Easter Cake and Crafts

It's snowing outside like it's Christmas, but here is a little piece I wrote for Style Blueprint about Easter crafts and cooking.

The article includes creative ways that you can use the stems, leaves and roots of beets, my favorite being a beet upside down cake. I know it's sounds a little funny, but beets are very high in natural sugar and you'll be surprised at how good they are in a dessert. The butter and sugar from the bottom of the pan mingle with the beets to form a sunset colored syrup that slowly drips down into the cake, which is airy and moist with the aroma of orange oil. It's a light and delicately sweet way to end any Easter lunch.

 Here's the recipe for the cake, but hop over to Style Blueprint to read the rest of the article!

3T unsalted butter
1/4 cup brown sugar
thinly sliced, cooked beets (skins removed)

4 large eggs, separated
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 teaspoons orange zest
1 1/4 cups almond flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

Preheat oven to 350.

Melt butter in an 8" cake pan, swirling it around to coat the sides. Sprinkle 1/4 cup brown sugar on the bottom and layer with beets. Cream together egg yolks, sugar and orange zest. Mix in almond flour, salt and baking soda. In a separate bowl, beat egg whites until foamy and doubled in size, but not until stiff peaks form. Fold egg whites into the rest of the batter and pour into the pan. Bake for 30-35 minutes or until the top is golden and a toothpick comes out clean. Let the cake rest for 5 minutes before carefully turning it out on to a serving plate.

Store in the refrigerator, but serve at room temp.

New Life and a Goat Cheese Round Up

"When a goat likes a book, the whole book is gone, and the meaning has to go find an author again." 

-William Stafford

Today I've cooped myself up inside, dreading the foreboding chance of snow. I thought I'd share some photos of Springtime with you, as a sort of hopeful wishing.

I don't know if I've ever mentioned it, but I love goats from here to eternity. They're playful and clever, and if raised properly, sweet as any animal can be. Goats and their cheese never fail to bring a smile to my face, and I could really use a smile today, you know?

I took these photos in the Spring of 2010 at Noble Springs Dairy Farm, which is right outside of Franklin, Tenn. It's owned by Dustin and Justyne Noble, who, by the way, met at the American Dairy Goat Association National show- how cute is that?

They do private tours of the farm and if you'd like to go on one (which I highly recommend) you can email Dustin[at]noble-springs[dot]com.

So until happier weather graces us again, here are a few of my favorite goat cheese recipes. Hopefully they will bring a smile to your face, too.

Beet, Goat Cheese and Walnut Tart
Roasted Zucchini, Black Bean and Goat Cheese Enchiladas
Baked Goat Cheese with Kalamata Olive Marinara
Goat Cheese Panna Cotta
Goat Cheese Cake with Mixed Berries 
Coconut Cupcakes with Cardamom Goat Cheese Frosting

Easter potato salad with pickled pink onions

This Easter I've decided to make one of my all-time favorite side dishes: roasted potatoes bathed in olive oil and tossed with pickled onions and capers. Fatty. Luxurious. Piquant. The perfect accompaniment to a medium-rare steak or roasted leg of lamb.

One thing you absolutely cannot skip in this recipe is the pickled pink onions. There is no condiment more simple and more delicious on God's green Earth, save except chow-chow, and I only have to say that because I'm a Southerner.

I keep pickled onions in my fridge at all times, partly because I like seeing their cheery pink color when I open the fridge door, and partly because they're so useful. I put them in tacos, scrambled eggs, salads of all kinds and sandwiches. Really, you can sneak them into just about anything that is savory.

Another important aspect of the recipe is the type of potato. Use the kind of potato that is good at soaking up juices, the kind that will sit in a vinaigrette and slowly slurp it up into their very being. The kind that will get along well with onions and capers and vinegar, and only get friendlier as they sit together in your fridge.

Even if you know your family isn't going to eat all three pounds of salad, go ahead and make a whole batch. Leftover potato salad is a happy home for things like lentils, roasted vegetables and field greens. Or, roughly chop potato salad and mix it in with 3 beaten eggs. Maybe crumble goat cheese in too, if you've got some. Pour the mix into a warm, greased 8" pan and bake at 375 until it's set for such a stinkin' delicious frittata.

