Sweet Potato Fries

1 05 2011

As a professional food writer and restaurant critic, I keep an eye on trends. For the past few years, one of them has been burgers. Convenience aside, I just don’t see the appeal. The sad truth is that most burger joints, even high end ones, simply don’t live up to the local and organic standards that many of us set for ourselves and for our families. Organic produce? Humanely raised beef? Reasonable amounts of sodium? No, no and no.

So when the kids wanted burgers for dinner yesterday, I knew where we were going before the words were out of their mouths. And we didn’t even have to click our heels three times to get there. There’s just no place like home when it comes to food that’s really treated with care.

For the patties themselves, I used high quality ground beef from a cow raised at the CSA that I belong to. Kosher salt, pepper and a little trick I learned from Bobby Flay about not smashing the meat when you shape the patty were all I needed to whip up some restaurant-caliber burgers.

But you can’t have burgers without fries, and I wasn’t about to give some spuds a double dip in the deep fryer. (Yes, a double dip. How else do you think restaurants can get them so crisp?). Instead, I made something far lower in fat and, with all those A and C vitamins, far healthier, too: sweet potato fries.

Sweet potato fries are simple to make. Just peel and cut the sweet potatoes into fry-sized slices. Toss them lightly in olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper and put them on a parchment-lined baking sheet at 450 for 25-35 minutes, or until crisp. Like any fries, these are absolutely delish when they come out of the oven, but their appeal fades as they cool. So eat them fast. At my house you have to, or you risk not getting any!


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Categories : In Spring, Recipes, Uncategorized

Strawberry Mousse

28 04 2011

Spring is in full bloom and summer will be here before we know it. Now is the time to use up any fruits and vegetables you froze last summer so there’s room for this year’s goodies.

My kids love berries so about half my deep freezer was devoted to organic strawberries, blueberries and raspberries. We spent the winter enjoying them in homemade frozen yogurt, cakes and pies, but last night I decided to try something different: mousse.

This recipe is one of my childhood favorites, a specialty of my grandmother who spent many hours watching Julia Child and many more hours teaching me my way around the kitchen. Make it with fresh or frozen strawberries, but remember to buy organic because strawberries tend to soak up pesticide and you don’t want that with your dessert. To serve, spoon into espresso cups or small glass bowls; a small portion is all you need given all the cream.

Strawberry Mousse
10 ounces frozen strawberries or 1/2 pint fresh
3-ounce package strawberry gelatin
A few tablespoons sugar
1/2 pint heavy whipping cream

Clean the strawberries if using fresh, and crush them. Sweeten with a few tablespoons of sugar and set aside. If there’s any juice, drain it and pour it into a measuring cup. Fill with water to reach 3/4 cup. Pour liquid into a small pan and bring to a boil, then add gelatin, stirring to dissolve. Remove from heat and cool. Meanwhile, whip cream into stiff peaks. When gelatin mixture is cool, stir into strawberries, then fold in cream. Pour into a medium glass bowl and refrigerate for several hours.


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Categories : In Spring, Recipes, Uncategorized

Almond Cake

22 01 2011

One of my resolutions is to be a perimeter shopper, someone who avoids the interior aisles full of boxes and cans in favor of the fruits, vegetables, dairy, bread and meat on the outside of the store. For years my family has been moving in that direction, and in truth we buy very little processed food as it is. But until this year there have been exceptions, such as cereal, frozen breakfast burritos and the organic mac and cheese my kids eat with a sitter when my husband and I go out.

And since honesty is the best policy, I’ll ‘fess up to one more. Brownie mix.

How many times have I turned to those boxes when I needed a quick, sure-to-please dessert? Too many to count. But last week when I was expecting a houseful of folks for a nighttime meeting, I had no box to turn to. So I did what my grandmother would have done and pulled out a cookbook. I flipped through, looking for something quick and easy, not to mention something that could be made with basic pantry ingredients as I didn’t have time to run to the store. What I found was this delicate almond cake, which is hardly more complicated than what comes from a box but is infinitely more special because it clearly is not.

Almond Cake

scant 1 cup white flour
3/4 cup sugar
1/8 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup butter, melted
1 egg, beaten
1 T almond extract
1/4 cup chopped almonds

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease an 8-inch cake pan, then line with wax paper and grease paper, too. Mix flour, sugar, salt and baking powder in a medium bowl. Add melted butter, egg and almond extract and mix well. Pour into pan, sprinkle almonds on top and bake about 25 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clean.


