A Fool for Kale

Odd Toddler and I picked up our second weekly CSA share on Friday, and I practically swooned when I saw the size of the box and the generous quantities of greens we received. Again, we had one unrecognizable item that I had to email the guy at the farm about, clearly reminding me (yet again) of just how little I actually know. This week’s harvest: tiny arugula, spring shallots, green garlic, radicchio, juntar cilantro, red Russian kale, Swiss chard, romaine, and a leaf lettuce.

Two weeks into this little project, the radicchio is still kicking my butt. It’s a beautiful head of greens, but extremely bitter and therefore slightly difficult to work with. The first week, I followed the advice of Jason from the farm, and sautéed it lightly with a little bit of olive oil, and served it with lemon juice and sea salt. Still too bitter. This week I tried a Giada de Laurentiis recipe in which the radicchio was cooked with cannelini beans in a little bit of broth, and then topped with a pan-fried fillet of tilapia and drizzled with lemon vinaigrette. Not a good idea.

I had tried the Giada recipe previously, but since I’d been unable to find radicchio at the time, I had substituted spinach and The Carnivore and I loved the recipe. This time, since I actually had radicchio on hand, grown locally and organically, I was excited to try the recipe again, this time in its entirety. But a number of things went wrong with the whole plan. First, and I’m feeling a little ignorant for not realizing this sooner, but tilapia is brought in from WAY afar. This isn’t the kind of fish that is being caught off the coast of Georgia, or even Florida. Ecuador and Chile were the locations listed on the labels, thus seemingly negating the positive effects of my very fuel-efficient radicchio. And then of course, we can’t overlook the fact that neither the Carnivore nor I even enjoyed the final product (which I thought tasted a little like dirt).

Current score: radicchio 2, Sarah 0. I’m gonna really have to put some muscle into this next week if we get more of this mean green in our next share box.

With the notable exception of the evil, scheming radicchio, we’ve found it relatively easy to work our entire share box into our weekly meals. Nothing has turned bad in the crisper before we’ve had a chance to eat it, and we haven’t run out of greens before the next box was ready to be picked up. Truly, it’s the best possible scenario. And the surprise hit of the greens season has been the kale. Using the lettuces is easy – I eat salads nearly every day; if not for lunch, then as a side dish with dinner. Fresh herbs and aromatics are always easy to work into whatever we’re already having, and easy greens like Swiss chard can be lightly steamed or sautéed and go well with any entrée.

But the kale had me slightly stumped at first since I was striving hard to not serve different greens, each cooked the same way as the one before it, every night for the three weeks of this particular harvest. I wanted variety in our menu, while working within the constraints of what was in season at the time (and doing my best to also eat within some fairly arbitrary geographical limits that I’ve set upon myself). We enjoyed the Kale and White Bean Soup last week, but I certainly didn’t want to serve the same thing again this week with our new bag of kale. So I cocked my head just so and stared at my cookbook shelves for a few minutes, finally noticing my copy of Mollie Katzen’s Vegetable Heaven.

See, I have a LOT of cookbooks, although I’m of the mind that one can never have too many, and it can actually get a bit daunting to find just the right one when I’m trying to find just the right recipe for a given ingredient (in this case, kale). I’m not sure when or from where the Vegetable Heaven cookbook came into my life, but I think I’ve had it for at least a fair number of years, and I do know this was the first time I’d even used it. A little shameful, to be sure, and I can’t believe this was the first time I’d really spent some time reading it. It’s fascinating. And I’ve now marked a few recipes that I want to try as soon as some other vegetable seasons begin. For now though, after doing an index search for kale, I ran across a recipe for Bitter Greens with Sweet Onions and Tart Cheese.

That’s just singing my song. I love onions. I love greens. And pregnancy rules be scorned loudly, I love feta cheese and refuse to completely give it up. Since the feta would be heated in this recipe, it seemed logical that any errant scary bacteria would be killed anyhow. And besides, for pregnancy books to say its okay to have an alcoholic drink every now and then, but that you can NEVER have feta seems like a bit of sacrilege. That’s for another blog though. I have some rather vehement opinions on this. As a matter of fact, if you’ll pardon a tangent here, I have a lot of siblings, some of whom have obviously suffered from fetal alcohol effects. None of them are suffering from the overuse of feta by their birth mothers.

Regardless of where I stand on the liquor versus cheese issue, the recipe seemed like a winner. Vidalia onions are obviously local enough for me (same state) and are in season right now, along with the kale. So I threw all caution to the wind on Saturday night and served the Bitter Greens with Sweet Onions and Tart Cheese for dinner, atop brown rice cooked in vegetable broth, with a wee bit of butter and a little bit of salt. Let’s face it, brown rice doesn’t have a lot of taste to begin with, and could use the added boost. I planned the greens dish for my entrée, but was a little concerned about the meal being too, um, vegetarian for The Carnivore (and I wanted to hedge my bets in case the recipe was disappointing in any way) so I surreptitiously suggested it would be a good night for him to fix a small piece of meat to go with his dinner. Just in case, you know.

As it turned out, the recipe, along with the rice, was filling enough to be the main dish for two, and was incredibly, wonderfully delicious. As a matter of fact, even the leftovers were fabulous for lunch for the next day. And The Carnivore, from whom I had hidden the title of the cookbook I was using, loved the dish as much as I did. I think kale will be supplanting collards as our favorite green.

•••••

BITTER GREENS WITH SWEET ONIONS AND TART CHEESE (from Mollie Katzen's Vegetable Heaven, serves two as a main dish or four to six as a side dish)

• 2 Tbs olive oil
• 4 cups sliced Vidalia onion (or other sweet onion)
• Salt to taste
• 12 cups (approx. 12 oz.) fresh greens, coarsely chopped, large stems removed (this sounds like a lot, but it cooks down considerably)
• 1/2 lb feta cheese, crumbled
• Freshly ground black pepper

1. Heat the oil in a large Dutch oven. Add the onion and salt lightly. Saute over high heat for about 5 minutes, then turn the heat to medium, cover, and let the onion cook until tender and caramelized (about 10 more minutes).
2. Add the greens in batches, sprinkling lightly with salt after each addition. If the pan fills up before all the greens have been used, cover the pot and allow the greens to wilt for a minute or two before adding more.
3. When all the greens have wilted, stir in the feta, and cook for another couple of minutes. Add pepper and additional salt to taste.
4. Serve over brown rice cooked in vegetable broth.

