Oregon Tuna Melt

I almost hate to admit this, because by saying it, it seems more starkly true somehow, but I'm quickly becoming a fan of fast and easy dinners. Not the capital letter kind of Fast-And-Easy that involves using cans of Cream of Mushroom or buying frozen shredded potatoes, mind you, but there are times in a person's life when kneading dough and simmering stocks just can't be wedged into the schedule.

I don't want to make a habit out of all this rushing around, because being in a hurry just goes against the whole lifestyle I'm attempting to raise my children within, but being busy for a season has it's place, too. And for right now, there are a couple days a week in which we're nearly out of breath when the day is through, after we've done our lessons, run errands, raced The Big Boy either to Flag Football or home from his homeschool P.E. or fine arts classes, and found the time to (grrr) make an Egyptian Death Mask between fielding phone calls from clients.

Those kinds of days are not the best time to roll out fresh pasta or to braise a cabbage, if you know what I mean.

So we're making a few compromises around here for now. I still insist on us sitting down at the table as a family every evening to eat our dinner, even if we do have to shovel everything in and hop back up 20 minutes later, and I still want us to eat well, both healthfully and mindfully, which means, of course, no entrees out of boxes and no over-cooked vegetables (a girl has to have her limits), but the bread won't always be from scratch anymore.

Most of my recipes are not conducive to eating on the fly, so I've been digging around for more time-conscious dishes lately and while some of them have been disappointing, we hit the jackpot when I came across a Tuna Melt recipe in a recent issue of Food & Wine. We're fans of hot sandwiches anyway, especially those that are gooey and oozy with melted cheese (be still my beating heart), but this one, which uses rich, tangy balsamic vinegar in lieu of mayonnaise in the tuna salad, and which adds a little sprinkle of crushed red pepper and fresh basil to brighten up that aforementioned gooey, oozy, melted cheese has turned into our new go-to dish on those crazy busy nights.

Actually, I could eat this sandwich any night of the week. This is tuna melt nirvana. And it's a silly kind of fast and easy, taking only about 20 minutes to throw together and lending itself pleasantly to a little bit of messiness in presentation. Just like my life right now.

*****

OREGON TUNA MELTS (adapted from Food & Wine, serves 4)

Note: I have been using hoagie rolls from the deli, though I would prefer a ciabatta roll if given the, um, added time to bake fresh bread, but a little bit of hollowed out baguette would work just as well. Also, rather than using a panini press, which I don't have, I have instead been cooking these on a cast-iron grill pan, weighing them down with a heavy, pre-heated cast-iron skillet laid on top of the sandwiches while they cook.

• Two 6-oz cans of tuna packed in olive oil, drained
• 1/4 cup finely diced red onion
• 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 Tbs balsamic vinegar
• 1 Tbs minced fresh basil
• 1/2 tsp crushed red pepper
• salt & freshly ground black pepper
• 4 ciabatta or hoagie rolls, split (see note above)
• Dijon mustard and mayonnaise, for spreading
• 6 oz Swiss or cheddar cheese, sliced into 1/4-inch thick slices
• 4 Kosher dill pickles, sliced lengthwise into 1/8-inch thick strips
• 2 Tbs unsalted butter, melted

1. In a medium bowl, mix the tuna with the onion, olive oil, vinegar, basis and crushed red pepper. Season with salt & pepper.
2. Heat a grill pan, griddle or panini press.
3. Spread mustard on the cut sides of four of the pieces of bread, and mayonnaise on the cut sides of the remaining four pieces. Divide the cheese amongst the pieces of bread (the cheese should be on both the top and bottom of the finished sandwiches). Spread the tuna salad on 4 of the pieces of bread and top with the pickles. Close the sandwiches and spread the outsides of the rolls with butter.
4. Cook the sandwiches over low to medium heat (see note above) for about 5 to 10 minutes, until cheese is melted and bread is browned. If bread is browning too quickly, reduce heat so the cheese has time to melt.
5. Cut the sandwiches in half and serve immediately.

Homemade Play Dough

Our kitchen really is, for better or worse, the center of our household. Physically, it is the newly-built room that connects the two hundred-year-old houses we renovated into one sprawling, slightly odd residence, but of course I am being a little less literal when I refer to it as our center. The majority of our time is spent in this room, if not cooking and eating, then doing schoolwork, playing and writing. There is now a race car rug by the fireplace, parking against the walls for not one, but two tricycles; a small table for coloring and other art projects, a drawer devoted to marbles, a basket full of two or three thousand Hot Wheels, and a paint-spattered school desk that I pull up next to the kitchen table when The Big Boy practices his handwriting.

We love this room.

The kids have long since learned to appreciate cooking time, and they both happily pull up chairs on which to stand and, um, help me prepare meals; and the sound of the mixer will bring them careening from opposite ends of the property so they can be first to lick the beater. Come to think of it, I even kept a bassinet in the kitchen for Little Miss Piggy when she was an infant, and her favorite book for the longest time was A Little Book of English Teas. The Big Boy still happily snuggles up to look through cookbooks and cooking magazines with me, and can spend hours debating the merits of different cake icings. His picture pages that we make for letter sounds are, of course, covered in clippings of food photographs ('A' is for avocados, asparagus, apples; 'F' is for fruit, fish, fennel...).

I can only hope these are the things happy childhood memories are made of. I mean, I spent my formative years following my mother around her garden, and that has been nothing but a positive influence in my life. This should be the same, right?

It's either that, or they'll spend thousands on therapy with which to overcome this madness...

Lately, our learning projects have begun to take over the kitchen - after all, what other room is as full of math manipulatives and craft supplies - and the kids have learned the absolute joy involved in making our own play dough.

