Category Archives: The Recipes

The Recipes

The 6 a.m. Garden

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I am not a morning person—anybody who knows me well will tell you that. And yet I was up at 5:30 this morning and by 6 my coffee and I were outside. All the rest of the girls were up, too. Cocoa Bunny was enjoying the cool morning air, and I could hear the hens ruckus-ing inside the coop so I let them out into their yard. They came spilling down the ramp in a whirl of colorful feathers and a buzz of adolescent clucks and clicks. Martha hopped on to my leg while I crouched to position the food and water.

The real reason I beat Roy to the coffee (for once) is that yesterday I got dehydrated working for too long in the heat of the day. Stubborn me. Some things you have to learn over and over in life. Drink a lot of water. Take frequent breaks. Eat stuff. Despite quaffing a liter of water when I came inside at noon, I had a headache all afternoon.

It wasn’t just the threat of the hot midday sun that woke me up early this morning. I have been fretting about most everything in the garden. I just spent two days transplanting 50 tomato plants, and they don’t look so pretty to me. The poor things have been moved around, dried out, and otherwise tortured for two months, and they should have been in the ground by now. There are any number of horrible deaths I have imagined for them, but I can’t bring myself to mention them. Plus, something is eating my basil and my Swiss chard (it looks like Swiss cheese), and despite the row cover, the flea beetles have reached the tat soi and mizuna, too. Sometimes I just wish my gardening IQ were more on par with my cooking IQ. I still have so much to learn about growing vegetables, and it takes years of experience to figure some of this stuff out.

And I will admit that my Achilles heel is watering. I can’t for the life of me get on a consistent schedule of watering. This is mostly because I don’t (usually) get up early enough to do it when it should be done–in the morning. (And despite a cold and grey spring, we really haven’t  had much rain at all on our particular postage stamp.) Roy was kindly explaining to me yesterday that drenching the poor hot dry tomatoes with cold water in the middle of the day was probably not the best idea. Right. Got that. Thankfully, Roy helped solved one issue—the hideous tangle of hoses, drip hoses, and hose connectors at the garden gate—that has not been making the whole thing any easier. I moved the cute little wicker garden table (goodbye to the last hint of charming kitchen garden—we’re all about production, here) and Roy nailed up a board to hang all the hose connectors on (and labeled them with a sharpie!). We eliminated a couple of redundant hoses and streamlined the whole system. No excuses, now.

Getting out to work in the garden early this morning turned out to be both lovely and cheering. I looked around at everything in the morning dew and felt okay again. The potatoes are absolutely thriving—about to bloom. The onion bed is perky, the lettuces look lovely, all my bush beans have germinated, the peas are flowering, and my neat little rows of carrot seedlings are happy and green. (The tomatoes even looked relatively happy this morning.) My project this morning was planting Round Two of carrots and thinning Round One (I gave the thinnings to Cocoa Bunny, who was not happy about the approaching heat.) Then I spread hay on the last path that needed mulching and looked around in amazement – every single bed is planted! Now all we have to do is add on that extra bed for the squash seedlings….oh, and plant a new round of arugula…and…

salads, side dishes, The Recipes

Tip of the Week: Skewer Onions for the Grill with Turkey Lacers

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Yep, you guessed it. I’ve been spending so much time doing this (harvesting greens, left) that I haven’t had time to do much of that (cooking, right). Or to write a blog post this weekend. But I have been thinking of you, I promise. So I offer a good old tip I’ve used for years and that I called into quick action the other night for our dinner–using a turkey lacer to skewer onion slices for the grill. It’s that easy.

You can pick up a package of turkey lacers (basically mini-skewers) at any grocery store. Peel and cut a big red onion (or yellow or sweet) into 1/2-inch slices and poke the lacer through the center of the onion from side to side (so that you poke through every ring). Coat the slices with olive oil and salt and put on a medium-hot grill. Cook until there are nice grill marks on each side of the slice (about 5 to 7 minutes per side on my grill). And here’s one last tip: At this point the onions will be flavorful but not completely tender. Take them off the grill and wrap them briefly in aluminum foil, where they will steam a bit, finish cooking, and get soft and tender. Delicious. On steak. On salad. On whatever. Good emergency vegetable when the crisper drawer is empty!

side dishes, The Recipes

For the Farm Stand, A Stir-Fried Baby Bok Choy Recipe

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Guess I can safely say that our “soft” opening of the farm stand this weekend was more successful than the Spider Man Broadway previews. You might even cast it more in the vein of Field of Dreams, because, it seems, if you build a farm stand, they will come. At least if you put a big blackboard sign out by the side of the road, and that road happens to be one of the main routes Up-Island. And also, it doesn’t hurt if it’s a holiday weekend. And the sun is shining.

