They arrived at my home last night bearing refreshments to share at our meeting...beer, taco spiced mutton, pickled jalepenos, Pumphouse ice cream.  Some also slipped me little hostess gifts from their farms...eggs, aspargus, a bunch of arugula and radishes.  

This is an ode to the radish. Stay tuned for my asparagus anthology.

This morning I twisted a couple of these little gems from their bunch, rinsed off the sand and dipped them in salt.  My mouth waters from the memory of the crisp, sweet, barely spicy crunch.  

These ruby orbs were even more welcome because my radish patch is still a week or more away from yielding it's first babies.

Next up... I embrace my midwestern Swedish heritage with the open face sandwich.  Soft wheat bread spread thickly with butter and topped with tender garden arugula and sliced radishes all scattered with flakes of sea salt.  Next time I'll add a few slivers of red onion.  

Have you ever tried cooked radishes?  You should.  These were braised in a with a little bit of salted water, then buttered and seasoned with salt, pepper and few chives.  They taste like the sweetest, mildest turnip you've ever had.  A little bacon wouldn't hurt either.  

In my work I mingle with farmers and chefs and I'm sure I've learned loads of good and practical tips from both.    I've also learned that at home, I am neither a farmer nor a chef.  I'm a gardener and a cook.

Take lettuce for example.  At Greg Reynolds' farm, these gorgeous loose leaf heads of lettuce grow in neat rows, each one looking like a bridal bouquet.  He cuts the whole mature lettuce, and sells it by the case.  Then he sets out new little plants that he's started in his greenhouse.  Each head is perfect.  Sigh.

In my own garden--I seed the lettuce directly into the soil.  It comes  up too thickly, like a hedge.  I know I should thin the rows, but I don't.  I just shear off enough for dinner and leave the roots in the ground.  By the time we eat our way to the end of the row, the first cut plants have re-grown enough to cut again.  After a second round of this, it's too hot for lettuce and it bolts.  I like to call this "good enough gardening".  Some might just call it sloppy.  Meh.

When the lettuce bolts, I get lazy and often ignore the situation.  

Greg's organic farm uses cover crops in a rotation of plantings.  I have always rotated the plantings in my garden, but never got around to planting a cover crop.  I've been too greedy to give up a harvest.  But this year will be different.  After the lettuce goes out--a cover crop/green manure is going in.  Click here for a good explanation of how to do simple crop rotations in your backyard garden.

Once upon a time, I worked as a pastry chef for a restaurant.  I'd come in very early and bake.  In the restaurant the main prep cook was named Weed (I think perhaps this was not his real name).  Weed came in early, too.  Yes, Mary Jane and Weed spent many happy mornings cooking together in the quiet kitchen.   In case you don't know, a prep cook gets stuff ready so the chef could walk in and crank out lovely plates fast.  I'd watch Weed make stocks and reductions, puree herbs, make sauces and vinaigrettes, and every morning he washed sinkfuls of lettuce.  The salads made from Weed's lettuce blend were cold and crisp and wonderful.  

At home I may not have Weed making me a veal stock reduction--but a little generic prep work of my own goes along way when dinner time rolls around.  I keep on hand homemade chive or other herby pesto and a squeezie bottle of a balsamic vinegar reduction and another of that great Thai dipping sauce you always get with spring rolls.  These can be squirted on or spooned over hot or cold veggies, they double as salad dressings, doll up a plain turkey sandwich (or it's mayo)  and taste wonderful drizzled over grilled meats and/or plain boiled or mashed potatoes.   ...and they make  good-enough-to-serve-to-friends snacks when drizzled over crackers that have been spread with a creamy cheese.

 When that lettuce I've planted is ready I will wash a whole sink full in several changes of cold water, just like Weed, then loosely pack it in bags or a big plastic box in my fridge.  Nice.

Enough chatting, how 'bout a recipe to use some of that great lettuce.  In Pella, Iowa they serve Dutch Lettuce at the diners in the spring.  Pella is a wooden-shoe-and-tulips Dutch town not a German-Deutsch Dutch town.  However, this is essentially hot German potato salad mixed with garden lettuce.  The lettuce wilts and the whole thing is ugly and utterly delish.  I guess I'm on a hearty salad kick right now---so bear with me.  

