Torrey's Ceaser Salad (san anchovies)

I love Torrey Nicholson. Yesterday he turned 6 and for his birthday requested that I make a Cesar salad, specifically asking for crunchy, not soft croutons. As I started to make it, I realized that I felt nervous. That I really wanted him to like it. That I had expectations of the results of my efforts. And suddenly that teaching of being passionate without desire made sense. Put everything you have without being attached to the fruits of your labour. Let everything you do be for the pure love and joy of the opportunity to serve another. And when you work this way, you become more discerning with who and what you are working for.

This made enough salad for 15.

1. Set oven to 350.
2. Chop or tear up 4 small heads of romaine from B.D. Wash and spin or lay out to dry.
3. Slice up some ciabatta bread into croutons (about 1 inch diameter). Melt some butter and olive oil together and toss croutons in the fat. Lay them out on a baking sheet and toast in oven till desired crispiness. I checked them every 5 minutes, and rotated them for about 15 minutes.
4. Mash up 4 heads of garlic and smoosh around your wooden bowl.
5. Finely Chop about 1/3 cup of yellow onion.
6. Finely chop about 1/3 cup of curly parsley. Mash Parsley and onion together with the garlic.
7. Add a smidge of sugar, overly generous tbl. of dijon mustard, overly generous tbl. of red wine vinegar, a few dashes of worshtishire and mash together.
8. Then I added the juice of an entire lemon and some fresh grated Parmesan. Lots of fresh ground pepper and a good amount of high quality salt cuz Torrey loves salt.
9. I had to transport the dressing, so i only poured in a little olive oil to suspend the flavors and transferred the dressing to a ball jar.
10. When I was ready to toss the salad, I added more olive oil (maybe 3/4 cup total) to the dressing and shook it up to mix. I tossed the dressing over the romaine, added the croutons and some more Parmesan and tossed again. Then sprinkled fresh Parmesan on top.

Post Spiderman Snacks

Steve and Olivia went to Spiderman 3 with us last night. It's great. More heavy handed than the first 2, but wonderful all the same. The main themes are forgiveness, God, Love, Om, and the power of positive thinking and the choices we always have.

We came back to the house and made some snacks:
Guacamole and Blue Corn Chips
Sliced Turnips and Radishes
Goat Cheese, Roasted Cashews, Salami and Fennel
Reheated leftover Zucchini Lasagna from last night

Guacamole
1. Mince up one love of garlic
2. Seed and mince a fresh green hot chili. Serrano are my favorite, but last night I had jalapeno.
3. Mice up 1/2 a red onion
4. Chop up a fresh tomato. (When in season, cherry tomatoes are excellent).
5. I did not have cilantro last night so i put a little Mexican Oregano for that pepper taste.
6. Combine, and squeeze lime or lemon on it. Add a little olive oil.
7. Cut up 2 avocados and gently fold in.

What to do with All that Zucchini

I have not yet become an official member of the CSA from Mano Farm, Steve's Alter ego. There are too many vegetables that Eric does not like to be willing to blindly accept the bountiful harvest.

But this week a box got left behind and I was the lucky winner. And man, does Steve grow beautiful vegetables. The box teamed with sweet fat carrots, succulent white turnips, spicy radishes, giant bok choy, massive beets, vibrant green spinach, spring mix, red leaf lettuce and too much zucchini and lots of squash.

So, today at class I asked Sims what to do with all my zucchini. He suggested a lasagna, using the zucchini as the noodles. I knew this would work cuz Eric does not like Zucchini, but like lasagna and I figured that I could mask the flavor. If I wanted to highlight the Zucchini, I would have made this differently (like make a white lasagna).

I am eating it now, and it tastes delicious, but it needs work. Here is what I did this first go:

1. Start a large pot of water boiling.

2. Finely chop up 2 carrots, 2 stalks of celery and 1/2 a yellow onion.

3. In a thick and heavy pot, heat the olive oil. When hot, add the carrots, celery and onion. Stirring occasionally. While these are cooking, mince one clove of garlic. Chop up one 28oz can and one 14oz can of Muir Fire Roasted Tomatoes. Mince about 5 sun dried tomatoes.

