spicetart

Carrots, roasted

By now you're probably saying to yourself "Sheesh Molly, enough with the vegetables already".  You can't say I didn't warn you.  Plus, it's my blog and I happen to be cooking vegetables right now and feeling that I should share it with you, my dear reader.

So I roasted some carrots.  The End.

These were just so beautiful, I had to take a picture.  Olive oil, salt, pepper and thyme.  Because thyme won’t give me thyme, and thyme makes lovers feel like they’ve got to roast some carrots, you know what I'm sayin'? 

Asparagus and Leeks, Together At Last

The Farmer's Market has incredible looking asparagus right now, of all thicknesses, and so I grab a couple of bunches each time I'm there.  I also got some lovely leeks, not too big and thick, begging to be made into soup!  While I am a fan of asparagus, it is not really one of my favorite spring vegetables.  But cook it up with some leeks, shallots and chicken stock? Oh yeah!  Based on the Asparagus Soup in my Gourmet book here, off I went to make my soup.  I made this soup on a week night, it was an incredibly easy and fast recipe with great results.

The recipe includes a Parmesan Custard that is served in the soup (not loaded with fat, I swear!) which looked delicious, but I really just wanted some straight up asparagus soup.  I imagine the parmesan custard could only make this better, and it would impress dinner guests too!

I used twice the leeks and shallots that the recipe called for and I used half-and-half instead of cream because I didn't have any cream.  I also did not strain it because I like blended soups with a little texture and chunks (as long as it's not potato-based, then it gets all gummy).  Anyway, it was excellent, this recipe is very flexible and could be changed even more to your individual whims.

Rabe Rocks

So one of my major scores at the Ferry Building Farmer's Market lately has been Watermelon Radish Rabe.  Get some at the stand with the baskets full of those beautiful red, orange and yellow carrots (that's my favorite stand).  I am a fan of the more common Broccoli Rabe, in fact one of my top 10 favorite recipes (from Luna Park in the LA Times) uses Italian sausage, broccoli rabe, lemon and Parmesan to make a yummy, chunky sauce.  Much thinner and more bitter than broccoli rabe, watermelon radish rabe has a distinct spicy bite that mellows with a little cooking.  I made a simple saute last week, with garlic and olive oil but decided this week to try a little bean pasta.  This is my first attempt at a semi-original recipe ( I was inspired by pastas with beans and basil), and I was pretty pleased with the result.  It even illicited "that's good" from Chris, and this dish had no meat. Go figure.

Penne with Watermelon Radish Rabe and Fried Chickpeas

8 ounces penne (or other shaped pasta)
extra virgin olive oil
5 cloves fresh garlic, whole, crushed
1 can chickpeas, drained and rinsed (or use fresh cooked)
1/3 cup basil, julienned
1 pound cleaned watermelon radish rabe
1/3 cup good dry white wine
1/3 cup chicken stock
lemon zest and lemon juice of one lemon
good Parmesan
salt and pepper

Cook pasta al dente, according to directions, reserving about a cup of cooking water.

Place about 6 tablespoons oil in a warm skillet, add garlic and cook over medium until fragrant and browned but not burned, about 5 minutes. Remove from oil and discard.

Add chickpeas and saute until they begin to lightly brown and get a bit crispy, 8-9 minutes. Remove and reserve.

Add rabe, wine, and stock. Cover and cook until rabe softens, about 6 minutes. Stir in basil, lemon zest and juice and saute for about 2 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to your taste.

Add pasta and beans and reheat in mixture for a couple of minutes. If more sauce is desired, add some or all of the reserved pasta water. Transfer to a serving platter, drizzle with good olive oil. Sprinkle liberally with Parmesan of course. Makes 4 servings.

IMBB 13: My Little Cupcake

I love cupcakes.  I am reasonably sure that this has to do with the frosting to cake ratio.  I also like that it is self contained food, it is one unit, like a burrito or an empanada.  I am, however, not much of a baker, and hoping to outdo the impossibly fantastic cupcakes that Chris made for my birthday in September (171 shopping days left, people!), I made Orange Chocolate Chip Cupcakes with Lemon Cream-Cheese Frosting and a Star On Top and Sprinkles, the recipe for which is in my Gourmet cookbook, but can also be found here.

I changed the recipe a bit, I added buttermilk in place of half of the milk because I hear that that makes cupcakes better.  But really, what the hell do I know about baking?  I also changed the frosting, and made a lemon cream-cheese frosting instead of the chocolate ganache that the recipe recommends.  This was a mistake.  The cupcake either needed a chocolate or even a vanilla frosting.  Oh well, they were still pretty good, though they could have used more orange peel in the batter, it should have been orangier.