Next time I'll do a strawberry rhubarb cheesecake.  m-kay?

The dressing is made in a skillet like gravy with the bacon drippings.

Dutch Lettuce
This makes a hearty side for simple roast chicken or grilled steak or is a satisfying lunch on its own.
2 strips bacon, chopped
2 large potatoes, diced
2 cups lettuce (leaf lettuce from the garden is best otherwise sub baby spinach)
2 Tbsp. chopped red onion
2 hard cooked eggs, sliced
2 tsp. flour
1/4 tsp. dry mustard
a pinch of sugar
2 pinches celery seed
3 Tbsp. cider vinegar
2 Tbsp. water
salt and pepper

1. Cook the bacon and reserve half of the drippings.
2. Boil potatoes in enough salted water to cover, drain  ( use this water to make the dressing).
3. Layer lettuce onion, eggs, bacon and hot potatoes in bowl (in Pella they mash the potatoes but I think the chunks are prettier.)
4. Stir the flour and mustard into the bacon fat and return to heat until bubbly.  Add remaining ingredients and bring a boil.  Cook, stirring, for a minute to thicken and pour over the salad.
5. Season generously with salt and pepper and toss.  Serve immediately.

Serves 2

This post's, for you, Vicky.  I've become acquainted with a delightfully fascinating person with whom I have a great deal in common.  I didn't realize this at first.  She's terribly sophisticated and chic.  I most definitely am not, but we found a commonality in our early foodie influences.  We share a love of  The Greens Cookbook by Debra Madison.  That is one of the first books I really cooked and learned from.  

One of my favorite sections is on the Composed Salad Plate.  This concept has appeared on every professional menu I've had a hand in and it's always been a go to meal at home.  The idea is simple..... handfuls of different but complementary salads get cozy on one plate and voila!  Dinner.  Let's look at what we had tonight, shall we?

Take a closer look.  In the center is a mix of lettuces and spinach with radishes, red onion slivers and  long julienned carrots on top.














I use this shredder I picked up in an Asian market  to make the long shreds-it's intended for shredding green papaya for that great Thai salad.

Beets on one side.  These are from my friend Greg's farm.  He has a new root cellar and it kept these little beauties perfect all the way from last fall until now.  What a treat.

Cottage cheese over here.  I drizzled it with some of my sorrel vinaigrette, but it's equally good drizzled with good olive oil and a scattering of salt and pepper and maybe some chives.

The eggs I get from my farmer friends are glorious.  Look at those yolks!  They are simply hard cooked and drizzled with more vinaigrette.  

Cook's Note:  
To hard cook and egg, arrange eggs in a single layer in a saucepan.  Cover with at least one inch of cold water.  Bring to a boil and remove from heat.  Cover and let stand 15 minutes.  Drain and chill in ice or until cold running water.

The vibrant green dressing is just a simple vinaigrette with a handful of dill, chives and sorrel added, then I blended it with an immersion blender until smooth and added a little buttermilk to mellow the sour sorrel.

I crumbled some Amablu cheese on top.  It's from Faribault, MN and really good.  Of course, being a good Iowa girl, it could never replace my love for  Maytag.  I think their's room for both in my heart.  

Cheers!

I wish I knew how let everyone know the this.

....about what good meat is and how to enjoy it.

These thoughts were prompted by this thoughtful dialogue I just watched.  Click here to give it a listen.

 Every commodity group (beef, pork, eggs, chicken, turkey, soybeans, corn......) has a home economist spokesperson or ten (although they are rarely called this anymore) giving advice and recipes teaching consumers how to enjoy their product. These home ecs are smart, well educated people with good hearts supporting their employers, the farmers. I did this work for an egg commodity group and got to know the other home ecs well.  That said, I'm sad to see these smart people defend the disgusting "food" products called "pink slime" and mechanically deboned chicken.  I'm not sure how they can pretend this is delicious food.  I guess it's not...it's a commodity.