The Great Resistance

You would think any resistance to a week of greens recipes would come from the The Carnivorous Husband, but instead it is Odd Toddler who is giving me the most grief. I'm beginning to miss the earlier days when he would happily eat anything I put in front of him. These days, he tries to live solely on a diet of yogurt and Nutella. If he sees ANY form of greens on his plate (whether it be a chiffonade of fresh basil on bruschetta, lettuce in a salad, or a nice pile of steamed kale), he makes a gutteral sound and croaks out, "But mom, I don't like the nasty stuff." I console myself through his dinnertime pouts by hoping this is just a phase. And by quietly handing him a small carton of Yobaby.

I picked up our first bag of CSA produce on Friday, and was even more pleased than I had hoped to be. So pleased, in fact, that I happily stuffed leaves of fresh-picked lettuce into my mouth at every red light (hey, I'm 18 weeks pregnant - if I want to eat plain lettuce in my car, I have every right). The first bag included swiss chard, kale, radicchio, green garlic, and a leaf lettuce that I can't identify but which I have used in salads every day since.

This was my first encounter with green garlic and I was completely stumped by it at first. When I pawed through my bag on Friday, I thought at first glance that the garlic was a type of green onion. The stalks looked exactly like scallions, but the bulbous root end left me scratching my head. Instead of doing any research though, I (wrongly) assumed it was just a green onion that I was unfamiliar with and so I popped it into the fridge without another thought.

It was at the Oconee Farmer's Market on Saturday that I got the first inkling that I was wrong. I went by a table that advertised garlic and I quickly back-tracked to pick some up. It was one of those forehead-slapping moments when I saw the only items on the table bore a strong resemblance to my chubby-bottomed scallions. I picked up some local strawberries (the only strawberries I've seen anywhere lately that didn't come from Watsonville, California) because Odd Toddler had instructed me not to come home without some, and raced back to the house to pull the questionable green things out of the crisper drawer for some emergency surgery. Once I had the concept that they might be garlic in my mind, it only took a sniff for me to recognize the unmistakable scent of garlic, and a little cutting into the chubby part yielded some white flesh surrounding a couple of tender "cloves" of garlic. I fired up the computer and went online to see what I could find out with a little Googling, and I stumbled upon Gourmet Sleuth, a REALLY cool website in which you can search not only for recipes using specific ingredients, but where you can also get pictures and information of the ingredients themselves along with planting and storing instructions. Handy for amateurs like myself.

As it turns out, in case I'm not the only foolish one who had never used green garlic before, this is a milder-tasting version of the regular dried heads of garlic you can pick up at the grocery store, and, like leeks, you can use both the white end and the light green part of the stalk. Interestingly, one stalk of green garlic equals one or two cloves of regular garlic. I've had fun using these in all manner of recipes this week. To me, they taste like a cross between scallions and garlic; very fresh, with less bite than regular garlic, but still with a little assertive oomph. I've found green garlic and regular garlic to be virtually interchangeable in saute and soup recipes, and the green variety to be incredibly good in simple vinaigrettes (which I made a lot of this week to drizzle over the lettuces I had also received).

I tried new recipes every day this week, delighting in finding ways to use the chard and the kale, neither of which I had cooked before. My mother raised me on steamed greens, which we would dress with vinegar and salt and eat daily in the early spring when I was kid. I loved greens then, and I love them possibly even more now. So many years had passed in the interim however, that I had forgotten what a beautiful, buttery taste chard has.

The winning recipe of the week though, was a quick and uber-easy Kale and White Bean Soup that I adapted from the March issue of Cooking Light magazine (the original recipe called for collards, but it didn't seem like much of a stretch to substitute kale instead; and of course I tinkered around to make it a vegetarian dish).

As much as I may love simple, steamed greens, I have The Carnivore to think about, and I do my best to not make it so glaringly obvious to him that he married the child of a reformed hippie. The soup recipe was a standout because it truly let the kale shine through as the star of the dish, without trying to mask the delicate flavor of the green or turning the texture into mush. My favorite thing about kale is the great curly, crunchy bite to it, and only a quick wilting was required by this recipe.

I can't wait to see what's in next week's bag of greens...

KALE & WHITE BEAN SOUP (serves four - great served alongside a goat cheese & roasted red pepper sandwich)

• 1 Tbs olive oil
• 1 cup finely chopped yellow onion - I used a vidalia
• 3 garlic cloves, minced - I used three whole stalks of green garlic
• 1/2 cup white wine
• 1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper - as coarsely ground as possible
• 1/2 tsp kosher salt
• 6 oz shredded or chopped kale
• 2 tsps minced fresh thyme (or 3/4 tsp dried thyme)
• 28 oz vegetable broth
• 1 (15.5-oz) can Great Northern beans, drained and rinsed

1. Heat oil in a dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add onion and garlic; saute until onion is tender - about 5 minutes.
2. Add wine, pepper and salt. Reduce heat and simmer 5 minutes or until liquid has almost evaporated.
3. Add greens, thyme and broth. Cover and simmer for 10 minutes, or until greens are wilted but still slightly crunchy to the taste (sort of an al dente texture). Take care not to overcook the greens.
4. Add beans; simmer 5 minutes or until thoroughly heated.

And, um, sleep in separate rooms if you're easily offended by particularly plentiful and odiferous gas.

Putting My Money Where My Mouth Is

I have been fascinated by CSAs for some time now, and have longed to join one. I first read about them a number of years ago, and then, around the time Odd Toddler was born, I found out that at least one of these Community Sponsored Agriculture farms existed here in my area. The concept is great. A specified number of members pay an up-front fee to essentially sponsor a farm. The farmers plant sustainable crops, often organic, and then prepare weekly bags of produce for the members during the growing season. The benefits for everyone are great. The farmers get some financing and have guaranteed “buyers” for their crops. The members receive local, seasonal vegetables, fruit, herbs and other treats (depending on the farm) that has been grown in a manner in which they approve.

