Unexpected Forage (potentially!)

Know what this is?

Yes, that’s right, its a prickly pear cactus bloom.
And what that means is that all of these buds,

could become fruit that look like this.

(image found here)

And then could become all manner of deliciousness like pricklybeena or jam.

 

Oregon Interlude

Just wanted to share a few photos from my quick trip to Oregon this past weekend. It was lovely! They have moss and primeval looking ferns like you wouldn’t believe (which I actually did not get any worthwhile photos of).

They also have restaurants/fish marts where you can actually find out how, where and by which boat your fish was caught. Talk about locavore friendly! This is at Local Ocean, in Newport (click to embiggen to read the little fish signs!).

There were really cool things at the aquarium we visited.

And on the way out, some lovely mountains.

It was a picturesque and a second (more leisurely) trip is definitely in order.

 

Cheesy Artichoke Dip

Although I have spent most of my life living in Pennsylvania and Maryland, neither of my parents grew up in the area. My mother is from the Carolinas (yes, both), and my father is from California. So even though I grew up near Philadelphia, I didn’t have a really good cheesesteak until I was in college – because Pat’s and Geno’s just weren’t part of our vernacular.

However, in place of much of the local Philly cuisine (don’t laugh, we have 3 Iron Chefs now!), we had southern inspired and west coast inspired foods that most of my friends would have scorned, because it wasn’t typical Mid-Atlantic cooking.

From my mother I learned about savory corn bread and pepper vinegar pulled pork; from my father I learned about eating squid and smoked oysters and artichokes. Usually we eat artichokes steamed, pulling off the petals and dipping them in hollandaise or mayo – however, when they aren’t in season, and you really need an artichoke fix, this dip is the way to go.

This is a heavily modified version of a recipe I was taught at a party once – and I continue to bring it to potlucks and parties on a regular basis (including to the Hip Girl’s Potluck 2 months ago, where I was told to post this recipe ASAP! So much for being timely). Enjoy!

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This is the before shot, there is no after shot because it was completely consumed!

• Ingredients:
• 1/2 c olive oil based mayo
• 1 c freshly grated Parmesan cheese
• 1/2 c shredded fresh mozzarella
• 1/2 c shredded Dutch Chevre (this is a semi-soft cheese, not the soft French kind)
• 1 jar marinated artichoke hearts, drained and coarsely chopped
• 1/4 c rehydrated or fresh chickpeas
• crackers, chips, or veggies to dip
• Methods:
• 1. Put chickpeas into a food processor and pulse until very finely chopped. Preheat the oven to 350.
• 2. In a medium bowl, combine all ingredients, mixing well. Transfer into an oven safe casserole dish with a lid, and smooth the mixture out so it is even.
• 3. Wipe down the insides of the dish if you made a mess, the residue will burn during cooking.
• 4. Place the dish on the middle rack and cook for 20-30 minutes, until the dip is melted and beginning to brown around the edges.
• 5. Serve and enjoy!
• Notes
• You can use the spicy artichoke hearts, including the pepper, if you want a hotter dip.
• I have successfully substituted smoked mozzarella and feta for the mozzarella and chevre – it was just as good. The main thing to remember when substituting cheese is that you want as much dry/hard cheese as softer cheese. Too much soft cheese makes the dip greasy.
• Even if you hate chickpeas, do not skip them! The chickpea pulp soaks up any excess grease from the cheese, and gives the dip a better consistency. At that point the chickpeas are so cheesy, you actually won’t notice they are there.
• Technically you can eat this while knitting – I brought it to a knitting group dinner, and we managed to eat it all without dropping a single stitch. Just be sure to keep napkins handy!

 

Dinner: CSA – Day 1

We had our first CSA pick-up today. Last summer we were too busy moving to invest in a share, but this year, since we’ve moved to farm country, I was determined to find a good CSA. We found it at Blooming Glen Farm. Just picking up my share was a hoot – everyone was so friendly. I will have to bring my camera next time so I can properly show you the glories of picking up your produce straight from the farm.

This week’s share included escarole, lettuce, kohlrabi, turnips, swiss chard, kale, spring onions, bok choi, strawberries, and some herbs and edible Johnny Jump Ups.

So dinner tonight was a mixed escarole and lettuce salad, with strawberries, pine nuts and feta cheese. I made a quick balsamic and olive oil dressing, and it was lovely.
See?

Those strawberries have made my husband rethink his dislike of strawberries. They are that much more awesome than your typical grocery store berries. To the point where he asked me if I expected to have any strawberries left to make jams and things, as he stood eating a sizable portion of them. We both have been guiltily munching on them all evening, when we think the other won’t notice. We’ll see if we end up with any jam or sauce or strawberry mead this year. I’m guessing no.

