a little zaftig » Gluten-free

Pink Grapefruit Curd with Honey

Laura — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 00:32:52 +0000

This pink grapefruit curd is buttery and silky and pleasantly piquant with a strong note of honey. Eat it smeared on toast, biscuits, or scones; stirred into plain yogurt or oatmeal or porridge; rolled up in a jellyroll or between cake layers; or piped into plain cookies.

Pink Grapefruit Curd with Honey
Yield: 1 ¼ cup

Ingredients:
1 c. freshly squeezed grapefruit juice (from about 2 grapefruits), strained through a fine mesh strainer
1 egg
5 egg yolks
½ c. honey
6 T. unsalted butter
a little pinch of salt

Grapefruit Curd Tips

I am a no-net kind of cook, but if you’re wary of curdling, you may do one of two things: cook the curd over a double boiler set-up over barely simmering water, or fill a sink with ice water and plunge your pan into it and whisk madly until your curd recovers.

The points at which you are most vulnerable to the dreaded curdle are when you add the grapefruit juice and as the cooking process reaches its peak. Be sure not to add the hot grapefruit juice until the butter is fully melted and the mixture is quite hot to the touch. Heating eggs gently in this manner is quite fine, but if you shock them with the hot juice you will be tossing out a pan of scrambled eggs. As you near the end of the cooking time, just stir vigorously.

I do not use a whisk, as I feel it adds too much air to the curd.

Focus your stirring towards the center of the pan, working to the outside occasionally. This will help to prevent curdling and burning.

If you have just a bit or two of solid egg protein, fear not, it will be strained out in the last step.

Method:

In a small pan over medium heat, bring the grapefruit juice to a simmer and reduce it by half.

In a large saucepan over low heat, stir the whole egg, egg yolks, honey, and butter together until the butter has melted.

Slowly add the grapefruit juice, stirring vigorously.

Continue to stir the curd until it thickens and a finger run across your spatula or wooden spoon creates a separation that does not close, about five minutes. The curd will continue to thicken as it cools.

Press the curd through a strainer into a medium bowl. At this point you may divide it into a jar or jars with tight-fitting lids and store it in the refrigerator for a month.

Eat it smeared on toast, biscuits, or scones; stirred into plain yogurt or oatmeal or porridge; rolled up into a jelly roll or bewteen cake layers; or piped into plain cookies.

Simple, Perfect Roast Chicken

Laura — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 00:00:11 +0000

Cheesemaker Jodi Ohlsen Reed asked me about myself when I first met her. I was nervous, writing about a local gem in Minnesota, my first such piece, and I didn’t expect to talk about myself. I think I said something about it all being a blur, which is not what I meant to say, or at least not how I meant to say it. It was a brief response, a move-along-and-this-is-not-about-me response. But from the look on her face, I gathered something of what she inferred. It has been a blur in some ways, a happy blur of yeast doughs and storybooks and bike rides for kakigori, walks to parks, and steam-filled kitchens and tables full of good food. The details over time are a blur, but I think that’s largely because I was so intent on paying attention in every moment. I remember moments and patterns, how my Honey Girl used to say, “Mama, Yisten” when she wanted to tell me something, or how she thought that you whispered into someone’s nose and would cup her little hands around mine to tell me a secret, how she waited for the sound of my Dear Husband’s footsteps on the staircase every night with sweet excitement. Or how my Sweet Boy would eat a bowl of oatmeal at his little table and say, “Thank you, Mama” when he finished every morning in a still-sleepy voice, how he never ordered the same flavor of gelato twice when we lived in Tokyo —sakura, matcha, anko, ichigo—, and how he danced, freely and without inhibition, whenever and wherever he heard music when he was little. I remember the feeling of holding them in footy pajamas, limp and heavy and ready for sleep, the way our Sweet Boy always patted our backs with his small hands. And the way they both looked so intently at a storybook being read aloud. They were tired years, many of them, years of interrupted sleep and happy-drowsy hours reading and baking and playing. Don’t let them slip by without drinking up every moment.

