When I was about my childrens’ ages I had a favourite nightgown because of a favourite song no doubt because of a favourite food. It was a long cotton nightgown with a small strawberry print. The band was The Beatles, my dad used to play the record as we danced around the living room (and by we, I mean my mom and I), and the song was Strawberry Fields. My daughter was born during Wimbledon 2004 and it cannot be Wimbledon without strawberries and cream. So while, Wimbledon records on Tivo for a short viewing “en famille” this evening, the kids are at the Tennis Academy at Harvard (a summer program we all love), and I’m making a small batch of strawberry jam.
All this is not to share my recipes (usually Ball Blue Book this time Keeping the Harvest) nor to share which jars to use (I’m trying out my new BPA-free all glass and rubber Weck jars), but rather to share a little “chef’s treat”. As I was grumbling about skimming the foam off the jam, which I don’t remember doing before, I began to enjoy the task, but then wondered what I could do with that foam, because g-d forbid I waste any of that precious essence of strawberry season, which is less essence more syrup and foam.
Once the jams were in the canning bath, I got out my cup, filled it with ice, then topped it with the foam. I filled up the seltzer bottle with water, made a fresh batch of seltzer and now as I work and write, I’m enjoying a great glass of strawberry seltzer.
Cheers!
I’m celebrating summer even if it doesn’t really feel like it with the weather out there. I’ve been juggling way too many balls the latter half of this school year and I’m taking time to be just a mom with more time with the kids focused on what they are doing at any given time. I’m taking more time to just be home and doing the “housewife” things that I haven’t had time do properly for a while now. And, I’m taking more time to enjoy the local food that is about to explode on the scene. (Jam jars are about to be prepped for strawberry jam.
This morning I started off taking the kids to camp for a half day. Then headed over to Formaggio Kitchen for some milk… Two bags of groceries later I headed home, with so much more. The rosé is in the fridge chilling along with the Campari. I got some of the kids’ staples: Cervelat (a mild salami), baguette, fresh English peas, and some almost local strawberries from CT. For the grown ups I got a couple thick slices of bacon to sauté with the spinach from our CSA, some day old bread for a fresh batch of croutons, some tiny new potatoes for a salad, and a muffin for my breakfast. I’m not usually a fan of coconut unless it is fresh coconut recently drilled and cracked, but the lemon coconut muffin was calling my name and I am so glad I got it!
This is the kind of morning I like. A little cooking, a little cleaning, a little planning ahead for dinner.
Let summer begin!
Although I don’t think of Spring as a typical soup season except for “soupe a l’oseille” which I remember vividly from my childhood days in France. Not only the taste but also the little “ditty” we used to sing.
“La soupe a l’oseille. Pour les demoiseille (mispronounced to rhyme).
La soupe a l’ognion c’est pour les garcons.”
Our soup of the week is a roasted asparagus soup that I pulled up on my phone on epicurious when I found some gorgeous, relatively inexpensive US asparagus at Russo‘s. I’m not a huge fan of leftovers and by day three of having this soup two things ring true:
1) It’s a great recipe because I’m still eating it three days later.
2) I need something to bring it up a notch and make it feel different.
A few weeks ago I bought a brioche for French toast that just never happened. It was the same week I decided to olive oil roast some cashews and ramps. After a day or two the brioche was rock hard and ready for the birds. Instead I cut it into crunchy stale cubes and slowly cooked them on the stove top in a cast iron pan with a little bit of the left over olive oil from roasting the nuts. The crumbs from the bread board were tossed on the back porch for the birds. I added a few more of the ramps cut in large pieces to be removed later. Once they were nice and crunchy in a crisp way not a stale way, I sprinkled some fleur de sel over them and let them cool. Once cool they were tossed into a plastic bag and stored in the freezer.
On day three of the soup, I grabbed a handful of croutons straight from the freezer and tossed them atop the hot soup. Bread never freezes completely so it’s good to go straight from the freezer.
Hooray for grey rainy days, tasty asparagus soup and some stale bread!