I understand how proud the clever food scientists must be for solving the food safety issues thrown at their feet by these broken meat production systems.  It's too bad they can't be using their smarts to solve other problems.

1.  I grew up on a farm and loved that life. 
2.  I've worked as a chef and know what quality meat is.  
3.  I've gone to college and understand the thrill of good science.  

I now live in a small town now where I garden and have raised my children.  I love to visit my friends' farms and visit their clean, happy, pastured animals.  The switch to small-farm raised pastured meats and eggs for me happened for three reasons.   
1.  the meat is tastier
2.  it's less expensive because I buy a quarter or a half of an animal and keep it in my freezer.   
3.  it's more convenient.  When I want meat for dinner, I go to the freezer in the garage, not the grocery store. 

 I feel like I want to shout this from the rooftops.  You don't need to go to a fancy boutique grocery store and pay $8 a pound for your meat.   Buy it directly from a farm that you have visited from a farmer that you know.  I've been told these reasons don't hold water for urban low income families.  I'm sure this is right and smarter people than me will have to figure that out.  But it is true for middle income suburban families.  This group is the target market for every big food company out there.  That's why the sustainable farming movement cannot afford to overlook them.  I wish the small farms could figure out how to start employing more home economist to teach their potential clients why and how they should buy their food from them.


Local, organic and sustainable is now an important part of the definition of quality meat--the rest of the good things that definition does for our world is just gravy.

Not too long ago I made an Italian Beef Panini in less than 5 minutes on TV.  It was good but it left me hungry for the Chicago style Italian beef sandwich that inspired the recipe.  The original recipe takes at least 3 hours to make.  Much of the time is just unattended slow roasting.   There are lots of days when I don't think that far ahead.  So here is a compromise. Mmmm.  Very satisfying and lots of teachable moments.  Shall we begin?

Let's learn about peppers.  Have you ever watched a chef cut up a pepper?  Very cool knife work--sliding the blade around the pepper.  I've developed a way to quickly dismember a pepper with no special skills needed.  Think of a pepper as a block with four cheeks.  What you want to do is slice off each cheek leaving the seedy center behind.  

The first cut takes off a cheek.









Then it's easy to see where your next cuts go, turning the pepper after each cut.

When you're done, you have four perfect pepper cheeks, the blossom end and a few slivers from around the stem. The only thing to toss in the compost is a stem and the seedy core with the pithy inner ribs attached.  Now do what you will your neatly trimmed pepper.  I'm cutting it into strips for this recipe.

Make sure you cut the onion and pepper strips the same size so they cook evenly.

The loaf of sourdough I bought yesterday is nice, but it could be a bit crustier.  Wanna know a neat trick to crust up that loaf?  First, heat the oven to 425 degrees.  Then run the loaf under a quick spray of cold water.  Be quick, quick, quick.  You don't want the water to sog the crust, just dampen it.  Then toss the loaf into the hot oven on a bare rack. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes or until the crust is crisped.  The loaf will be warm and refreshed.

What makes this quick is the fast cooking beef.  You could use a nice tender steak but it that makes it more expensive than it needs to be.  There are two ways to tenderize our friend and cheapy cut, the chuck steak.  You can slowly braise it OR thinly slice it across the grain cutting through the tough fibers so you can cook it quickly and have it come out tender.  (related note:if you grill up this steak and drop it onto your plate you will have one chewy steak.  However, grill the steak to medium rare and slice it thinly across the grain and it's perfectly tender.)     

Another thing you might find useful.  Chefs use tongs as an extension of their hands.  Much more effective when stir frying and sauteeing than any other utensil.

One more little note.  I have very few commercial spice blends in my cupboard, but this is one I reach for again and again.  It is the hand blended Italian seasoning mix from Graziano Brothers Grocery in Des Moines, Iowa. Penzeys is good too and they have a great mail order business.  Find a blend you like and can depend on.

OK, we're done with the lessons, on to the recipe.  