Yikes. Most people would be overjoyed at selling out on the first weekend. But I felt bad that we had run out of salad greens by Saturday afternoon. I just couldn’t harvest any more from my baby plants without endangering a steady  harvest in the weeks to come. So we took the sign off the road, and just left the tomato plants and seedlings out for anyone who happened to notice while driving by. Even without the sign, people spotted the farm stand and turned down the driveway.

So now I am of course ruminating on how we can expand the garden right away. This summer, not next summer. (Roy is rolling his eyes…but smiling, too.) It seems we have lucked into a great location. (Actually, it wasn’t luck. It was a gift from our dear friend Joannie Jenkinson, who actually spent part of her childhood in this house and introduced us to the owners. She got it in her head that we should live here, and I have to say she was on to something. Joannie, who is the animal control officer for West Tisbury and is out and about a lot, was, appropriately, our first customer Friday morning.)

I think I may also have to learn vegetable-growing magic tricks to hurry some things along. Take my baby bok choy. I am crossing my fingers that it might be ready for the farm stand this coming weekend. (Judging by the photo at left you can see that this is probably wishful thinking.) So while I wait, I figured I’d work up a baby bok choy recipe to give away at the farm stand. (I’m hoping to have different appropriate recipes available every week. This week I put out the “pink and green” arugula and radish salad here.)

Fortunately, there is a wonderful farmer on the Island, Krishana Collins of Bluebird Farm, who specializes in baby bok choy. So if you live on the Vineyard, you will have much better luck finding hers (at Down Island Cronig’s before the farmers’ market opens in a few weeks) than mine (which is a tiny planting any way!). Her baby bok choy (top photo, in the scale) is gorgeous and delicious.  Yesterday, I picked up a half-dozen little heads (about 6 inches long and less than 2 inches wide) and stir-fried some for lunch. I did a variation on a recipe from Fast, Fresh & Green, and it couldn’t be simpler or more delicious. The complex nutty flavor of baby bok choy really deepens with browning (no surprise there) and pairs well with Asian seasonings. (I also like to brown-braise baby bok-choy, but I am still working on the perfect way to use it in a gratin. It’s also lovely raw in salads and slivered into noodle soups.) Unfortunately, when stir-fried, baby bok choy loses its beauty-queen looks and becomes more like the charming bad boy–appealing in a rustic kind of way, but definitely delicious.

Stir-Fried Baby Bok Choy

For a printable recipe, click here.

Try to choose baby bok choy that are all about the same size for this recipe. Depending on how little they are, you’ll need between four and six to get 3/4 pound.

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4 to 6 baby bok choy (6 to 7 inches long, 1 1/2 to 2 inches wide), 12 ounces total

1 tablespoon soy sauce

1 tablespoon orange juice

1 teaspoon brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon sesame oil

1/8 teaspoon chili-garlic sauce

1/2 teaspoon cornstarch

2 tablespoons peanut oil

2 large garlic cloves, very thinly sliced crosswise

kosher salt

1 to 2 teaspoons chopped fresh cilantro (optional)

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Cut the bok choy lengthwise into quarters if very small (2 ounces), and into six pieces if larger (3 ounces). (There’s no need to trim any of the stems.) Wash them well by swishing them in a bowl of tepid water, and spin them dry.

Set a serving dish on your counter. I like a white oval for this.

In a small bowl, combine the soy sauce, orange juice, brown sugar, sesame oil, chili-garlic sauce and whisk well. Add the cornstarch and whisk until dissolved.

In a large (12-inch) nonstick stir-fry pan, heat the peanut oil over medium heat. When the oil is hot (it will loosen up), add the garlic slices and the bok choy. Season with 1/4 teaspoon salt and turn the heat to high. Using tongs, toss the bok choy with the oil to coat and to distribute the garlic slices.

Cook, flipping the bok choy with tongs and spreading it out occasionally so that all the stems have some contact with the pan as they cook, and so that the garlic does not all gather on the bottom of the pan, until all of the bok choy stems are browned in parts (the leaves will be well-wilted and browned), 5 to 7 minutes. (If your stove runs very hot or the garlic is burning after the first few minutes, turn the heat down to medium-high.) Take the pan off the heat, pour the sauce into the pan, and stir immediately as it thickens up. Toss well and quickly transfer the vegetables, sauce and garlic to the serving platter. (The garlic will be very brown—some folks like it, some don’t, so push aside if you like!) Garnish with chopped fresh cilantro if desired.

Serves 2 to 3 as a side dish.

The Garden, The Recipes

Cheap Thrills on the Farmette–Like Being a Kid All Over Again

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We now have a pet turtle. Her name is Turtle. Yeah, well. Roy came home with Turtle the other day, claiming to have rescued her from the middle of the road. “I kept her because I thought Libby would like her.” Yeah, right. I said, “Libby?” And he laughed and admitted that he was just reliving his childhood. As it happens both he and Libby love turtles (and pretty much anything else creepy-crawly, including snakes and lizards). And one of the charming idiosyncracies of this property we live on is a series of old stone fish ponds in the woods. One is still holding water, so Roy is creating Turtle paradise over there. (Turtle is a large Painted Slider, by the way. She also happens to be female, so now with Ellie the Lovebird, Cocoa Bunny, and 8 hens–not to mention Libby and me–Roy is outnumbered here by females, 13 to 1! Tough luck.)