Pears with a simple syrup, Amaretto, and blanched almonds
Okay, so this post is not really about apples nor is it about honey, but it is about Rosh Hashanah and another orchard fruit – the pear and it should be sugary sweet.
So, school is back in session, classes have started up again from swimming (with daddy), to music (with mommy and the famed Sharon Simon of groovybabymusic‘s Music Together classes) and coming soon will be clay class at the Arsenal Center for the Arts and maybe we’ll squeeze in some yoga or tennis lessons. @dearhusband (aka Dad or Dan) is back on a busy travel schedule and the children are both overwhelmed and excited with all the new activity.
So here I am at home with some pears from our “apple share” a freezer overflowing which includes flash frozen raspberries from Wright-Locke Farm in Winchester and I relish this time alone. Yes, I have work and chores to do, but I need my glass containers back from the freezer and the pears will spoil while in a few more days.
I set up the stove and counter and peel, chop, smoosh (yes it might potentially be a technical culinary term), boil and simmer my ingredients. I do a some work as I wait for the jars to sterilize and then again as the process.
I go into the playroom and grab a “very useful engine” from my son’s train table (an important culinary tool). I love the little connection I feel to my boy as he is probably napping across the street at his family daycare as I pick up his train. You see, the old Brio train that we had, then sent to London for my cousin’s to play with and my dad brought back with him for my children has a small crane with a magnet at the end, which is perfect for picking out lids from their hot water bath.
Henry's train as a canning tool
My husband will come home late tonight and be able to have a cup of tea and a nice slice of soft whole wheat bread (I am not usually a fan, but for a basic “American’ style bread the Great Harvest Bread Co.’s whole wheat loaf is perfect) topped with homemade raspberry jam. Whether we’re all asleep or I am still awake he will know we were thinking of him and he’ll have a moment to sense that he his home before he heads out the door for work on Friday.
The pears will be sent off to friends and family as we gather for a meal to celebrate the beginning of a “sweet New Year”. I was inspired by the Chinese Five-Spice in the chocolate soup at the Langham Hotel’s Chocolate Bar so I added some cinnamon to the heating water for the pears and some five-spice powder to the simple syrup. I think we will enjoy these over some home-made ice cream or perhaps with a little creme fraîche.
May your Fall and following days be filled with sweetness. Relish your times alone and enjoy your time with friends and family with gusto.
Opening day at the farmer’s market is always fun, and happening upon it by accident is even better. It may be that you’re driving by and have time to stop. It may be that you accidentally signed up to work at the CSA and it turns out you signed up after someone had already taken that job….oops. So there you are with a few extra hours free and Lexington is on the way home.
The market started off strong, and I hope to make it up there several times this year. Here is a little preview. I hope to have a full slideshow up over at the Boston Food Mom site later this week with the entire market featured.
Ramps
This was a week of no grocery shopping. We had lots of eggs left over from various local egg purchases the week before, the meat from Stillman’s Farm is in the freezer, our Boston Organics delivery, and we had a huge bag of broccoli left over from a shopping trip at Wilson’s Farm.
The plan this morning was to make a simple frittata for dinner. We had some Canadian bacon to use up and then we could use of some of the broccoli and eggs.
This morning I decided that broccoli is exactly what I don’t want in my frittata. I like the frittata to have little slices or cubes of vegetables. I don’t want any weird textures like the tree-like knobby ends of broccoli. So while my son ate his lunch, I quickly sautéed a small onion and some spring onions. Threw in most of the broccoli (I needed some for the kids’ dinner) dumped in some vegetable broth, sliced up some carrots and one potato and made some soup. I seasoned it all with a little Maldon salt and fresh pepper and whizzed it together leaving a few little chunks for that nice home-made texture.
At the playground, I had a moment to flip through a magazine and found an egg noodle recipe that uses vegetable purée so my plan for the kids’ afternoon activity and dinner was making pasta. We stopped at Formaggio Kitchen on the way home from the park and picked up some semolina flour, some cervelat and mortadella and some ramps for the frittata.