Mary Jane's Italian Beef Dip
makes 4
1 pound beef chuck steak, thinly sliced across the grain
1 Tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground pepper
1 bell pepper, cut into strips
1 onion, halved and cut into wedges
1 1/2 cups beef broth  (if you use canned add a teaspoon of Worcestershire sauce)
1 teaspoon dry Italian seasonings
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1 sourdough baguette
4 Tablespoons mixed giardinera pickle

1. Heat olive oil in Dutch oven over medium high heat.  Add beef.  Season with salt and pepper and stir fry until well browned.
   
2. Add peppers and onion and cook 2 minutes or until just tender.  
   
3. Add broth, seasoning and garlic powder.  Bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover and simmer 5 minutes or until vegetables are tender.
   
4. Cut loaf into 4 segments.  Split each segment and use tongs to lift beef and vegetables to bread.  Top each with a tablespoon of giardrinera and the top of bread.  Ladel broth into cups for dipping.
   

I went to a little place called Havana in Palm Beach yesterday.  I stepped inside the cute little restaurant filled with cuban music, cool tile floors and attentive servers and had lunch.  My server, Estavan (not his real name), flirted and called me miss. Of course, I smiled back and asked him what I should order.  

I said I wanted something light, so he recommended the carnitas.  What came was definitely not a light pile of meltingly tender pork shoulder served with moros, white rice cooked with black beans.  I've heard that the name moros has something to do with the moors representing the black beans and the rice standing in for the Christians.  Hmmm.  Anyhow, after dousing everything with the house made mojo (a thin sauce of lime juice, cilantro, olive oil and plenty of garlic) I ate every blessed bite.  

Stevie soon brought out little treats of fried green plantains and a cool glass of the house sangria.  Mmmmm.  I've made the plantains before, but now I know they were not quite right. These crunchy, twice fried disks had little crags that grabbed the perfect amount of the mojo I drizzled over them.

The real Havana love started when I stepped outside and checked out the open-24-hours a day take out window.  The bread was stacked up like cordwood waiting to be made into Cuban sandwiches or it's cousin made with that pulled pork I'd just enjoyed.

Feast your eyes on the chicharrones, strips of meaty-crunchy-salty fried pork skin in the hot box.  I have a serious addiction to this stuff--I wouldn't even allow myself to buy one for a photo.  I knew I'd end up in a sick pork-induced coma.

Then I spied the case of Cuban fried delights.  Each was around a dollar, so I had to snap them up for research purposes (of course).  These each deserve a spotlight all their own.  Enjoy.

I took a cup of cafe con leche to sip in the car.   Oh, what makes this so good?  It's got to be more than coffee and hot milk....... Sigh.

CAFE CON LECHE
by 3 Guys from Miami

I've used recipes done by these guys before and they seem to work well.  I'm making this as soon as I get home.  The Cuban style dark roasted coffee, Bustelo brand, is available everywhere.  I've always noticed the iconic yellow cans on the counters of sit com kitchens--Big Bang Theory for one. I'll use my stove top Mr. Moka espresso pot to do the job.  It's funny they said it should be very sweet--I'm sure all the sugar they call for was in there, but the deep dark coffee and the milk balance it out so well I didn't really notice the sugar.
INGREDIENTS:

5 tablespoons Cuban, Dark Roast Coffee Espresso Ground, more or less
1 cup water (approx.)
4-6 teaspoons sugar (to taste, but remember it's supposed to be very sweet!)
Follow the instructions on the espresso machine; each brand is a little different.Fill the coffee chamber as directed by the manufacturer for the desired amount. It's usually about five tablespoons of espresso ground coffee, packed tightly, to one cup (8-ounces) of water – more or less. Add two to six teaspoons of sugar to the pot that the coffee drips into. This creates a dark, intensely flavored, and very sweet brew.

Café Cubano is usually served in a small cafecito cup, similar to a demitasse. In most homes, the serving size is about 2 ounces. In restaurants you will receive a more generous serving, as much as 4 ounces.