 

Peacock Shawl

Life proceeds apace, and I realize I have been MIA for a couple of weeks, after doing so well for almost a full month!
So to tide you over, because I am working on many things (including the recipe for artichoke dip that I was asked for by everyone at the Hip Girls Guide to Homemaking potluck), here is a teaser of the peacock inspired shawl I am designing/knitting for a zoo fundraiser.

 

Ode to Yeast

I have been baking since I was very very young. My mother was fantastic at getting all of us into the kitchen to help with holiday baking or bread baking or other cooking in whatever capacity we could handle (she’s basically a superhero – remind me to tell you about the 12 hour epic road-trips with 3 kids). I even have photographic proof of my baking and mess-making prowess:

Even as a youngin’ I knew that yeast was an integral part of the bread baking process – my mother is also a biologist – and I even knew that yeast needed to be alive to work. Which is sort of strange to think about, now, as an adult. That I knew that, and some children don’t even know you can bake your own bread!

My understanding, however, has never been extremely sophisticated – bunch of ingredients + yeast + oven = delicious bread. In a lot of ways, baking and cooking are still ‘magic’ to me.

When I recently realized that bunch of other ingredients + yeast + bucket = something completely unlike bread – I was pretty much hooked. Yeast being the magical fungus that it is – it also helps make alcoholic beverages!

So now, in our basement, we have one of these:

and some of these:

The bottled is Chardonnay, our first attempt at home wine-making, and is about a month away from drinkability. The fermenter/bucket is the beginnings of mead. If you are unfamiliar with mead (like most people), it is essentially wine made from honey. It is impossible to find in a store (at least in Pennsylvania), and if you get a taste for it, you may need to begin making your own. The kicker is that it takes about a year of aging to be truly drinkable, but once it is, you will have trouble not drinking it all. We got a taste for mead while camping with someone who made his own – he had brought a few bottles, and we all got happily tipsy.

We have about 2 cases of the wine, and should end up with about 2 cases of the mead as well. And really, all we did was dump yeast in a bucket of grape juice or honeyed water…
I told you – yeast is basically magic.

 

Charity Knitting – not just afghan squares

I, like many knitters, have been dabbling in a little design work here and there for awhile. Just small things, like panels for baby socks, tiny people and animals, and the occasional somewhat short-waisted baby sweater.

So when I was asked to design and knit a half-length shawl for a fund-raiser my zoo is throwing in June, I was both excited and horrified. I have never attempted to design anything as exciting as a lace shawl, and I’m not the fastest knitter in the world. And there is one more thing you should know about my typical knitting designs – but if you are a knitter, you might want to sit down first.

I don’t like to do knitting maths.

That’s right, my typical design method is to just start knitting and eye-ball things. Little or no swatching. Definitely no calculator. Occasional rip-backs because I fouled it up too badly to fix on the fly. This is making the shawl project (using tiny yarn, tiny needles, beading and lace) more difficult than it should be. But, as per usual, I will just continue to knit until I either have a disaster or a shawl. I will be taking it to the Caribbean next week (because lace-weight alpaca LOVES the beach), and hope to have some lovely pictures of it for you soon.

For those of you who might be interested in doing something similar – I recommend getting in touch with your favorite local non-profit organization. I have noticed that many organizations and schools hold silent auctions, and are often very excited to be able to offer one of a kind items by local artists.

In case you live in the Philadelphia area and are interested in obtaining this monstrosity work of art, it will be auctioned off at Elmwood Park Zoo’s Beast of a Feast on June 4th. Proceeds go towards funding the zoo so it can continue to educate and promote conservation efforts, as well as towards a conservation project in South America.

 

Another Great Food Experiment

So to say that my lunch and food-related whims are fickle is like saying that March weather in the northeast is mildly weird. I am notorious for loving my dinner and absolutely refusing to eat the leftovers for lunch the next day – something which usually pleases my husband because there is more for him. I cannot explain this other than to admit that when it comes to food I have two settings – quickly bored and completely obsessed. There is no real way to predict which I will be, it seems unrelated to food quality or content, and even favorite foods (I’m looking at you Broccoli Salad!) sometimes end up in the “I’m bored of eating this” category.

I am confessing all of this food-weirdness to you to set up yet another one of my food experiments. I recently came across this book – and was immediately intrigued by the idea of home-made bento boxes. Lots of different food items in small portions? Adorably packaged meals? An excuse to keep ginger in the house? Sign me up right now! Plus, the author, Makiko Itoh, includes many tips about preparing food ahead and freezing it – which goes hand in hand with my recent attempts to be less wasteful with food.