It’s funny though—this concept of reliving our childhoods. Because I seem to be doing exactly that here on the farmette. Or maybe it’s not so much reliving my childhood (I didn’t grow up on a farm), as it is trying to recapture that spirit of wonder and fun I had as a kid. I say trying, but it’s not really an effort—it comes easily around here.

The other day I was hanging the laundry out on the line—an activity I adore for its Zen-like peacefulness—when I realized I had created a fort out of our quilt. I stood underneath it, looking out on the fields like a rabbit snugly in its hole, and remembered the forts my friends and I used to make by draping a blanket over the twin beds. I felt safe and happy and a little bit giddy.

Then there’s the rope swing that Roy rigged up on a branch of the giant maple in the back yard. (This is the massive tree—more than 10 feet in diameter at its widest point—that gave us maple sap this winter and provides beautiful dappled shade for  all kinds of outdoor activity, like the tomato seedling repotting project I’ve been obsessed with.) Anyway, Libby loves the swing, of course. Especially when Dad pushes it higher than high. But Susie loves the swing too—loves arching back to look aloft at the world going by in a whirl of undulating maple branches against a smeary, smoky blue sky.

Little thrills are hiding everywhere. This weekend we found two blueberry bushes in bloom on the property—oh joy! There are wild raspberry canes all over the place. A little thatch of wild asparagus is poking up beneath the kitchen window. Barn swallows are building a nest in one of Roy’s work bags in the shop. And we think a turkey hen has built a nest in the maple grove.

But I’d have to say that the chicks (now more like little hens) are still providing the biggest thrills around here. On Saturday—that rare warm and sparkly day we haven’t seem much of this spring—we moved them out to their permanent home, the chicken coop. Libby and I stood sentry at the coop door while Roy carried each hen from their brooder box in the mud room out to the coop. He started with Martha and Opti, the two Buff Orpingtons who are so big and so friendly that not only do they love to be picked up, but they will stand still to be petted. Perky, our nimble and self-confident Sicilian Buttercup, came next, followed by pudgy Miss Personality, Oreo. Sugar, Jelly Bean and Chippy are a bit skittish, so Roy brought them next to last. Bringing up the rear was our tiny Little Squawker (above), who still has some baby chick fuzz on her.

At first The Ladies (as Roy calls them) were overwhelmed by such a big space. They all huddled in one of the five nesting boxes, sticking close for comfort. But once they realized their food and water were out in the middle of the new space, they started to investigate and romp around. Pretty soon it was Party Central again, and everybody was hopping up on roosting bars and staring out the viewing window. (Staring in the viewing window is a fun way to keep an eye on them. I call it the peep show.)

The whole moving-day adventure was so much fun for all of us (not just the actual 8-year-old among us) that we felt the need to take silly pictures of ourselves at the coop door. And we celebrated by making grilled pizza Saturday night, with chef Libby at the controls.

Up until today we limited the chicks’ new world to the inside of the coop. But late this afternoon, Roy nailed up a ramp, opened the door, and welcomed them to come on down and explore their “yard” (an enclosed pen). This in itself was pretty hysterical as nobody wanted to go first. Predictably, Martha made the first tentative foray halfway down the ramp, and Roy carried her the rest of the way. Slowly the others crowded at the door, looking at Martha having fun in the grass. “What do we do?” they seemed to be saying to each other as they stared down the ramp. One by one, they finally all hopped down (except for Little Squawker, who kept her perch at the door). We didn’t stray too far, as we didn’t want to leave them alone just yet. But watching them is hardly a chore. It is totally fun and fascinating. More like a privilege, really.

This coming weekend holds another thrill—we’re planning to open our farm stand for the season. We’ll have a small selection of salad greens, arugula, radishes and seedlings if all goes as planned. I’m sure the weather won’t cooperate, we’ll be up all night washing greens, and there will be any number of bugaboos to work out. But I’m not worried. As I am prone to repeating—It’s all good.

Favorite Tools, side dishes, The Recipes

For Stress-Free Veggie Grilling, Grab a Basket

Between rain drops this week, we’ve been firing up the grill a fair amount. My very favorite place to shop for veggies – the farm stand at Morning Glory Farm – finally opened up for the season. So I saddled up the Honda, headed down to Edgartown, and robbed the place. Not literally of course. But I did come away with a stash of valuable veggies, things that Morning Glory is already harvesting from their own fields and greenhouses. Among other items (like a tee shirt and a strawberry muffin), I nabbed baby bok choy, purple-tipped asparagus, scallions, and tiny mustard greens.

