thesis.

I doubt I’ll have time to start posting again regularly, but I just wanted to say hi and share a couple of fun Halloween recipes. Last year Henning and I had a Halloween party and we went a bit wild with the themed food–let’s just say there was a kitty litter cake involved and leave it at that. These two slightly more tame recipes are sure to be a hit at your Halloween party.

The first is for spooky witch finger almond cookies. They taste great and are creepy too! Crunchy almond dough is dyed green and almonds serve as fingernails. If you’re feeling ambitious, you can paint the nails with red food coloring, or even squeeze red decorator gel under the almond nails for a super nasty effect.

The next is a great recipe for Eyeball Punch. The punch was a huge hit at the party, and it makes such a great impression with relatively little work. Eyeballs made out of canned lychees stuffed with grapes float in a clear (spiked, if you wish) fruit punch. Yum! We also made a bloody hand out of cranberry juice frozen in a rubber glove, which added some extra punch to the punch. The idea for the eyeballs came from an old German magazine. Those crazy Deutschlanders, so creative!

Eyeball Punch

For punch
2 parts vodka
2 parts white cranberry juice
1 part white grape juice
1 part lemonade

For eyeballs
4 cans of pitted lychees
1 bunch of smallish dark purple grapesFor bloody hand (optional)
red cranberry juice
clean plastic glove (beware of latex allergies!)

Make sure all ingredients for punch are cold. Freeze the vodka.

Pour red cranberry juice into glove and twist and tie with a rubber band. Freeze for at least 24 hours. It needs to be frozen very hard.

Drain the lychees and carefully insert one grape into each where the pit used to be. If you want to do this ahead of time, put them in a bowl and cover with one of the ingredients of the punch (or a mixture), to keep moist in the fridge.

Mix ingredients for punch in a large, clear punch bowl and add the eyes. When the first guest arrives, snip the plastic glove off of the hand and float it in the punch bowl.

Enjoy!

Witch Finger Cookies

1 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 tsp almond extract
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 3/4 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
green and red food coloring
3/4 cup whole blanched almondsPreheat oven to 325° F. Combine dry ingredients. Lightly grease a cookie sheet.

In a large bowl, beat together butter, sugar, egg, almond extract and vanilla, beat in dry ingredients. Add a small amount of green food coloring and then a drop or two of red food coloring and blend to desired color. (The red makes the green not so bright, but more muted and gross looking.) Cover and refrigerate dough for 30 minutes.

Working with one-quarter of the dough at a time and keeping remaining dough refrigerated, roll heaping teaspoons full of dough into finger shape for each cookie. Press an almond firmly into one end for nail. Squeeze in center to create a knuckle shape and use a paring knife make slashes in several places to form knuckle. If you want to paint the nails, use some red food coloring that’s been diluted with water and brush on with a clean artist’s brush.

Place cookies on the prepared cookie sheet and bake for 20-25 minutes or until pale golden. Let cool for three minutes. If desired, lift up almond and squeeze red decorator gel onto nail bed and press almond back in place so gel oozes out from underneath.

Remove from cookie sheet and let cool on a wire rack. Repeat with remaining dough.

Note: Make cookies smaller than you think they need to be, as they spread when cooking.

Makes about 5 dozen cookies.

Yeah, I know. Just some cucumbers? Yes, and no. This simple cucumber salad is a favorite summertime snack of mine, even more so this summer since I’m growing cucumbers in my garden. The difference between storebought and homegrown veggies is really quite amazing. I mean, I always knew this somehow, but this summer has really shown me. The difference between zucchini picked fresh from my garden and even that bought at the farmer’s market is tremendous. But I digress.

This simple salad is nothing more than slices of cucumber, a splash of mild vinegar, and a pinch each of salt and sugar. It’s simple, cooling, refreshing, and delicious, especially with homegrown cucumbers.

Simple Cucumber Salad

one medium cucumber, peeled and seeded if you like
a splash of mild vinegar, such as white wine or rice wine
a pinch of sugar
a pinch of salt

Slice the cucumber thinly (I use a mandoline-like plastic and ceramic slicer). Toss with remaining ingredients and serve immediately.

Serves 1-2.