The idea is extraordinarily appealing to me on a number of levels. Organic produce is usually prohibitively expensive in the grocery stores, and is rarely locally-grown. Most fruits in my local grocery store come from Central and South America, wasting enormous amounts of resources (such as gas) in their world-travels before they make it to me. Not to mention the US governmental oversight on these items appears to be lax, and it is difficult, if not impossible, to discern the amount of chemicals used in the growing and “preserving” process. And I’m loathe to eat a grape that frankly must have been picked at least a week or two before it gets into my hands.

Last week, while shopping at Publix with a painful hankering for some fresh fruit, I was stymied on all fronts. The strawberries were from California, the grapes were from Chile, something else – now forgotten - was from Ecuador, and the cantaloupes were from Honduras. Have we maybe gone too far in our desire to have what we want RIGHT WHEN WE WANT IT? Was it really so bad in the good old days (say only 10, 20 years ago) when you just couldn’t find blueberries in your grocery store except during the summer harvesting months? Were we such deprived consumers that it would kill us to go a couple of months without red bell peppers?

We’ve now gotten to the point that seemingly anything we want can be obtained not only any month out of the year, but at exceedingly low prices, at any grocery store in town. Of course, most of the produce is completely tasteless (come on – I know you’ve noticed that tomatoes no longer taste like, well, tomatoes), and surely it hasn’t escaped our notice that it just isn’t possible for fresh strawberries to STAY fresh for an entire week while they truck themselves cross-country to our table.

Though I hadn’t joined a CSA before now, I have tried to be more mindful about my produce purchases for the past year. While I haven’t completely denied myself every out-of-season item, I’ve been more careful to read the teeny-weeny little stickers to see where everything comes from, and when I plan our menus for the week, I have tried to include vegetables that are more or less in season locally (even though it has proved virtually impossible to FIND these items locally unless I were willing to do my shopping only during the summer months at the local farmers market). But this is no longer enough for me. I’m blessedly pregnant now, and am militantly hyper-vigilant about eating organically when pregnant or breastfeeding - caring for a miniature person is an awesome responsibility.

I’ve also been looking for a new cooking challenge.

The biggest complaint that I’ve read about CSAs is that, of course, you don’t get to give the farmer your grocery list and have them pick the items that you are craving at the moment. You get, obviously, what is growing at the moment, essentially only what is local and seasonal. To me, this is a minutely minor sacrifice. And a beautiful challenge for a cook. Look, if collards are all that’s growing for a month, I’m more than up to the challenge of searching far and wide for imaginative recipes in which to stave off any boredom after eating the same vegetable every day for weeks. And if I don’t find asparagus in my weekly pack from the farm, well, I doubt I’ll die of roasted-asparagus-deprivation.

So, over dinner last week, I broached the subject with The Carnivore that I married. I explained the CSA concept; I briefly enumerated the benefits to the environment, to the local economy, and to our health; and I, at length, detailed the creative cooking challenge that I craved. And of course I mentioned that everything was going to taste WAY better than the produce I’ve been buying at the supermarket. The Carnivore listened carefully, and then asked about the cost. I took a deep breath – I was prepared for this; I’m an accountant – and said, “Well, that’s the only drawback.” The up-front fee was a little disconcerting to him. After all, who wants to pre-pay their grocery bill for the next three or four months?

He asked for a few days to think it over, and I, well-versed in negotiation tactics, thanked him for his open-mindedness about the idea and especially expressed my appreciation that he didn’t just laugh and dismiss the whole thing as a little too hippie for his taste. He grinned at me over his plate and replied, “Well, you are a hippie, but I love you.” Hey, he’s voted Republican in more elections than I’ve even been eligible to vote in. I was proud of him for humoring me. And I also knew he was aware of the benefits. I love to cook; it wasn’t lost on him that any cooking challenge that I looked forward to this much was going to serve him well come dinnertime. But, for the record here, I am most assuredly NOT a hippie.

For the next two days, I bit my tongue often in my barely-successful attempts to refrain from nagging The Carnivore about joining a CSA. I knew the deadline for membership had to be getting close, and I also knew that the local CSAs, especially the one I was most interested in, filled up quickly. Then, on Thursday, The Carnivore opened up the Atlanta newspaper and went to hand me the food section. He did a double-take when he saw the cover story, and then he scratched his goatee, sighing a little. “This is probably like singing to the choir,” he said, “but here’s a story on that thing you were talking about.”

Very cool. I hereby express my thanks to the entire feature-writing team at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

I grabbed for the paper, eager to read more, especially since this would be the first relatively-local article that I had seen on Community Sponsored Agriculture, but then I hesitated. “Wait,” I said, “would you like to read this first so you can maybe better understand what I’m saying about the whole thing?”

“No,” replied The Carnivore,” it’s not that important what it says. The only thing that matters to me is that this is something you want.”

I love this man.

But still he said nothing about being willing to make the financial commitment. And since I only contribute about 20% of the total household income, I felt pretty strongly that this wasn’t a decision I could just make on my own. And I’m not stupid. I needed total buy-in from him on this if it was going to work on an ongoing basis for our family.

A few more days passed, and I got more anxious with each passing hour. Then, yesterday, I got an email from the Full Moon Cooperative announcing the spring and summer CSA program along with the details and the costs. Ecstatic, I called The Carnivore. The price was only a little more than HALF what I had told him earlier, and the season was beginning this week. And, most importantly, there was no time to waste. The shares were limited to 15 for the spring 3-week program, and to 40 for the summer 10-or-so-week program. “I know what I want for Mother’s Day,” I practically shouted into the phone. I quickly explained the two seasonal options to him, sure he would at least agree to the short season, and giggled while I told him the lower-than-expected price.

“Sure,” he said easily, “go ahead and join.”

“Just the short spring option?” I asked nervously, “or can we afford the commitment to doing both spring and summer?”

"Both," he answered. And I swear I could hear the smile in his voice; he knew he was scoring major points with me. I would, without a doubt, marry this man again.

Our first weekly pickup is this Friday. I’m practically vibrating with anticipation. I CAN’T WAIT TO SEE WHAT IS IN OUR FIRST BAG.

The Golden Grain of Salt

Somehow, even with all that went wrong this year, I'm apparently genetically incapable of thinking it was a bad year. After all, how can any year spent with Odd Toddler be bad? So I keep getting the Tori Amos "Pretty Good Year" song in my head every time I think about waving goodbye to 2006.