Since we’ve been working in the garden late every day, I’ve been dreaming up simple dinner ideas, too. (For a dozen weeknight ideas, read the blog I wrote for the Huffington Post this week.) I love grilled veggies, but sometimes prepping veggies for the grill, and then standing vigil over them patiently, is just a little more time than even I’m willing to give. So this week I grabbed my grill basket to make life easier. And I wound up improvising a number of different veggie dishes, using both my Morning Glory haul and the contents of my refrigerator veggie bin. (Just two samples–in the basket above, and finished, below.)

Grill baskets are inherently destructible. They won’t last forever, so don’t bother spending a lot of money on one. Just buy one—you won’t be sorry. (Mine is a particularly cheap, lightweight one that I picked up at a housewares store. But this new stainless steel one from Weber looks like a good bet.) Basically, using a grill basket is like stir-frying on the grill. But better. Because you don’t have to pay close attention. Stirring every three or four minutes, as opposed to every 30 seconds, is just fine. As long as you follow a few guidelines, you can cook practically any combination of your favorite veggies in about 10 minutes of mostly hands-off time.

Here are a few tips for cooking veggies in a grill basket:

1. Choose a combination of veggies that are loosely similar in density and moisture content. Broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, sugar snap peas, young beans, bok choy, broccoli raab are all fine. (Yeah, I’m defining density very loosely here). Don’t use potatoes or roots other than carrots here. It’s also fine to throw in a hearty leafy green like cabbage or radicchio—delicious if you don’t mind a few charred edges. But don’t use delicate greens like spinach here unless you toss the leaves in at the end of cooking.

2. Cut all those veggies into pieces about the same size. Then augment them with at least some peppers, onions or mushrooms—aromatic veggies that give off moisture as they cook. The aromatics not only spread flavor around but they help all the other veggies cook, too.

3. Estimate how many veggies you’ll need by putting the raw veg into the (cool) basket. Mine feels fullish with 3 to 4 cups veggies. You want your basket to be slightly overcrowded. With the grill lid-down (and only occasional stirring), the indirect (oven-like) heat of the grill, along with the moisture the crowded veggies will give off to each other, will help cook the veggies cook through while they brown.

4. Be sure the veggies are thoroughly (but not excessively) coated with oil. You need the oil to draw the heat in and cook the veggies. Season with kosher salt, too.

5. Preheat the grill with the grill basket in it for 5 to 10 minutes. Cook over medium heat (unless your grill is really old and slow—then medium-high.) The veggies are done when they are all limp, tender (some will be crisp-tender), and gently browned in places.

6. When the veggies come off the grill, you can do almost anything with them. We like to toss them with a compound butter (fresh herbs, citrus zest, salt), which is quick and easy to make. Then sometimes we take it a step further and toss the seasoned veg with whole wheat spaghetti or another pasta and call it dinner (or a big part of dinner). If you like the compound butter idea, I’ve included a formula below for making one. You might not use the whole batch on the veggies; use any extra with your eggs in the morning or on a steak tomorrow night.

Compound Herb Butter: In a small bowl, combine 2 tablespoons well-softened butter with 1/2 tsp. citrus zest, 1/8 teaspoon kosher salt, 1 1/2 teaspoons finely chopped fresh tender herbs (chives, mint, parsley, cilantro, basil), and 1 teaspoon honey or maple syrup (optional). Mash with a wooden spoon until well-combined. Store tightly covered in the fridge for up to 3 or 4 days.

The Recipes

Building a Garden, One Board at a Time

Basically, all I do these days is stand around and take pictures of Roy working. No, I’m kidding. But seriously, there’s been much to do around here lately that involves a table saw and a nail gun. I am not too handy with either of these things.

Fortunately I am fluent in untangling and reconnecting drip hoses, unfurling rolls of Remay (row cover) and draping them over seedlings, jamming PVC pipes in the ground (our “hoops” for the row cover) and securing the fabric with giant pins and heavy rocks. Also, I am the one who gets down on hand and knee to weed and thin the little lettuce and radish seedlings and painstakingly arrange grass clippings and seaweed mulch around these babies before the drip hoses and row cover go down.

I’m bringing all this up to make myself look good, of course, in the face of Builder Boy’s many smart-looking contributions to the farm-ette this month. Well, okay, I’m kidding again. The point I’m really trying to make is about infrastructure: If you want to get an ambitious garden going in a new location, you will probably have to (or want to) build all kinds of stuff that you’d never thought about—the garden enclosure (corner posts, deer fencing, gate, etc.) being only the start.

In the past few weeks, Roy’s built a raised bed for the carrots, begun building the actual farm stand for the veggies, rebuilt and expanded last year’s cold frame, expanded the brooder box for the chicks (now small hens), reconfigured the seedling shelves (again), built a small hay mow in the barn, and done more work on the chicken coop. And together we’ve been working out the watering system and continuing to dig beds, remove grass and rocks, improve soil, thin, mulch, and plant.