My Sweet Boy and Honey Girl and Dear Husband have been missing that since I started a business two and a half years ago, and then started this blog. And their recent comments and requests, that I be present in the way I used to be when I wasn’t working, sweet expressions of missing our time together, brought to mind a food writer and cookbook author I met twenty-some years ago. She was fiercely successful, but not present in her life in all the ways that seemed to matter most to me. She seemed so distracted, about everything besides her work, and her children seemed virtually invisible to her, when they weren’t a frustrating interruption. It was a disturbing sight, all of the yelling and hubbub and unnecessary chaos. She seemed so totally consumed by her paid work, something which, in my mind, wasn’t the most important work of her life. So I post less frequently now. The project of the blog can wait. Life is happening, the everyday, the most important bits, what will be, in retrospect, my happy blur.

Chicken Tips:

Chickens fall into several categories, usually labeled fryers, roasters, and broilers. Don’t worry about the labels. You’re looking for a three-pounder, the fryer. Fryers, roasters, and broilers are labeled as such to represent age and resulting size. As in life, younger means smaller and more tender—so you’ll generally find that chickens weighing two and a half to four pounds are labeled as fryers, four to six pounds as broilers, and six to eight as roasters. You can fry, broil, or roast them all, but a fryer, or young bird, I find, makes for the most tender eating. If you stumble on a capon or a stewing chicken, you’ve found a castrated rooster or an older hen, respectively. Not too many cooks today want to buy an old hen to save a little money—and there’s money in young chickens for processors, so they’ve vanished for all practical purposes. I see capons now and then, but I haven’t seen a stewing chicken in a market for many years. I always purchase chickens raised and processed by Kadejan in Glenwood, Minnesota. Their excellent, and humane, practices deliver superior eating, too.

Roasting a chicken should be a simple and stress-free experience. You can do all sorts of things to a chicken, or you can skip them all. The details are up to you. I don’t truss. I don’t stuff. I do turn. But you needn’t if you don’t want to. I turn my chicken twice during the roasting process because I find the meat is juicier, the skin more evenly crisp, and because it emerges from the oven like some kind of bronzed beauty heretofore only seen on food magazine covers, which gives me a little thrill. If you don’t want to turn your bird as she roasts, don’t. The results will still be delicious. At the end of the day, if trussing or stuffing or turning give you pleasure as you cook, then do them. If they don’t, don’t. It’s your dinner. I’ve given directions below for the method I follow, including the turns.

You need to raise your bird above its cooking surface. This is done most deliciously by placing it on a little bed of potatoes, in my opinion. Any kind of potato will do—little new red potatoes, Yukon gold, peeled or unpeeled. It they aren’t baby potatoes, cut them into small pieces so that they cook through during the shortened cooking time. The chicken’s juices will drip down and through the potatoes—or any other vegetable you might use—and create crispy richness. A roasting rack will also do the job.

You don’t need a proper roasting pan to roast a chicken. Any oven-safe pan with low sides that’s just larger than the chicken will work beautifully. Just be sure to elevate your bird in it.

I first read about high-heat roasting a turkey in Jonathan Reynold’s March, 2000 cheeky piece for The New York Times magazine titled, Alice Waters Cooks Her Turkey Too Long. He took his cue from Karen Hess’ piece for The Times in 1974. I applied the principle to roasting chicken.

Simple, Perfect Roast Chicken

Ingredients:
One whole chicken, about three pounds
Salt and pepper
Softened unsalted butter or olive oil

Method:

If time allows, the morning of the day you’re to roast the chicken, remove it from its packaging, rinse it under cool water, and pat it dry thoroughly with paper towels. If its neck and organs are tucked inside the cavity, remove those; they may be used for stock and pan sauce, if you wish. Rest the chicken on a large dinner plate or, if your refrigerator will accommodate, the pan in which you’ll roast it. Allow it to rest, undressed, in your refrigerator until cooking time. This will dry the skin, which makes it crisp beautifully in the oven.

Take the chicken out of your refrigerator an hour before you intend to cook it. If you have less time, give it as much time towards an hour as you can. Allow a bit of extra roasting time if you skip this step. A cold hen takes longer to cook.

Check that your oven is clean and wipe out any bits and drips of charred or dribbled dishes past before you preheat it to 450 degrees F.

If you haven’t in the morning, now rinse the chicken, inside and out, under cool water, and dry her thoroughly with paper towels.

Gently ease the skin up from the breast with your fingertips and rub a knob of soft butter, perhaps two or three tablespoons, or a good drizzle of olive oil under each side. If this seems too fussy, just rub the bird down without lifting the skin. I always do both, as I inevitably have extra butter on my hands.