My daughter and I steamed and puréed the rest of the broccoli to make green noodles. She chose the angel hair setting and we went ahead and made fresh broccoli pasta. Their dinner was fresh pasta, fresh sugar snap peas (since they really get very little of the veg from the pasta) and some slices of cervelat.
For our dinner we had a frittata made with ramps, potato and some left over Canadian bacon. It was close to perfect. Next time I would use real bacon. There is a wild earthy flavour to the ramps that would go really well with the smokiness of some nice applewood smoked Niman Ranch bacon.
[Aside on the Canadian theme. Here is an interesting bit of news for Canadians or rather Americans that were once Canadian even though Canada always recognized them as such I think.]
We are celebrating Easter with our friends this year and the focus is on the kids, the hunt, and perhaps the chocolate. It can’t be all about the kids though. None of us are religious, but we love traditions. I like learning about their Easter morning tradition. They will be dying eggs tomorrow morning (before we head to Formaggio Kitchen’s first barbecue of the season…in the rain.) We will be hanging out at home having some much needed family time with our immediate family and the friends we consider family.
I am thinking that we need some good special breakfast food tomorrow. We have the gorgeous eggs. They are almost too good to make pancakes with, but my son loves eating and helping to make the pancakes. I have been wanting to make lemon ricotta pancakes for a long time now. (One moment while I write myself a grocery list for them.) Okay, and this recipe with the sautéed apples sounds scrumptious as well.
I think we may also need a special beverage. If we were doing brunch, I would have to go for the classic Bloody Mary. However, on a rainy Saturday with kids, it might have to be a something for the afternoon that goes well with puddle stomping. Perhaps a warm beverage that involves chocolate or coffee and a well-suited liqueur. I will do some research and get back to you on that one. As for Easter Sunday, we are going to go a bit commercial for Easter and head over to Lexington to Wilson’s Farms for their events, which includes an Easter egg hunt among other “family fun” events. The problem with “family fun” events are that they involve a lot of fun for the children, some good photo opps. to forward to the grandparents, a few battles over candy/treats/toys/leaving/sharing, and typically a “mommy meltdown” by the end. I will try to behave.
May you find many eggs, may you not put them all in one basket, and may you enjoy the weekend however you go about it.
Sydney and Henry comparing Passover recipes. The following is Sydney's great-Bubby's recipe for Potato Passover Kugel.
The kugel is what really scares me. It’s my friend’s bubby’s recipe and she makes it so well. Last year when I tried to make it, it just wasn’t quite right. It might have been that I used the food processor or that I used the box grater (I don’t even remember what I did). My mother had to search my friend’s kitchen just to find the recipe and copy it down, maybe she didn’t write something down, or maybe there’s information that’s just found between the lines. This year, Samantha is only a phone call and barely one town away. I am going to talk the recipe through with her before I attempt it. Wish me luck.
Bubby Fanny’s Potato Kougal (Passover)
6 potatoes (I have to find out what she usually uses)*
1 onion (I assume it is a yellow onion, but I will check)
Grate in cuisinart, drain in sieve.
Add 2 eggs, 1 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp pepper, 3 Tbsp oil, 2 Tbsp matzoh meal
Grease and heat pan in the ove.
Cook 1 hour at 400°F
Cook in a 9×13 Pyrex.
I like it when the top is crunchy. The smell of the kugel straight out of the oven is so good. Let’s hope I get it right this year.
This recipe from the Boston Globe, suggests Russet potatoes, which is what I typically use for Kugel or Latkes.
I have been assigned charoset and kugel for Passover. We have hosted Passover for the last few years so it is kind of nice to just have two recipes to be responsible for. The problem is, what if they’re not perfect?
The charoset I can handle. I suppose you can go terribly wrong with anything, but it is pretty hard to ruin charoset. It is actually one food I make without a recipe (I am a little obsessive compulsive about using a recipe for things).
When I make charoset, I use a good apple either a granny smith or if I want something a bit sweeter I use I slightly green golden delicious apple because their texture is pretty reliable. Unless the apple is really old, the golden delicious don’t seem to get mealy as easily as other apples. I use a little lemon juice, fresh squeezed of course. Some local honey (it is supposed to help with allergies to have local honey). I toast some walnuts. Then my last ingredients are some sweet Manischewitz wine (if you can call it that) and some Port.