I've never been big on New Year's Resolutions, but still have tended to make a half-hearted attempt each year. Resolving NOT to do something, or to ALWAYS do something seemed to be too self-limiting and weirdly negative, so I long ago found a way around it. Most years, my resolutions would be something fun and easily accomplished, like "This year I will visit a new city," or "I will take a non-credit short course through the continuing education center and learn something new." Last New Year's Eve, I was 13 weeks pregnant and feeling great. I called mom, laughing, and said "I've got it. I know what my New Year's Resolution will be. In 2006, I resolve to give birth to my second child." (See, it never occurs to me that something can go wrong). Three weeks later, I gave birth to a stillborn preemie. Six months later, I had a miscarriage. And three-and-a-half months after that, I miscarried again.

I thought about trying again on the same resolution this year, but I'd rather not set myself up for failure. We're still gunning for that elusive second child, but The Carnivore and I have both found some sort of peace with the whole debacle now and it isn't something I feel comfortable making a resolution about. If anything, all of this has implanted some new sensitivity gene in me (something I always used to be woefully lacking in), and has made me even more desperately thankful for what I DO have.

Regardless, we have had a good year in spite of it all. Business has been good for The Carnivore, and Odd Toddler has become more fun, more interesting (and more odd) with every passing day. I wouldn't trade a minute of my life, but at the same time I'm excited about the new year as well. New adventures with Odd Toddler, new projects around the house and land, and of course, always the possibility of a new baby. But here I am, staring down the face of a new year, and wondering if I should have a resolution at all. It seems like cheating to not resolve to do SOMETHING, so I thought myself to be incredibly clever when I came up with [what I thought was] something great. I stood in front of Big Mama, and announced, "I've got it. I have a New Year's Resolution. This year, I resolve to try a new recipe." She stared blankly at me for a moment, and then hesitantly repeated what I had said, "You're going to try a new recipe." "Yeah," I replied, excitedly, "See, I try new recipes all the time, so this way I can't fail." She looked at me a little longer, and then nodded and walked away.

Next, I went to The Carnivore. "I have a New Year's Resolution ready. This year, I resolve to try a new recipe." I got another blank stare in return. One hand stroking the back of his head, he then looked mildly crestfallen and asked, "Only one new recipe? All year?" "Nooooooo," I answered, "I just mean that I can knock out my resolution early. I'll be sure to try a new recipe by the end of the day on January 1st, which means I can already scratch it off my list and be done." "Hmmmm," he said absentmindedly, and ducked back behind his newspaper.

I'm feeling very misunderstood right now. And I'm scrapping the whole dumb New Year's Resolution concept entirely. Besides, I've come up with something better...

This time of year, I love reading everyone's annual "Best of..." lists. You know, Top 10 books of 2006, Top 10 albums of the year, and so forth (and thank God we are well past the beginning of the new millenium when we had to endure all those bloody long-winded Best of The Century lists). In yesterday's AJC Food Section, they gave their annual Golden Whisk Awards, and I had one of my completely absurd "Eureka!" moments. Instead of planning for the New Year, I will embrace the old year. Thus, this year, I will give out my first annual Golden Grain of Salt Award to the best new recipe that I've tried from a newspaper, magazine, or cookbook. These won't be recipes that I have developed (I can't give an award to myself), but will be recipes that I have clipped, cooked, and loved. The awards committee will consist of me and The Carnivore, and possibly some small weight will be given to Odd Toddler's demanding palate, but I doubt it.

It is entirely possible that I'm taking myself too darn seriously, but hey, if you don't like it, you can always get your own blog.

And so, without enough fanfare, The Carnivore and I are proud to announce that the 2006 First Annual Golden Grain of Salt Award goes to Rustic Bread with Dark Chocolate, Olive Oil and Salt. I first found this recipe early this year in an article on chocolate in the AJC Food Section. The recipe published in the newspaper was adapted from Tapas: A Taste of Spain in America by Jose Andres with Richard Wolffe. And, interestingly, an even more (and I think overly) adapted version made it into the 2006 Golden Whisk Awards.

I first made this for The Carnivore back in March (I think) and we were hooked from the first bite. The interplay between the bittersweet chocolate and the large granules of salt was beautiful in and of itself, but the addition of the glossy and slightly fruity olive oil created an unbelievably complex and totally unexpected flavor. A month or so later, I made this for my mother-in-law and she raved about it too (proving that The Carnivore and I don't just have weird tastes - I think). The recipe is easy enough to make on any old weeknight, but would even be elegant enough for a dinner party dessert.

The recipe calls for a rustic bread (thick crust, light interior) and this caused me some grief at first. I stood around at the bakery for a few minutes, shuffling my feet and asking questions until someone suggested ciabatta bread (which can be found in the Publix bakery and most small local bakeries), which turned out to be perfect. According to the published recipe from the AJC, sourdough would be too dense.

My next point of contention was with the chocolate. The recipe simply specified dark chocolate, but the grocery stores are slap full of choices now and it can become a bit overwhelming. Where you used to find milk chocolate, semi-sweet chocolate and dark chocolate, you are now bombarded with various percentages of cocoa and even geographical choices. Naturally, I have tasted my way down this entire grocery store aisle now, and can safely recommend the mild (not too bitter, not too cloyingly sweet) and easily obtainable 60% cacao dark chocolate. There are many brands, and I'm partial to Lindt, though I can be just as happy with Ghirardelli. Word of caution: the 85% cacao dark chocolate is more bitter than an unroasted coffee bean, and has the approximate consistency of dirt (and frankly doesn't taste much better). Avoid it if you can.

RUSTIC BREAD WITH DARK CHOCOLATE, OLIVE OIL AND SALT (serves 4 people, so long as they exhibit self-control)

• 4 (1/2-inch thick) slices rustic bread, such as ciabatta
• 4 oz dark chocolate, chopped into small pieces
• 4 Tbs extra-virgin olive oil
• Coarse sea salt, to taste (regular table salt will NOT work)

1. Toast the bread until tan, and then place on a foil-lined baking sheet.
2. Scatter the chopped chocolate over the toasted bread.
3. Bake at 200 degrees until chocolate melts but doesn't start to run all over the place, about 5 minutes.
4. Drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with sea salt, and serve warm.