Liberally season the inside and outside of the bird with salt and pepper. Don’t douse it, but don’t be too stingy, either.

Add a little drizzle of oil to the pan to prevent anything burning on its bottom. Do not add liquid; as it heats, it will steam the bird.

Nestle the chicken into a roasting pan on its side, as if it were taking a little nap and was a side-sleeper.

Roast the chicken for 15 to 20 minutes and remove it from the oven. With a wad of damp paper towels to protect your hand, grab the end of the chicken’s legs and, with one swift and confident motion, flip her to the other side, making a rainbow arch with her legs.

Roast the chicken for an additional 15 to 20 minutes. Remove it from the oven and, using damp paper towels to protect your hand, right the chicken so that it is laying breast up.

Finish roasting until the juices run clear (and not pink) when the thigh is pulled away or pricked, about an additional 10 to 20 minutes for a three-pound hen. A larger hen will take a bit longer. Check it every five to ten minutes.

If you don’t wish to wrestle your hen back and forth through the turns, you may roast the bird, breast up, for the entire cooking time, about 45 to 50 minutes. It will be delicious this way, too. The flipping allows the hen’s juices to drip down through the bird as it roasts and also produces gloriously crisp skin on all sides.

Allow the chicken to rest on a cutting board for ten to 20 minutes before serving.

I like to serve roast chicken with potatoes, roasted or mashed; a vegetable mash such as celeriac; a vegetable gratin such as butternut squash, zucchini, parsnip, or rutabaga; a simple vegetable like peas or wilted lettuce; or, in the summer, with a simple green salad.

Braised Lamb Shanks

Laura — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 00:16:43 +0000

My grandma was a letter writer. I have sheaves of her letters, all typed and on thin, pale green paper. They detail the buses she took, and in what weather, to the bank, to Mass, to help with the church rummage sale; the breakfasts and lunches and dinners she ate—toast with butter or peanut butter, an egg over easy, a half sandwich, coffee with sugar. I can see her at her desk in my grandparents’ little den, typing quickly and with erect posture, slipping in a piece of correction paper for a letter mistyped, sipping weak coffee from a Corian cup. It seemed natural to me, then, to begin writing letters when I was 18 and starting college. I wrote to my extended family here and there, and then, with some gusto, to my husband’s after we met and married, to friends, and then to my daughter when she went away some eleven hundred miles to college. In the years we lived in England and Japan there were sometimes pages and pages, unopened and sitting on the coffee table when I visited my parents-in-law months later. I didn’t mind. I was happy to record those details, to remember, and to send them off. And sometimes, over years collected in order and tucked away, the letters have become such a lovely record. I have a friendship in letters with my dear friend Susie, another letter writer. We lived in the same building in England for four short months, but we’ve written to each other for twenty-five years. In our house, now, I have a file of my grandma’s letters, and one for Susie’s, lined up like paper soldiers, and a box of all the correspondence between me and my husband—from the first birthday cards we exchanged 27 years ago to long letters written while we were apart: funny, romantic, newsy, the details long forgotten until I open one and am surprised by them and by our youth. And last year my Honey Girl published a book of the letters I wrote to her during her first year of college, more than 200 pages of long-distance love, equally surprising in its bound state. I started this blog as a kind of letter, too.

It occurs to me that letter writing is an old fashioned thing now. I suppose my style of cooking is, too. These lamb shanks are in our regular rotation and one of my favorite things to cook and eat, but it seems they have gone out of fashion, despite the seeming trend in countrified food styling and farmer-centric cooking. When I made these most recently, I had to go to three butchers to gather five shanks. “No one buys them anymore,” all three butchers told me with varying degrees of sadness. If you have never braised lamb shanks, bookmark this and drive wherever you need to to procure some. They are some of the best eating, relatively simple to cook, impossible to spoil, cook largely unattended until you are ready for them, and reheat beautifully.