It’s ironic that even with all this work on the infrastructure, the garden doesn’t yet look terribly pretty or impressive right now. Mid-May, after all, is an awkward time in a New England production garden. All those hoses and row-cover and piles of rocks and dirt everywhere are not so sexy. I notice the expectant looks on people’s faces when they stop by to see the garden. Where is the romance, the lush greenery, the color? (Still weeks away, I’m afraid). It’s not like the neighborhood nursery, so verdant with all those hot-house jumpstarts. To save money, we start everything from seed around here. (Next year, a hoop house is top of the wish list. More room and more light for starting seedlings.)

And this year, it’s been so cold and dreary that many seeds in the garden have been slow to germinate. Only in the last few days have my carrots surfaced and my lettuce begun to look like it means business. The good news is that the new lettuce varieties are spectacular. I’m already in love with the Speckled Amish (left) and the Flashy Green Buttercrunch. Also, despite the cold, I think we’re on track to harvest arugula, radishes, and a bit of lettuce for Memorial Day Weekend visitors.

Right now, it’s an awkward time inside, too. The chicks are huge! They have most of their feathers now–and a new-found sense of adventure. When they’re not trying to fly the coop (literally, when I’m cleaning it), they’re chasing each other around, knocking their water dish over, or squeezing each other on and off the roost. If we can just get through the rain and the cold of this week, they can move outside to the coop this weekend. And the overgrown, leggy tomato seedlings under the grow lights are dying to get some fresh air and direct sunlight, too.

I know, soon enough I’ll be complaining about the heat and the weeding, about washing all that lettuce and picking all those green beans every morning. But right now I’m just impatient for nature to do its thing. We’re holding up our end of the bargain, after all.

bakey things, fruit desserts, Fruits

Back Door Gifts and Cinnamon-Rhubarb Muffins

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A pile of freshly cut rhubarb stalks appeared at our back door last week, courtesy of our neighbor Ralph. This is one of the strange and wonderful things about living on the Vineyard: People are in the habit of sharing…without much fuss or fanfare. Stuff just shows up, unbidden but much appreciated. In the short time we’ve been living in the farmhouse, we’ve been the grateful recipients of beach plum jelly, wild cherry jam, honey, eggs, lobsters, codfish, sweet potatoes, pickles, warm bread and kale soup, to name a few things.

I was particularly excited to see those beautiful rhubarb stalks, since I won’t be harvesting any this year from the new plant I plopped in the ground a few weeks ago at the southeast corner of the garden. As soon as I got the plant, it immediately sent up its monstrous flower stalk. The flower is fascinating (see photo), but after admiring it for a while, I lopped it off, hoping to return the plant’s energy to its stalks. Still, it’s a baby plant and I won’t be cooking from it this year.

I knew right away what I wanted to make with the rhubarb gift—a favorite Fine Cooking recipe from years ago. It’s a fabulously tender muffin from award-winning North Carolina baker Karen Barker. The tart little rhubarb bits melt into these light coffee-cake-like treats, which are topped with cinnamon sugar. The batter has sour cream, melted butter, cinnamon, and vanilla in it, and it comes together really easily. Twenty minutes in the oven and nirvana. Roy was home from work cutting and pounding out a piece of copper in his shop when the muffins came out of the oven. So I stopped snapping photos long enough to get a few warm muffins out to him. He likes anything with cinnamon sugar on it, but especially if it’s straight out of the oven.

I had enough rhubarb left over to mess around again with a strawberry-rhubarb compote I’ve been tinkering with. I’ve seen a lot of blog posts lately about roasted strawberries (something we also did at Fine Cooking years ago!) and was hoping I could make an oven–roasted compote with both rhubarb and strawberries that would be a bit roasty-flavored and perhaps would keep the rhubarb together better than a stovetop version. I won’t bore you with my experiments (which included some ghastly rhubarb “chips!”) but I will give you the parameters (below) for the compote as it stands now, because it’s an incredibly easy, versatile, seasonal condiment. I use it most often in my favorite treat—yogurt and granola parfaits—but I also put it in smoothies (with frozen bananas) and on pancakes. And of course it would be great on vanilla ice cream.