So far we have tried two of the meals – one with miso-tofu nuggets, and one with sweet and sour meatballs – and have been very pleased with the results. My husband may have even said “I want this for lunch every day!”

Some quick tips for anyone also intrigued by this book:

• Get it! It is very well written and has lots of procedural tips for those of us who are not well versed in Japanese cooking techniques.
• I am finding that it is taking me a lot of time to do. Some of this is because I am not yet up to the multi-tasking needed to get finished quickly, and some of this is because I don’t have a rice-cooker yet. However, we are getting about 4 lunches each time, so if you think of it as 2 days worth of cooking, it feels better.
• When you pull a bento box out at work, be prepared for some jealous ribbing. I have been compared to Molly Ringwald in The Breakfast Club, and had incredulous looks shot my way when I admitted that I had not picked up take-out from anywhere.

In the end, while I may not try to create bento boxes every day, the really cool things about this experiment, so far, are that it has made me very aware of how much food is a lot of food – it is pretty amazing how little food is needed to make one feel full – and it makes us both feel a bit spoiled at lunchtime. Even though I’m making the food myself, it is a bit like opening a lunch that my mother packed for me – I know there is love in the food, instead of just lunchmeat. Which is either a really poignant observation, or the girliest thing I’ve ever said…

 

Did I say 2 shawls on needles?

Might be a little obsessed with beaded lace right now.

Specs: Unique Sheep Chasca in Justin Gradiance; Unknown succulent house plant; Size 3 needles; Silver-lined Cobalt beads.

 

Variations on a Theme

  About two years ago, K of Local Kitchen and I had a discussion about her extremely wonderful Sausage, Herb & Mozzarella bread. This was right around the time that my already convoluted career path took an abrupt turn towards me spending much more time at home doing schoolwork, so I had the time regularly to make more involved meals. During that discussion, at some point, I ventured that I thought that it might be equally as tasty stuffed with curry chicken, and with a more garlic naan sort of taste in the bread itself. In order to preserve this idea, K asked if I would please comment on her blog to that effect, so we would remember to try it later. And then we both promptly forgot didn’t do anything about this idea until now (I think anyway, she might have sneakily tried it first, but she didn’t tell me if she did!). And while it didn’t turn out quite the way I had envisioned, it was good enough that my husband is already planning to eat it for his next few lunches.

  The recipe which follows is really just another set of options for K’s recipe – I will detail how I changed things, but really, K writes recipes so well that I didn’t feel I could do the rest of it justice. Just take my stuff and add it to her recipe!

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Curry Chicken and Goat Cheese Bread

• Herb mixture ingredients:
• 1 tsp oregano
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 tbl dried basil
• 2 tsp ground coriander
• 1 and 1/2 tsp ground ginger
• Curry chicken stuffing:
• 4 cloves garlic, chopped
• 3 shallots, chopped
• 1/2 c sun dried tomatoes, chopped
• 4 tbl Korma curry paste (found in the asian food section of the grocery)
• 1/2 tsp cayenne
• 3/4 c carrots, chopped
• 1 lb. chicken tenders or breasts, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
• 6 oz. plain soft goat cheese (I used Chavrie)
• Methods:
• 1. Substitute the herb mixture ingredients for the dried herbs in the first step of K’s recipe
• 2. Sauté the chicken cubes in a large skillet with olive oil until mostly cooked through.
• 3. Add garlic, shallots, tomatoes, curry paste, cayenne and carrots to the chicken, and cook for another 5-10 minutes, until the garlic and shallots are soft, and the carrots are just beginning to soften slightly, and the chicken cubes are cooked through. Let cool to room temperature and substitute in step 14 of K’s recipe
• 4. Substitute dollops of goat cheese for mozzarella cubes across the filling in step 14
• 5. Finish up the rest of the recipe, cut slices, eat and enjoy!
• Notes:
• I found that it didn’t end up tasting quite as much like garlic naan and curry chicken as I had expected, but it was really fantastic anyway. Using green curry or yellow curry paste might change that, actually, but korma was all we could find at our local store.
• Resist the urge to cut out the cheese or the carrots – even though they were sort of last minute additions that I thought would end up really strange, they both added great flavor and texture. Even my husband, who hates goat cheese, loved the goat cheese in this recipe.
• This version was not very spicy – adding more cayenne or other chili pepper product will give it more of a kick if you should so desire.