Actually, I don't think 'absolute joy' is an adequate enough descriptor in this case. The Big Boy was so transfixed the first time we made a batch, and he was so utterly thrilled by how quickly it came together, that he begs almost daily to make more, and I'm fast running out of plastic containers to devote to the cause (though I have found play dough containment to be the perfect use for those non-recyclable plastic ricotta cheese and sour cream tubs).

Play dough can be made with items nearly always kept around the house (well, the kitchen, at least) and is shockingly easy to make; so surprising, in fact, that I am embarrassed to admit I used to buy Play-Doh at the store. And while the homemade version still should never be referred to as 'edible' (because who knows how toxic food coloring really is), at least I don't sweat things nearly as much when Little Miss Piggy ingests her usual RDA serving of the fascinating little dough.

The whole preparation takes less than 15 minutes, it seems to keep nearly forever as long as it is kept in an air-tight container (after being pried from the plump little hands of sleeping youngsters), and the texture of this stuff is far superior to the store-bought version. Truth be told, I now grab handfuls of homemade play dough and squeeze it like a stress ball when I go through those inevitable, not-quite-daily, moments in which I question my sanity in choosing to embark on this homeschool adventure in the first place.

*****

HOMEMADE PLAY DOUGH (makes about two cups)

• 1 cup flour
• 1 cup water
• 1/2 cup salt
• 1 Tbs vegetable oil
• 2 tsps cream of tartar
• 5 to 10 drops of food coloring

1. Combine the flour, water, salt, oil and cream of tartar in a small saucepan over medium heat. Cook, stirring constantly, until mixture forms a ball, about 3 to 5 minutes.
2. Cool on waxed paper for a couple minutes.
3. When cool enough to handle, knead in the food coloring a few drops at a time until desired color is achieved.
4. Store in a plastic container or ziplock bag.

Pasta with Fresh Tomatoes and Herbs

I have found a way to prolong summer. Here in September, when the heat is finally breaking and our schedules are already getting overbooked for the year, I am wistful about the end of summer. The sounds of football are too loud, and with them come the inevitable changing of the color of the leaves, plans for Halloween costumes (oh wait, I'm actually excited about that part), and the waning of the summer harvests. But like I said, I can make summer last longer now.

The tomato season is still going relatively strong around here at the farmer's markets, and the thing is, fresh tomatoes and basil actually harness the flavor of summer. It is a splendid thing, really, and even now, when the novelty of fresh tomatoes is wearing thin, most notably for those who have been canning and freezing tomatoes until their kitchens were covered in seeds and juice, the taste of summer remains a welcome thing indeed.

I spent the better part of July chasing the perfect recipe for fresh tomatoes and pasta, and nearly drove The Carnivore crazy with practically imperceptible variations on the dish. It seemed that I never received more than one pound at a time of fresh tomatoes in our CSA box each week, not enough to do very much with, after all, and besides, sometimes I just can't let a project go until it has been conquered. That, of course, was precisely how I felt about this recipe quest.

If I found myself with green tomatoes, I fried them (be still my beating heart) and if I picked up two pounds of red tomatoes at the farmer's market on Saturday mornings, then I made salsa. Clearly I was running low on creativity, though I prefer to view such inertia as centering on my great love for those two recipes. During the week though, when we would come in hot and tired from afternoons splashing around at the pool, and The Carnivore would arrive home exhausted from working in 90-degree heat, time was short and our appetites were more in line with simple, light dinners than anything else.

So I worked diligently, if slightly neurotically, at finding the best way to serve fresh tomatoes and pasta, and I swear, it is harder than it looks. We started with noodles tossed with chopped tomatoes, basil and olive oil, but it wasn't quite complex enough. Later variations included minced garlic (of course) and sauteed onions, and at least one recipe involved pureeing the tomatoes with the olive oil to make a more traditional looking sauce. Nothing quite worked. And, fresh tomatoes should never be pureed, I found; a lesson I would rather save others from having to learn the hard way.

Towards the end of July, while flipping idly through the August issue of Food & Wine early one morning before my odd little time-suckers woke up, I stumbled across yet another very similar recipe. This one, though, called for a minced small chili pepper (a forehead-smacking moment, if ever there was one) that brought to mind one of my other favorite pasta recipes, which also has a minced hot pepper that isn't so much tasted as it is sensed, if you know what I mean. It is a lesson I often forget, that the tiniest amount of heat, whether from a fresh pepper or even a pinch of dried crushed red pepper flakes, can enhance the other flavors of a dish in much the same way a squeeze of lemon juice completes and balances many recipes.

Balance is not my strong suit. You should see me trying to walk in a straight line without bumping into something. Or, for that matter, trying to juggle homeschooling, housekeeping, bookkeeping, and creative pursuits.

This Food & Wine recipe turned out to be a true blessing, and also inspired me to let the chopped tomatoes lounge around in the olive oil with garlic for an hour or so, letting the flavors fully meld. I altered the recipe slightly to fit the ingredients I had on hand (another sign of the perfect summer recipe: that it uses what is seasonal along with what can always be found in the pantry) and spent time that afternoon making a batch of fresh pasta to go with the sauce. I have finally gotten relatively quick at rolling out pasta dough, and what could be better than the toothsome texture of fresh pasta along with the light, bright, picked-that-day freshness of a simple tomato sauce, right?

I can think of no better description for this sauce than it tastes exactly like summer. And since summer is quickly coming to an end, I will make this dish again and again until the last of this season's tomatoes disappear from the market.