This torte dresses up the humble potato and $1-per-pound squash that’s overflowing farmers market stalls right now. It’s quite pretty and it’s tasty enough to be the centerpiece of a summer vegetarian dinner party, but secretly it’s just a matter layering the sliced veggies with some herbs and parmesan and sticking it in the oven. Somehow, when baked together with thyme, green onions, and parmesan cheese, the earthy potatoes and sweet summer squash are elevated far beyond their usual status of standard side veggie and into the realm of the extraordinarily delicious.

Since there are only a few ingredients in this torte, make sure that they are all of high quality. The fresher the squash and firmer the potatoes and nuttier the parmesan, the better it will be.

Herbed Summer Squash and Potato Torte
Adapted from Bon Apetit, via Epicurious

Use any combination of summer squash that you like. I used a yellow crookneck and a white marrow. You can also make this torte in a springform pan, so that you can present it whole on the table. It might leak, as mine did, so you’ll want to wrap the bottom in foil.

1 bunch green onions, thinly sliced
3/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1 1/2 tablespoons all purpose flour
1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme
salt and freshly ground black pepper
4 medium-large Yukon Gold potatoes (about 1 1/4 lbs)
2 medium summer squash (about 1/2 lb)
3 teaspoons olive oil

Preheat oven to 375°F. Grease a 9-inch-diameter cake pan with olive oil or butter. Toss green onions, cheese, flour, and thyme, with 3/4 teaspoon salt and 1/2 teaspoon pepper in medium bowl to blend.

Cut the squash into 1/8-inch-thick rounds. If you’ve got a mandoline, now’s the time to use it. Peel the potatoes and cut them into 1/8-inch-thick rounds as well.

Layer 1/3 of potatoes in concentric circles in bottom prepared pan, overlapping slightly. Sprinkle lightly with salt. Layer 1/2 of squash in concentric circles atop potatoes. Drizzle with 1 teaspoon oil. Sprinkle with 1/3 of cheese mixture. Repeat with 1/3 of potatoes, a sprinkle of salt, then 1/2 of squash and 1 teaspoon oil. Sprinkle with 1/3 of cheese mixture. Top with 1/3 of potatoes. Drizzle with 1 teaspoon oil. Sprinkle with remaining cheese mixture and press gently to flatten.

Cover pan with foil. Bake until potatoes are almost tender, about 40 minutes. Remove foil; bake uncovered until torte begins to brown and potatoes are tender, about 25 minutes longer. (Can be made 6 hours ahead. Cool. Cover with foil and chill. Rewarm, covered with foil, in 350°F oven until heated through, about 30 minutes.)

Cut torte into wedges and serve.

Serves 4 as a main or 6 as a side dish.

I’d heard rumblings of the existence of this book from a variety of sources, and decided to take a look at it. I couldn’t immediately locate it on amazon (though it’s available now), and checked the UNC student stores on a whim. When I saw it on the shelf, I knew I had to have it immediately.

First and foremost, you really have to commend anyone who titles their book “The Meat Book,” and give it shelf presentation of a beautiful hunk of beef and “Meat” in big bold letters. And it’s not even an Atkinsian diet book!

The Meat Book looks like, and essentially is, a textbook about meat. It starts with a discussion of the morality of eating meat, and comes to the very sensible conclusion of “meat’s ok” (thank goodness, otherwise what would the other 530 pages be about?). He doesn’t, however, give the reader carte blanch to go out and eat any ol’ shrink-wrapped slab of bastardized animal flesh one finds on the grocery store shelves. Instead, he goes into a lengthy discussion about the exact conditions necessary for it to be morally excusable to eat meat, and most of those conditions are swept to the wayside by the commodity meat industry.

If the treatment of animals isn’t enough sway you, though, (and it hasn’t always been for me, to be fair), Hugh tells you the true delights of eating slow-grown, heritage animals fed appropriately and treated with respect. They range from gastronomic to nutritional, and each one is reason enough, on its own, to find a better meat source.

All that aside, the book sells itself on many other points. First is a step by step illustrated guide to buying good, quality meat. Every cut of every imaginable land animal is discussed in detail, from nose to tail. The last chapters (and good 3/5ths of the book) are dedicated to specific recipes to guarantee you never have a bad meat based meal again.