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Categories : In Winter, Recipes, Uncategorized

Cooking Tip: Degreasing Chicken Stock

19 01 2011

I used to buy canned chicken broth with nary a thought. Then a friend made some black bean soup with homemade stock and I realized how much better my own soups would be if I chucked the cans. (I also became increasingly concerned about the chemicals in the lining of the cans, but that’s another story.) So for a few years now I’ve been freezing my own stock to use when I want to make soup.

But over the holidays I used up my stash of frozen stock, so last week when I made chicken soup I had to start from scratch. What I’d forgotten, however, was the little problem of de-greasing it. The best way to do this is to make it one day and let it cool overnight in the fridge. The fat will congeal on the top in a yellowish, Crisco-like layer (yummy, I know). Then it can be quickly and easily lifted off for a soup that tastes better and is healthier for your heart.

What to do if you run out of time and don’t have hours to let the soup cool in the fridge? As my kids and I learned last week, a snow drift works fine, too. We put the stock pot (uncovered) in the snow on our patio, moving its position as the snow around it melted. In about 30 minutes, the fat had risen and could be skimmed off the top!


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Categories : In Winter, Kids in the Kitchen, Recipes, Uncategorized

Chicken Calzones

16 01 2011

We all have those weeks when dinner means takeout and the kids are scrounging through the laundry looking for a shirt that’s (close to) clean. When those weeks are over — that is, when you have 15 minutes to spare — it pays to do some meal planning. Because when it comes to weeknight dinners, a little planning pays off.

You can do yourself an even bigger favor if you designate a few overlapping ingredients. For example, last week I used a whole organic chicken for homemade chicken noodle soup. A few days later, I used the leftover shredded chicken in whole wheat calzones. Broccoli also did double duty. One night we ate it as a simple side dish. I cooked extra, saving what we didn’t eat for these calzones.

I love this recipe because it packs a nutritional punch, not just from the protein in the chicken and the whole grains in the dough, but from the stealth addition of chopped, cooked broccoli. If your kids are vegetable averse, they’ll probably not even notice it given the yummy cover of parmesan and pesto. The recipe makes four large calzones, but you could easily shape six or eight smaller ones and save the leftovers for lunch.

Chicken Calzones
Adapted from a recipe in The Sunset Cookbook

1 recipe whole wheat pizza dough (see below)
1 1/3 cup shredded mozzarella
½ cup pesto
1 cup cooked chopped broccoli
1 cup shredded, cooked chicken
¼ cup parmesan
Salt and pepper to taste

Dough
¼ ounce active dry yeast
½ tsp sugar
2 T olive oil
2 cups whole wheat flour
½ tsp salt

Mix yeast, sugar and 1/3 cup warm water in a bowl and let sit until bubbly. Add another 1/3 cup warm water, oil, flour and salt and mix well. Knead on a floured surface for several minutes until dough is smooth, adding drops of water if necessary. Place in an oiled bowl and cover while you prepare the remaining ingredients (30 minutes is ideal, but don’t worry if it’s less).

Divide dough into four pieces. Press into 6-inch rounds. Mix remaining ingredients. Spoon onto bottom half of circle, leaving a half-inch border. Fold top half over and pinch edges together. Brush with olive oil and place on oiled cookie sheet. Bake at 450 for 20-25 minutes.


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Categories : In Winter, Recipes, Uncategorized

Casseroles: The Anti-Holiday Meal

9 01 2011

Normally there’s a letdown after the holidays, but this year I’m relieved to return to normal life, if only for simplicity in the kitchen. When you count all the meal planning, shopping and cooking I did from Thanksgiving to Christmas, I think I logged enough hours to earn a reprieve until March!

To celebrate these days of no expectations (i.e., no formal occasions in need of fancy fare!), I sought comfort in a surprising place — a casserole. Even the word makes me laugh. But the dish, a classic one-pot meal, is quick to assemble, simple, and satisfying, and that’s nothing to laugh at. With a few tweaks from the way my grandmother wrote it decades ago, the recipe holds its own on any family’s table.

P.S. If you’re part of a farm share and were able to freeze green peppers and tomatoes last season or if you have cellared carrots or potatoes, this is a great way to use them up. Remember that peppers are on the dirty dozen list so buy organic.