*****

PASTA WITH FRESH TOMATOES AND HERBS (serves 4, adapted from Food & Wine)

• 1 pound tomatoes, cored and finely chopped
• 1 Tbs chopped basil
• 1 Tbs chopped parsley
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 tsps kosher salt
• 1 small red or green chili pepper, seeded and minced
• 1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 pound fettucine or linquine
• 1/4 cup freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, plus more for serving

1. In a large bowl, toss the tomatoes with the basil, parsley, garlic, salt, chili pepper and olive oil. Allow to sit for 30 minutes or an hour to give the flavors time to meld.
2. In a large pot of boiling salted water, cook the pasta until al dente; drain.
3. Add the cooked, drained pasta to the bowl along with the cheese and toss well.
4. Serve immediately, topped with additional grated cheese.

Mozzarella-Stuffed Arancini

I am one of those people who gets very excited about cheese. Mild cheeses, melty cheese, sharp cheese, stinky cheese, crumbly cheese - I love all of them. So much so, in fact, that I am pretty sure I will never convert to veganism. I can live without meat - I've gone without red meat or poultry since 1980 - but I'm just not giving up cheese.

The thing is, though, I have been trying to further limit animal products from my meals, and even toyed briefly with the idea of going vegan at least part-time. The environmental impact of the production of animal products is hard to ignore, and seeing Food, Inc. a couple weeks ago has planted the issue squarely in the forefront of my mind once again. So here I am, again, trying to find ways to improve my family's consumption habits, while being limited by both finances and my fascination with cheese.

A little over a year ago, I began sourcing locally-produced raw milk, feta cheese and chevre, and eggs from Athens Locally Grown, which eased my concerns considerably, but still left some glaring inconsistencies when I continued to insist on purchasing other imported cheeses. And then, obviously, the recession entrenched itself a little more deeply into my wallet and I found myself holding my nose and again buying $0.99/dozen supermarket eggs.

Which all brings me back to my initial question. Can I go vegan? Well, no.

I don't wanna. Because it all comes back to my love of cheese, and the small fact that I am drawn, nay magnetically-lured, to recipes that include the words 'stuffed' and 'cheese' in the title. I mean, I live for that kind of thing. I'll toss hot, fresh pasta with handfuls of blue cheese, stir copious amounts of cheddar into grits, broil a layer of Parmesan on the top of my frittatas and casseroles, and knead grated Romano into my bread doughs.

A meal without cheese is rare around here, indeed, which brings me to the picture at the top of this post. A couple years back, when flipping through an issue of Vegetarian Times, I came across a recipe for Mozzarella-Stuffed Arancini. I had never before had arancini, and hadn't a clue how to pronounce it [ah-rahn-CHEE-nee, as it turns out), but I couldn't ignore that key phrase of 'mozzarella-stuffed.'

So I tried it, of course, and it was love at first bite. These things are downright addictive. Arancini, if you've never had it, are little Italian rice balls that are rolled in crispy breadcrumbs and filled with any number of stuffings (mostly meat and cheese), and are then typically fried. In this particular recipe though, the arancini are not made with meat and are baked instead of fried.

Even prepared this way (hereinafter referred to as the 'won't-kill-you' way), they're still crispy on the outside and melty on the inside and just chock full of flavor, and they still remain frighteningly high in fat.

You're welcome.

They are a slight pain to prepare, especially if you don't like to get your fingers sticky, and every time I make these I swear I'll never do it again. But then I eat one these little hunks of heaven, biting through the crisp exterior to get to the moist, richly-flavored rice that surrounds the core of stringy, melted mozzarella, and I forget all about the hassle, and then I end up making them again within a week. They're that good.

*****

MOZZARELLA-STUFFED ARANCINI (serves 6, adapted from Vegetarian Times)

A few things to note: this is no time to scrimp on the mozzarella - store brand will not work. Buy the gourmet fresh mozzarella from the deli or the fancy cheese section. Also, the rice is a crucial component, and cooking it in water will yield too bland a taste. Go for the broth.

• 2 1/2 cups vegetable broth
• 1 cup brown rice
• 1 Tbs butter
• 1 tsp salt
• 3 green onions, finely chopped
• 2 large eggs, lightly beaten
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley
• 1/3 cup grated Romano cheese
• 2 cups whole-wheat breadcrumbs
• 6 ounces fresh mozzarella, cut into approx. 3/4" x 3/4" pieces
• 1/8 cup olive oil
• approx. 28 oz marinara sauce (I love these with my favorite spicy marinara sauce)

1. In a small saucepan, bring the broth to a boil. Add the rice, butter and salt. Cover the pan, reduce heat, and simmer for 40-50 minutes, until broth is absorbed. Set aside until rice is cool.
2. Grease two large, heavy baking pans, and preheat oven to 425 degrees.
3. Fold green onions, eggs, parsley and cheese into rice.
4. Spread some of the breadcrumbs on a large plate (as you work, add more breadcrumbs to the plate as needed).
5. Place about 1/4 cup of rice mixture into palm of hand, form into a ball, and press piece of mozzarella into the middle. Coat ball with breadcrumbs (you can sprinkle the breadcrumbs over the ball in your hand, and flip ball as needed, or, alternatively, roll ball in breadcrumbs on plate). Place ball on greased baking sheet, and repeat with remaining rice, cheese and breadcrumbs. Leave a little space between balls on baking sheet, and just push back together with your fingers if they start to fall apart when they are placed on the sheet. Perfection is impossible here.
6. Sprinkle bald spots with any leftover breadcrumbs, and drizzle rice balls with olive oil.
7. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until outsides are brown and crisp.
8. Warm marinara sauce, and ladle onto large serving platter. Place arancini on top of sauce, and serve immediately.

Note: leftovers can be drizzled with a little additional olive oil and re-warmed in the oven at 350 degrees.

Corn, Tomato & Toasted Bulgur Salad

This sounds a little TOO healthy, doesn't it? I hate to do that, use a recipe title that comes off as too virtuous, or even use 'bulgur' in a sentence, really. I mean, it sounds hippie at best, you know?

