first half of cooking, the tomatoes shed a lot of liquid, but then the liquid begins to reduce and becomes incredibly flavorful, so the dish needs time in the oven for this to happen.

The variation I included in the new book is especially tasty (Mom and Dad loved it), so I’m offering it to you today in case you’re in the throes of planning your fourth of July menu. Also, I am feeling kind of sentimental, wishing I could be with my family this holiday. Many years we gather in Delaware this time of year to celebrate all our family birthdays together, but this year, of course, Roy and I are too busy to go anywhere! I’m happy that my sister Eleanor will be with Mom and Dad on this holiday and I bet you I know one thing they’ll be cooking!

P.S. The beautiful photo (top)—one of my favorite, in fact, of the many lovelies Annabelle Breakey took for The Fresh and Green Table—actually shows the tian being assembled a little differently than my directions call for. (There’s a funny story there, but another time.) It really doesn’t matter, but in case you’re trying to compare the directions to the photo, know that I arrange the veggies in rows going across the pan, not up and down the pan. Either way you do it, it will be delicious.

Mediterranean Zucchini, Tomato, and Bell Pepper Tian with Pine Nut Crumb Topping

I love to cook this in my enameled cast-iron Le Creuset oval gratin dish, because I think the cast iron conducts heat so beautifully that the juices get extra caramelized. But other 2-quart shallow baking dishes, like a 9 x 7 Pyrex, will work fine, too. Take this dish to a potluck or picnic. It will be a hit, I promise. But if by chance you wind up with any leftovers, you’ll love those too, as it tastes great the next day.

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5 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil, more for the pan

3 tablespoons chopped toasted pine nuts

3/4 cup fresh breadcrumbs

3/4 cup coarsely chopped grated Parmigiano-Regianno

1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme

2 teaspoons balsamic vinegar

2 teaspoons honey

3/4 pound zucchini (about 1 1/2 small zucchinis), sliced thinly on the diagonal (about 1/8- to 3/16- inch thick)

1 1/4  pounds small to medium red and orange ripe tomatoes (about 4 or 5), cored, sliced about 3/16-inch thick (cut medium tomatoes in half first, then slice)

kosher salt

2 small onions (about 8 ounces total), thinly sliced (about 1 3/4 cups)

1 small or 1/2 large red or yellow bell pepper (about 4 ounces), cored and very thinly sliced

2 teaspoons minced fresh garlic

3 tablespoons finely chopped oil-packed sundried tomatoes (drained)

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Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Rub a shallow 2-quart baking dish with a little olive oil. In a small bowl, combine the pine nuts, the bread crumbs, 2 tablespoons of the Parmigiano, 1/2 teaspoon of the thyme, and 2 teaspoons of the olive oil. Mix well.

Whisk together the balsamic vinegar, the honey, 2 tablespoons of olive oil, and 1/4 teaspoon salt. Put the zucchini slices in one bowl and the tomato slices in another. Add a pinch of salt and 1 teaspoon thyme to each bowl, and drizzle half of the balsamic mixture over each. Toss gently. Let sit while you prepare the rest of the recipe.

In a medium (10-inch) heavy nonstick skillet, heat 1 tablespoon of the olive oil over medium heat. Add the onions, the peppers, and 1/4 teaspoon salt. Cook, stirring frequently, until the onions and peppers are limp and the onions are golden brown, about 10 to 12 minutes. Stir in the minced garlic and cook until softened and fragrant, about 30 seconds. Transfer the onions and peppers to the baking dish and spread them evenly in one layer across the bottom. Let cool slightly. Sprinkle the sundried tomatoes and the remaining 1/2 teaspoon of the thyme over the veggies.

Starting at one narrow end of the baking dish, arrange a row of tomato slices across the dish, propping the slices up against the end of the dish at an angle as you go.  Sprinkle a little Parmigiano over the row of tomatoes, and then arrange a row of zucchini slices, slightly overlapping each other and slightly overlapping the row of tomatoes. Again sprinkle Parmigiano on that row, and continue to arrange rows of tomatoes and zucchini, each sprinkled with Parmigiano, until you get to the end of the dish. You should have just about the right amount of zucchini, but don’t worry if you have extra slices. You will definitely have extra tomato slices (and ones that you’ve chosen not to use because they’ve fallen apart!) But as you are going along, if it looks like you will have a lot of extra, gently push the rows back up towards the end of the dish you started at to make room for a few more rows.