Seven-Layer Dinner
1 pound lean ground beef
1 onion, diced
2 cups diced potatoes
3/4 cup wild or brown rice
3 cups thinly sliced carrots
2-4 green peppers, diced
28 ounces diced tomatoes
3/4 cup water or low-sodium broth
Dried oregano

Preheat oven to 300. Brown the beef and onion in a Dutch oven, then salt well and add pepper to taste. Remove the beef and wipe out excess fat. Layer potatoes, rice, 1 1/2 cups carrots, half the green peppers, half the beef and half the tomatoes. Sprinkle with dried oregano and salt and pepper, then add remaining carrots, peppers, beef and tomatoes. Sprinkle with more oregano, salt and pepper, then pour 3/4 cup water or broth over the pot. Bake covered for 2 1/2 to 3 hours. Serve with parmesan, if desired.


Pull out your Dutch oven for this simple and hearty one-pot meal


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Categories : In Winter, Recipes, Uncategorized

Tomato Bread Salad

24 09 2010

After two years of eating seasonally, my kids have learned to associate seasons with food. So when we returned home from the Harvest Festival at my farm share last weekend with a gallon of vine-ripened, organic tomatoes, my 3rd-grader begged for one of her favorites: tomato bread salad.

This is a salad that can only be made with the ripest, freshest, sweetest tomatoes, so we only make it this time of year. Making it in winter, even with those tantalizingly red tomatoes-on-the-vine, is akin to trick-or-treating on Easter. It just isn’t done. Bread is important, too, but there really is no wiggle room when it comes to tomatoes.

If you’ve never had bread salad before, you might be surprised that an eight-year-old would request it. But the dish is really just croutons and tomatoes, which isn’t that different from other carbohydrate-heavy combos that kids love, like noodles with red sauce or pizza. The trick is to assemble the two moments before serving, so the croutons stay crisp. Once the bread sits in the tomatoes it gets soggy, like cereal that’s sat too long. No way a kid is going to eat that. To round out the meal, heat up the grill and throw on sausage, chicken, whatever. Add a green salad and dinner is ready in no time.

Tomato Bread Salad
Preheat the oven to 400. Dice 4-6 tomatoes and put them in a non-reactive bowl, being careful not to lose any of the juices. Add kosher salt and several tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil and let it sit while you make the croutons. Tear a baguette into bite-sized pieces (larger is okay, just not smaller), drizzle them with extra-virgin olive oil and toast them on a lightly oiled cookie sheet until crisp and pale gold. Chop a few teaspoons of fresh basil. When you’re ready to eat, add half the croutons to the tomatoes and toss. Add more croutons until you get the right balance of tomatoes and bread. Taste and add more salt or extra-virgin olive oil as necessary, or even a splash of balsamic vinegar. Sprinkle with basil and enjoy.


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Categories : In Summer, Recipes

Buttermilk Pie

13 07 2010

Seems like everywhere I turn, I’m being bombarded with advice on how to stock my pantry. My feeling is, after all these years of cooking for myself and my family, I know what my kitchen should never be without: lemons, chickpeas, heavy whipping cream, parsley, breadcrumbs, and so on.

Buttermilk is not on this list. In my house, buttermilk is recipe-specific, something I buy for a chocolate cake or maybe a spinach tart. The last time I was at the store, however, I tossed it in the cart, just for the fun of it.

At home, I turned to cookbooks I don’t normally use — again, for the fun of it — and settled on Buttermilk Pie. Don’t let the name turn you off. It’s really a lemon pie, though without quite as many eggs as standard lemon pies. The recipe calls for 3 tablespoons of lemon juice, plus the zest of a whole lemon. Add that to buttermilk, the eggs, sugar, flour and butter and you’ve got yourself dessert.

While you could use traditional flaky pie dough for the crust, I prefer a buckwheat crust. The earthiness of the crust plays well with the pleasantly tart filling. Top it with homemade whipped cream for something that even skeptics will love. (Maybe they’ll be less skeptical if you call it “lemon pie”).

Buttermilk Pie
Adapted from The Fannie Farmer Baking Book

1 cup sugar
3 T flour
3 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup butter, melted and cooled
1 cup buttermilk
3 T lemon juice
zest of 1 lemon

First, make crust. You can either use your own recipe or make the following buckwheat crust: Blend 1/2 cup white flour with 1/2 cup buckwheat flour. Whisk in 1/4 tsp salt. Cut in 1/3 cup butter, then add 2-3 T cold water to form dough. Shape into a disc and set between two large pieces of wax paper. Roll out the crust between the paper, then refrigerate until firm.