I don't mean to use the word 'hippie' in such an insulting way. Honest. But when a long-time vegetarian is married to a devout carnivore, well, it takes a considerable amount of thought (and a little bit of concession) to make dinners palatable to everyone, both in form and function. I am not trying to convert the man, per se, but a happy medium is clearly in order, and feeding the man hippie food probably isn't the best way to further my cause.

So, um, I'm pretty sure I didn't mention the word 'bulgur' when I recited the menu to The Carnivore on the evening I prepared this salad. 'Tabouli with Fresh Corn' might have been the title I used for this side dish, because somehow the word 'tabouli' sounds so much less threatening really, than bulgur.

Truth be told, even I was a little nervous about this recipe. Bulgur has a bit of an off-putting smell when cooking, and has been served in any number of unattractive vegetarian dishes, so there were doubts. Doubts even here.

It's just that I've been in a bit of limbo with cooking as of late. The recession has made me nervous about spending money, so some compromises have been made in the shopping list, resulting in mad amounts of guilt on my part (I have ceased buying organic in some instances) along with a few overall sacrifices in flavor (less expensive cheeses just don't measure up).

We did join our CSA again this summer, and I pilfered my mother's garden when possible, but tomatoes have been scarcer than usual and farmer's market visits have been infrequent at best. So for much of the season, I have tried to wing it with our dinner plans nearly every day. Instead of planning menus in advance, and shopping for ingredients that may then languish in the pantry or fridge, I decided we had storehouses of plenty on hand already. There was seemingly no reason why I couldn't use our weekly CSA box and our pantry staples to make meals on the fly.

For the most part, this plan worked. And really, it would probably do all of us a little good to try and make do with what we have. I'm trying to live as thoughtfully as possible, and my constant goal these days is to be less of a consumer. So rather than finding new recipes online and then building my shopping list around the recipes, I've been taking household inventory and then searching for new recipes to go with what we've got. It's not rocket science, but the concept is counter-intuitive to what we've become accustomed to, I think.

During the summer, it is easy to fly by the seat of your pants when menu-planning, especially when blessed with the weekly harvest from our CSA's bounty. And this salad is exactly one of those pantry-and-CSA-box recipes. I had a bag of bulgur lurking in the back of the pantry already, and I always keep olive oil and a variety of vinegars around. So when I found myself with a boxful of tomatoes, corn and scallions from the farm, well, this recipe seemed like a gift from above, you know?

Of course, like I mentioned, I was skeptical, so I hedged my bets (as I often do with a new recipe) and planned this as one of a few dishes. We were having a vegetable plate night anyhow, with a mixed green salad and fresh vinaigrette, fresh green beans sauteed with garlic, and roasted potatoes. If this bulgur thing bombed, we would be in no danger of starving to death, especially since the greens, beans, and potatoes had all come from the CSA as well, and were as fresh as could be and just bursting with flavor.

Lo and behold though, The Carnivore and I both really enjoyed this recipe. The flavors were bright and fresh, and the texture of the toothsome grain was a sublime foil to the fresh tomatoes. The salad got better with time, as does tabouli, so next time I will plan ahead and make this earlier in the day so the flavors have more time to meld and the bulgur has more of a chance to soak up the flavor of the vinegar. When I ate the leftovers for lunch the following day, I practically licked the bowl clean. And it was delicious both warm and cold, so it is perfect for packing into a container and taking to work (or on a late-summer picnic, yes?).

The salad is also very, very healthy, high in fiber and protein, but there is really no need to give that information to anyone already skittish about hippie food...

*****

TOASTED BULGUR SALAD WITH CORN AND TOMATOES (adapted from Gourmet magazine, serves 8)

Note: bulgur can be found in health food stores and in most well-stocked grocery stores now

• 1 1/2 cups bulgur
• 2 3/4 cups broth (or water, or a mixture of the two)
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 Tbs extra-virgin olive oil, plus more to taste
• 2 cups fresh corn (from 3 to 4 ears)
• 8 oz fresh tomatoes, diced or chopped, seeds and juice removed (I used red and yellow tomatoes and they looked beautiful together in the salad)
• 3/4 cup chopped green onions or shallots
• 3 Tbs red-wine vinegar, plus more to taste

1. In a large heavy skillet, over medium-high heat, toast the bulgur for 5-10 minutes, until lightly browned, stirring occasionally.
2. In a saucepan, bring broth & salt to a boil, and stir in toasted bulgur. Reduce heat and simmer, covered, for about 20 minutes, until broth is absorbed.
3. In a skillet, heat oil over medium heat, and saute corn for 2 to 3 minutes, until barely tender.
4. In a large bowl, combine bulgur, corn, tomatoes, green onions and vinegar. Add salt & pepper to taste, and add more vinegar and a little more olive oil if desired.
5. Refrigerate, and let stand for a few hours for the flavors to meld. Serve warm or cold.

Spicy Quick Dill Pickles

We've been drowning in cucumbers around here lately, and much as I once loved the Asian Marinated Cucumbers recipe from last summer, well, it turns out familiarity really does breed contempt.

I never want to see another container of those marinated cukes again. Ever. Well, at least until next summer, that is. I mean, they ARE delicious and they do make the consummate snack for a sweltering summer afternoon. It's just that after 25 or so batches of them in a month's time, well...

The thing is, July turned out to be a lost month for me, so instead of putting up batches of pesto, freezing tomato sauces, and the usual summer harvest preservation activities, I have madly pedaled the race to try and use up our farm bounty before anything has a chance to rot on me. This tends to be a losing battle, of course, unless I employ each and every one of my OCD tendencies, and that has gone about as well as one would expect. Especially after the July we've had.