Scrape any remaining seasoning and juices from the bowl the zucchini was in over the veggies. (Leave the extra tomato juices behind or use them in a gazpacho!) Sprinkle any remaining Parmigiano over the veggies. Drizzle the remaining 2 tablespoons of olive oil over the veggies, and top with the bread crumb-pine nut mixture.

Bake until well browned all over and the juices have bubbled for a while and reduced considerably, about 65 minutes. Let cool at least 15 minutes before serving.

Serves 4

Farm life

Don’t Miss the Magic

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Blink and you miss the magic that happens this time of year in the garden. Me, I actually have to remind myself to look up and all around me, as I tend to focus hard on one thing at a time (a trait—along with nearsightedness—that I inherited from my father). I can be concentrating so intently on picking peas that I don’t notice the ruby red nasturtium blossoms that have flung themselves out from a dark cool hidden place among the pea vines and are spilling across my feet. Without my glasses on, the world can be a blurry place, too.

But I don’t want to miss anything. The other day I happened to have the camera in hand when a butterfly landed on our new coneflower, blooming in a smoldery pink and orange hue that reminds me of a Peter Max sunset poster. It’s lovely to capture this in a photo, but even the camera can be a hindrance to just experiencing a warm early summer day.

I am trying to find more time in the day to simply take it all in, so I got up extra early this morning, just after the sunrise. Nothing’s more beautiful than the garden in the fuzzy morning light when all the plants are shiny and taut. It’s the best time to harvest leafy things for the farm stand, too, while they still have water in their stems and before the heat of the day comes on. Tiptoeing around this morning with Roy, who’s always an early riser, we made all kinds of discoveries: four big cucumbers, fully ripe, which we had completely missed, lying on the hay mulch beneath their blowsy leaves; potently fragrant fresh basil absolutely ready for harvesting under the Remay; little green tomatoes everywhere; a frog living in one of the bean beds; the first ripe black raspberries down near the old barn foundation; a new swath of wild pink roses in bloom by the chicken coop; wren babies in the barn; our own first ripe blueberry. Much later on, I took patient Farmer for a long walk and we saw tiny pink blossoms on new raspberry canes and sampled our first ripe wild blueberries. Farmer played his favorite game of hide and seek with the  bunnies, and on the way back we stopped to say hello to the chicks, who rushed to the fence to greet us.

The rest of the day—the parts in between—were more focused and less serene. I think I’ll get up early again tomorrow.

The Recipes

Why Did The Chicken Fly the Coop? To Get to the Peas & Carrots, Of Course

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I’ve been running inside a lot this week to grab my camera. It’s been one photo moment after another on the farm. On Sunday, we let the babies out of their coop into a temporary outdoor pen—their first foray onto grassy turf. This was hysterical to watch. It took quite a few minutes for the first chicken to advance out onto the plank. Three or four followed, and then the first one changed her mind and turned around and headed back inside. It went on like this for a while—a few would venture out and then turn around. You could just imagine the conversations going on.  (Personally, I had the Cockney voices of the talking vultures in Disney’s animated version of The Jungle Book in my head.) “You go. No you go. No way—YOU go. Nuh-huh, I’m staying here.”

Libby waited patiently in the pen for them to come out, approach her, and eventually start hopping on her lap. She is very calm around animals and they trust her. I couldn’t get enough pictures of the interaction between them all.

In the garden we are harvesting the most amazing peas and carrots, so I’m taking lots of pictures of these, too—while they last. I am so happy that I’ve finally figured out how to grow both of these veggies well. I just hope I can repeat the same success next year. (Or even this year with another round of carrots—which should have gone in the ground weeks ago!).

This morning I had fresh peas and carrots and strawberries for breakfast while I washed all the veggies. I smiled, thinking about peas and carrots, because they mean something special to Roy and me, and today is our anniversary. (The anniversary of our first date, that is, three years ago.) For some reason, when we were first dating, the movie Forrest Gump kept coming on TV. If you remember, Forrest says early on in the movie, “From that day on we was always together. Jenny and me was like peas and carrots.” Roy picked this up (in Forrest’s voice, of course) and started saying it to me a lot. Who knew what we’d be doing three years later! Peas + Carrots + 60 babies (baby chickens) + one amazing little girl=love.

(And not to forget Farmer, who enjoyed Libby’s cart ride with one of the chickens.)