The Sous-Chef Shrimp

Odd Toddler rarely gets to eat dinner with us any longer, which takes some of the entertainment value out of dinnertime but which makes it much easier to clean up afterwards. The odd one crashes at 7:00 every evening, after an early evening snack of fruit, yogurt, and (ugh) jelly beans. The problem is that The Carnivore and I never seem to make it to the dinner table any earlier than 8:30. This wasn't the case for the past few years, but we seem to be reverting to our old ways now that life is returning to normal (read: we no longer have a helpless little baby in charge of the schedule).

Life with toddlers is much more fun than life with newborns, though I would give my right arm to actually HAVE another newborn in our lives, and every day seems like an adventure now. It may take an hour to pick up three items at the grocery store, since we have to stop and get a free balloon, pick out a gumball, discuss the different tomatoes, talk about spices, say hello to the lobsters in the tank, etc; but I much more enjoy simple, annoying chores like grocery shopping now that I get it to see everything through the eyes of a two-year-old. He really gets off on going to Walmart (my idea of Hell), and filling up the car with gas can provide endless entertainment. But lately, the little guy has taken more of an interest in cooking, and he'll knock me down to be the one who gets to pulse the sauce in the food processor, or scoop the coffee into the French Press, or even to carry the vegetables from the refrigerator to the chopping block.

I'm loving it. All of it.

Sometimes, when I'm stirring something on the stove and dicking around with the final seasonings, I will sit Odd Toddler on the counter and hold out the wooden spoon to get his opinion. Taste tests are his favorite part about cooking, and he watches me carefully to make sure he does his part correctly. He'll lean over the spoon, sniffing it carefully and trying to make appropriate noises. Then he'll take the smallest taste, smack his lips together, swallow, and exuberantly proclaim, "That's YUMMY for me, mom!"

So of course its mildly disappointing that Odd Toddler rarely gets to sit down with The Carnivore and I at dinnertime and discuss the meal with us. Because of course we discuss every aspect of every meal, deciding whether or not a new recipe is a keeper, whether there is enough salt or if another herb or spice might be lacking, which ingredients might be tweaked, and so on. And every night The Carnivore makes my efforts worthwhile when he thanks me for a delicious dinner (even if we analyzed the final result to within an inch of its life and deemed it not entirely delicious after all). Its nice to be appreciated.

I've been on a new-recipe-every-night kind of kick lately, and have found the time to pore over some new cookbooks and get some quality time with my cooking magazines. Variety can be difficult within our self-imposed dietary restrictions, so I'm always looking for new riffs on pasta dishes, and I enjoy adding seafood to our meals once or twice a week as a way to appease The Carnivore's desire for flesh on his plate without his having to succumb to his disgusting red meat cravings. For the past couple of weeks, I have eyed a Creamy Cajun Shrimp Linguine recipe from the September issue of Cooking Light magazine, but there were a few elements of the recipe that gave me pause and it took me a while to get up the nerve to give it a shot. I finally went for it on Monday evening, and The Carnivore and I were very pleasantly surprised (Big Mama claims its her new favorite). The flavors were simple yet tasty, the texture was great and the overall look and taste of the dish was restaurant-quality, but the dish was amazingly quick and easy to prepare. Most surprising though is how rich and creamy the sauce tastes, while being quite healthy and relatively low-fat. Maybe its time to quit dissing Cooking Light all the time. The only tweaks I made were switching vegetable broth for the chicken broth, using whole-wheat noodles instead of icky white ones, upping the butter a little, and doubling the Cajun seasoning measurement.

CREAMY CAJUN SHRIMP LINGUINE (serves 3, adapted from Cooking Light)

• 1 cup water
• 14 oz vegetable broth
• 6 oz whole-wheat linguine noodles
• 1 lb medium shrimp, peeled and deveined
• 3 Tbs unsalted butter
• 8-oz sliced mushrooms
• 1 large red bell pepper, cut into 1/4-inch-thick slices
• 2 tsps all-purpose flour
• 2 tsps Cajun seasoning (I used Emeril's Bayou Blast)
• 1/4 tsp kosher salt
• 2/3 cup half-and-half
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

1. Combine 1 cup water and broth in a Dutch oven; bring to a boil.
2. Break pasta in half; add to pan. Bring mixture to a boil. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer for 8 minutes.
3. Add shrimp to pan. Cover and simmer for 3 minutes or until shrimp are done; drain.
4. Melt butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Add mushrooms and pepper to pan; saute 4 minutes or until moisture evaporates.
5. Add flour, seasoning, and salt to pan; saute 30 seconds.
6. Stir in half-and-half; cook 1 minute or until thick, stirring constantly. Remove from heat.
7. Toss together the sauce, the pasta and shrimp, and the parsley.

Getting Cozy (Not Complacent)

Pumpkin was kind enough to stroke my ego last week with a short list of recipe requests, and I was tickled that someone else had noticed that Soup Season has begun. My only complaint about summer is that it precludes all manner of my chowder recipes. And I luuuuurrve chowders. In these parts of the world, we only get about four months of cold weather, and two of those months would be laughable to anyone who lives 100 miles or so north of us. I'm more of a South Florida kind of person as a general rule, but very few things can make me feel as cozy and comforted as a big pot of soup simmering on the stove.

I experimented with some different soup recipes last winter, but was often frustrated by how seemingly few options are available to those who eschew meat in their diets. To add to the issues, The Carnivore is rarely impressed by tomato-based vegetable stews. Our options were dwindling.

I have one great Italian Vegetable Soup recipe that can be enjoyed year-round (yes, even in summer - though possibly not in South Florida), along with a great onion soup. For the winter, I save my small handful of chilis, New England style chowders, and bean soups. But my problem is that I crave variety. And ease of work. Two often very conflicting criteria. Plus, the more Vegetarian-ish a soup is, the more The Carnivore sighs heavily and asks me if I can go by the store to pick him up some meat.