The day after I posted about that lovely Banana Bread with Dark Chocolate recipe, my appendix waged a sneak attack against me and by nightfall, I had three shiny new scars on my belly and an ugly little hospital bill to contend with. I was further shocked to discover just how little one can accomplish when one cannot use one's own abdominal muscles. And it is even more atrocious how much fresh-picked produce can decompose during the cook's painkiller-induced fog.

By the time all was said and done, four pounds of beets had been tossed into the compost heap, along with countless tomatoes, and two giant bags of cucumbers that had managed to grow beards of mold. Since those devastating losses (the produce, that is, not the appendix), we've lived on vegetable plates for dinner nearly every night, and when I found myself with yet another plethora of cucumbers, I dove headfirst into a towering pile of recently clipped seasonal recipes.

Something had to be done, and I was in no mood for a long, sweaty day of canning.

Before I had made a terrible mess of my desk, I lucked into a page on quick pickles that I had cut from the August issue of Food & Wine magazine, and while pickles don't tend to get me terribly excited, the very first recipe on the page was for Spicy Dill Quick Pickles. Look, if the word 'spicy' is in the title of a recipe, sans any other words that might pertain to meat of course, my interest is piqued. And this one was an exquisite little specimen, with an ingredient list that would not only NOT require a trip to the store, but would use four items that I had recently received in my CSA boxes.

This is the stuff love is made of.

So The Big Boy and I rolled up our sleeves, parked Little Miss Piggy in the pantry where she would be free to pull tea bags out of tins, upend boxes of granola, and rearrange the shelves (for the 973rd time that morning); and we commenced to pickling. And five minutes later, we had two quarts of these babies tucked into the fridge to do their thing for the next 24 hours.

I salivate over recipes like this. Ones in which you chop a few things, do a little stirring, and then stand back and let the industrious little ingredients finish the work on their own. If only dinner were so easy...

The jars were a thing of beauty. The quartered cucumbers were standing pertly on their ends, swimming in clear vinegar, and interspersed with sprigs of bright green dill, oodles of floating coriander seeds, cloves of garlic, and gorgeous halved chili peppers with their little stems still waving prettily. I must have opened the refrigerator door 17 times over the next few hours just to smile at them.

They were THAT sultry.

And so it was that I had barely finished my coffee the next morning when I just couldn't handle the wait any longer. I opened up one of the jars, inhaled the heady fragrance of the vinegar and dill, and chomped directly into one of the pickles, and oh my sweet stars, you know those little flying hearts that encircle the characters' heads in cartoons when they fall in love? I saw them.

The pickles had that crunch that is ALWAYS missing from store-bought pickles, and tasted perfectly of summer. They just oozed freshness. And the flavor had that elusive balance that I usually can only dream of. The pickles were a little tart, a little spicy, and just salty enough.

Like I said, this is the stuff love is made of.

And just as soon as I get up the nerve, I'm going to take a big bite out of one of those chili peppers that are floating amongst those pickles.

*****

SPICY DILL QUICK PICKLES (makes 2 quarts, adapted from Food & Wine)

• 24 oz cucumbers, quartered (if they are terribly seedy, trim off a little bit of the seedy part and discard it)
• 3 Tbs kosher salt
• 2 Tbs sugar
• 1 1/4 cups distilled white vinegar
• 2 Tbs coriander seeds
• 6 large cloves of garlic, halved
• 4 to 6 long red or green hot chile peppers, halved lengthwise (you can use a mixture of cayennes, serranos, jalapenos, etc)
• 1 oz fresh dill sprigs

1. Pack cucumbers into two 1-quart glass jars.
2. In a medium size bowl, whisk together the salt, sugar, vinegar, coriander and garlic until the salt & sugar have dissolved.
3. Divide the brine amongst the two jars, pouring it over the cucumbers.
4. Add one cup of water to each of the two jars, adding a little more water if the cucumbers are not totally submerged.
5. Tuck the chiles and the dill between the cucumbers.
6. Close the jars tightly and refrigerate for at least 24 hours. The pickles will ostensibly keep for up to a month, but I don't see how they would possibly last that long.

Banana Bread with Dark Chocolate

Banana-nut breads are some of my very favorite things, and after much trial and error, I lucked into the perfect recipe some years back. It is everything banana bread should be: a short list of ingredients, an easy technique, dense and perfectly moist, simultaneously creamy and nutty, with the ideal level of banana flavor. And no matter how many times I have made this recipe (probably close to a hundred), I always get the same impeccable quality. The weather never affects the outcome (bring on the humidity), and neither does the quality of ingredients (generic butter, here I come).

I had no interest in reinventing the wheel, and so I halted all experimentation with ingredients and virtually turned my nose up at all other recipes. I know better. As a matter of fact, I can't count the number of times I have tinkered around with perfection on some of our other favorite recipes, only to have The Carnivore throw up his hands in bewilderment and make noises about why I am incapable of leaving well enough alone. Especially when my tinkering results in an inferior product, as it does all too often.

So, like I said, no new banana bread recipes.

I meant it this time.

Well, until recently, that is.

You see, Orangette, who also has a addictive-like weakness for banana breads, would often post about them, listing no fewer than four different recipes in her index. And I trust her. Dearly. She has steered me wrong only once (and it was nothing more than a difference in heat-level preferences that caused me to flick one of her recipes straight into the recycling bin), so every time she waxed poetic about a new banana bread recipe, I felt that old temptation coming on.

I held strong for as long as I could. "No new recipes," I would mutter, quickly clicking away from her site. But then her much-anticipated book came out.

Oh, how I enjoyed reading it. This Homemade Life arrived in the mail on the day of release, looking splendid in its beautiful, pale-green jacket; thick with recipes and exquisite little line drawings, rich with intimate descriptives of both her life and her food. I cried when her father died and rejoiced when her wedding plans came together. I tried to drag out the reading so that it would never have to end, but alas, it didn't help that I just couldn't put it down.