The Recipes

One Thing At a Time

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Yesterday, Farmer escaped his harness, Houdini-like, and galloped down State Road against oncoming traffic with me running behind him shouting and waving. (He’s okay.)

I drove to Connecticut and back for a meeting on Tuesday.

I planted 50 tomato plants last night.

Roy hurt his back lifting a staircase (don’t ask). His clients want to move into their remodeled house in two weeks.

Our friends Scott and Angie came and helped us with the garden and the farm stand last Sunday because they could see what we couldn’t: We needed help.

Today a farm stand customer, a lovely lady who I barely know, came down the driveway with a loaf of challah bread she had baked for the Jewish Sabbath (which begins Friday evening) and wanted to share with me. A very special kind of challah called Chernowitzer, named for a once beautiful Austrian (now Ukrainian) city devastated in World War II, its many inhabitants sent to Auschwitz. Farmer and I ate two slices of this amazing bread for breakfast.

My new book was officially released this week (early). My publisher, Chronicle Books, pushed the date up after the positive review from NPR and went ahead and ordered a second printing.

I went down to Bunch of Grapes bookstore to sign 50 copies.

The Splendid Table excerpted this recipe (Greek Spinach-Salad Pasta with Feta, Olives, Artichokes, Tomatoes and Pepperoncini) from the book, and suddenly blog posts popped up all around from folks making the salad. Amazon put The Fresh and Green Table on its June list of editors’ favorite cookbooks.

I am developing recipes and taking pictures for a new project.

Every morning, I harvest chard, arugula, lettuce, baby bok choy and greens for the farm stand. I pulled the first carrots this morning. The peas—hundreds of them—are just days away.

The peppers and eggplants are not in the ground yet. Many beds to weed and mulch. Irrigation is a bad word. New chicken pens for both ladies and girls still to be built.

I ran into my friend Mary in the post office yesterday. She is a landscaper and garden designer…on Martha’s Vineyard…in June. Yikes. “Everything’s compressed. It’s like there’s no time, it’s all just a little too much. But at the end of the day here we are. So lucky.”

Yes, lucky. And when it all seems like a lot, I take it a little at a time. And I have Farmer to remind me to take it easy and pay attention.

I cinched up his collar extra tight and let him sniff all the daisies he wanted on our walk through the field this morning. (He slept on the bed last night, too. ) A warm soft breeze and bright sunshine made us both stop for a minute and look around. A turkey hen crossed our path with her single baby toddling behind her.

We walked home past the garden gate that Scotty built, stopped to pee on Roy’s potatoes (sorry!), checked on the blushing blueberries, and smiled at the shovel left speared on a mound of dirt. Shovels remind me of my Dad. Always. I know what he’ll be doing on Sunday, and it won’t be sitting down, waiting for the world to come to him. Thanks Dad. It’s all good, even when it’s all a bit much.

The Recipes

Moving Day—The Baby Chicks Get a Big-Girl Coop

Once he got started, it only took Roy two Sunday afternoons to get the new chicken coop built. Just in time, too, as the girls (all 49 of them!) are getting big. Plus, as I wrote about last week, there is so much to do around here that lingering for too long on any one thing just isn’t an option. So after choosing the perfect site for the new coop, Roy built the foundation and nailed the floor Sunday before last, then set to work on the walls and roof this weekend, using salvaged doors, windows, and boards.

I got a kick out of watching the whole thing come together (see photos below) into what looks like a pretty iconic chicken coop to me. (It has a built-in storage area for food and tools, too, which will be particularly handy.) The girls have an excellent spot, under some shade trees and with a killer view of the fields behind us. They’re still a little young to be out grazing, but next up is a big covered pen for them. In the mean time, they seem very happy with their new spacious indoor digs.

We used a plastic harvest basket to carry them, six or eight at a time, from the brooder in the barn to their new home.  All went smoothly, if a bit squawk-ily.

Even Bambi, who we successfully returned to the flock a couple weeks ago, seems happy, hopping up to greet us at the door from time to time when we go down to visit or refill the food and water. Farmer is anxious to see her, too, as he and she got to be pals. Fortunately, we can still identify her by her right foot, which is missing the middle toenail. Sorry for the graphic details, but this is how these things go! When we brought her inside on day two, she had an injured middle toe, which turned black and looked like it might be something fatal (with chickens, it’s all about the feet), but it miraculously healed itself, as you can see in the photo of Bambi on Libby’s shoulder taken a few weeks ago. (Or could see, if the photo were bigger!)