To make salad:
3 pounds waxy potatoes
2 Tablespoons vegetable stock
2 Tablespoons dry white wine
1/2 a red onion, pickled (recipe follows)
1-2 Tablespoons capers
1/2 cup roughly chopped parsley leaves or other soft herbs*
3T vinegar from pickled onions
1/2 teaspoons mustard (any kind except grainy will do)
10 Tablespoons olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

Cook your potatoes however is easiest for you. While they are still very warm, toss them with stock and wine. While they cool, mix mustard and vinegar together. Stream in olive oil. Toss potatoes and all other ingredients in vinaigrette. Best if made in advance and served at room temperature.

And, if you happen to have a little extra vinaigrette sitting at the bottom of your mixing bowl, how lucky for you! Toss your salad in it or save it to drizzle over steak.

*Such as cilantro, chervil, basil, chives or dill. If you are going to use dill or chives, limit yourself to 2 Tablespoons mixed in with other herbs.

To pickle onion:
3/4 cup white vinegar
pinch of salt
3T cane sugar
5 whole cloves
2 small bay leaves
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes (optional)
one large red onion, thinly sliced

Bring all ingredients except onion to a boil, then add onion and cook for one minute. Pour into canning jars and store in the fridge. Fills two 8 ounce jars.

Are y'all interested in hearing about how I cooked the steak? Not much meat passes through my kitchen, but I've recently had a surprising bout of success with flank steak...

Vegan lemon gnocchi with spring peas and mint

Do y'all read Chickpea Magazine? It's a vegan food magazine with beautiful styling and photography. The Spring issue just came out and I wrote a recipe for lemon gnocchi with peas and mint. Click to page 73 of the online magazine for the full recipe.

P.S. How ready are y'all for Spring??

Pi Day

Happy pi day, y'all!

I thought I'd share something a little different with you: a savory beet galette. I've been doing a lot of natural dying for a special Easter project (more on that next week) and as a result, there were just way too many beets in my fridge. Come to think of it, that's more of a luxury than a problem. Anyway, I made this freeform pie using both beet root and beet greens. It was inspired by this and this.

I especially like galettes because unlike the number pi, they're imprecise. When a pie comes out of the oven looking weird, I frown and say it's a failure. When a galette comes out a bit wonky, I smile and call it "rustic." The filling doesn't have to be exact either. All you need is some cheese, a lot of greens, a handful of toasted nuts and a tiny bit of garlic. I suggest that you mix everything together in a blender and taste it before you add the egg.

If you're like me and would prefer that your galette look somewhat perfect, here's how you do it:
Roll the dough out into a large circle. Grab something that is round and has an 8" diameter, like a plate or a cake pan and place it in the middle, checking that you have about an extra 1.5" inches of space outside of the plate. Trim the edges with a paring knife so that they are even. Score around the plate with a fork, being extra careful not to poke all the way through the dough. Finally, when you lay down the filling... just stay inside the score marks!

For the crust:
(from The New York Times)
makes two 8" galettes

200g (1 3/4 cups) whole wheat flour
115g (1 cup) all-purpose flour
3/4t kosher salt
1/4 cup olive oil
2t red wine vinegar
3/4 cup water

Mix flours, salt and oil together with your hands or in a stand mixer with a paddle attachment. Stream in water and vinegar just until a ball forms. Cut in two and roll into discs. Refrigerate for one hour, or up to a week before using.

Roll your dough out on top of parchment paper so that it will be easy to transfer to a baking sheet.

Note: My dough took closer to 1 1/4 cups water. When I make this again, I will use 1 teaspoon salt. Also, if you want your finished pastry to have a glossier look, brush it with a bit of cream or raw egg before baking. 

For the filling:
4-5 cups roughly chopped beet greens (or one bunch kale)
3oz chèvre
1/3 cup walnut pieces, lightly toasted
1 medium clove garlic, grated
1 large egg
about two or three large, cooked beets, sliced 1/4" thick*
salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 350. Place everything except for the beets in a food processor and pulse until it looks like chunky pesto. Pour filling onto the middle of a rolled out crust and smear it out to your score marks. Layer beets on top. Pinch dough edges all the way around to pleat it. Brush outside with egg or cream if using. Bake 30-35 minutes, or until crust is golden and the filling is cooked through.

* I usually roast my beets. For this galette, I actually used beets that I had boiled to make Easter egg dye. I discovered (too late, unfortunately) that chopped beets actually make better dye, but I don't see any reason why they would make a worse galette.