I’ve resigned myself to a syrupy, soft-fruit dessert-topping-ish kind of compote, and this texture is just a-okay with me. What I’m not quite happy with yet is the sweet-tart flavor balance. My first version wasn’t quite sweet enough and the second version was too sweet. But just futzing with the sweetness won’t necessarily fix this, because rhubarb has a unique tartness that doesn’t really get mitigated by more sweet. Sweet flavors can hang out with rhubarb, but not knock it back altogether. Too much sweet and you just get cloying. Right now I also have a bit of balsamic vinegar (great with strawberries) and orange juice in this, and I’m thinking to knock those back even more and switch out more of the plain sugar for more maple syrup. (I’m wondering about adding vanilla, too?) But since I probably won’t get to the next version any time soon, I’m leaving the tweaks up to you. (I don’t usually offer experiments on the blog—I like to give you finished recipes, but something like this really does involve a measure of personal taste!) In the directions following, I’m suggesting a middle road on the maple and sugar and a little less balsamic then my last batch.

Strawberry-Rhubarb Compote: Heat the oven to 425 degrees and butter a 3-quart baking dish. Slice 8 ounces of rhubarb into 1/2-inch pieces (a scant 2 cups), and quarter or halve about 10 ounces of (organic or local) strawberries (2 cups). Put them in a mixing bowl with 2 to 3 tablespoons sugar, 3 tablespoons maple syrup, 2 tablespoons orange juice, and 1/2 teaspoon balsamic vinegar. Sprinkle with a little salt, toss well, and scrape and pour out into the baking dish. Spread in one layer. Bake for 20 minutes, stir gently with a silicone spoon, and continue baking until the liquids are syrupy (but not too reduced or they will burn), about another 6 to 10 minutes. Let cool in the pan, transfer to a glass or ceramic container and keep in the fridge for a week or so. This makes about 1 cup compote.

P.S. I seem to have a thing for saucy rhubarb recipes–see my chutney recipe I posted last spring. (This year I gave in to the classic strawberry pairing!)

The Recipes

Chef Mom — And a Salad Dressing to Celebrate

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My mom is a great cook. No, really, I’m not kidding. I know everyone says that about their moms, but my mom is the real deal. I don’t think she’d mind me telling you, though, that this wasn’t always so. In fact, the family joke is that she didn’t know how to boil water when she got married. Worse, she married a guy from a big family. My Dad and his five brothers all pitched in to help their mother cook, so they knew their way around a stove—and had opinions about everything food-ish. My mom grew up in a more formal household; there was a cook, and I don’t think little Pauletta was allowed in the kitchen too much. So when my parents were newlyweds, the first time they went to the grocery store my Mom started to cry because Dad clearly knew what he was doing, and she didn’t.

Well, that all changed. Not only did Mom learn to cook, but she fell in love with cooking, sautéing her way through Julia Child, learning to bake great yeast bread and homemade rolls, picking up on the new craze for stir-frying in the ’70s, and mastering pie crust like nobody’s business. Her spaghetti sauce (which I cooked for Roy this week—it’s his favorite) and her pumpkin bread are now legendary. Plus, she was the Mom who had warm chocolate-chip cookies waiting every day after school. (Pretty sweet, huh?)

Fifty-seven years of marriage later, and, yep, my Dad is the most well-fed guy on the block. Not that Dad doesn’t pitch in, too—he’s still happy to do a little cooking when Mom needs a rest. And actually, I blame him for my obsession with food. He passed on the Evans family super-sniffer gene to me. Nobody on that side of the family sees or hears too well, but we all got a sensory bonus when the genes for smelling and tasting were handed out. That, combined with all the good food Mom cooked at home, and, well, you can see why both my sister and I love to cook. (That’s Eleanor on the right in the photo at the top of the blog. I, of course, am out of focus, because I could never sit still for longer than a second. Unfortunately, I don’t have a scanner so I had to photograph this framed photo for the post. But you get the idea!)

Everyone who knows my Mom marvels at how skinny she is. (A more recent photo of her, at left.) She’s always had a lot of energy, but I swear I think it may have something to do with all the salad she eats. She’s simply crazy about salad. (And chicken. She’ll order a grilled chicken Caesar salad 99 times out of 100 off a restaurant lunch menu!) In fact, along with home-made iced tea (this was Washington, D.C., after all), we had a fresh green salad with dinner every night when I was growing up. And this was before the salad craze or bagged lettuce. Usually the salad had sliced avocado in it, and later some of my Mom’s terrific home-made croutons. The lettuce was, and usually still is, green leaf and Bibb; these days she’ll put a little crumbled blue cheese and a few toasted walnuts on top. (These ingredients, along with a little bottle of her delicious home-made vinaigrette, are always prepped and at-the-ready in the fridge. My mom is the kind of person who makes dinner before breakfast.)

Today I love salad as much as Mom does (though unfortunately, I’m nowhere near as skinny as she is—it has something to do with chocolate!), and it is probably thanks to her that I grow so many salad greens. And wouldn’t you know it, yesterday I picked the first salad greens of the season from the garden. And I thought of Mom. Actually, I was just thinning the seedlings, but after I took all the roots off the little sprouts, they made a stunning “micro-greens” mix (in photo above).