Below is a photo run-down of the coop-raising. Now, we have only three months to wait (and a lot of chicken food to feed) before our 49 new ladies are laying eggs. I can’t wait to see how that is going to work—me collecting four dozen eggs every day is not going to help the attention deficit disorder I already have around this place!

Farm life

Whistle While You Work

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My favorite episode of I Love Lucy is the one where she and Ethel go to work in a chocolate factory and are assigned to wrap chocolates that pass by on a conveyor belt. The belt speeds up and they can’t keep up so they start stuffing candies in their mouths to hide them. Life on the farm is a little bit like that right now. The days speed by, and it’s impossible to keep up. You know what you’re supposed to do, what the next thing on the (mega) chore list is, but just when you decide to go plant that row of beans, a crow flies into the barn and gets stuck in a window, the dog throws up something he’s found behind the barn, three customers come down the driveway looking for eggs (and you’re all out), and Sugar the Aracauna chicken has escaped from the chicken yard again and is digging a dust bath in the perennials. And drat, you realize you forgot to check on the babies (the baby chicks), who are really teenagers now and eat and drink like crazy.

You must look pretty silly, you realize, with a hen tucked under one arm, a jug of water under the other, trying to shake a stick at a crow, and check the inside of the dog’s mouth all at the same time.

You finally decide to go inside and get some work done (work as in recipe-testing, writing, that sort of thing), but pass by the garden on your way in and realize every single bed needs watering, the cover has blown off the arugula, and you haven’t dealt with those earwigs that are eating the bok choy or the weeds taking over the chard bed. There are two hundred tomato plants, half of them knocked over by the wind, staring at you, saying, “plant me, plant me.” You check the farm stand and it is out of lettuce, so you have to decide whether to harvest more or to go out to the road and erase “lettuce” from the sign. There are eight flats of peppers and eggplant seedlings on the work table waiting to get transplanted into bigger pots and a flat of basil begging to go in the ground.

Back inside, you recalibrate and set a very simple goal—a recipe test using three ingredients—rhubarb jam. Whew, you manage to accomplish that, but then complicate your life by trying to pull off a grilled chicken recipe test for dinner. You go collect the last of the day’s eggs, trek to the compost pile, put Sugar back in the pen again, and go inside and start chopping ginger and garlic just as Roy pulls in.

Discussion ensues: Do we work or eat? It’s a toss-up…we thought maybe we’d finish digging the beds for the tomatoes tonight, but Roy also wants to get some work done on the babies’ big-girl coop, which has risen to the top of the priority list. He needs to move some brush, too, so as the sun slowly sinks, he moves from tractor to mower to tiller to shovel. From yard to garden to bed. I finish watering, organize the tomatoes, move bags of cow manure into the garden.

It’s time to lock up the ladies (the hens) for the night, set the rat traps (yes, rats), cover the brooder box, shut the garden gate. Move all the flats of peppers and eggplants back inside. Turn off the hoses. Cover the hay with a tarp. Rake. Pick up odd bits of trash. Watch the bunnies come out to feed. Shut down the farm stand, bring in the sign, record the day’s sales. Plan tomorrow morning’s harvest. Where did the day go? In only a few hours, the alarm will be going off, and we’ll be doing it all over again: Harvest, wash, water, weed, dig, till, plant, mow, tie, clip, cut, cook, grill, nail, sand, haul, stake, scoop, pin, rake, level, sweat, smile, laugh.

publicity, The Cookbooks, The Garden

Beauty and The Book

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Yesterday two good things happened: I spotted the first pea blossoms in the garden, and my new book, The Fresh & Green Table, was chosen as one of NPR’s Top Ten Cookbooks for Summer, 2012. You might wonder that I put those two things in the same sentence, that I seem to weight them equally on the make-your-day meter.

Honestly, I did dance around my office when I saw the NPR list—I was very excited. Two years ago, Fast, Fresh & Green received this same honor, and I couldn’t believe my second book would also get a nod. I have tremendous respect for the reviewer, who is very thorough, so this is something to be proud of. (For anyone wanting to write a cookbook—or another cookbook—you’d be well-advised to read the list of 7 questions she asks herself when considering new books.) She had a ginormous stack of books to look at and to cook from this season, too.

