Flavors that Spring Eternal

My next foray into Juliette Spertus's Learning to Eat Locally yielded three successful and popular dishes, which means I'll be sure to revisit this work again as the seasons unfold.  I can be unforgiving if a cookbook fails to deliver the goods, but this one's a keeper.

The sparkling flavors of rhubarb and ginger star in two recipes, while classic spring veggies -peas and lettuce (or in my case, spinach) - take center stage in the main course salad.  Try 'em, you'll like 'em!

Rhubarb Ginger Chutney
Total Time: 45 minutes
Yield: 1 1/2 cups

1 2/3 c. rhubarb, cut in 1/2 inch pieces
1/2 c. brown sugar, packed
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 c. white wine vinegar (I used a combination of champagne and white vinegar.)
1/2 tbs. grated fresh ginger (Poetic license:  minced!)
juice and pulp from 1 lemon or 2 tbs. lemon juice (Just juice was easier.)
1/4 tsp. lemon rind, minced (Used one of my fav kitchen gadgets, a microplane.)
5 dried apricots, sliced

Put rhubarb pieces, sugar, salt, vinegar, ginger and half of the lemon juice into a small heavy saucepan.  Stew the mixture over medium heat, stirring frequently, until rhubarb begins to steam.  Reduce heat to low and cook until rhubarb pieces begin to fall apart, about 10 minutes.  Add the rest of the lemon juice, lemon rind and apricots. Continue to stew the mixture, stirring frequently until chutney has thickened to the consistency of a jam, about 30 minutes.

Why, oh why, don't I make chutney more often?  It's the concentrated essence of fruit, made sweet and tart at the same time.  Talk about punch!  In other words, this chutney was unbelievably flavorful, studded by pieces of fruit, unobtrusive in their tenderness, held in a suspension of silken, spicy sauce.  Delightful!  A perfect foil for crispy, slightly salty rice crackers.  Highly recommended.

A note about the directions:  Given that my apricots were stiff enough to just about require a chain saw to parse them, I threw them in at the beginning of the recipe for additional cook time and while I was at it, put all the lemon juice in at once.  The chutney was none the worse for my deviation.  I love it when I get away with something!

Cracked Wheat and Couscous Salad on Beautiful Lettuce (In my case, beautiful spinach.)
Total Time:  45 minutes
Yield:  8 servings 

Lime Ginger Dressing: 
1/2 c. lime juice
1/3 c. olive oil (I used a scant 1/3 c. and substituted some water.)
1 1/2 tsp. ground cumin
1 1/2 tsp. grated fresh ginger (Sorry, minced again!)
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1/2 tsp. ground ginger, or to taste
freshly ground pepper to taste
salt to taste (add salt after salad is tossed with dressing - capers are salty)

1 c. bulghur (cracked wheat)
1/2 c. walnuts
1 c. couscous (I usually have whole wheat on hand, but used white this time.)
1 c. peas (fresh or frozen) (Frozen for me.)
1/2 c. chopped fresh parsley, packed
1/3 c. red onion, minced
3 whole scallions, sliced
1/4 c. capers, drained
3/4 c. raisins
1 fresh lettuce with large rounded leaves (green, red, bibb and butter lettuces are nice)
(I substituted spinach, which is one of the first greens to be harvested in spring.)

In a small bowl, combine all dressing ingredients and mix well.  Set aside.

Rinse bulghur well and drain.  Put bulghur in a medium saucepan and add plenty of water (at least 2 cups). Boil until bulghur is tender and chewy, 10 to 15 minutes.  Drain, rinse with cold water, and drain again.  Set aside.

Place walnuts on a tray and toast in a preheated 350 degree oven or toaster oven until walnuts produce a toasted-nut aroma and begin to brown, 5 to 8 minutes.  Set aside to cool.
In a small bowl, pour 1 cup boiling water over couscous and cover with a plate for 5 minutes.  Set aside.


If peas are fresh, boil until bright green and just tender, about 3 minutes.  If frozen, place in strainer under hot running water to thaw.

Empty bulghur and couscous into a large bowl.  Use a fork to fluff grains together. Chop walnuts.  Add chopped walnuts, peas, parsley, red onion , sliced scalllions, capers and raisins to grains.  Pour Lime Ginger Dressing over salad and toss. Serve each portion on top of a large lettuce leaf.


Have I told you how much I love cumin?  This bold salad spoke to my cumin-adoring heart, and most certainly did not disappoint!  Earthily cumin scented, yes, and much more:  a wild ride of disparate textures - chewy, crunchy, pop-in-your mouth - and across the board flavors - sweet, savory, spicy, punctuated by salty bursts of capers.  Juliette, your salad is a gypsy caravan of the colorful and unexpected, thrown together capriciously, with such good results.  Bravo!

A note about the directions:  my recipe for tabouli tells me to cover bulghur with boiling water and let rest for 30 minutes.  A lot easier than rinse, drain, boil, drain, and rinse, and the end product is identically chewy yet tender. 