So in honor of my Mom (and all Moms who cook every day for their families), I pass along a favorite salad dressing recipe to you. Maybe you’re making a meal for your Mom this weekend and will include a nice green salad. Me, I’ll have to wait. My Mom’s in Washington and I’m on Martha’s Vineyard (where, as everyone knows, I’m so firmly planted now that it is hard to drag me away!). But in a month or so, Mom and Dad are coming up to see the chicks (including Mom’s namesake, Perky), the garden, and the whole deal. We’ll have a nice salad—and maybe some grilled chicken. And we’ll think of Eleanor, who’ll be running in her third marathon that weekend. Later on in the summer we’ll all get together in Lewes, Delaware, my Dad’s home town. There will be the usual (loud) discussions between my sister, my father, and I about the best peaches, the best tomatoes, the best crab cakes, etc. And my mom will quietly go about turning out the best meals, three times a day.

House Vinaigrette

7 Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil

2 Tbsp. white balsamic vinegar

1 tsp. orange juice

1 tsp. maple syrup

1/2 tsp. finely grated lemon zest

1/2 tsp. Dijon mustard

big pinch kosher salt

6 to 7 grinds fresh pepper

Combine all the ingredients in a glass measure or in a jar with a lid. Whisk or shake well. Keep refrigerated for up to 3 weeks. Bring to room temperature before using.

salads, side dishes, The Recipes

Sweet Pea Dreams and a Quick Slaw with Sugar Snaps

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Peas, alas, are not a spring vegetable, despite what legions of food writers would have you believe. It is wonderful to think of things like spring pea risotto and minted pea soup for Mother’s Day, but unless you are lucky enough to live in a really temperate climate, you’ll be waiting for fresh peas until late June with the rest of us.

I feel bad being a Scrooge about this. Actually a super-Scrooge, as, these days, I can’t really even get behind those so-called fresh peas (usually already shelled) that arrive in the grocery stores before they do in my garden. I’d rather eat frozen peas. (And I do.) The reason is that shell peas–or English peas–lose that just-picked sweetness rather quickly and wind up tasting bland and starchy when they travel many miles to get to you.

So right now I have to content myself with staring at the squat little pea seedlings in my garden, imagining what they’ll bring me. I’m very proud of them, actually. Yesterday I noticed that they’ve started unfurling their little tendrils and have obligingly begun to grab on to the curtain of strings I hung for them. Such good peas.

The other way I’m getting my pea fix right now is with sugar snap peas. I’m seeing a lot of nice ones at the grocery store. Yes, these come from far away, too, but at least they hold on to their flavor—and texture—better than shell peas. Sugar snaps are probably the number one quickest veggie on the planet to cook—or just eat. Because, of course, you can munch on them raw (like Cocoa Bunny, in photos below), toss them in a hot pan for a super-quick sauté, or slice them to use in salads and slaws (like the one below).

I get a kick out of slicing sugar snaps on the diagonal, exposing the cute little cross-section of peas inside. (I know, I’m easily amused). But these pretty little slivers are useful, too—they add sweetness and crunch, but not too much bulk, to a fresh slaw. Since I happened to have some Savoy cabbage, a few limes, and a bunch of cilantro in the fridge today, I knew I could make my favorite slaw and embellish it with sugar snaps. This recipe (I did a version of it in Fast, Fresh & Green) honestly takes no more than 10 minutes to make, and then reaches its perfect state of crunchy/wilty balance after another 10 minutes or so (though it can hold a bit longer than that). It’s versatile, too. Today I wanted a slightly creamy feel (something to do with the grey skies), so I stirred in a dollop of Mermaid Farm yogurt at the end.

I ate a whole bowlful of this slaw standing up at the kitchen counter, but if you were moved to make some this weekend, you might want to serve it with grilled butterflied leg of lamb, grilled chicken, or even grilled veggie or fish tacos.

Quick Savoy Slaw with Sugar Snaps, Lime & Cilantro

For a printable recipe, click here.

The amounts of lime juice, sugar, and cilantro are flexible here—taste after a few minutes and adjust seasonings if you like. I sometimes add sliced scallions or chives here, too. Savoy cabbage is the crinkly green one.

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8 ounces very thinly sliced cored Savoy Cabbage (about 3 1/2 cups)

4 to 5 ounces sugar snap peas, trimmed and sliced on the diagonal (about 1 1/3 cups)

3 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro

3 tablespoons freshly squeezed lime juice

2 to 3 teaspoons sugar

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1 to 2 tablespoons full-fat plain yogurt (optional)

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Combine the cabbage, snap peas, cilantro, lime juice, sugar, and salt in a medium bowl. Toss thoroughly with tongs or two spoons. Let sit for ten minutes, tossing occasionally. Taste and adjust seasonings if you like. Let sit another ten minutes for a softer slaw. Fold in the yogurt if desired.