I didn’t dance around the garden when I saw the pea blossoms. But my heart sang. Sheer beauty. It’s hard to describe—the complex emotions that come from pausing on a quiet, foggy morning to witness this crazy miracle of nature. There’s an element of relief, too, knowing you’ve managed to coax something along, that you’re actually growing food that you can eat and feed to others, too.

There’s a much less romantic reason to be grateful for good reviews and pea blossoms in the same breath. Quite simply, I know if I can sell books and sell peas (though neither actually makes me much money and both take an enormous amount of energy), then I can continue to get away with calling what I do a career, or a job, or something official. Ha! When really I’m just having fun. Some time back I decided that life is too short not to enjoy what you do every day. Sure, there are tradeoffs, but as long as I can keep this (old) roof over my head, I’m good.

The farm stand opens tomorrow!

The Recipes

Countdown to Opening Day: Green Island Farm Stand 2012!

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I have been secretly harvesting a few greens here and there for a customer in need. But I’m trying not to pilfer too much as I want to be stocked up for opening day—which is, yikes, 10 days away! Next Friday is the start of Memorial Day weekend, and Green Island Farm Stand will be open for business. (At least during the weekend. We’ll probably close during the weekdays until late June.)

I am both giddy and nervous with excitement. There is such a huge learning curve with growing—and it begins to go up more rapidly as the years pass. So I can’t help but feel good about some things I’ve finally got figured out. (See the photo gallery below.) At the same time, I can already see that despite doubling the size of the garden this year (Roy finished enclosing the “back 40” this weekend while I transplanted tomato seedlings into pots), I still wish we had more of some things—especially our beautiful greens. The salad lettuces are simply stunning, and all of the Asian greens are flourishing under cover of Remay. Hopefully, there’s enough to keep up with demand in June, since greens are the main deal until the early carrots and peas come in. (I sort of never thinned the peas, all of which miraculously germinated, so I hope they don’t strangle each other. If not, there will be a lot of peas!)

The trick to growing and selling greens is to seed new flats every week and transplant when holes open up. Or to transplant some and direct-seed new beds at intervals. (Some greens, like the lettuces, the mustards, and the kale will provide multiple harvests—and we do love them for that—but once a head of baby bok choy goes, it goes. Arugula is good for a couple rounds, but then the new growth toughens.) But knowing these tricks (finally) doesn’t make them necessarily doable. When we get the hoop house built, that will help a lot. But there’s only so much space we can devote to greens, too, since we like having the farm stand—and that means we have to make room for a variety of vegetables and that will yield at different times during the season, filling in gaps when other things wane. It’s a big puzzle, but a very fun one.

Of course the other way to deal with all this is to just dig more beds! And now that we have the tractor, well…we just bought a bunch of asparagus crowns…and more rhubarb plants…and a few strawberry plants. And we turned the old chicken yard into a patch for Roy’s gladiolus. Yeah, we are not too good at saying ‘enough.’ (Witness the new flock of chicks. And yes, they are all doing fine!)

Here’s a photo gallery preview of the goodies to come (and a look at the “Back 40” awaiting a gate, beds, plants, and a new irrigation system!):

soups, The Recipes

Asparagus-Leek Bisque for Mom; the Gift of a Child for Me

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If my mom were here on Martha’s Vineyard with us this Sunday, this is what I would cook for her: Asparagus & Leek Bisque with Crème Fraiche & Tarragon and Classic Maryland Crab Cakes.

The silky soup (photo at right, recipe below and coming in The Fresh & Green Table) is delicious, easy to make, and would take advantage of the fabulous asparagus we’re now getting at Morning Glory Farm.

The crab cakes, well, they’re a family thing. When I developed that recipe for Fine Cooking magazine several years ago, I had to consult each of my family members to make sure I did not adulterate any nostalgic memories. The recipe really should be called Evans Family Classic Delaware Crab Cakes, because we spent a lot of time crabbing, picking crabs, making crab cakes, and eating crab every summer in Lewes Beach, Delaware. And for us, a crab cake is all about the crab (the blue crab!).

But my mom’s not visiting this weekend (she’s in Delaware), and since I picked on her last mother’s day by writing about her, I’m letting her off the hook this year. (Besides, she just got a brand new teeny tiny poodle puppy named Shortie to play with.)