We are the best of friends, Orangette and I.

Well, except that we've never met and she has no idea who I am. Those facts notwithstanding though...

Anyhow. Her book included a banana bread recipe that I simply couldn't shake from my mind. The ingredients included dark chocolate, mind you, which will someday be my downfall, I am sure, along with crystallized ginger (which just sounds so, well, sophisticated and elegant - two adjectives that draw me in even though they in no way apply to either me or my life). And so it was that I found myself unable to keep from buying a small packet of said ginger and pulling some frozen bananas from the freezer.

I possess woefully little self-control in matters such as this.

The only stumbling block came in the complexity of the recipe. The ingredient list was just so tediously long, and the instructions had so many steps, and, oh, I don't know, but it just all made me so tired looking at the page. And then I pulled a piece of the crystallized ginger from the bag and popped it into my mouth and thought, "No, oh no, this will never do." The flavor was too strong, the texture not right for a quick bread, the whole concept just a little too hoity-toity for good, old-fashioned banana bread.

And then, Eureka. What if I took my favorite idiot-proof, crowd-pleasing banana bread recipe and threw a cup of dark chocolate chips into the batter? Was it really so easy? Could I, by adding a little (okay, more like a lot) dark chocolate to my tried-and-true recipe, make The Best Banana Bread even better? Oh, yes.

Yes, I can.

I made two loaves on the spot, one to take to a gathering the following day and one to enjoy at home, and I am happy to report that this bread takes a backseat only to the Creme de Menthe Brownies for Most Compliments at a Potluck. It is so perfect, in fact, that my mother (the busiest woman in the world) snuck over to my house two days in a row to have a slice of this banana bread.

Dense and moist, flecked with crunchy pecans and toothsome bits of dark chocolate, ever-so-slightly sweet, rich and decadent, this is, honest to everything, the best banana bread I've ever eaten. And I've eaten a lot of banana breads.

*****

BANANA-NUT BREAD WITH DARK CHOCOLATE CHIPS (makes one 9x5 loaf)

Note: the riper the banana, the better; and frozen bananas work wonderfully

• 1/2 cup butter, melted
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (that is one and a half cups)
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 cup mashed ripe banana
• 1 cup chopped pecans
• 1 cup dark chocolate chips (such as Ghirardelli 60% bittersweet)

1. Stir butter, sugar and eggs together in a large bowl.
2. Sift the dry ingredients (the flour, baking soda and salt) together, and fold into the butter mixture.
3. Stir in mashed banana, nuts and chocolate.
4. Bake in a 9x5 loaf pan at 350 degrees for 40-50 minutes, until browned and domed on top, and a knife inserted into the middle comes out mostly clean.
5. Cool completely, then refrigerate before cutting in order to get cleanly-cut slices.
6. Serve warm or cold, plain or with butter or cream cheese.

Risotto with Chicory

I just fell in love with chicory.  It seems odd to say it, I know, and I’m sure I just planted disgust in the heart of most of those who would read this, but the thing is, after wrestling with this odd green for the past few summers, I finally found one of those blessed New Southern ways of preparing it.  Please trust me.

The silence was deafening on the subject of the Boiled Kale on Toast with Fried Egg, and oh, what a loss.  And if you didn’t believe me on that one, when I was backed up by The Zuni Cafe, Orangette, and Bitten, then I suppose this chicory recipe will require even more suspension of disbelief.

Chicory is a strange thing.  It looks like lettuce, has a strangely bitter, almost astringent quality to it, and comes replete with all manner of preconceived notions.  And then there is the small matter of it’s name. Two of its varieties, radicchio and endive, at least sound edible, but 'chicory' itself?  Ugh.  

In previous years, when it showed up in my CSA box, I tried to hide it in salads, mixed in with other, sweeter lettuces, but it took work.  Like capital ‘W’ Work.  Eventually, I found my way with it.  Tossed with a sweet fresh-picked carrots, a fruity homemade blackberry vinaigrette, and tart crumbles of feta cheese, it actually made for a reasonably nice, if ever-so-slightly-too-gourmet-ish, salad.

Then last week, I found myself bogged down under a ginormous bag of the leaves, and I stared askance at it for a few days, unable to bring myself to chunk it into the compost, but not quite ready to drown it in dressing either.  Finally, with a handful of sorrel in one hand and the bag of chicory in the other, I sat down at the computer to do some recipe searches.  And, people, I struck gold.  Bright, shiny, valuable gold.  

The sorrel ended up in an omelet with wondrous flavor, and I chopped up a handful or two of the chicory, wilted it in a hot pan with a little olive oil, and tossed it into one of my Any Vegetable Frittatas, but the real star, the true gem, was a recipe I found for Risotto with Chicory.

I know how that sounds. Honest, I had to suspend my own disbelief while stirring the mad concoction, and then, oh, the horror I felt when I stared at the mountainous pile of greens shredded into cole-slaw-looking ribbons.  But I forged on.  I did, after all, have to do something with all this chicory.  

The results were phenomenal.  The risotto was everything it should be, rich and luscious, decadent in it’s texture and creamy-chewy on the tongue.  And the flavor of the chicory itself?  I’m sure I can’t describe it.  The flavors melded so well that the chicory flavor didn’t even bother to try and have a flavor of it’s own, there was just the slight earthiness it imparted to the rice, tempered and made more elegant by the Parmesan, the white wine, and the butter.

I imagine Edna Lewis would have approved of this treatment, but shockingly, my picky five-year-old son and even the conservative, meat-eating husband devoured it (the 20-month-old loved it as well, but she’ll eat anything).  

I’ve made my share of risottos, and this one is my new hands-down favorite.  Now if only I could figure out where to purchase chicory all year-round...