Serves 4

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Cocoa wasn’t so sure about the sugar snap pea…but curiosity prevailed

The Garden, The Recipes

Big Rocks & Toddler Chicks: Update from Green Island Farm

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We have a jumper. We haven’t called 911 yet, but when we found Martha (one of the big gold Buff Orpingtons) on top of the water jar in the brooding box, we knew the chicks were getting frisky. It’s amazing how fast they’re getting their feathers and learning to stretch their wings. They can all fly/hop/jump from one end of the box to the other if startled, though fortunately they don’t all jump at once. It’s tempting to build a bigger box, but they’ll be ready to go outside in a few weeks. Meanwhile, I do my best to keep the box and their water and food dishes clean. They sure can trash a place—worse than teenagers.

The girls all have names now, thanks to Libby and our friends Eliza Peter and her son James who came to visit weekend before last. Eliza and James brought along the family dog, a golden-colored Labradoodle named Opti, and Libby decided one of the Buff Orpingtons should be named for Opti (far left). The littlest and prettiest bird (and also the friendliest—she loves to sit in Roy’s hand–see top photo) is named Perky, for my mom. Yes, it’s sort of an odd Mother’s Day present, but I thought she’d get a kick out of it as she likes animals. My Mom’s real name is Pauletta, but friends have called her Perky for years. (She is perky—and pretty, too, so it’s only fitting that our beautiful little Sicilian Buttercup be named for her.) Oreo (above right), one of the Barred Rocks, definitely gets our vote for Miss Personality. Every time I try to take a picture inside the box (difficult), she comes right up to the camera. Also, along with Martha and Opti, she heads for high ground whenever possible; these three generally hog the little roost Roy built for the box. The other gals—Jelly Bean, Little Squawker, Sugar (Eliza’s pick, short for Cinnamon Sugar), and Chippy (looks like our resident chipmunk), are camera shy and less adventuresome.

Keeping up with the toddler chicks has been easy compared to the garden work over the past few weeks. We’re still prepping beds, as our soil is full of rocks. If you want to see a humorous illustration of Mars vs. Venus, you can watch Roy and me in the garden using two very different methods to get rocks out of the soil. I basically kneel or bend over and hand-pick them out after turning a patch of soil over with a fork. Roy has built a portable screen that looks sort of like a soccer or hockey goal that he can shovel dirt through and watch the biggest rocks roll away. His method is (somewhat) quicker, but I think mine is more efficient!

One thing I’m crazy about, though, is the simple little screen (far left) Roy made me from hardware cloth and a few boards. I use this to cull out twigs and stones from soil to make a fine mixture to sprinkle over tiny seeds after planting, instead of spending money on a soilless mix. Actually, I’m always excited when I hear the table saw screeching or the compressor hissing in the shop—I never know what Roy is going to come out with, like this recent appearance (at right)—a new gate for the chicken pen.

We also spent the better part of an evening splayed out on the newspaper-covered mudroom floor transplanting all the tomato and basil seedlings out of six-packs and into 4-inch pots. The numbers are not as crazy as last year, but we still have 200 seedlings, all of which need light. So Roy had to reconfigure the seedling shelves (which he built last year with the idea that they’d be easy to break down and reassemble) to accommodate more lights and taller plants. (The extra lights came from Roy’s shop–now he has to do without until Memorial Day!)

The really great news is that everything I planted outside a few weeks ago is coming up. The pea vines are a couple inches high. That’s my crazy teepee trellis at (near)right. I don’t plan to sell peas this year—I just wanted some for us—so I grabbed a corner for them and made this contraption out of our bamboo stock (also saved from last year) and string to keep the birds out and to provide support. My first batch of arugula and radishes are thriving, so I went ahead and popped the PVC pipes in the ground and draped the Remay over them for early flea-beetle protection (photo, far right). My baby bok choy and about 12 different kinds of lettuces have germinated, and we got the onions, the leeks, and the first batch of potatoes planted. I’ve also been working on an area outside the garden where perennial herbs will go.

It’s all very satisfying, and every morning I wake up excitedly, head out to feed Cocoa the bunny, and to check out the garden, too. I especially love a foggy morning like this past Friday. Something terribly romantic about the mist and the green colors fading to grey. (Romance was on my mind, I admit, as I was watching the royal wedding. No, I am not related to Kate Middleton, unfortunately!) I snapped a few pix of the garden and then trotted over to the north side of the property—an area called The Grove which had fish ponds in it years ago and now has hundreds of daffodils waning and lilies of the valley coming on under the maples.

The fish ponds were the purview of Farmer Greene, who built this place. And since we love all things green, we’ve started calling our little operation Green Island Farm. Might be more accurate to call our version a mini-farm at this point, but it’s wonderful to imagine all the different iterations this place has taken over the years—the food that’s been raised and grown and gathered on this piece of land over the last few hundred years, probably beginning with the Wampanoag Indians. We’re still hoping all this digging is going to turn up an arrowhead.