And that’s Hugh’s point, in the end. Meals including meat should always be relished, a cause for celebration. And good meat, prepared well, always is.

Also worth noting is the fantastic photography that permeates this book. Not always for the light-hearted, there are beautiful photos of finished dishes, cuts of meat, and whole animals. One of the first sequences is a set of photos from the slaughter of a cow. The pictures help to remind the reader that every piece of meat came from an animal, and that animal lived a life that was controlled largely by the price you’re willing to pay for it. It’s a reminder sorely lacking from the latest Tyson offerings.

“So what should we have for dinner?”
“Well, I saw a recipe for X in Y that looked fantastic.”
“That sounds great. I saw a recipe for Z that also looked good.”
“Ooh, that sounds good too, but it doesn’t go with X.”
“You’re right. How about A instead of X? That would go nicely.”
“Yeah, but I don’t think it’s exactly the season for that.”
“What about B? That goes with Z.”
“But the ingredients for B would be best from the farmer’s market tomorrow. How about we have X and C?”

And so it goes on, until we finally settle on a main dish and some veggies that fit our requirements: (1) sounds yummy, (2) dishes complement eachother, (3) ingredients are in season, (4) makes a well-balanced meal. It usually takes us a while, and sometimes we end up taking ideas and pieces from different recipes and creating our own. That’s exactly what happened last night.

I was in the mood for green beans, and we were planning to grill some scallops and serve with a Meyer lemon relish from a Chez Panisse cookbook. My mom thought that maybe we should have some potatoes, since we’ve been eating bread for our starch a lot lately. Since we were grilling the scallops, we thought it would be fun to grill the green beans and potatoes as well. We saw a recipe for a French green bean salad in one of Jamie Oliver‘s cookbooks, and the dressing sounded great. I thought we could combine the beans and potatoes and toss them with the dressing. So that’s what we did.

The result is a fantastic grilled green bean and potato salad that is so simple to prepare. Good hot or at room temperature, it would make perfect picnic food. The dressing is boldly flavored with plenty of mustard, white wine vinegar, shallot, and capers, and the potatoes and beans have that slightly smoky grilled taste. I can’t think of a protein that this dish wouldn’t be at home next to—anything from boiled shrimp to grilled pork cops to filet mingon would benefit from a little of this grilled salad on the side.

Grilled Potato and Green Bean Salad
This grilled salad is just as good at room temperature as it is hot of the grill. If you don’t have a grill, you can roast the potatoes and green beans in the oven instead.

1 lb small Yukon gold potatoes, thoroughly scrubbed but not peeled
1 lb green beans, trimmed
salt and freshly ground black pepper
3 tsp good-quality prepared mustard
2 tbs white wine vinegar
5 tbs olive oil, divided
1 medium shallot, minced
1 tbs capers

Heat a grill for a medium-high flame.

Cut the potatoes in half lengthwise, and place them in a pot of generously salted cool water to cover by 2 inches. Heat the pot on the stove over high heat until it boils. Reduce the heat to medium-high and boil for 4 minutes. Drain thoroughly.

Blanch the green beans in salted boiling water for 2 minutes. Drain and immediately run under cold water or submerge in an ice bath to stop the cooking and retain the green color. Drain thoroughly.

Meanwhile, whisk the mustard and vinegar in a small bowl. Whisking constantly, slowly add 3 tbs olive oil. Add a pinch of salt and several generous turns of black pepper, and then the shallot and capers. Stir to combine.

Now, sprinkle the potatoes and beans (separately) with salt and freshly ground pepper, and then toss each with one tablespoon of olive oil. Grill the potatoes over medium high for about 10 minutes, turning once, until cooked through. Leave the lid of the grill closed for most of the time. About 5 minutes into the potato cooking time, add the green beans to the grill (being careful not to drop them through the cracks! use a rack if you have one).

When the potatoes are cooked through and crispy, and the green beans are lightly charred, transfer to a large bowl and toss with the mustard-vinegar dressing. Taste and adjust seasonings as necessary. Serve immediately.

Note: The potatoes, green beans, and dressing can be prepared 1 day ahead. Store separately, and simply bring to room temperature and toss them together just before serving.

Serves 4.