4. After about 10 minutes, add the garlic and stir. Cook for about a minute or so. Add the chopped tomatoes and juices, the sun dried tomatoes, and lots of fresh ground pepper. Bring to a boil and then simmer.

5. When water is boiling, place the whole zucchinis in the boiling water. Sims had said to blanche them, but I was not sure for how long. I let them boil for about 5 minutes and then removed them. This seemed right. (I cooked about 12 zucchini ranging in size and had to do this part in batches).

6. I allowed the zucchini to cool a bit before attempting to slice them. This was hard to do and there must be a technique, but I thinly sliced the zucchini as best I could and set aside.

7. I chopped up all the fresh herbs I had. Tarragon, Dill and Basil.

8. After the sauce had cooked for about 20 minutes, I began to assemble the dish. In a 9x12 Pyrex dish, layer a bit of sauce. Lay one layer of zucchini on top. Plop large pieces of goat cheese all over the top. Ladle sauce over the goat cheese. Repeat for one more round, sprinkling the fresh herbs on top of the second round of zucchini. (If Eric liked Zucchini, I would have put another layer on top).

At this point, I had to go teach, so I put some tin foil on top and put the assemblage into the fridge. After class, I worried about Eric not liking it, so I bought some sausage and bread at Rainbow to have as backup.

9. When I got home, I set the oven to 400. I poured a little olive oil on the top, sprinkled salt and lots of pepper and put the dish in immediately and set the timer to 30 minutes.

10. The first serving was great, but Eric wanted meat. So i ended up frying up a little hot sausage and adding it to his second helping. I am delighted. Zucchini was eaten in this house. This is not a dish to show off the zucchini, but rather a dish that will use of a lot of it.

xo
k

Olivia's Perfect Squash Blossom Pizza

Sunday Nights at Farmer and the Cook now offer a selection of delicious salads and pizzas and Jonothan McCuen and friends play. We got the 2 Squash Blossom Pizzas. I feel like I could eat another. Maybe Olivia will give up the recipe, but let me see if I can recreate it:

1. Amazing delicious flaky thin pizza crust
2. Caramelized Onions
3. Fresh abundant vibrant basil pesto
4. Creamy flavorful goat cheese
5. Toasted Pine Nuts
6. Squash Blossoms fresh from the Farm

I gobbled it up and washed it down with a little red wine from Casa Barranca, our local organic vintner.

Such a nice community vibe and feeling always at FnC. Thank you Steve and Olivia.

Carrots and Kale in Orange Ginger Sauce with Spiced Rice

As I mentioned before, I am trying to hone easy vegan cooking. So, these next several months I am going to see if I can pull it off by choosing to eat light and less and find out what I start to crave.

Today I used Ghee, cuz I am gearing up for a PK with my pal Jackie Parker and I am supposed to be drinking ghee daily. Ghee is obviously not vegan.

1. Basmati Rice with Spices
Heat up some fat (today I used ghee). Once hot, add some spices. Today I used mustard seed, cumin seed and coriander seed. Add soaked basmati rice. Stir and toast rice a bit. Add the right amount of water. Bring to a boil. Cover and lower heat. About 10 minutes.

2. Meanwhile, peel and slice up some carrots. Mince up some ginger. Slice up some kale.

3. Heat some fat in a pan. Add the ginger and stir for about 30 seconds, and then add the carrots. Allow carrots to cook in the fat, stirring every so often, until they start to brown a little. Add 1/2 a squeezed Orange, cover and allow carrots to steam and soften.

4. When rice is done, remove from heat and let sit.

5. Add kale to the carrots, stir and cover for only about a minute to wilt the kale.

6. Today I added the rice into the pan with the carrots and kale to stir it all up and soak up the extra orange ginger sauce.

7. I put it in a bowl, added a little salt and ate the whole thing.

Seviche for Kim's Birthday

Kim turned 50 yesterday. She and Jake had been 2 of my primary food muses for the last several years. They went to Argentina for 6 months and came back divorced. Yesterday's gathering to celebrate her birthday was sweet, but I can still feel the mourning for the way it was.