Because I’m loath to interrupt my life for the blog, I don’t often post savory recipes. Once dinner is ready, I don’t want to wait to share it. I can’t imagine puttering around while the food gets cold. Cooking, for me, is an act of service. It’s pleasurable, sure, but in the end it’s about the people I love. And food photography is a tinkery little beast—a quarter inch here, a quarter inch there—and I don’t have a permanent set-up. I lug a little table in from the backyard, wipe off the snow or rain or dust, and pull out my tripod and camera and mat boards from the office whenever I want to photograph something. I can make breakfast while my family are sleeping or fry up a handful of pancakes after we’re done eating together. And I can bake up a dessert while everyone is away at work and at school or in the evening while homework is tended to. A stack of crispy French toast or a coffee cake already photographed and ready as you walk in the door after school? Well, that’s usually greeted with a certain amount of glee. And I never have to delay shared pleasure for the tedium of photography. So I feel I should offer a little apology to this lamb, which is so poorly represented by these photographs, and to you. These shanks are beautiful when they emerge from the oven. But I ate most of my shank and what remained sat, lonesome in the pot, until I photographed it today. All of the gorgeous brown bits of meat have been picked off and eaten greedily. It looks rather sad today. So imagine a lovely, browned shank with lots of tender meat. In short, don’t let these photographs put you off the dish. Like old letters, it’s a keeper.

Braised Lamb Shanks
Yield: 5 generous servings if you serve the shanks whole, or about 8 servings if you separate meat from bone and serve the dish as a soup; both are equally nice, though the soup makes for a more casual meal

Ingredients:
5 lamb shanks*
3 medium fennel bulbs, diced
4 medium carrots, peeled and diced
2 medium leeks, white and pale green parts diced and rinsed thoroughly
5 large cloves of garlic, minced
2 medium fresh tomatoes (in late summer) or 14 ounces drained whole plum tomatoes, seeded, and diced
28 ounces great northern beans, drained and rinsed or 2 c. dried beans soaked overnight in cold water and drained
6 c. chicken stock (homemade or Swanson’s organic)
salt and pepper

*If you can find pasture-raised lamb, it’s worth the price.

Method:

Preheat your oven to 300 degrees F.

Dry the lamb shanks well and season them fairly generously with salt and pepper on all sides.

Heat a large enameled cast iron pot or Dutch oven over medium-high heat.

When it is hot, drizzle in a bit of olive oil.

Place the lamb shanks into the pan and allow them to sear and brown. If they do not fit without crowding, you will need to sear them in batches. Do not crowd the pan. Do not disturb them or be tempted to peek at them as they brown. They will pull away easily when they are ready.

Rotate the shanks, allowing them to brown well before turning again, until all sides are nicely seared and deep brown. This will take about 30 minutes. Time invested in browning enriches the broth and adds tremendous flavor.

Remove the shanks from the pan and place them on a large dinner plate. Allow them to rest at room temperature.

Pour off almost all of the rendered fat from the pan.

Add the fennel, carrot, and leek and season them with a bit of salt and pepper. Saute the vegetables, stirring them occasionally, until the fennel has given off some liquid and the liquid has evaporated, and until the vegetables are beginning to soften and take on a bit of color. As they sauté use a wooden spoon to scrape the browned bits from the bottom and sides of the pan.

Add the garlic and stir for one minute.

Add the tomatoes and beans and stir them into the pot.

Nestle the lamb shanks into the vegetables. This works best if they are placed in a tight row with the narrowest side up.

Cover the shanks with stock. It’s okay if a couple of inches of meat remain above the line of the stock. Season the stock with a bit of salt and pepper and cover the pot.

Allow the stock to come to a simmer.

Transfer the covered pot to your oven. Braise the lamb shanks in the oven until the meat is extremely tender and pulls easily or falls from the bone, about two hours.

Taste the stock and adjust the seasoning, if necessary.

At this point you may either serve the lamb shanks whole or as a soup.

To serve the shanks whole, place a shank on a soup plate for each diner and ladle over some of the stock, beans, and vegetables. To serve as a soup, allow the dish to cool a bit until you are able to handle the meat without getting burned. Transfer each lamb shank to a large cutting board; one with a well at its edges is most convenient for this task. Pull the meat from the bone, pull away any sinew and fat, and cut or pull the meat into smaller pieces. Transfer the meat back to the pot and stir it into the soup.

This dish may be prepared a day or two before you wish to serve it. Warm it on the stove over low heat until the stock comes to a simmer before serving.

