Come join us at the Fall Festival in Fort Collins this Sunday, October 11. SeedtoSpoon.com will host a table from 11-1 to answer questions on “What’s a Locavore Do In Winter?” I’d love to talk to you and answer any questions you might have.
The address is the parking lot on the southwest Corner of Harmony & Lemay in Fort Collins, about an hour from Denver. For more information, check out the website at www.fortnet.org/market/
Friends tell me they’re scared to have me over for dinner. Something about my being a food writer tends to scare them off. If only they could’ve heard my seven-year-old tonight.
“Mommy,” she yelled from downstairs. “Are we having hotdogs and baked beans for dinner?” I’d been writing on the computer for awhile, and I guess she figured we’d be stuck with that since it was nearing 6 o’clock and the kitchen was dark. The fact that she knows about hotdogs and canned baked beans should put my friends at ease.
So yes, we did have hotdogs (all natural, I might add). But instead of serving a side dish from a can, I boiled some fingerling potatoes, tossed in a handful of green beans for the last few minutes, and quickly whisked Dijon, olive oil and balsamic. When the beans and potatoes were done, I drained them and tossed them with the vinaigrette, then added some baby spinach. By the time the ketchup, mustard and relish were on the table, the side dish was ready. Nothing fancy, certainly nothing to intimidate a friend, but way better than something out of a can.
Potato and Green Bean Salad with Mustard Vinaigrette
This recipe, like many others on my blog, is more technique than recipe. I didn’t weigh ingredients as I made it, and neither should you. Just use what you have, adding more or less depending on personal taste and what’s in your fridge and/or pantry. The quantities are simply estimates to get you started.
1 1/4 to 1 1/2 pounds new potatoes or fingerlings, cut into quarters or bite-sized pieces
8 ounces green beans, cut in 1 1/2-inch pieces
1/4 cup course-ground Dijon mustard
1/8 cup olive oil
1/8 cup extra virgin olive oil
1-2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
2-3 tablespoons parsley
Large handful of baby spinach
Salt and pepper
Boil the potatoes in salted water about 8 or 9 minutes, or until nearly done. Add the green beans and cook a few minutes more. Drain beans and potatoes. Whisk the mustard, olive oils and balsamic and gently toss with the vegetables, then add parsley and salt and pepper to taste. Add more balsamic if necessary, then mix in a large handful of baby spinach.
A few weeks ago, Monroe Organic Farms (our CSA) had a harvest festival. My kids had so much fun picking carrots that we headed home with quite a large bag. Since then, I’ve been flipping through the indices of favorite cookbooks, looking for fun ways to use them all up.
This recipe was a hit, not just with the family but with me because it’s so quick to make. Note that the recipe originally called for frozen peas, but I prefer parsley instead. It is a classic counterpart to lemon and adds the same pop of green.
Kids in the Kitchen–If you’re making this with kids, let them roll the lemon on the counter before slicing and juicing it. This will keep little hands busy and it will allow you to squeeze more juice. If they’re adventurous, you can also let them sample the yellow outer part of the peel and the white part, called the pith. Which tastes bitter? Hint: there’s a reason why cooks only use the yellow part when recipes call for zest.
Couscous with Carrots, Lemon and Parsley
Adapted from The Bon Appetit Cookbook
1 3/4 cups chicken broth
2 carrots, peeled and chopped fine
1 1/4 cups couscous
3 tablespoons lemon juice
1 1/2 tablespoons lemon zest
1-2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons chopped parsley
Boil broth and add carrots. Cook a few minutes, then add couscous. Remove from heat and let sit, covered, for five minutes. Add lemon juice, lemon zest, butter and parsley and stir. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
With 25 minutes to go until the sitter arrived, I decided to tackle the peppers that were overtaking my fridge. Every week I’ve gotten more in my CSA delivery, and we just haven’t made it through them. So there they were — green, red and yellow bells, plus anaheims and poblanos and a few other dark and light green skinny ones whose names escape me — in bags on every shelf.
Why I decided to chop and freeze them when I should’ve been getting ready for dinner with friends at Fruition (Alex Seidel’s acclaimed restaurant), I don’t quite know. Perhaps if I hadn’t been so rushed, I wouldn’t have made such a big mistake.
My plan was to do what I always do with extra peppers. That is, wash, seed and chop them, then put them in Ziploc bags and freeze them for use later this winter. Although I can find organic peppers in the store year-round, they’re obviously not local, and when I go ahead and buy them anyway for the occasional recipe, I find them to be pricey and squishy, not a good combination. Non-organic peppers are cheap and deceptively fresh-looking, but bell peppers rank third (as in third most contaminated) on the Dirty Dozen list, so I always buy organic.
So there I am, seeding and chopping peppers as fast as my chef’s knife will move. With a few minutes to spare, I bagged the veggies, cleaned up the kitchen, and got ready for the sitter. That’s when I noticed something was wrong. My hands were burning.
I felt like I’d been making snowballs bare-handed, then running my hands under hot water. I washed them again with soap (singing ‘Happy Birthday’ twice like I’ve taught my kiddos), kissed my kids good-night and jumped in the car. Still burning. We arrived at the restaurant and my hands were hurting so badly I scoped out the neighborhood for a pharmacy. None to be found.
So we put the restaurant to the test. Known for its excellent service, I explained what I’d done and asked if the chef had any ideas. Within minutes, the waiter brought out a cup of milk for me to pour over my fingers. No relief. So he brought out baking soda, which I was instructed to make into a paste and apply to my fingers. Still no relief.
Lucky for me, one of the friends we were having dinner with is a doctor, so she reassured me that the reaction was only local and wouldn’t lead to anything more serious. I relaxed and settled into the night, and by the time we were finishing our French press, I noticed that the burning had finally stopped.
Moral of the story: Don’t assume peppers are sweet! I’ve been trained in a kitchen and I know you’re supposed to wear gloves when chopping hot peppers, but I mistakenly assumed all of my peppers were sweet. (The poblanos and anaheims I’d set aside in the glass bowl pictured above.) Since I was in such a rush, I’d neglected to sample them. I’m just thankful that I chopped the yellow bell for my kiddos’s dinner before starting on the others.
P.S. In our house, we talk about “turning lemons into lemonade” So in this case the bright side is that I won’t have to add any crushed red pepper to my chili this winter…