Thanks to Maki for hosting Is My Blog Burning 13!!!

In My Backyard: Nettles Fritatta

Take the plant that used to cause painful welts on the arms and legs and face of this young Indiana Jones, as I hacked a path through my backyard jungle in the rugged hills of Oakland, enduring the bites and stings of the poisonous (I imagined) thorns of the exotic nettle plant, take it and make a frittata.  Show it who's boss!

I was excited to see a basket at the farmer's market and, stuffing as much as I could into a bag (with tongs), I managed to just touch a piece to my skin, enough to feel a little tingly stinging.  Memories flooded back of summer days playing in the dusty, green hills, of that sharp, astringent scent I remember on my shoes and clothes, and I realized that I was preparing to eat a plant that I had avoided for many childhood years.  Just please don't tell me that poison oak will be appearing in our spring mix...

Nettles are used in cooking internationally but the first I heard of using them in food, was an incredibly delicious Nettles Parpardelle at Quince a couple of months ago.  They appear from March - May (celebrate), when the plant reaches about 6 inches; any taller and they start to get woody and inedible.  A woman at the market also buying nettles, about 3 pounds worth, for tea and said they were her medicine.  Nutritional, delicious and a rich medicinal history, all this in a plant growing in our backyards.

Nettles Frittata
Recipe by Alice Waters, Chez Panisse Cafe Cookbook

1 pound nettles
1 medium  onion, thinly sliced
good extra virgin olive oil
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 cup Parmigiano-Reggiano
1/4 cup young pecorino or Sardo
6 eggs, lightly beaten
salt and pepper

     Wash the nettles thoroughly WITH GLOVES ON, they will sting.
     Saute the onion in olive oil over medium heat (in a pan large enough to hold the nettles) until softened.  Add a bit more olive oil, add garlic. Season with salt and cook a minute.  Add nettles and turn the heat to high, cooking until nettles are wilted and most of the water they release has evaporated.  Drain in a colander and then when cool, chop coarsely.
     Mix chopped nettles in a bowl with the cheese and about 1/4 cup olive oil.  Add the eggs and season well.
     Warm 1 tablespoon olive oil in a large nonstick skillet, and pour in eggs and nettles mixture, cooking over medium-low until just set and starting to brown.  Slide the frittata onto a plate and then invert back into the pan.  Cook until done (I had to check inside, total cooking time was about 13 minutes).

THEN EAT!  I mostly followed this recipe, though I used half the cheese and olive oil, I just didn't think it needed it, and it was still excellent.  It was also excellent cold.

More wonderful nettles info and recipes at Mariquita Farm and Prodigal Gardens.

Walking in LA: Part 2

So what do you do after a late night out of fine food, wine and conversation??  Why you wake up early and go to breakfast!

My favorite restaurant in all of LA is The Rose Cafe in Venice.  This place has the perfect combination of all things that please me.

1. Huge outside patio in the back with umbrellas for shade when it's hot and heat lamps for when it's cold, and overflowing with lush plants.
2. Great breakfast special in the front cafe, $4.00 for a plain croissant with brie and marmalade and a great cup of coffee.  Any place that understand that brie should come with breakfast pastry is the kind of place for me.
3. Deli case full of fresh, seasonal, unique and healthy salads and entrees.
4. Interesting and local art and artists.
5. Cool little store that sells the kinds of things that I want but don't need.  Still, I love to look and touch.
6. Parking lot in the back.

The front cafe is where one can order a snack or a coffee and sit at high tables and chat or read or people watch.  The back cafe is a sit down restaurant, with some inside seating and the huge, wonderful patio I spoke of in #1.  This is where I go for breakfast if I go for breakfast.  I always order one of two things...

1. Salmon Florentine - Salmon, Spinach & Roasted Tomatoes in a Puff Pastry with a Dill Hollandaise Sauce
2. Ham & Cheese Omelet - Prosciutto-Ham, Swiss, Cheddar & Goat Cheese with Chives, with potatoes au gratin and wheat toast
3. Chris ALWAYS gets the Eggs Scandia - Poached Eggs served on Croissant with Lox and Dill Hollandaise

Just writing about it makes me dream of the food, that's the kind of place it is.  And once I saw Luke Wilson there, that was cool.  Check it out.   

Rose Cafe
220 Rose Ave.
Venice, CA
310.399.0711

Spring Has Sprung All Over the Place

The first sign is the blooming of those trees that you never really noticed before, suddenly puffed pink and white blossoms that create a snowy carpet after it rains.  Bunches of fennel and asparagus, nettles and watermelon radish rabe, beets and artichokes - the farmer's market has blown up!  And then there's the flowers - iris, daffodil, narcissus, ranunculus, tulips - bustin' out all over, and the wildflowers carpeting the hills...I don't think there is a better time of the year.