Instead, I have to share this strange feeling I now get on Mother’s Day. I’m not a mother—well, at least, not an actual, bona fide legal full-time one. I always wanted to have kids, but it wasn’t to be. After I safely navigated my midlife crisis, I did briefly think about how I might still pull it off, but I never pursued any of the options. But God was looking out for me, I know now. Because into my life skipped Libby. She was seven, almost eight when I met her for the first time (all maybe 40 pounds of her—hence her father’s nicknames for her – “Noodle” and “Peanut”). I spent just a few hours with her, but the next time she came out from Falmouth to visit her father, she said, “Daddy, can we go over to Susie’s house?” That was the start of a very good thing. For both of us (actually, all three of us), I do believe.

Libby is blessed with an awesome family life in Falmouth—her mom Kelly totally understands her daughter’s personality and I admire how she nurtures it and encourages Libby’s unique strengths. (And I am especially grateful to Kelly for her generosity in welcoming me into Libby’s life.) Libby has two loving grandparents who live right next door to her—and a protective older brother to watch out for her, too. And when she comes out to the Island, she gets special time with the Dad who not only looks so much like her, but shares her love of nature and animals and everything outdoorsy. (And, oh, just happens to adore her, too.) And then there is Susie Time—in the kitchen cooking, over a board game, out for a walk with the dog, futzing around in the garden, or shopping at the farmers’ market. (That’s our feet in our farm boots, below.)

Last year, Roy bought me a plant (a beautiful lupine) on Mother’s Day and Libby brought me a necklace she’d made. I was so surprised and blown away, really. Kelly told me this week that Libby had something for me this Mother’s Day, but since Libby’s got an “away” soccer game, we won’t see her until next week. Honestly, it is hard to describe how I feel about the fact that Roy and Libby honor me as the Mom in our little family unit, even though we are only all together for part of every month. We do make the most of our time together, though, and I guess that’s what counts. But having the gift of Libby in my life is not something I will ever fully grasp in a tangible way. It’s not to be analyzed, just appreciated. Nothing short of a miracle—and a real privilege to watch this amazing girl grow up.

I will miss Libby this weekend. If she were here, we just might make that Asparagus Bisque and the Crab Cakes (she loves both). And I have something to give her, too—her very own copy of The Fresh & Green Table (I just got my early author copies). After all, it is dedicated to her and her Dad. And that’s pretty cool—how many nine-year-olds can walk into just about any bookstore and see their name in print? Well, this may be the first time for Libby, but I’m guessing it won’t be the last.


Photographs in this post: soup, Annabelle Breakey, from The Fresh and Green Table; crab cakes, Scott Phillips from finecooking.com. Boots by Roy Riley.

Asparagus & Leek Bisque with Crème Fraiche & Tarragon

This is a lovely, satisfying soup with the light flavors of spring, but the hearty back-up of earthy sautéed leeks. I love how well the crème fraiche, tarragon, and lemon work with the asparagus at the end. When you’re shopping for asparagus, you’ll probably want to go ahead and buy 4 bunches (of medium-thin stalks; bunches are about 1 lb. each) to be on the safe side (unless you find much bigger bunches!). You’ll be trimming all the tough ends to wind up with 1 1/2 pounds for the soup; plus you’ll be cutting up a few stalks to blanch and use as garnish. This soup would be lovely with a few crostini on the side, topped with warm goat cheese and maybe a little smoked salmon. This recipe is from The Fresh and Green Table (Chronicle Books, June 2012, Susie Middleton).

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2 tablespoons unsalted butter

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil

1 1/2 cups thinly sliced leeks (about 5 ounces, from about 2 large leeks)

1/2 cup thinly sliced celery

kosher salt

2 teaspoons minced fresh ginger

1/4 cup dry white wine (such as a Sauvignon Blanc)

1 1/2  pound trimmed asparagus (from about 3 bunches of medium-thin asparagus) cut into 1/2-inch pieces; plus 3 trimmed stalks, sliced on the diagonal, about 1-inch long

1/4 cup crème fraiche

1/2 teaspoon freshly grated lemon zest

1 1/2 to 2 teaspoons chopped fresh tarragon

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In a 4- to 5-quart Dutch oven or other large sauce pot, heat the butter and the olive oil over medium heat. Add the leeks, the celery, and 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt. Stir, cover, and cook, stirring once or twice, until the vegetables are mostly softened, about 5 minutes. Uncover and continue to cook, stirring frequently, until the vegetables are shrunken and the leeks have taken on some golden color, about 7 to 8 minutes more.