A week or so ago, while Odd Toddler and I were snuggling under an afghan in our pajamas, watching Lord of the Rings for the seven hundredth time, my annual soup cravings started again. Sadly, there were no memorable recipes from last winter, so I kicked the soup idea around in my head for a few days before running into a time crunch while making the menu and grocery list for last week. I grabbed a couple of past issues of Cooking Light on my way out the door and reached for the recipes I'd marked to try, hoping something would strike my fancy on the fly. Lucky me, there was a Leek and Potato Chowder in the Reader Recipes section that sounded worthwhile, and called for an intriguing list of ingredients.

I was excited to make the soup on Friday night, and asked The Carnivore to stop by the store and pick up some French bread on his way home. Alas, I made it almost to the end of the recipe before realizing the arugula in the crisper drawer had died a sad and science-project-like death. I stood in despair by the stove for a few minutes before admitting defeat and starting over on a completely new dinner. The unfinished soup was set aside and refrigerated overnight to be completed on Saturday.

Saturday came, along with yet another trip to the store (the only store in this whole dang town who actually carries arugula, and I was finally ready to finish the soup. The Carnivore built a fire, the soup simmered on the stove, the bread was crisping in the oven, and my little family was happy and healthy. All the good things about winter were coming together at the same time. Of course, I still had my doubts about the soup, even as I was cooking it. The cook's notes at the top of the recipe mentioned that the author had developed the recipe for a vegetarian hiking retreat (not something I wanted to mention to The Republican Carnivore ahead of time).

I've mentioned it before, but its worth repeating. Recipes that are deliberately vegetarian can lean towards the pointless. This particular vegetarian looks at all Vegetarian Recipes as possibly suspect.

After a few taste tests, and a few additional tweaks to the original recipe, I was cautiously hopeful that I had a winner. When everything was ready, I ladled the soup out and served it with warm, crusty French bread. I took the first couple of bites and was more than a little surprised at how delicious it was. The creamy base of the soup came from pureed potatoes rather than milk or cream, and while it sounds great in theory, I had been worried that the lowfat trick would affect the texture and the depth of flavor. I found though that a complexity of taste could be faked with the addition of some cooking sherry (I love adding this stuff to bisques and chowders), and a little (okay a lot) of added salt and pepper helped punch up the flavor of the potatoes .

And most surprisingly, The Carnivore loved it (and even mentioned that he thought the texture was wonderful - imagine his surprise when he found out the texture came not from cream, but from the potatoes themselves). Even Odd Toddler enjoyed the soup, although his pleasure came mostly from dunking his bread in the soup and then slurping up the soggy crumbs. We're thrilled to have a new and different, and extremely healthy, chowder to add to our winter soup repertoire.

POTATO LEEK SOUP (serves four, created by Lisa Gilbert, heavily adapted by Sarah)

• 1 Tbs olive oil
• 2 to 3 leeks, white and light green parts only, thinly sliced and rinsed
• 2 1/2 lbs cubed Yukon gold potatoes (keep the peel on for added texture and fiber)
• 5 cups vegetable broth
• 2 cups thinly sliced (or chopped) arugula
• 1 tsp kosher salt
• 1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
• 1/2 tsp white pepper
• 1/8 cup sherry (cheap cooking sherry is fine)

1. Heat oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add leeks and saute 5 minutes or until tender.
2. Add potato and vegetable broth, and bring to a boil. Reduce heat, and simmer 25 minutes or until potato is tender.
3. Place 3 cups of potato mixture into a blender (remove center piece of blender lid to allow steam to escape) and blend until smooth.
4. Return pureed potatoes to pan; bring to a simmer.
5. Stir in arugula, salt, both kinds of pepper, and sherry; simmer for another minute or two until arugula wilts.
6. Serve with warm bread.
7. Snuggle in front of the fire with your family and be thankful that you aren't going cold or hungry.

Please remember that Tuesday, November 7 is Election Day. Our right to vote is just one of the many things that make this country so great. It doesn't take much time or effort to educate yourself about the issues and the candidates , and it is hardly an inconvenience to go to the polling place and cast your vote. It is abysmally sad that only about 45% of registered voters are expected to hit the polls for the midterm elections. The polls are open for twelve hours. Make the time to get your voice heard.

Truly Fine Cooking

It’s tough being a constant contradiction to myself. I don’t eat red meat or chicken, but I have found Vegetarian Times magazine to piss me off so much politically that I just get cranky when I try to read it. Not to mention that most recipes in most vegetarian publications tend to be long on beans and tofu, but short on flavor. I’ve never understood why the word “vegetarian” connotes “tasteless” to most people. I run into this same issue with cookbooks that are strictly vegetarian, with the lonely exceptions of The Moosewood Restaurant and The Grit cookbooks.

And as much as I strive to eat healthfully, Cooking Light magazine is beginning to grate on me with its tendency to use cooking spray instead of olive oil, and egg substitute instead of real eggs. I mean, I totally understand the point of saving some calories, but if you have to sacrifice REAL FOOD and rely on chemical imitations, then you’re missing the point of healthy eating, at least in my book.

Maybe I’m just middle of the road, but I think a little moderation would solve all of these problems. I don’t eat an excess of high fat foods, but I also don’t count calories either. I don’t skip dessert, but I do tend to eat 1 ounce of bittersweet dark chocolate rather than, say, a candy bar or a doughnut. Read: higher antioxidants, less saturated fat. And far more flavor. You can eat healthfully without depriving yourself.

I have nothing personally against eggs, and I steadfastly refuse to use egg substitute because I can’t figure out what the heck it is. Doubly troubling is that I have to discard any recipe that calls for egg substitute because (get this) I don’t know the proportions for substituting real eggs for egg substitute. Asinine? Yes. I have also found that with Cooking Light recipes that call for cooking spray in sautés, the final product tends to be bland and pointless. Look, I can save a lot more calories by just not eating the flavorless recipe in the first place. I still read Cooking Light, cover to cover, but I do it more now for the articles about food and cooking techniques than I do for the recipes.

I’ve sat in the bookstore and thumbed through the crazily diversified selection of foodie magazines, looking for more inspiration, but I’ve been mostly disappointed and just haven’t wanted to waste my money. For the most part, I continue to get most of my recipes from yard sale cookbooks, websites and the AJC Food Section. But there are few things I enjoy more than spending 30 minutes drinking a cup of tea and reading a truly interesting article in a cooking publication. I have a lot to learn, and I’m downright hungry for the knowledge.

