San Juan Islands in Winter

How long does it take to rejuvenate two tired parents?

Just one night, as it turns out.

With a cozy evening, a blustery walk to a lovely dinner.

It doesn't matter that it was stormy and cold. All the better for cuddling.

Thank you Orcas Island.

Gingered Beets with Avocado

I've written many times about beets on this blog. They are a wonderful vegetable and under appreciated. Their sweet earthy flavor pairs well with strong ingredients. Some of my favorite combinations include blue cheese, feta cheese, ginger, balsamic vinegar, and other assertive flavors.

This recipe is for beet aficionados and the beet averse alike. I have served this to a group of food bloggers and to a group who couldn't tell you what a "foodie" is, and both groups praised the recipe. I first ate this on a visit to Alice Water's Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California. If you are weary of beets, you will be surprised by how much you enjoy this simple trio of flavors: the sweet beets, the bite of the ginger, and the salty richness of the avocado.

Gingered Beets with Avocado

4 medium sized beets

2 avocados

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 teaspoons grated fresh ginger

salt

Place the grated ginger in a bowl and cover with the oil. Allow to rest.

Cook the beets by either boiling them or roasting them. Chez Panisse roasted their beets drizzled in oil, with half an orange added to the pan, and covered with foil. The beets are ready when you can pierce them with a fork. This will take about 45 to 60 minutes, depending on the size of the beets. When they are cool enough to touch, slip the skins off. They will slip off easily. I do this quickly and under a trickle of water, because the beets will stain your skin.

Toss the beets with the ginger oil.

When you are ready to serve, cut the avocado and sprinkle with a bit of salt. Arrange the avocado and beets together on individual plates. If you toss everything together, the beets will stain the avocados and it won't look as nice. Enjoy!






Thanks to Spud.com for the lovely Washington grown organic beets.

When it's better from a tin can

Sometimes I can't tell if my ideas are brilliant or brilliantly awful. Take my hair for example, soon I plan on looking super hot with either a perm or bangs. I haven't decided which yet. If it turns out to be one of my worst ideas ever, just smile knowingly when you next see me and I am wearing a paper bag on my head.

A recent attempt at Tuna Noodle Casserole is another example of ideas that can either go really well or really poor. I had a bag of shallots and crimini and shiitaki mushrooms in my fridgefrom Spud, and had the idea to make a cream of mushroom soup from scratch, which I would then use to make the casserole.

All started well. I pulsed the mushrooms and a shallot in the food processor and then cooked it down with butter, thyme, wine and fresh cracked pepper. After the flavors concentrated, I added fresh organic whole milk, brought everything up to a low simmer and gave a taste. Hmmmm. Very good.

I boiled the wide egg noodles and opened a can of albacore packed in olive oil. I grated some cheese and turned on the oven. This is where I began to give pause. Does tuna go well with mushrooms and cheddar cheese? Huh. This is a recipe I have made and loved. I usually use a canned soup - Amy's organic cream of mushroom. This casserole is creamy, comforting, cheesy on top. Yeah, that sounds good. Carry on!

I mixed the soup with the drained noodles and folded in the tuna. I added some chopped asparagus for some green. I cracked some extra pepper and sneaked in some smoked salt. I topped it all with the cheese and slid it into the oven.

When I pulled it out of the oven 20 minutes later, the look of melted cheese over creamy noodles held so much promise. I served myself a generous helping and sat down to eat. Hm. This wasn't exactly how I remembered it. Homemade cream of mushroom is really.... mushroomy. I chewed slower. I paused before my next bite.

Am I enjoying this?

I'm not sure.

Well, carry on! I finished the bowl.

A few minutes later, I'm not so sure my belly feels really good.

Nope, my belly definitely does not feel good.

Reflecting on the craziness of mixing creamy mushroom soup, tuna fish and cheddar cheese together, I hope this doesn't ruin a good casserole for me forever.


SOLE Notes: Thanks to Spud.com for the good parts of my meal - the local organic mushrooms, shallots and Fresh Breeze milk!

Winter Vegetables

Life has been a bit busy around here. I am enjoying cooking with local organic winter ingredients, but somewhere between the cooking and bedtime, many meals that were meant for the blog have not made it through all the necessary steps.

Beautiful recipes who will never get their 15 minutes of internet fame...