If I prepare this for the family, we inevitably have leftover lamb on each of our shanks. I pick the meat from the bones and add it to the soup for the next day.

Five-minute Cranberry Schmutz

Laura — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 15:38:22 +0000

Alongside a Thanksgiving or Christmas turkey or smeared on sandwiches, this five-minute, four-ingredient cranberry schmutz is a little tart, a little sweet, and exactly perfect. I’m putting a little on a pumpkin muffin for breakfast, too. If there were ever a reason to stop sliding that factory cranberry sludge out of a can, this is it.

Five-minute Cranberry Schmutz
Yield: 1 cup

Ingredients:
2 pints fresh cranberries
½ c. sugar
juice of 2 tangerines
1 large cinnamon stick, broken

Method:

In a large pan over medium low heat, stir together the ingredients. Allow them to cook until the cranberries have burst and the sugar has caramelized, about five minutes.

Fish out the cinnamon stick and serve hot, room temperature, or cold.

Nectarine Lemon Balm Tipple

Laura — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 13:31:55 +0000

We are in the throes of quite a peculiar summer: cold nearly ‘til July, and wet, relentlessly wet. And now steamy—literally. This morning I can see nothing from the windows of the house, save through the trickles, as it is wrapped in a dense and ghostlike condensation. They say that according to the heat index it will feel something like 115 degrees here for what is sure to be an excruciatingly drawn out week. I am accustomed to cozying in for the winter during stretches when more than the dash between car and door or to the mailbox is a little painful. But this? It’s getting old. I want my Minnesota summer. Nights outdoors picnicking and lolling on the grass or on the beach at Lake Minnetonka. Long temperate night walks with bats wheeling overhead. Long suppers on the patio until the sun wanes at 9:30 and the mosquitoes chase us indoors again. One day my Honey Girl and I decided to buck the heat and do our usual walk, and we both suffered mild heat stroke. So much for fortitude. We’re settling in to wait it out now. Taking refuge in movie theatres and libraries. Staring out the wiped window at the rising heat with our paws at the sills like dogs, like toddlers waiting for playtime. Here, thank the Lord for refreshment, is the sweet and ice-cold antidote.

Nectarine Lemon Balm Tipple
Yield: one tall drink

Ingredients:
1/3 c. nectarine puree (recipe below)
2 shots lemon balm syrup (recipe here)
1 shot vodka
club soda

Method:

In a tall glass filled with ice, stir together the nectarine puree, lemon balm syrup, and vodka. Top up with club soda. Garnish with a lemon balm leaf if you wish.

Nectarine Puree
Yield: one quart of puree

Ingredients:
8 ripe nectarines

Method:

Bring a covered pot of water over high heat to a rolling boil.

Fill a large bowl with ice water.

With a sharp knife cut an X in the bottom of each nectarine.

Lower the nectarines carefully into the boiling water.

Boil until the skin of the nectarines is pulling away at the cut, about one to two minutes.

Transfer the nectarines from the boiling water to the ice water.

Beginning at the X, peel the skin from the nectarines.

Slice the nectarines in half and remove their pits.

Puree the fruit in a blender or food processor until it is a smooth and silky puree.

Lemon Balm Syrup

Laura — Sat, 02 Jul 2011 13:04:37 +0000

It’s my birthday today, so I’ll be brief. I’ve got celebrating to do! I made this lemon balm syrup the other day with a summer tipple in mind (recipe soon), but I think it would nice in iced tea or brushed onto cake layers, too. Lemon balm is a member of the mint family and is known as a calming herb. It has a heady lemon scent much stronger than lemon verbena. The syrup is softly sweet, softly lemony, and ready in minutes.

Lemon Balm Syrup
Yield: one pint

Ingredients:
1 c. water
1 c. sugar
1/3 c. fresh lemon juice
½ c. loosely packed lemon balm leaves, bruised and chopped

Method:

Place all of the ingredients in a small saucepan over high heat.

Bring the liquid to a simmer, stirring until the sugar is dissolved.

Remove the syrup from the heat and, using a funnel, ladle it into a clean quart jar.

Allow it to come to room temperature and then store it in the refrigerator.