Bon Apetit is too snooty for me, and Gourmet focuses too much on meat. The little mini-sized Rachel Ray and Martha Stewart magazines have recipes, but no real articles to read (lots of pictures, very few words). I’ve looked longingly at Fine Cooking many times while in the checkout line, and despite how completely fascinating I find the articles, the cover price has been too much of an obstacle for me to get past. I would just hate to spend seven dollars and then not find a single recipe that I wanted to try. Nothing drives me crazier than wasting money. I am cheap. I can’t help it.

But then two of my favorite people gave me a couple of recent issues of Fine Cooking and I was downright hooked. It was during one of those weekends where Odd Toddler shadowed The Carnivore around every waking minute and I found myself with unexpected time on my hands. I cleaned the house in record time, made a French-press pot of coffee, and went out to the porch swing where I read EVERY SINGLE WORD of every single article (including the ones about meat – hey, I pass on tips and techniques to The Carnivore that are much appreciated). The product review and the reader tip sections were unsurpassed, but I also found a good five or six recipes that looked worth trying, and I picked up some great information in an article on fresh basil (I have a love affair with basil). I couldn’t wait to try a couple of recipes and see whether the recipes would live up to the beauty of the writing.

Indeed. I haven’t been disappointed yet. The beauty of the Fine Cooking recipes, I have discovered, is that they use fresh ingredients, intriguing combinations, and overall tend to be quite healthy, but they aren’t scared of using butter or olive oil. And nowhere in the three issues that I’ve read so far is any mention of bloody egg substitute. Even better, the recipes aren’t overly complicated, and a few of them have been delightfully quick and easy. My favorite recipe so far has been a linguine recipe that has been easy to fit into my repertoire (which generally revolves around Italian food anyway) and is quick enough that I can throw it together on a weeknight with a salad and fresh vinaigrette along with a side of lemon-basil bruschetta. Amazingly, this dish has been a hit with everyone from my one-year-old nephew to my mother. And yes, The Carnivore and Odd Toddler are HUGE fans as well. But yeah, I have cut down the amount of butter originally called for in the recipe. 'Cause remember, its much easier to lower the fat in a recipe than it is to add it back in again.

*****

LINGUINE WITH HOT CHILE, CARAMELIZED ONION & GREMOLATA (serves four to six, adapted from Fine Cooking)

• 2 Tbs extra virgin olive oil
• 1 large yellow onion, very thinly sliced
• 1/2 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
• kosher salt
• 1 serrano or other fresh small, hot red or green chile, seeded and finely diced
• 1/4 cup unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
• 3 Tbs fresh lemon juice (puh-leeze do not use bottled lemon juice here)
• 1 lb dried whole-wheat linguine
• 1/3 cup roughly chopped fresh flat-leaf Italian parsley
• 1 large clove garlic, finely chopped
• 1 tsp finely chopped lemon zest
• 1/2 cup grated Pecorino Romano
• coarsely ground black pepper

1. Bring a large pot of well-salted water to a boil. Cook the linguine until al dente, and drain.
2. Meanwhile, heat the oil in a 10-inch skillet over medium heat. Add the onion and red pepper flakes, season with a big pinch of kosher salt, and cook, stirring frequently, until tender and nicely browned, about 15 minutes.
3. Add the chile and continue to cook for 1 minute.
4. Turn off the heat, add the butter, and swirl the pan to melt.
5. Add the lemon juice and another pinch of kosher salt. Keep warm.
6. Combine the parsley, garlic, and lemon zest on a cutting board and chop them together until the parsley is finely chopped and mixed well with the lemon and garlic.
7. Return the pasta to its cooking pot. Over medium heat, add the onion mixture to the pasta and toss to combine.
8. Add the 1/2 cup Pecorino and the entire parsley mixture, quickly toss again, and add salt and freshly ground pepper to taste.

If You Can't Take The Heat...

It's good to be home. After a week of pretending to be Big Mama while Mom was in the hospital, things are returning to normal. Odd Toddler and I have moved back to our house (just a few acres away from Big Mama's House), and we are getting our usual schedule back in play. But of course, now that things are slowing down and the pressure is off, I came down with a soul-crushing cold and the sleep deprivation has caught up with me. I'm feeling nearly normal again this morning, after 10 hours of sleep, but I'm craving comfort food which, oddly enough, means I need some good Mexican food. Nothing can cure cold symptoms like spicy vittles.

When I was a senior in high school, our family moved to a neighboring county and I began my period of disconnection from my family. I'm sure it happens to all teenage girls when they're finding their wings, but as with everything we do in this odd family of ours, the stakes were a little higher. After years of it just being me and my mother, and after eight years in the same house and the same school system, mom was remarried, had adopted seven children, and we moved to what I considered a backwards county. Even though money was tight, mom came up with the out-of-area tuition required to let me finish high school in my old county (the one we are all living in again now), and I commuted to my old school while mom's other children started their new life in a new school. I think we all were aware on some level that this would only add to my feelings of being an outsider in the family, but I was in journalism, advanced placement and gifted classes that simply weren't offered in the county we had moved to, and we weren't willing to lower the standards of my education in the last year before I would start college.

So the disconnection began. There were serious growing pains for me in learning to share my mother with a stepfather I wasn't altogether crazy about, along with seven very emotionally needy children who joined our family within two years. And, at sixteen years of age, I didn't know any other way to channel my resentment than to pull away from the family. I left early in the mornings to putt-putt my way to school in my '79 Chevette, and I headed straight to work from school every day. On weekends, I would go straight out with my friends after work and come home only one minute before my curfew, racing to turn off the Curfew Alarm Clock before it rang outside my mother's bedroom door. It was petulant behavior, and I'm sure I knew it even then, but I was searching for my place in the world. And I think I felt determined to prove to my mother that I didn't need her anymore.

But I distinctly remember coming down with a vicious sinus infection one afternoon and calling my mother from work to whine and to test her to see if she still cared. She, like all good mothers, listened to my complaints and told me to come straight home after work so she could tend to me. I limped pitifully into the house, subconciously daring the other children to try and take mom's attention from me, and sat at the kitchen table while mom puttered around, warming up a plate of spaghetti for me, and then dousing it with a generous flood of jalapeno juice. Yep, good old jap juice. I slurped up the food, loving it when the heat of the pepper hit my sinuses and cleared the cotton out of my head so I could breathe freely again. Mom had done it. She had proved she still loved me. Nobody else would have known how to make me feel THAT much better.