*****

CHICORY RISOTTO (serves 4 to 6 as a side dish, adapted from Cook It Simply)

    

Note: Risotto is best served immediately, and will turn a little gummy when stored.  To reheat, add a tiny bit of broth and bring to simmer on the stove, stirring constantly, adding more broth as needed.

• 44 oz vegetable broth
• 3 oz butter, divided
  
• 1 small white onion, finely chopped
  
• 7 oz chicory (red or white), shredded into a chiffonade (ribbons)
• 11 oz arborio rice
• 4 oz white wine
  
• 2 oz grated Parmesan cheese
  
• salt and pepper, to taste

1. In a small saucepan, bring the broth to a simmer.
2. In a wide saucepan (I love to use an enameled cast iron pan for risottos), melt 2 oz of the butter over medium heat.
3. Add onion to pan, and saute gently over medium-low heat until translucent, taking care not to brown the onion.
4. Add the chicory and stir until wilted.
5. Add the rice and cook, stirring, until well coated.
6. Stir in wine, and cook for one minute.
7. Pour in 1 cup of hot broth and cook, stirring frequently, until most of the liquid has been absorbed.
8. Continue adding broth, 1 cup at a time, to the pan, stirring often, until rice is al dente (should take about 15 minutes).  There will probably still be 1/2 to 1 cup of the broth left over in the broth pan.
9. When rice is tender, remove pan from heat, and stir in the remaining butter and the Parmesan.  The final dish should not be soupy, but should have enough broth left in the risotto to allow it to be a little runny.  If finished risotto is too clumpy, add broth by the 1/4-cup to achieve desired texture.
10. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Cooking for Freaks

I don’t want to talk about the economy.  I really don’t.  I am an accountant by trade, if not by nature, and I just hate talking about money. Especially now, when tax season is finally, blessedly, over, and I can get through a nice sunny weekend day without being involved in (or, ahem, overhearing) a conversation about deductions and capital losses and all of that other dismal nonsense.  And I am pretty good at ignoring the business news these days.  I have to be, so that I can avoid going completely mad.

But here’s the rub (and there always seems to be a rub with me, doesn’t there?): the economy has just gone too far now and it has been affecting my grocery list. 

There is just so much that is wrong with that sentence, not the least of which is that I don’t like my obsessions to collide in such a grotesque and vulgar manner.  And, you know, I don’t like to talk about personal financial matters.  Food is my little escape, you see, and it is the lone area in which I try to give myself a little leeway.  I scrimp and I save in almost every facet of my life, but please, for goodness’ sake, can’t a girl spend a little at the grocery store?

A few months ago, when it became clear that I was going to need to trim the budget a little, I did my best to rein myself in, to not jump to extremes, to find my inner middle-of-the-road personality.  I failed, of course, because I am of the all-or-nothing ilk, and I practically specialize in extremes.  And so it was that I suddenly found myself in the inner circle of Hell, of all places, burning holes in my grocery list.  Oh, how I slashed.  We went from the all-organic, local-where-possible, ingredients to the mass-market, conventionally-grown items.  And even that might have been tolerable, had I not decided to loll about in the nether regions of the rock-bottom.  

I purchased regular old processed white sugar instead of the gorgeous voluptuous raw sugar crystals we had become accustomed to, started cooking with water instead of broth, and began making my morning fried egg sandwiches with dollar-a-dozen eggs that tasted flabby.

I still bought olive oil, whole-wheat bread, and organic milk (albeit store brands, all), but I scrutinized the cost-per-ounce labels to get the best value, and within a matter of weeks, I had reduced our grocery bills by about half.

Sounds laudable, you say?

Well, sure, I’ll take a little credit for making the equation balance.  But only a little credit, you see, because it wasn’t just the bills that were cut in half, it was our enjoyment in meals as well.  Bit by bit I began to lose interest in cooking until I found I was doing it by rote, forgetting even to play music in the kitchen.  And, as you may have noticed, writing about food wasn’t even on my radar.  

Tonight was the final straw, I hope.  I made a mozzarella-stuffed arancini recipe that we have always been a little head-over-heels for.  But, and this is a little embarrassing to admit, I thought this would be the perfect recipe for an experiment.  I decided to see just how cheaply I could make it, and instead of using fresh mozzarella, I bought the Great Value brand.  And for the final insult, I used  store-brand parmesan-in-a-can instead of Romano, and cooked the rice in water rather than broth.

I’m sure you can guess how it turned out: with us pushing the bland food around on our plates and The Carnivore expressing his dismay that I would take my penny-pinching to such an ill-conceived extreme.

Something is clearly going to have to give around here, and I suspect it is me who will need to whip herself into submission.  There is some obvious middle ground that I could choose, and I know which ingredients I can scrimp on without sacrificing the dinner table entirely, but out of all my faults, this is probably my biggest.  I’m just not a middle-of-the-road believer.

And so I think I will try to trick myself.  If I were to give myself a goal of, say, increasing our current grocery bill by, oh I don’t know, maybe 17.5%, which is still lower than our previous height by 32.5%, then the mathematical challenge may be just the impetus I need in order to make some compromises here and to part with the extra penny or two to buy the better-quality ingredients that actually matter like, say, cheese.

For the love of all that is sacred.  I don’t try to be a freak.

It just comes naturally.

Black Bean Tacos with Southwestern Slaw

As if it isn’t embarrassing enough that the month of December caught me by surprise and then flew by before I could get my Christmas list in order, you won’t believe what happened to me in January.

The same doggone thing.

I was just so relieved when Christmas was over and I could pack up my seven Christmas ornaments and throw the tree into the woods and put the stockings somewhere obscure so that I won’t be able to find them next year (again) that I ended up doing the same thing I do every year: entirely forgetting that January is my busiest work month of the year. I settled in all cozy and happy in my warm house, planning to hunker down for the cold month of January in which (I thought) my schedule would be free and clear and the kids and I could work on art projects and new recipes and that sort of thing.