Strawberry Lemon Verbena Refrigerator Jam with Candied Lemon Slices

Laura — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 15:23:31 +0000

Yesterday morning I went out to the hen house in my pajamas at six o’clock in the morning to open the door to the coop. Instead of the usual parade, Beatrice emerged first. She needs a minute or two, thank you very much, to sort out this whole business. When you’re second to last to come down the ladder, well, you can take your time. Florence who comes last is happy to have company a little longer before she has to face the whole teeter, crouch, falter, fall, and recover. But when you have Edna, Clementine, and Edith waiting, well, you had better get yourself moving. There was a hubbub in the coop as they waited and then, one by one, four heads popped out around Beatrice, the center of a parti-colored chicken flower. “Go!” they peeped and clucked and nudged, until Beatrice had no choice but to wobble forward. Of course, once Edna and Clementine got out they overtook her, knocking her sideways off the ladder; patience is not one of their strong suits. Edith came behind, sweetly happy to wait for this slow driver. And Florence waited at the top to watch it all unfold, and then a bit longer; no need to rush these things. Morning with the chickens is one of my favorite parts of the day now, a few quiet minutes just watching them and talking to them. Little Annie, our terrier, curls up in the grass under a chair and waits for me until it’s time to head back into the house to start the day properly, to make oatmeal and a pot of coffee for my Dear Husband. Of course, I planned the placement of the hen house so that its entrance is the shortest path possible from the house when it is 30 degrees below zero with a howling wind that’s even colder. That seems a long way off now, though.

Yesterday it was a beastly hot day here, but somehow I couldn’t resist making jam. We cranked up the air conditioning for a couple of hours and made a big batch. In truth, it’s one of the few days it has really felt like summer here this year, so making jam felt like a long overdue ritual. We skipped the hot canning process and just made a refrigerator jam. It will keep for a couple of weeks, but it will be long gone by then at our house. The best part of this recipe is the candied lemon slices. I love candied fruit and make it quite often, but I was quite surprised by it in this jam: not a trace of bittersweetness, just summer sweetness and light. I think it’s cooking with the strawberries and all that sugar. It’s brilliant, really.

Strawberry Lemon Verbena Refrigerator Jam with Candied Lemon Slices
Yield: 2 quarts

Ingredients:
3 lemons, sliced as thinly as possible (lop off and discard the ends)
1 c. sugar
½ c. water
¼ c. fresh lemon juice

3 pounds strawberries, washed, hulled, and sliced
1 c. loosely packed lemon verbena leaves tied with string into a cheesecloth bundle
3 c. sugar

Method:

In a small saucepan, stir together the lemon slices, 1 c. sugar, water, and lemon juice.

Bring it to a simmer over high heat. Then lower the heat and simmer gently until the lemon slices are soft and translucent, about 10 minutes.

Place the strawberries, lemon verbena, 3 c. sugar, the candied lemon slices and all of their cooking liquid in a large pan.

Bring it to a simmer over high heat. Lower the heat and simmer gently, giving the lemon verbena pouch a good bashing with a wooden spoon, and skimming the foam from the top and discarding it.

Cook the jam until the fruit is soft, the liquid syrupy, and a small amount placed a cool saucer gels nicely, about 30 minutes.

Fish out and discard the pouch of lemon verbena. Using a funnel, ladle the jam into clean quart jars and top them tightly with lids.

Allow the jam to come to room temperature. Then store it in the refrigerator. It will keep for a couple of weeks.

Rhubarb Compote-swirl Cornmeal Coffee Cake

Laura — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 16:17:42 +0000

The specter of spring cleaning has filled me with a certain dread this year, but I am coming around slowly and with much coaxing. The days when our home was deeply clean and organized feel like a phantom life to me. I still open closets with expectation, a clear vision of their former lives. But they are now in chaos, crammed and choked full with items jammed and shoved in or tossed on top. There is luggage teetering on top of a pyramid of canning jars in the storage room, and so much dust surrounds the 1990s collection of children’s VHS tapes huddled at the back of our armoire that I cringe at the thought of disturbing any of it, the old cameras, the chintzy mementos, presents bought too early and forgotten. Where did this cast plastic angel—Good Lord!—even come from? I stand akimbo peering into one closet and then the next, not sure whether to throw any energy at all into these lost causes, and entertaining silly fantasies of the Rube Goldberg devices they might make, these helter-skelter and precarious arrangements. I know that as soon as they are gleaming, veritably twinkling with order, grinning back at me in gratitude, someone will upend their organization, and by this time next year, oh the horror. But I am proceeding in the hope that rescuing our home from one year’s worth of shoving is certainly better than two. How did it get so bad? When did we stray so far from a place for everything and everything in its place? I used to deep clean one room per month, such a civilized plan in retrospect. But it feels so far gone now that my Honey Girl, someone who has a rather casual relationship with personal organization, suggested a kind of purging fire would be more manageable and appealing than trying to sort through it all.