In lieu of detailed recipes and blog posts, here is a recap of what I have been up to lately...

I have a bag of Bob's Redmill lentils (grown in Washington) that I have been playing around with. Local! Cheap! Protein and fiber! I made so-so soup one day and then a very good lentil dip the next day. The lentil puree dip recipe came from Gluten Free Girl's cookbook. Unfortunately, lentils are not very photogenic, but I asked her to show me her best side.

One of my favorite food-porn cookbooks is "Fresh" by Michele Cranston. Her recipes are simple but creative and the photos are gorgeous! This week, I have been using local organic apples and pears to play around with different versions of Michele's apple and nut crumble cake.

Winter delivery 

I also made vegetable-heavy meat pies using grated parsnip, potato and onion to flavor the Thundering Hooves ground beef and create a cohesive filling. You can find my Nigerian style meat pie recipe here. If you have never made hand-held pies before, you can greatly reduce the work involved by using a pre-made roll of pie dough from the grocery store. They made a very "handy" lunch on the go (I can't help myself.)

This parsnip loves me, he really really loves me. 

SOLE Notes: Thanks to Spud.com for the local and organic parsnips, beets, shallots, leeks, apples, pears, ground beef, lentils, onions, milk and butter. I love my weekly delivery! 

Valentines Day Dinner and a Poem

 I interviewed a florist yesterday for an article that I was writing about Valentines Day. She has had a front row seat to other's romantic plans for the last 16 years. She says that she gives men a pat on the back for buying flowers but doesn't let them off the hook there. "Do you know what you are making for dinner?" she asks,"Have you bought the wine and picked out a couple lines of poetry? Its about the whole ambiance."

I commissioned a poem for my husband last year, from a woman sitting on a chair in a small town square, with a typewriter on her lap. I told her my topic - the coming wedding anniversary to my loving husband who helped me create our beautiful son - and she began pecking away at the keys. "Should I read it to you?" she asked. When she read it, I cried. A perfect anniversary gift.

If you need some poetry of your own, Jacquline Suskin will type out your own custom poem for those who help support her book tour. I hope she comes up to Seattle and if she does I will be sure to tell you. In the meantime, get your poem here.

I made an early Valentine's Day dinner this week - all pinks and reds - without a fake dye in sight. My sister in law taught me to make a coconut shrimp rice, tinted pink with some minced tomatoes. I cooked some ruby chard to serve alongside. Very nice!

SOLE Food: Potato Leek Soup

This potato leek soup is one of those simple recipes that takes just a few ingredients and turns it into something greater than the sum of its parts. It makes a perfect SOLE (Sustainable Organic Local Ethical) meal because local & organic potatoes and leeks are both readily available during the winter and because this soup can be made using my frugal-stock method. 

You can, of course, use any vegetable or chicken stock you have on hand to make this soup. If you are frugal minded though, I encourage you to start a stock-bag in your freezer. You will be surprised how quickly vegetable ends, peels, and wilted bits will fill up a gallon bag kept in the freezer. Because no one in my house in a vegetarian, I add chicken wing tips, backs and bones to the bag for extra flavor.

What I like best about this freezer-stock method is that is sustainable and ethical at its core, for what is better than reducing waste and using what you already have? 

When the bag is full of tasty bits - onions, garlic, leeks, carrots, kale, parsley, celery, fresh herbs, chicken backs - pour it into a large pot (I don't bother defrosting first), cover with just enough water that everything is submerged. Bring to a simmer over medium-high heat and simmer for at least 30 to 45 minutes. Add salt near the end, otherwise it may become too salty as it reduces from simmering. 

Potato Leek Soup

Serves 4

2 cups of diced potato

2 cups of diced leeks

1 tablespoon of butter or oil

4 cups of vegetable or chicken stock

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

salt to taste

 optional: 1/2 cup of whole milk

Cook the diced potato and leeks in the butter, in a medium sized pot over medium heat. After about 5 minutes, add the black pepper and then the stock. Increase the heat to medium-high and bring the soup to a simmer. Simmer for about 15 minutes, or until the potato pieces are soft enough to break up easily. Taste the soup and add salt to taste. 

Use the back of a wooden spoon, or a potato masher, to break up most of the potatoes into the broth, while still leaving some pieces in the soup. Add the milk if you want a creamier soup, and bring back up to temperature before serving. 