Pepper juice is a long-standing tradition in my mother's house. Its nothing more than the water from a jar of store-bought jalapenos, water that has been infused over time with the heat of the peppers until it can tickle your tongue and spice up any food that its poured upon. And to this day, if I get a cold or any sort of sinus trouble (or even feel the least bit sad), I reach for something spicy. But of course, instead of buying Old El Paso jars of jalapenos, I have now found better and (dare I say it) more gourmet ways to go about this. My new favorite Respiratory Cure is canned chipotles in adobo sauce, an incredibly complex and nearly painfully spicy condiment that can be found in the International aisle of any small-town grocery store. I buy a tiny little can every couple of months, puree it in the food processor, and then freeze it in an ice cube tray. Once the cubes are frozen, I pop them out of the tray and toss them in a freezer bag where I can pull them out one at a time when I need a tablespoon of serious spice to add to a recipe. It's easy to go overboard with these things though, so judicious use is recommended.

Tonight, for the first time in more than a week, I will cook in my own kitchen again, and I will eat at a table. No shouting will be involved, and I won't have to eat standing up (at Big Mama's house, the woman in charge doesn't bother to sit down to eat because she knows there isn't time for that). And, since I'm still a little tired and still a little stuffed up, I'll whip us up an easy batch of Black Bean Quesadillas and Cristy's Salsa to cure what ails me.

BLACK BEAN QUESADILLAS, adapted from the AJC Food Section (serves 8)

• 1 (15-oz) can black beans, rinsed and drained
• 1 (14.5-oz) can petite diced tomatoes (I use Rotel Hot diced tomatoes and peppers)
• 1/2 cup finely chopped onion
• 1/2 cup chopped bell pepper
• 1/2 cup loosely packed, chopped fresh cilantro
• 1 Tbs pureed canned chipotles in adobo sauce
• 2 tsps chili powder
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 1 tsp ground coriander
• 1 tsp cumin
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/8 tsp cayenne
• 1/2 tsp ground black pepper
• 16 tortillas (I prefer whole-wheat tortillas, but flour or even corn torillas would work)
• 1 cup salsa
• 2 cups shredded Monterey jack cheese
• Cooking spray

1. In a large bowl, combine the beans, tomatoes, onion, bell pepper, cilantro, chipotles in adobo, chili powder, oregano, coriander, cumin, salt, cayenne and black pepper.
2. Preheat a large skillet (I prefer cast-iron) over medium heat and lightly coat with cooking spray.
3. Place one tortilla on the skillet. Spread with one Tbs of salsa. Top with 1/2 cup of black bean mixture, and sprinkle with 1/4 cup of cheese. Cover with a second tortilla.
4. Cook until bottom is lightly browned and crispy; flip and cook on the second side.
5. Repeat with remaining tortillas. (Note: keep cooked quesadillas warm on a cookie sheet in a 200-degree oven until all quesadillas are ready to be served).
6. Serve with sour cream and more salsa. A little guacamole goes nicely as well.
7. Breathe freely and wipe your nose as needed.

Life is an Adventure

Odd Toddler and I are staying over at Mom's house for the next few days, taking care of the 20 or so children left at home while Mom is in the hospital. As such, any cooking I will be doing will be done on a much larger scale than usual, and will most certainly NOT involve any recipes that would be worth sharing here.

For more on our shenanigans, see Big Mama Hollers where I will be lurking and posting until Mom is well enough to hold her laptop again.

The Blessings Just Keep on Coming

The last few days have been tough, and yesterday was one of the longest days of my life as we waited until nearly seven o'clock at night to find out the results of mom's CT scan. I had worked so hard to hold it together over the previous week, and most of all to not obsess, that I don't think I realized the stress I had been under until I got home last night and just collapsed on the sofa. I was so wiped out that The Carnivore and I ended up eating a late night dinner of nachos. Um-hum. Cooked in the microwave, no less. 'Twas a new low. But the news from mom was so good that I felt it canceled out the nachos.

So I kicked into high gear this morning, made the menu for the next week, planned a casserole that I could make for The Carnivore so that he doesn't starve while I spend the weekend at mom's, got the grocery shopping done, picked up work, went to the bank, took a deep breath. Etc.

And then I loaded up my briefcase and set up at mom's house to get some work done today. First thing: open the mail that had been wallowing in my bag for the past four days. I sorted the stack into smaller piles, opened the junk mail to shred the sensitive stuff, separated the recyclable paper from that which needed to be filed, and then looked askance at an unexpected envelope from Fine Cooking. The outside said something about a free gift, but I had my doubts.

Fine Cooking is one of the greatest publications of all time. I love it. Ms. Carr has brought me a few issues over the past year, and mom even bought one for me one day to thank me for doing something. Really, I love it. I read every word, cover to cover (even the articles on meat!), and I've gotten some of our favorite recipes from this magazine. In line at the grocery store, I will look longingly at new issues and try to read a quick article, praying that the person in front of me will write a check or do something equally slow that will cause the line to be held up.

So here I was this morning, breathing audible sighs of relief that mom had gotten such good news from the doctor, glaring at the pile of work that I've been ignoring for the past couple of days, and basically just feeling out of sorts from the tension of the last week. And then I opened the envelope from Fine Cooking, scornfully of course, expecting yet another piece of junk mail.

I was wrong.

The tiny piece of paper inside said, "A gift of a 2 year subscription to Fine Cooking is on its way to you from Paula in Minnesota."

I am humbled. Deeply humbled. I am continually surprised and grateful for the support that mom receives from her online network of adoptive families, but I am humbled to my core that a woman I have never even met, the mother of 20-something children, would bless ME in such a thoughtful and huge way.

Then again, since she is also the wonderful woman who passed on her incredible blackberry vinaigrette recipe, I should have already known how cool she is.

I'm sure this post is going to embarass the heck out of Paula, and I bet she would have preferred that I not even mention this publicly, but since many of the recipes that I will be blogging in the near future will be thanks to her, then I think it is only fitting that she get public credit.

Thank you, Paula. You rock.