It’s my Honey Girl, too, though, there to help. And I’ve realized that sometimes all you need is a helpmeet, someone on the sidelines saying, “So, what’s next on your list?” or, “Yes, donate. No, keep.” Someone who says, “Time for a break!” when you would keep pushing and should stop. Or who chirps, “Almost done!” when you’re feeling a bit overwhelmed. I can hear her, keyboard clicking, as she catalogues old games and DVDs and too-small coats online, and wrapping items sold in brown paper; a tall stack of them waits near the back door now to be mailed off. We’ve made a good team, balancing practicality and emotion. And it’s so effortless with such an aide to move forward when you might otherwise be stalled by memory or doubt: is keeping something because it triggers a memory a good reason to hold onto it, or has the item has so clearly outlived its useful life that it is time to pass it to someone who would find it useful now? I drift off often. But when I am motionless in indecision or dallying or lingering in memory, she stirs me, and I return the favor when she is at a standstill. Together we’re making our way through the house, closet by closet, cabinet by cabinet, room by room, one small decision at a time. When we’re finished, the house will be clean and smiling a house kind of smile. And for those ten minutes I want to eat this coffee cake and relish our work.

This coffee cake is gluten free. There is the little grit of the cornmeal in each bite softened by the lushness of the rhubarb compote, it’s impossibly light from the egg whites, and it is moist with a soft almond note. We have a coffee cake in our repertoire which is stellar, but since our Honey Girl has begun eating gluten free, this was an out-of-the-park first attempt at creating a coffee cake that she can enjoy too. That’s almost as exciting as the prospect of finishing our spring cleaning. Well, maybe not quite.

Rhubarb Compote-swirl Cornmeal Coffee Cake
Yield: one eight-inch square coffee cake; six to eight servings

Ingredients:
½ c. unsalted butter, melted
1 ¼ c. confectioners’ sugar
¾ c. whole blanched almonds
½ t. baking powder
¾ c. cornmeal
6 egg whites
1/3 c. sugar
¾ c. rhubarb compote (recipe here)

Method:

Butter an eight-inch square baking pan and preheat your oven to 350 degrees F.

In a small saucepan over low heat, melt the butter.

In the bowl of a food processor, combine the almonds, cornmeal, confectioners’ sugar, and baking powder. Process until the almonds are finely ground, about one minute.

In a medium bowl or the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the egg whites until they are quite stiff, about three minutes.

Ever so slowly add the sugar. Beat for one additional minute.

Add the tepid melted butter and beat gently to combine.

Add the almond and cornmeal mixture in two batches and mix gently only until combined. Do not overmix.

Spread the batter in the baking pan, and dollop the rhubarb compote on top. With a spoon, press down through the rhubarb compote gently to swirl it into the batter. Be gentle, as you do not want to deflate the egg whites. It only needs a little coaxing partway down into the batter.

Bake the cake until it is golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean, about 30 to 35 minutes.

Serve warm with more rhubarb compote.

Rhubarb Baked Oatmeal

Laura — Thu, 26 May 2011 13:17:39 +0000

It has rained and rained and then rained some more here this spring. So it’s put us in the mood for something warm and comforting for breakfast. I sweetened my version of baked oatmeal with rhubarb sauce, and then a couple of days later with rhubarb conserve, and scattered the top with diced rhubarb, which roasts as the oatmeal bakes up. If you don’t have rhubarb sauce or conserve, substitute an equal amount of sugar or any other sweetener you like.

Rhubarb Baked Oatmeal
Ingredients:
butter for the baking dish
2 c. rolled oats
1 t. baking powder
½ t. salt
½ c. milk
½ c. half and half
1 egg
½ c. rhubarb sauce (recipe here) or substitute rhubarb compote or conserve or an equal amount of sugar
¼ c. melted butter
1 c. diced rhubarb
2 T. sugar

Method:

Generously butter an eight-inch square baking dish and preheat your oven to 350 degrees F.