Thank you to What a Deal Seafood, the tomato girl, and B.D for the ingredients.

This made enough Seviche as an appetizer for a group of about 30.

1. The freshest Fish you can get.
I used:
a shy pound of Bay Scallops
a shy pound of Escolar
a shy pound of Shrimps

2. Cut Fish up into 1/4 inch pieces.
Put in Bowl and Squeeze enough Lime Juice to cover.
(The limes I got were really dry and I ended up using 35!)

3. Put the Lime soaking Fish in the Fridge and allow to sit until "cooked". I let the fish sit for 3 hours. If you are used to sushi and trust your fish source, you do not need to let it sit for so long. Since I was bringing this to a party, i leaned on the side of caution. If you are squeamish about it, let it sit up to 6 hours.

4. While fish is "cooking," make the tortilla chips. Cut up store bought flour tortillas into triangular chip shapes. Spread them out and allow them to dry for about 30 minutes. (Make too many chips). In your favorite frying pan, heat about 1/4 inch of oil to hot. You will fry the
tortilla pieces in batches, being attentive to not crowding the pan. Because the top side will be cooking simultaneously, once you flip the chips over (being mindful with the hot oil), they will not need to be fried as long on the second side. Drain on a paper towel and sprinkle some good quality salt on them while they are still hot.

5. While the fish is "cooking," make the salsa. Cut up 4 delicious ripe tomatoes into a dice that looks attractive with your fish and put in a bowl.

6. Mince up 3 Serranos and add to the tomatoes. I only left the seeds in one of them for a little kick, but not too much since it was for a party.

7. Mince up some cilantro, maybe about 3tbl., and add to tomato mixture.

8. Mince up 1/2 a big white onion. To reduce the "onion-i-ness" you can put the onion in cold water and put in the fridge until ready to use, or you can simply put in a strainer and rinse with cold water. Reducing the "onion" helps keep it from overpowering the rest of the flavor. Do not mix the onion into the tomatoes until you are ready to serve.

9. Once fish is done, drain the lime juice and press fish gently against the strainer to remove as much lime juice as you can. Toss the onions into the tomatoes and then gently toss in the fish. Add lots of salt and taste. Yesterday, by community vote, we decided to not add the avocado. The prevailing thought was that it would mellow the flavors too much.

10. I put it into a pretty blue bowl and stuck some of the chips around the sides. I served it with the bowl of chips next to it.

What do You Feed the World's Spiritual Leaders?

Uma Goswami was just here. Reminding us that we are Divine. She indicated that she would like to cook together and invite 50 or so people over. I anticipate needing to become more comfortable with vegetarian Indian food.

So I am starting this journey and looking for help. Tonight we created a rice dish from what we had in the fridge and spice drawer. I do not recommend it yet. Needs work, but here is a start.

1. Heat some Ghee
2. Add some mustard seed, coriander seed, cumin seed, mixed peppercorns and cardamon pods, fry briefly. Add Madras Curry powder and stir.
3. Add soaked and drained basmati rice
4. Stir and fry rice a little.
5. Add chopped carrot and thinly sliced fennel.
6. Add chopped tomatoes
7. Add appropriate amount of water
8. Stir and bring to boil.
9. Add thinly sliced kale.
10. Salt
11. Cover and cook for 13 minutes or so.
12. Meanwhile, fry up some cashews in ghee.
13. Once rice is done, allow to rest, covered for about 5 minutes.
14. Stir in cashews and serve.

If I had had raisins, I would have put some in.
I look forward to working this out.

xo
k

Peapods

Peapods are the most delicious thing ever.
You can eat them straight, but a little squeeze of lemon and sprinkle of good salt turns them into a delicious snack.

Olivia's Turnips

Who knew?
Turnips are delicious.

Steve Sprinkle's farm is exploding with all sorts of new and unfamilar vegetables.
Olivia showed me this easy way to eat turnips.

1. Thinly slice turnips up raw.
2. Mix with Soy Sauce and some sliced green onions or pepods for color
3. Sprinkle sesame seeds on top

Yum!