SOLE notes: The Washington grown organic potatoes and leeks were sent to my doorstep by Spud.com You can read more about my weekly SOLE meals here. 

In quilting news...

My friend Meghan made this beautiful quilt for a contest recently. It's a great illustration of modern quilting: allowing a level of creativity with fabric that is not stifled by traditional patterns or rules.  

Meaghan is a master at working with solid colors, while I rely on the ease of matching fabrics that have lots of pattern and colors! In this quilt, the color stip pieces are sewn on to a background piece and have loose edges, which you can see if you look carefully at the first photo. The leaves are layered on top of the background strips. 

Super Bowl party fare, how to do local and organic on the cheap!

Getting ready for a party this weekend? You don't have to throw your values out of the window just because guests are coming and you are on a budget.

I'll admit that loving food, and caring about where it comes from and how it was produced, is a trend. As soon as something moves from fringe to trend, there will be haters. There are plenty of people who will put their corn dog down long enough to wipe the grease from their lips and sneer at the "foodies" and their stupid farmers markets, but that doesn't mean food continuousness is not a great thing.

At their worse, foodies can be faulted for being esoteric, expensive and snobby - but we needn't be. The super bowl is just around the corner and I think I can put together a menu that: 

• uses mostly SOLE ingredients - Sustainable, Organic, Local and Ethical
• is inexpensive - under $4 per person!
• can be mostly sourced locally EVEN in the winter 
• appeals to a dozen friends who are busy swigging beer and screaming at the TV!

Deviled Eggs 

They're cheap and easy and everyone loves them. 

approx $5

1 dozen local organic eggs 

1/4 cup of mayonnaise (I didn't say this would be perfect, get over it)

2 teaspoons of Dijon mustard or 1 teaspoon mustard powder

dash of salt and pepper

Place the eggs in a pot of cold salted water. Bring to a boil, boil for 6 minutes. Drain, then rinse under cold water so that they will peel easily.

Peel eggs, slice in half, pop the yolk out and into a bowl. Place the egg whites on a serving platter. 

Whip up the egg yolks with the mayo, mustard, salt and pepper. Put the yolk-mayo mixture into a zip-lock bag. Use the bag to pipe the mixture: Cut the tip off of the corner of the zip lock bag and then squeeze the mixture out into each egg white. 

Chicken Wings

They're hot and spicy and can be made with local chicken (organic if possible)

approx $12

4 pounds of chicken wings

salt, pepper, powdered garlic and chili powder

Follow this simple recipe from Lovely Lanvin for easy chicken wings, replacing the Japanese flavoring with a dash of chili powder, black pepper and garlic powder (unless you already happen to own the special ingredient!). 

Emerald City Salad

A little green from the best green grocer in the northwest - PCC's deli salad.
approx $15

This salad normally includes bell peppers, but in the winter you can leave them out since they are most likely imported during this time.

1 cup uncooked organic wild rice (Lundburg is grown in California)
1/2 cup olive oil
1/2 cup lemon juice
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 bunch organic kale
1/2 bunch organic chard
1/2 of a fennel bulb, thinly sliced
1 bunch green onions, chopped
1/2 cup chopped parsley 

For the full recipe, follow this link to PCC's recipe page.

Sweet Potato Fries with savory yogurt dip
Every party needs something to dip into, right?
approx $8

4 local organic sweet potatoes

4 local organic potatoes

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 tablespoon curry powder

salt and pepper

1 cup plain local organic yogurt

1/2 cup tahini (ground sesame seeds)

2 cloves minced local organic garlic

salt and pepper

Slice the potatoes and sweet potatoes into long wedges, about six "fries" per potato. Heat the oven to 400 degrees.Toss the fries with the olive oil, curry powder, and salt and pepper. Place the regular potatoes on a baking sheet and place in the oven for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, turn the potatoes and add the sweet potatoes. Cook an additional 15 minutes. Turn again and check them for doneness. 

While the fries are roasting, make your dip. Simply whisk together the yogurt, tahini and minced garlic. I like the tang of Nancy's yogurt. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and taste. Add more salt and pepper if necessary. If the dip seems too thick (depending on the thickness of your yogurt and tahini), you can add a drizzle of olive oil to thin it out a bit.