San Diego has the second-highest number of small farms in the entire US and yet, very little local produce is used in our restaurants or sold in our markets. Instead, our produce is shipped away, while the average store-bought fruit or vegetable has traveled over 1500 miles to our plate!

During this week of action, people across the country are choosing to eat locally and think critically about their food choices. “Eat in” refers to using local food, cooking food yourself instead of eating fast food, and “Act Out” means speaking up and taking action to change our food system and promote local food!

They have lots of activities planned, including a canning workshop and an edible bicycle tour of City Heights. For more information and the complete schedule check out the flyer or visit the Food Not Lawns website.

Now, I know what dumpling, fried rice, and fried noodles are. But can anybody make any sense out of these other ones? Fragrant and hot soil bean silk? Anyone? Wheat Joss-stick Cow Willow? My absolute favorite is “The temple explodes the chicken cube.” Jason said he would have walked in and ordered that one just to see what it was, but he was scared off by the fact that the sign also advertised that they served dog meat. Oooh goodness!

No?

Well they are to me. See, when I was a girl, I had a horse, not a garden. Sure, there was that one summer when my dad rented a 6 foot roto-tiller for the tractor and drug it along behind the fruit trees to prepare the soil for a vegetable garden. And sure, I helped plant and harvest some vegetables. But really, the only things I remember from that time are some monster zucchini and a load of snake eggs unearthed whilst digging. Before a few weeks ago, I couldn’t tell a zucchini plant from a pepper plant, but now I’ve got both growing in my little garden plot. And let me tell you, zucchini is one beast of a plant. That sucker grew from the size of a softball to damn near three feet across in less than three weeks. It’s already flowering like mad and has apparently already had zucchini sex with itself, because it’s got four little baby zucchini. I mean, I knew this would happen at some point, but, gosh, they grow up so quickly!

About three weeks ago, I figured out that my graduate student housing complex has community garden plots. (!!) I emailed the powers that be and secured myself one. The next few days were spent doing the backbreaking labor of preparing the soil (by hand, alone) and that is some serious work. Especially with the heavy clay soil we have here. I can ride my bicycle for miles and miles, but I certainly discovered some muscles I didn’t know I had the day after I dug the garden. Did you know that you have little muscles connecting your shoulders to your chest? And apparently they are used when one digs. Good to know.

I’d been making a feeble attempt at growing tomatoes in containers on my patio, but the poor things were so sad. Just barely hanging on to life, getting all leggy in their quest for sunlight. The amazing thing is that they have managed to produce quite a good amount of tomatoes, considering their meager look, but they just weren’t happy. My dad helped me drag the two 300 lb tubs over to the garden area, where they’ll get more sunlight, so hopefully they’ll rebound from their sad state. In the meantime, the six plants that I have in my plot are absolutely thriving. Though they were planted late (July 3), San Diego has a warm fall, so hopefully I’ll be eating homegrown tomatoes through Thanksgiving and maybe even longer. *crosses fingers*

Left row, back to front: Burpless Cucumber, Zucchini, Red Bell Pepper, Red Bell Pepper, Chocolate Bell Pepper, Yellow Bell Pepper

Right row, back to front: Box Car Willie, Brandywine, Black Krim, Green Zebra, Tigerella, Tigerella (all tomatoes)

For now, I’ll just sit here and watch my garden grow.

This soup is Summer through and through. Cool and refreshing and highlighting some of my favorite summer produce, I could eat it all day long. I’m sad that I hadn’t discovered it in September of 2005, when Gourmet first printed the recipe. That’s nearly two seasons of peaches and tomatoes that could have become this amazing soup! Well, I guess I’ll just have to make up for lost time. You can bet what I’m serving Henning for his first meal back here in San Diego. Yep. 100%.

While my mother and I were making this soup, we had to really restrain ourselves from taste testing it too much. I swear, we probably could have finished the whole batch right there, spooning from the food processor. Oh yes, and we certainly did not “discard” the solids after straining. They went straight into our bellies, a little snack for the chefs. Who could throw such amazing flavors into the trash? So what if they’ve a few seeds and skin bits. After straining, however, the soup takes on a wonderfully silken texture, and when topped with the salsa, it’s downright heavenly. When you get a little chunk of peach in your spoon, the sweetness of the peach harmonizes with the slightly acidic soup so perfectly, my goodness. Mmm. And the light anise scent from the tarragon; it’s just plain spectacular.