Preheat oven to 425. Line pie pan with crust, prick well with fork and bake about 10 minutes. Remove from oven and make filling. Mix sugar and flour, then add eggs, butter, buttermilk, lemon juice and zest. Stir well then pour into pie shell. Bake 10 minutes, then lower the temperature to 350 and bake 20-30 minutes more. Pie is done when a knife inserted 2 inches from the edge comes out clean.


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Categories : In Summer, Recipes, Uncategorized

Pasta with Summer Vegetables

11 07 2010

For a summer project, my oldest daughter decided to study cooking around the world. Every week, she chooses a country and makes a recipe that represents its cuisine. Like most kids, she loves pasta so it’s no wonder that her first country was Italy and the first dish involved noodles.

This being her project, I tried to keep quiet while she flipped through cookbooks, chose the recipe and prepped ingredients. Even if I’d wanted to talk I wouldn’t have gotten a word in edgewise. She narrated the whole time, talking into a non-existent camera in imitation of her favorite Food Network stars. The dish she settled on was Pasta with Spring Vegetables from The International Cookbook for Kids by Michael Locricchio, and in honor of the big night she invited good family friends over for dinner. (You know they’re good friends when they agree to come over for dinner cooked by an 8-year-old!)

According to the cookbook, this cooking technique originated in Florence during the Renaissance; if your child is so inclined, you could always incorporate a little geography and art history into your own cooking project. Mine was too wrapped up in narration to care!

When dinner was served, we all took a bite and decided the pasta was not only edible but delicious. I’ve since made it again, upping the carrots, zucchini and tomatoes, omitting the celery and asparagus since it’s not in season and adding some white wine for flavor. The altered version appears here; feel free to substitute vegetables at will. P.S. If you’re part of a CSA, you’ll love this recipe not just for its taste, but because it uses up much of what you’re probably getting now.

Pasta with Summer Vegetables

3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 large carrots, peeled and chopped
1/2 pound of greens such as chard, washed and coarsely chopped
2-3 large squash or zucchini, halved and thinly sliced
1 28-oz can of diced organic tomatoes, or the fresh equivalent
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1/4 cup white wine
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano or more
1/2 pound whole wheat noodles (capellini, linguini, spaghetti, etc.)
handful of fresh basil, chopped
1 pound Italian sausage, grilled and sliced into bite-sized pieces, if desired

Heat the olive oil over medium-high heat and add the onion, garlic and carrots. Saute for a few minutes, then turn heat to low and cook for 7-8 minutes. Add chard, zucchini, tomatoes, salt, wine, oregano and 1/4 cup water (more if necessary, depending on quantity of vegetables). Stir well, then cover loosely and cook over low heat for 25-30 minutes. Meanwhile, cook pasta in a large pot of boiling salted water and remove when al dente. Drain and toss with a splash of extra virgin olive oil to prevent sticking. When the zucchini is tender, add sausage (if desired) to the sauce and stir, then add more salt, pepper and/or oregano. Put noodles in a large bowl, spoon sauce over noodles and serve with chopped fresh basil and plenty of parmesan.


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Categories : In Summer, Kids in the Kitchen, Recipes, Uncategorized

Fresh Peas with Butter and Parsley

1 07 2010

When I think of “firsts,” I think of kids — first steps, first word and so on. But today I had a first of my own. I shelled peas.

Considering how much I love food (and considering that for most of my professional career, I’ve been paid to write about it), this admission might be surprising. I’ve made mayonnaise, canned peaches and cranked a food mill for applesauce, but somehow I never had time for peas.

But as time management gurus will tell you, there’s always time. It’s up to us to decide how to spend it.

I thought fresh peas weren’t worth my minutes. How wrong I was. And not just because the fresh peas, briefly boiled then quickly tossed with butter and parsley, were sweeter and more delicate than anything that comes in a bag. The real treat was spending half an hour with my oldest daughter, opening pods and dropping the peas in a bowl, talking about her upcoming swim meet and the dance she’s choreographing to her new favorite song. In other words, it’s not about the peas.

Peas with Butter and Parsley

Shell peas. Boil in plenty of salted water just 2 or 3 minutes (or until nearly tender), then drain. Melt a bit of butter in a skillet; add peas and chopped parsley and cook over medium another minute or so. Season to taste and serve immediately.


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Categories : In Summer, Recipes

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