I grate the apple on a box grater. Then I toast the walnut halves. I chop the walnuts but not too finely. Then add a little honey, some lemon juice a splash of the Manischewitz and a bigger splash of Port. Then just adjust to taste.
Next, is the Kugel…that’s the one that worries me.
Sizzling, splattering, smoking and salty.
I really don’t like ham. I love bacon and it seems that there are many bacon lovers out there too. I really enjoy a good prosciutto with some cantaloupe or wrapped around something for an appetizer. I ate ham and cheese sandwiches almost daily for lunch throughout my pregnancy with my daughter, but I just don’t like ham that’s warm or heated. When it comes to Easter I love the eggs, I love the sweets, but please don’t make me sit down to an Easter ham. Luckily, we don’t celebrate Easter ourselves so I can pick and choose which Easter foods I care to bring home and nosh on.
The egg is a symbolic and central part of the “story” for both Easter and Passover. I am particular about my eggs. I like them fresh, cage-free, and organic. If they’re beautiful that is even better in my book. I love to learn new ways to prepare eggs, but my favourite way to eat them is slowly scrambled until they are creamy and warm with some fresh chives snipped in. My uncle Georges makes the best scrambled eggs in a saucepan constantly stirred over low heat. It is almost a savory custard.
As a child, we occasionally celebrated Easter with friends but it wasn’t a religious Easter. It was more of an egg hunt, lots of candy, and chocolate kind of Easter.
For me, Easter and Passover are just a way to signal the early days of spring. The presence of fiddleheads, and rhubarb at the farm stand, matzoh in the grocery store aisles and hot cross buns in the bakery are all some of the cues that spring is here and warm weather is approaching.
Tomorrow is the first day of April and I’m thinking about making some hot cross buns with my daughter after school. Maybe we’ll even get to the butter tarts one day this week.
Hot Cross Bun Recipe
from Classic Canadian Cooking by Elizabeth Baird
Ingredients:
1 package active dry yeast (2 tsp.)
1 tsp white sugar
1/4 cup warm water
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup white sugar
1 cup minus 1 tbsp. milk, scalded
1 egg, well beaten
4 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp. salt
1 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground cardamom
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp ground allspice
1 cup currants (or raisins -I prefer currants)
1/3 cup candied mixed peel (as in lemon, orange, etc.)
1 egg white
2 drops vanilla
icing sugar
Directions:
Dissolve the yeast and 1 tsp sugar in the water. Let stand 10 minutes.
Combine the butter and 1/2 cup sugar. Add the scalded milk.
Add the yeast mixture and the egg to the milk mixture.
Sift together the flour, salt, and spices. Reserve 2 tbsp to dredge the currants and peel. Beat the rest into the batter mixture, first using an electric mixer and then, when that becomes too difficult a wooden spoon. Turn the dough out onto a floured board.
Knead in the raisins and mixed peel and continue kneading for about 10 minutes or until the dough is smooth and elastic.
Form the dough into a ball; place in a greased bowl, turning to grease all sides. Cover with a damp cloth and set in a warm place to rise until double in bulk, about 1 hour.
Punch the dough down to original size. Turn out onto a lightly floured board.
Shape the dough into 18 buns and place 2″ apart on a greased baking sheet. Cover loosely and let rise in a warm place until double in bulk, about 1 hour.
Cut a shallow cross on the top of each bun.
Beat the egg white until frothy. Brush lightly on each bun. Keep the rest of the egg white.
Bake at 375° for 10 minutes, reduce heat to 350° and bake for 10 to 15 minutes longer or until the buns are browned and sound hollow when tapped.
Combine the rest of the egg white with the vanilla and enough icing sugar to thicken. Frost the crosses of the hot buns with this icing.
Yield: 18 buns.
Classic Canadian Cooking: Menus for the Seasons, Elizabeth Baird
James Lorimer & Company, Publishers Toronto 1974