Rhubarb Carrot Cake
Total Time:  1 hour
Yield: two 9-inch layers

2 c. rhubarb, cut into 1/2 inch pieces
1 c. brown sugar, packed
1 1/2 c. unbleached all-purpose flour (I used 1/2 whole wheat pastry flour.)
1/2 tsp. salt
1 1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
2 eggs (I used Ener-g egg replacer.)
2/3 vegetable oil (I substituted 1/2 applesauce.)
2 tsp. vanilla
3 medium carrots, grated (about 1 1/2 c.)
3/4 c. unsweetened shredded coconut
3/4 c. raisins (optional) (Love 'em, used 'em.)
1 batch Lemon Neufchatel Frosting


Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease two 9 inch pans, lining bottoms with parchment paper; or grease one 10 inch Bundt pan.


In a medium saucepan, stir together 1/4 c. of the brown sugar and rhubarb pieces. Simmer over medium heat until rhubarb is just tender, 3 minutes.  Remove rhubarb mixture from heat and set aside.


In a large bowl, mix together flour, salt, soda, cinnamon and remaining brown sugar.  In a smaller bowl, beat eggs and mix in oil and vanilla. Add combined liquids to flour mixture and stir to make a very thick battter.  Stir in carrots, rhubarb, coconut and raisins and spread batter into pans.


In 9-inch pans, bake cakes for 20 to 25 minutes, or until sides pull away from pan and a knife inserted comes out clean.  In a Bundt pan, cook for 40 minutes. Bring a knife around edges of pans and allow cakes to cool in their pans for 10 minutes.  Invert on cooling racks and allow to cool completely before frosting


Lemon Neufchatel Frosting
Total Time: 5 minutes
Yield:  enough for a 2 layer cake


1 tsp. vanilla
8 ounces Neufchatel cheese or cream cheese (I use soy cream cheese, which is delish, trust me.)
1 tsp. lemon zest (optional) (Lemon zest is my friend.  I use it always.)
1/2 c. sugar or 1/3 c. honey (Confectioner's sugar for me.)
2 to 4 tbs. lemon juice


In a medium bowl, combine vanilla, cheese, and lemon zest.  Using a whisk or an electric beater, whip until smooth. Set. aside.


Pour lemon juice into a small bowl, using 2 tbs. for a spreadable frosting and 4 tbs. for a glaze.  Slowly add sugar to lemon juice, stirring to dissolve and tasting periodically to check sweetness.  Pour sugared lemon juice over cheese mixture and blend well.  Adjust sugar and lemon juice as needed.  The frosting  is just right when it tastes lemony and not too sweet.

I have a confession to make.  I have never made a carrot cake in all my years of baking.  Perhaps my reluctance has something to do with my wedding cake, which I ordered from a hippie bakery.  The "fresh flowers" which were supposed to festoon the (you guessed it) carrot cake turned out to be dusty weeds from the parking lot.  Even if they had been roses from the White House garden, not much could have helped the general profile of the cake, which resembled closely the doomed U.S.S. Monitor, gun turrets and all.  Oh, dear.

So baking this carrot cake was therapeutic.  Besides, it's not just carrot cake, it's rhubarb carrot cake, which somehow divorced this confection from its distant cousin, the dreaded wedding carrot cake. Hey, at least that stolid mass went down in family history.  Well, as I was saying, I conquered my psychological problem with orange-flecked cakes and WOW, was it a happy turn of events for me not only head-wise, but in a gustatory way as well.  Sweet, of course, yet not cloying thanks to tart rhubarb, rather dense, as a (non-military) carrot cake should be, and pleasantly chewy with raisins and coconut.  Bingo!  I've been cured!

I have to admit to going rogue with the frosting, doing my own thing.  Perhaps I should have followed the directions, because my naughty version was much sweeter than lemony.  I suffer from an incurable sweet tooth, so I didn't find my minor "failure" a hindrance to enjoying this luscious, moist cake.  Many stars!

A note on presentation:  I toasted and chopped walnuts to garnish the top of the cake.  I chose the 9 inch layer cake option, which took just about exactly 25 minutes to bake to perfection.  Juliette's times, both for making and baking, are very accurate, which is a great boon! 





 
  

 

Tastes Like Spring!