Toss the oats, baking powder, and salt together in the baking dish.

In a medium bowl, mix together the milk, half and half, egg, rhubarb sauce, and melted butter until they are well combined.

Pour it over the oats and toss them together.

In a small bowl, toss together the diced rhubarb and sugar.

Scatted the rhubarb over the oats.

Bake until the oatmeal is toasted on top and creamy in the center, about 30 minutes.

Serve warm with a pour of cold cream, half and half, or milk.

Potato & Fiddlehead Fern Gratin

Laura — Wed, 25 May 2011 12:24:31 +0000

Thin slices of creamy potato and tender fiddlehead ferns baked in a bath of cream and topped with a crust of melted Emmenthaler.

Potato & Fiddlehead Fern Gratin
Yield: about 8 servings

Ingredients:
3 pounds waxy potatoes, such as Yukon Golds
1 ½ c. fiddlehead ferns (or substitute asparagus)
2 cloves garlic, minced
butter for the baking dish
¾ c. heavy cream
1 ½ c. grated Emmenthaler cheese, or other Swiss-style cheese

Method:

Butter a medium baking dish and preheat your oven to 400 degrees F.

In a large covered pot over high heat, boil the potatoes until they are tender, about 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, in a large skillet over low heat, sauté the fiddleheads until they are tender and taking on a bit of color. Add the garlic and stir for one minute.

Drain the potatoes in a colander and slice them thinly.

Layer the potatoes and fiddlehead alternately in your baking dish, adding a tiny pinch of salt and pepper to season each layer.

Pour the cream over the top and scatter over the cheese. (I smear the top of the gratin with the cream plug that rises to the top of the bottle before I scatter over the cheese. If you get fresh cream, use it here in this way.)

Bake until the gratin is bubbling and the cheese is nicely golden brown, about 30 to 40 minutes.

Stinging Nettle Soup

Laura — Sun, 22 May 2011 15:19:55 +0000

Spring has come to Minnesota, hesitantly and then with a rush. This week the trees have leafed out, apple and plum trees have blossomed, and the lilacs are ready to burst into bloom. Winter is a barren season in Minnesota, and spring comes begrudgingly. When it finally arrives, seemingly overnight, from dim gray to shades of green, barren places are filled with color and softness. The grass is suddenly long and in need of mowing. Shoots push through the earth without notice until they are high or in flower. Owl babies peek from the tops of dead trees, goslings toddle across the road, mallard couples waddle across the lawn. After the long winter, it’s nice to wander and gather wild and green things to eat. Use caution as you collect nettle, as even a light brush against your skin can be painful. If you wear gloves whenever you handle it you needn’t worry. And a brief boil neutralizes the stinging formic acid. If you’ve never tried it, grab a guidebook and search it out. Then simmer a pot of this simple soup, softened by cubes of potato and celery and leek.

Stinging Nettle Soup
Yield: about four servings

4 c. loosely packed stinging nettles
Olive oil for the pan
2 small leeks, diced and rinsed thoroughly
2 ribs celery, diced
1 clove garlic, minced finely
4 c. chicken stock (recipe here)
1 small waxy potato, such as Yukon Gold, peeled and diced into very small cubes
salt and pepper

Bring a large covered pot of water to a boil over high heat. Meanwhile, fill a large bowl with ice water and place a colander in your sink.

Wearing gloves, pick the leaves and tender stems from bunches of stinging nettle. Discard the thicker stems.

Boil the nettle leaves for one minute.

Drain them in the colander and place them in the ice water.

Over medium heat, warm the same pot that you used to boil the nettles. When it is hot, drizzle in a few turns of olive oil around the pan.

When the oil is hot, add the leeks and celery and a bit of salt and pepper. Saute until tender and taking on just a touch of color, about five minutes.

Add the garlic and stir for one minute.

Add the chicken stock and the potatoes. Raise the heat and bring the soup to a boil. Then lower the heat and simmer the soup until the potatoes are quite tender, about ten minutes.

Squeeze out the moisture from the nettles and give them a rough chop. Add them to the soup. Simmer for a few more minutes.

Taste the soup and adjust the seasoning if necessary.