But somewhere around the middle of January, my eyes rolled back in my head and I jumped up from The Snuggle Chair where I was reading a book to the kids, and I ran to the computer to try and make up for lost time when I remembered (finally) that there were three major deadlines looming at the end of the month.

Just like they do every year.

I don’t know what to do about this utter failure to remember routines. I can recite various tax rates off the top of my head and keep the most fastidious calendar and daily to-do list that you’ve ever seen, yet I am incapable of getting my act together in December and January.

This is a cry for help. I need for someone, anyone, to please, pretty please, remind me in December that Christmas is coming and to make sure I do not let my guard down in January because, you know, little-bitty things like W2s are due.

I began the month with the best of intentions. It seemed the ideal time for slow roasting, for simmering stocks, for tackling that page-long, 8-point type, totally complicated cake recipe from last month’s issue of Bon Appetit. I was thinking of taking a knitting class and making our own hats, reading up on F-stops and apertures because those concepts are still blowing my mind, and going to the kids' storytime at the library.

Nowhere in my plan for a happy winter was there any mention of insurance audits and financial statements and SSA-required paperwork. Under no circumstances was I going to hunch over the laptop in the late evenings, starting my work days a whopping 14 hours after I actually woke up, worried sick about deadlines.

For the love of all that is sacred…

The bright side is that its all over now, and if I gloss over the fact that I spent the past few evenings recovering in front of vapid television shows after the kids were in bed, there really is no downside. I mean, I did get paid for, you know, working, and from what I understand, people do that sort of thing all the time.

Actually, there is another layer of silver lining to unfurl here, and that is my newfound appreciation for quick and easy dinners (though I must admit I loathe saying the phrase ‘quick and easy’ – it just sounds like it involves a can of condensed something-or-other, doesn’t it?).

Anyway. This just clearly wasn't the kind of month where I had the time to make my own pasta or spend an entire day prepping arancini.

So one afternoon, right in the midst of all those deadlines, when I was trying to ignore the fact that I was playing with my children when I really should have been working, The Big Boy and I were taking an imaginary vacation, pretending we were on a houseboat in Alaska and planning what we would eat on our “cruise” from what we saw in the February issue of Bon Appetit. See, in our pretend vacations, someone else is cooking and everything is always in season, so we are allowed to simply salivate over all the luscious food photos and even pretend to eat the pictures if we are so inclined. But when we turned the page past an advertisement which featured gi-normous slabs of beef posing as island mountains (because apparently even the advertisers have vacations on the brain), I stumbled across a hunger-inducing photo of crispy black bean tacos in their Fast Easy Fresh column.

I kid you not, the tacos looked so delicious and sounded so blessedly quick and easy (there I go again) that I planned them for that night’s dinner. Now obviously I had to make things a little difficult on myself because otherwise I just wouldn’t be me, you know, so instead of using canned beans, as called for in the recipe, I set some dried beans to soaking. It was early in the day when we ran across that picture anyway, so I had ample time to cover a few beans with a little bit of water. And, well, because it seems like virtually nothing is available fresh around here during the end of January and the first couple weeks of February, I broke down and went to the supermarket to pick up a bag of pre-shredded coleslaw mix (man, that hurt) and some fresh cilantro.

I will atone for these sins come springtime when some veggies start showing up at the farmer’s markets.

In the meantime though, I was charmed to pieces by this recipe. It really is easy, and it is crazy-quick, and the unexpected combination of feta and a southwestern-type slaw served atop pan-crisped tortillas stuffed with simple black beans is, well, kind of enchanting, I think. The crunch of the cabbage along with the tartness from the feta and the lime juice provided the perfect foil to the earthiness of the beans, and frankly, I thought the dish looked simply beautiful. The Carnivore and I both enjoyed it, so I’m going to keep this in rotation for a little while here although, actually, I suppose a more virtuous person might hold off until the cabbage harvests start back up.

I'm running a little low on virtuosity myself.

*****

CRISPY BLACK BEAN TACOS WITH SOUTHWESTERN SLAW (serves 2 as an entree, adapted from Bon Appetit)

• 1/2 cup dried black beans, soaked and cooked (or 1 15-ounce can black beans, rinsed & drained)
• 1/2 tsp dried cumin
• 5 tsp olive oil (may need a little more, depending on type of pan being used), divided
• 1 Tbs lime juice
• 2 cups shredded mixture of green cabbage, purple cabbage, and carrots (also known as coleslaw mix)
• 2 green onions, chopped
• 1/3 cup chopped fresh cilantro
• salt & pepper
• 4 yellow corn tortillas
• 1/3 cup crumbled feta cheese
• bottled hot sauce (like Texas Pete)

1. Coarsely mash together the beans and the cumin. Set aside.
2. In a medium bowl, combine 2 tsp olive oil with the lime juice. Add the coleslaw mix, green onions and cilantro and toss to coat with the dressing. Add salt & pepper to taste.
3. In a large skillet over medium-high heat, heat the remaining 3 tsp olive oil. If using cast-iron, a little more olive oil will be needed. You're looking for a shimmering layer that entirely coats the bottom of the skillet and is able to slosh around just a little.
4. Two at a time, add the tortillas to the skillet in a single layer. To make them fit, it is okay to let a little of each tortilla come up the sides a little (the tacos will be flipped and cooked on both sides).
5. Spoon 1/4 of the bean mixture onto half of each tortilla; cook for one minute.
6. Fold tacos in half and cook until golden brown on each side (about 1 minute per side).
7. Place 2 tacos on each of 2 plates (rear end to rear end) and top each plate with half of the slaw and crumbled feta. Drizzle with a little hot sauce and serve immediately.