Learning Curve

I was listening to the radio the other day when Melissa Block asked Quvenzhané Wallis, "What do you think it takes to be a great actor?"

And, with the straight-forward wisdom that only someone so young could conjure, Quvenzhané replied, "Concentrating."

It's my opinion that concentration is required to be great at anything, especially cooking. Everything from the most enormous kitchen disasters to the tiniest mishaps can usually be avoided by simply paying attention. That being said, cooking is a never-ending learning experience and you have to make mistakes in order to progress. 

Before yesterday I had never cooked clams. I found this delicious recipe from Bon Appétit. The last step of the instructions reads: "Add clams... and cook until clams open, about 5 minutes." As you can see in the picture above, five minutes was far from enough time. Had I been concentrating I would have stopped and asked myself, "Is this what the fully cooked clams I've eaten in restaurants looked like?" But I wasn't. I saw that my clams had cracked their little lips, so, mindlessly, I pulled them out, pried one open and popped it into my mouth. On a related note, if you ever want to loose a few pounds, eat an undercooked clam. You won't want to eat for days!

Every now and then I see a recipe that says something like, "Place the egg in a 140 degree water bath, wait 45 minutes, then crack." That's the kind of instruction that you should follow exactly. But more often than not, recipe instructions are written with approximation at best. As Alton Brown discusses in his Nerdist interview, cooking times vary wildly because of the way heat is conducted in different models of pans, stoves and ovens. 

I can't tell you how many times I've seen the directions "cook onions until soft and translucent, about five minutes." I can tell you how many times I've seen onions turn soft and translucent within five minutes: zero. You're much better off learning to cook by using your eyes, your mouth and your brain rather than your timer. The only real way to tell if an onion is soft or not is to put it in your mouth. Make cooking a multi-sensory exercise in concentration. Do what makes sense and what tastes good to you. 

Let me end by quoting Michael Ruhlman- "Thinking in the kitchen. It's underrated." 

What kitchen disasters have you learned from? 

P.S. How much do y'all love my new 1920's punch glasses that I got at the Nashville Flea Market??

Here's a slightly simpler version of the original recipe that I have tried to explain using visual queues instead of approximate times:

Steamed Clams with Fennel and Spicy Italian Sausage
-serves four 

Special equipment:
large pot with a fitted lid
wooden spoon

2T salted butter
1 small yellow onion, diced
2 bulbs fennel, diced
1/2 pound spicy Italian sausage (2 links)*, casing removed
1 14.5oz can diced tomatoes in juice
1/2t dried oregano
1/2 cup dry white wine
20 littleneck clams
water, salt
1/2 pound spaghetti
parsley, fennel fronds and parmesan for garnish

Clean clams and set aside over ice.

Cook spaghetti in very salty water according to package directions and please, make sure your pot is big enough. For 1/2 pound pasta, you'll need about a four quart pot. Reserve one cup pasta water. Drain, run under cold water and toss with olive oil.

In a large (4-6 quart), heavy-bottom pot, sauté fennel and onion in butter (with about 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt) over medium heat until they look translucent and do not crunch when you bite into them. Don't go so far as to let their edges turn golden. Add sausage and break it up with the back of a wooden spoon. When sausage is cooked through, you should see bits of brown starting to form on the bottom of  the pan. At this point, add tomatoes, wine and oregano and another 1/2 teaspoon of salt. Use the wooden spoon to scrape brown bits off the bottom. When this mixture is warmed through, taste it to see if you want to add more salt or maybe a touch of red pepper. Bring everything to a boil. If your sauce looks dry, as though too much juice has evaporated, add 1/4 cup pasta water and go from there. Place clams in sauce, lip side up, and cover pot with lid. If your lid is clear, leave it on until the clams open at an absolutely obtuse angle. If your lid is not clear, check them every five minutes. When clams are done, remove them from the sauce. Discard any clams that did not open. Add pasta to sauce and toss it around until it is warm. Top pasta with clams, parmesan, parsley, and fennel fronds.

*Mine wasn't quite spicy enough so I added 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes.

Note: Clams are alive and should be cooked as soon as possible after purchase. It's also best to buy your clams on Thursday or Friday, since this is when most stores receive fresh shipments. You can easily make the sauce and spaghetti ahead, pick clams up on your way home from work and have everything ready to eat in about 30 minutes.