I went way overboard at the Ferry Plaza Farmer's Market this weekend, and will be making my way through my vegetables this week.  Beets, baby lettuces, nettles, puntarella, watermelon radish rabe, asparagus, leeks - OH MY!  Despite the forecast of a miserable weekend, there was not a drop of rain after 9:00 a.m. Saturday and the day was absolutley perfect.  Go support your farmers!

Bouchon recipes

Until June 17, 2005, Epicurious is displaying a handful of recipes from Thomas Keller's Bouchon cookbook.  I don't have this book, but was thinking about buying it.  Now I know I will as it has recipes for MY FAVORITE SIMPLE ROAST CHICKEN and TROUT WITH HARICOTS VERTS AND ALMONDS (which I had at Bouchon a few months ago and it rocked).  It's a great way to see if you really want to invest that $35-$50 in a book you may not even like...

A Taste of Home

In an age of pot-de-creme and creme brulee, my mother's favorite dessert is still a chocolate sundae with vanilla ice cream and toasted nuts.  She eats sundaes at home, out in restaurants (even when it's not on the menu) and, this week, she brought sundaes over for Survivor Wednesday (thanks Mom!).  I too, love a sundae, simple but harmonious, while I can eat them without nuts, my mother has nuts on hand at all times just in case a sundae might come by.  Easy and delicious, I've never met anyone who didn't love a sundae.

CHOCOLATE SAUCE
A straightforward ganache — chocolate and cream — with a two-to-one ratio of cream to chocolate. Some sugar, in the form of corn syrup, is added, primarily for consistency. The chocolate sauce is only as good as the chocolate you use, so use the best you can.

8 ounces semisweet chocolate, such as Valrhona Equatoriale, finely chopped
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup light corn syrup

Place the chocolate in a metal bowl.

Combine the cream and corn syrup in a small heavy nonreactive saucepan and bring to a simmer. Pour the liquid over the chocolate and allow it to sit for 3 to 4 minutes, or until the chocolate has melted. Whisk to combine. Allow the sauce to cool slightly, then pour into a bowl or other container. (Stored in the refrigerator, tightly covered, the sauce will keep for up to 2 weeks.)

To serve, warm the sauce gently in the top of a double boiler or in the microwave.  Makes about 2 cups.

NOTE: The recipe and introductory text above are excerpted from Thomas Keller's Bouchon.

NOTE #2: I don't generally cook with corn syrup and don't know if plain sugar can be substituted.  But it is Keller, so I imagine he is using the sweetening agent he feels is the best for the sauce, as he says, for consistency (it helps prevent crystallization). 

Walking in LA: Part 1

Randy Newman and I both love LA.  And we have the same last name! Coincidence? *cue Twilight Zone music*

I recently drove the 5.5 hours down the lovely I-5 to Santa Monica where I spent the weekend eating, drinking, rowing and, well, I got my hair cut.  The drive down was gorgeous, thunder and lighting, everything green and in bloom...SPRING!!!!!

I got down there just in time to have a wonderful dinner with my friends at Joe's on Abbott Kinney in Venice.  Abbott Kinney is the hipster part of Venice, and of the Westside really, where the exact same thing is happening that is happening in many rundown cities across our great nation.  Gentrification.  Not a bad thing generally, as just blocks away, parts of Venice are known to be kind of tough and are indeed, rundown.  But all that is changing and hipsters and thirty-something couples and rising young actors need places to live and eat and drink, dammit, hence the revival of Abbott Kinney.  History time!!! In the 1900s, Abbott Kinney had a vision to create Venice-of-America, and set to building the city and the canals, using Venice, Italy as the model.  A few of the canals still exist today, many were paved over and are now roads (booooooo), but they are somewhat mucky and green, but they have paddle boats and arched bridges so I love that about Venice.  Venice was a huge resort draw for a while, but after a chain of unfortunate events, (fires, death, the usual) Kinney's vision of Venice-of-America started to fall apart.  *fade to late 1990s* Soaring housing prices to the rescue!

Despite my cynicism, I love Venice.  Perfect weather, close to the beach, a great walking town and a few very shining stars in the culinary world.

Joe's is crowded every night, but we were able to get a reservation for 8:30.  And like Spiderman, I arrived just in time.  Joe's does everything seasonally which is just how I like to eat, don't give me tomatoes in January please, just don't.  Keep reading for a few of the highlights...

Joe's Restaurant
1023 Abbot Kinney Blvd.
Venice, CA 90291