Double whammy!  I plucked my first test 'n' taste recipes from the spring section of a local cookbook, Learning to Eat Locally, Berkshire Recipes for All Seasons by Juliette Spertus.  This Berkshires-specific volume was published, appropriately enough, in the spring of 1998 by the Center for Environmental Studies at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts.  I have to admit, this is one cookbook which has languished on my shelf.  Back in '98, I loved the local factor, but I had to put a few more notches in my culinary belt before I could appreciate Juliette's earthy ingredients and her artful combining of flavors which yield a yum sum much greater than expected.  I'm completely ready now for this plant-centric, quirky collection! Without further ado, allow me to introduce you to Juliette Spertus via J.A. Nelson:


Miki's Miso Soup (Miso-shiru)
Total Time:  15 minutes
Yield:  2 Servings
1 small onion, thinly sliced
5 c. water
wakame seaweed (optional) (I omitted the seaweed.)
2 tbs. red miso, or other variety, to taste
2 tsp. powdered dashi (optional) (I omitted this ingredient, which may contain fish.)
1 scallion, sliced lengthwise and cut into 3 inch strips


Put onion and potato in a medium saucepan, cover with 5 cups water and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat and simmer until potato is just tender, about 10 minutes.  Add strips of wakame if desired.  Add miso and dashi to a ladle full of cooking water from the vegetables, mixing to make a paste.  Stir miso paste back into the soup.  Remove soup from heat just before it begins to boil.  Float scallions slices on top and serve.


Variations:
Try cooking potato with cubes of tofu and any combination of thin slices of carrot, daikon (or radish), garlic and golden beet. In summer, add pieces of eggplant and hot chili pepper, sauteed together in sesame oil, before adding the miso paste.

I followed the habit of most home cooks, using what I had on hand in this delicate soup: a Yukon gold potato, tofu, garlic and carrots.  The miso in my refrigerator was red pepper/garlic, so I expected a more intense flavor than I received; yet, a light, brothy soup is a welcome change from winter's heartier purees, chilies and stews.  Read on, though, for the ultimate reinvention of Miki's Miso Soup!

Sesame Beet Greens
Total Time:   20 minutes
Yield:  6 small servings
greens of 4 to 6 beets, cut off 1 inch from the root
1 tbs. sesame oil (I used olive oil.)
3 cloves garlic, crushed
1/4 c. sesame seeds
1 tbs. soy sauce (Tamari, for me.)

Rinse and dry beet greens.  Slice them across the stem into 1 inch strips.  Heat oil in a large skillet over medium high heat, tilting pan to coat.  Stirring constantly with a spatula, toss in garlic, sesame seeds, and about half of the sliced beet greens. Shake on soy sauce and add remaining greens.  Continue stirring until all greens have wilted and stems are tender, 3 to 4 minutes.  Move greens to a serving bowl and serve hot or at room temperature.

I love greens, which is why I landed on this recipe like a duck on a June bug.  I only wish I had read the yield because six SMALL servings is not enough for my household (four active people, including two young adult men who definitely have healthy appetites).  The crunch of sesame seeds interspersed with the wilted beet greens was a spot-on counterpoint; however, one tablespoon of tamari made this dish too salty - and I use a lower-salt tamari.

And now for the creative! On the table:  a soup that needed some body and some greens that were salt-heavy plus, a side dish of plain brown rice.  Hmmm...how about putting the three
together and calling it Perfect Dinner?  Which was exactly what happened, with the addition of a judicious sprinkle of hot sauce.

No long ago, a neophyte in the kitchen asked me how to tinker with recipes to make them, "taste good."  I threw out a few practical suggestions, but the main idea is that you need to know what flavors you like and season accordingly.  (It took me a long time to figure out that it was tarragon I couldn't stand, and cumin I adored.)  It's also a matter of experimentation.  The individual parts of the spring dinner I chose could have stood alone and been satisfactory, but they came together, literally, to make a stellar meal.  Leftovers were sparse, and disappeared fast.  The mark of a winner dinner!


Next up:  a chutney, a grain salad and a dessert!  Be on the lookout.

 
 

Smash My Bow With a Champagne Bottle!

Ok, I'm not really that much of a drama queen, so don't run off to buy (cheap) champagne on my account. True, I'm making my maiden voyage on Blog Ocean, and I'm thrilled as can be, but I'd rather see bubbly sparkling in a glass than squandered on inaugural ceremony.

Speaking of champagne and why I put it under protection, it's a plant food, a particularly festive and fun one, too. But to me, all plants we humans can eat are wonderful things, and deserving of honor on our plates and in our hearts. They're at the center of my kitchen and at the forefront of my brain, taking up space which should be allocated to filing taxes, balancing the checkbook or other dreary pursuits. Plants are healthy, plants taste good, plants are friendly and that's why plants are for dinner.

I cook from the plant kingdom, and I have the cookbooks to prove it. A lot of them. Everywhere. Not to mention those recipes on paper which seem to reproduce when I'm not looking. Many of the cooking volumes I own are handily arranged according to season, which is a fine organizational aid, not to mention a convenient launching pad for this blog. I'm rooting about in my you've-got-to-be-kidding cookbook collection to report on the best seasonal recipes I find. Yes, I'll be the guinea pig in the kitchen, I'll do the shopping, the chopping, the mess-making and the risk-taking, all so you can reap the rewards of my recipe searches. So stay tuned, get ready for the first pick of the season, and have that glass of champagne chilled to perfection while you and I share plants for dinner.