Add the ginger and stir until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add the white wine and cook until mostly reduced (this will happen quickly). Add the (1 1/2 lb.) asparagus, 1 teaspoon kosher salt, and 5 1/2 cups water. Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer and cook, uncovered, until the asparagus are just tender, about 7 minutes.

Take the pan off the heat and let the soup cool for 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, bring a small saucepan of water to a boil with 1/4 teaspoon salt. Drop in the extra asparagus pieces and cook until firm-tender but still bright green, 2 to 3 minutes. Drain and reserve.

Puree the soup in three batches (fill the jar only about half way or just a little more) and cover the blender lid partially with a folded dishtowel (leave a vent opening uncovered to let steam out) to prevent hot soup from splashing on you. Combine the batches in a mixing bowl, then return to the (rinsed) soup pot. Whisk in the crème fraiche, 1 1/2 teaspoons of the tarragon, and the lemon zest. Taste the soup for seasoning and add more salt or the remaining 1/2 teaspoon tarragon. (If you plan to eat the soup right away, you will most likely want to add the last 1/2 teaspoon tarragon. If you plan to eat it later, hold back, as the tarragon intensifies just slightly over time.)

Reheat the soup very gently. Serve hot garnished with the reserved asparagus pieces.

Serves 4, Yields 8 cups

Farm life, fruit desserts, The Garden, The Recipes

A Poem and Blueberry Blossoms for a Rainy Day

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Looking Out

 

Rain today is grace
out my window,
here inside
a pool of warm soft
prayer for a day
gained like the gift
of a blue hen’s egg
in the barn’s new hay;
a simple wool sweater
cocoon of words and
songs and coffee all
morning and into
afternoon’s breaking
clouds, pushed on
by a front insistent
on sunshine for the
sweet, long-shadow
close of day.
–      SM, April 29


Rifling through a drawer this week I found a poem I’d written in April—April of 2008, not long after coming to the Vineyard. But it felt familiar and comforting and perfect for this April (well, May now) and this rainy week. So I share it with you. And I’m sharing this beautiful picture of blueberry blossoms in our garden, because they fill me with hope and excitement. And because once again I don’t have a new veggie recipe I can offer you this week. Ironically, it’s not for not cooking. It’s just that I’m beholden not to publish the recipes.

I feel blessed with all the good work I have on my plate right now—writing, cooking, creating—but like Shylock’s pound of flesh, it’s all spoken for. I can’t share recipes or writing with you that’s bound for publication somewhere else down the road. I bet a lot of cookbook author-bloggers have this dilemma—you can be developing new recipes all day and not be able to share even a small bite with your blog readers. So it goes.

Since I have blueberries on the mind (not only am I excited about having our own bushes this year, but I’ve been cooking with blueberries this week, too. Yes, out of season—another quirk of the recipe development life), I’ll share a simple and delicious recipe for a crisp over on the Edible Vineyard site, just in case you can’t wait for summer.

And for those of you wondering how the baby chicks are doing, I share these pictures of Bambi, Libby, and Farmer. Bambi is chick no. 49 and has been living inside the house in a box on my desk under a lamp since the day after the chicks arrived (she was tiny and hadn’t figured out the food-and-water routine). I’m afraid chick no. 50 died rather suddenly last Saturday afternoon. We had high hopes for her since we’d managed to bring Bambi back from the brink with plenty of water and food, but this little gal was already on her way out when we took her out of the brooder. Libby was here and we shared that sad and inevitable aspect of farm life together. Fortunately, the other 48 are zipping around the brooder, growing their wing feathers already and eating and drinking (and napping) like crazy.

Meanwhile, we are using this time with Bambi (short for bambino) to teach Farmer about chickens—a couple times a day we take Bambi out to hold her and let Farmer sniff her. He gives her a kiss (a big slurping lick, which, yes, could be interpreted many different ways) and then moves along. Bambi seems nonplussed and hasn’t tried her beak out on him yet.

There’s all kinds of other stuff happening on the farmette; for instance, we now have a tractor. And it was free. I am not kidding—free (and it works). But that’s a whole ‘nother story. With the work Roy’s already done with it—and the 60 animals—it just seems like we blinked and the farmette grew up and became a real farm overnight. It must be meant to be, I guess. For now it’s back to desk work for me on this grey day, and may we all wake up tomorrow to sunshine and blueberry blossoms and little “cheep cheep” noises coming from a cardboard box.