Peach and Tomato Gazpacho
From Gourmet, via Epicurious

1 1/2 lb tomatoes
1 lb peaches
1/4 cup crushed ice
2 tablespoons chopped shallot (1 medium)
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 1/2 tablespoons white-wine vinegar
1 tablespoon chopped fresh tarragon
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 to 1/2 cup water (optional)

Roughly chop 1 lb of the tomatoes and 1/2 lb of the peaches to make about 3 cups tomatoes and 1 cup peaches. In a food processor, purée them with the ice, shallot, 1 tablespoon oil, 1 tablespoon vinegar, 2 teaspoons tarragon, 3/4 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper in a blender until very smooth, about 1 minute. Force through a medium-mesh sieve into a large glass measure, discarding snacking on solids. Stir in water to desired consistency (I didn’t add any).

Cut remaining peaches and tomatoes to a medium dice and toss together with remaining tablespoon oil, remaining 1/2 tablespoon vinegar, remaining teaspoon tarragon, and remaining 1/4 teaspoon each of salt and pepper in a bowl. Serve soup in bowls topped with tomato peach salsa.

Serves 4 as a light first course.

Ok, sorry, let me try again, but with a wee bit less enthusiasm. You need to drive about 20 miles north of Chapel Hill, 10 miles past Hillsborough on the incredibly scenic old 86, where there are several pick-yer-own blueberry patches (or find a patch near you). You’ll see colorful sandwich boards announcing their presence, and your excitement will grow as you rumble down the short gravel drive. You’ll see hand-painted signs welcoming you, telling you to take your time and enjoy yourself, and just drop your money in the box on your way out. You can grab a bucket and saunter out to the rows and rows of blueberry bushes. Try to be clever and go as far from the parking as you can, there will surely be more blueberries on those bushes. Listen to the chatter of families who have met here for an annual outing, bringing young children whose only interest is to eat the blueberries right out of the bucket. Crouch and look up at the bushes from below, it’s easier to see the blue bundles of joy hiding under the leaves. Be careful – there are some thistles growing there amongst the blueberries (but you should look for a ripe blackberry as long as you’re there). It’ll be incredibly satisfying for you; standing alone, silent, you’ll feel profoundly relaxed, but will have a material reward at the end of the day. The little berry’s potential will run through your mind as you mentally scan your cookbooks for recipes to use up your prize.

After an hour and a half you’ll have about 3 pounds of blueberries. Pour them into a plastic bag, drop your $6 in the box and scoot home. You immediately whip up the most promising blueberry muffin recipe, but that only uses up a cup and a half of your sack of berries. You’ll search the internet and find a blueberry sorbet recipe. Someone has left a comment about adding basil, and you think that sounds fantastic. You’ll be right. The basil gives the sorbet an ethereal, anise-y flavor that leaves people wondering.

You’ll have almost finished the three pounds of blueberries, and swear you’ll go back next weekend for more.

Blueberry Basil Sorbet
Adapted from Gabrielle Carbone of The Bent Spoon, Princeton, NJ, via Epicurious.

The egg white here is uncooked, so feel free to leave it out if it makes you uncomfortable, or if you don’t trust (or know) the source of your eggs. The egg white gives the sorbet a nice, silky texture, and keeps it silky at most temperatures.

1/2 c water
1 c sugar
1 pinch salt
handful fresh basil (6 or 7 sprigs)
3 pints (6 c) blueberries, washed and rinsed over
juice of one lemon
1 egg white (optional)

Heat the water, sugar, and salt in a small saucepan until sugar has dissolved. Remove from heat and tear in the basil. Cover and let steep 1-2 hours (if it must sit more than 2 hours, put it in the fridge).

Put the blueberries, lemon juice, and half of the basil syrup in a blender and puree until very smooth. Taste, and add more of the syrup to taste. If desired, you may strain the mixture, though it has a nice hearty texture if you use it as is.

If the mixture is warm at all, chill it thoroughly. Freeze in ice cream maker according to manufacturer’s directions. Add the egg white in the last 5 minutes of churning, if desired.

Makes just over a quart of sorbet.