To make café con leche (the Cuban version of café au lait), you add one shot of Cuban café to a small cup of hot (usually steamed) milk.

After dropping F at work, I picked up a few things to make a week in a hotel more comfortable.  

A little cooler, a decent knife, a waiter's corkskrew and a tiny cutting board and we are all set.  The cutting board, corkscrew and knife are from home.  

Some bread, fruit, cheese, beer and wine are next.  One does enjoy a little private time to dine alone.

Next, I set out to poke around and check out the fishing scene.  I happened to stumble upon the perfect spot for dinner on the way.

After seeing the docks full of boats and the waterfront seating I could overlook the kitschy pelican.  I refreshed myself with a slushy mango margarita and plate of chilled lump crab which I shared with new my best friends, a retired couple from Cape Cod.  Mimi and King filled me in on all the best Palm Beach places.  They shared good spots for drinks, interesting wild life parks, good dinner spots.....they were a delight. 

Oh, yes it is a working marina.  Private and chartered fishing boats come and go all day.  It's comforting to see the familiar no nonsense fish cleaning stations on the edge of the dock set up just like back in Minnesota. Only the fish can be just a bit bigger.

Later, wrapped in a sarong and damp from my ocean swim, I picked F up from work.  I was not lookin' pretty, but I was feeling pretty blissed out.   F enjoyed a local amber ale and a bite of goat cheese on sourdough while I showered and dressed.  So nice to be able to have some privacy before going out again. 

Dockside at Sailfish Marina is a fabulous place to watch the sun set.  It's not too shabby after dark either.

It seems where ever there is fishing going on, there's a great local smoked fish spread.  This one did not disappoint. Creamy cheese blended with plenty of smoked fish was great spread on crackers and topped with slices of pickled hot peppers.  Very satisfying.

My dinner of grouper topped with buttery sauteed spinach and hearts of palm was FABULOUS!  The buttery sear on that fish brought out a nutty shrimp-like flavor.  I looked up their diet and sure enough, they eat plenty of shrimp.  You are what you eat, I guess.  (side note: once on a trip to Boston with Martha she warned me I was going to turn into a crustacean based on my observed diet)

F had seared tuna that was luscious and silky on the inside with a good crusty sesame seed sear on the out.  The meal may not have triggered any culinary epiphanies, but every bite was a delight.  Excruciatingly fresh and carefully prepared food wins over my good eater's heart much more easily than art on a plate.  If the chef has seen fit to smear, paint and stack the food in an arty way--the flavors better justify the extra fingers on my food.  That said, let it be know that I will sigh and giggle like a little girl when the aforementioned stacked food does step up to the plate (pun intended....) and knock it out of the park.

As we left, we watched swarms of jack fish swirl around the docks waiting a scraps to be dropped.  If you toss a crumb just right, they jump out of the water.  

Back at the room, the champagne we iced in the  $2 cooler was very nice sipped from coffee mugs while we watched the boats go by and the waves roll in.

Cheers!  

We are off to a good start.  I'm sitting on my comfy hotel bed with the terrace door open so I can hear the ocean crashing against the shore.  

We had an easy trip with a short layover in Texas. Just long enough for this:

This is a small margarita in Texas.  

Hmm.  Someone was thirsty.

After we picked up the car, we headed to our home for the next week, Singer Island.  

We immediately threw on bathing suits and hit the beach.  The tide was coming in and the waves were just big enough to be fun.  I love watching really good surfers.  They make it look so easy.  "Yeah, I could do that,"  I say to my smirking husband.  But of course, I couldn't.  

What I could do is rush into the ocean with waves practically knocking me over until I hit water deep enough to swim.  Then I swam into the waves and rode them back into shore.  After a few minutes, i was laughing out loud like a kid.  Not cute girlish giggles, but big screaming belly laughs.  When I came out, my heart was pounding and I was out of breath.  I loved every second of it.

We slogged back through the sand to the hotel where I showered and dressed for dinner.  Feeling particularly beachy, we headed to The Tiki Waterfront Sea Grill.  I read reviews that made it sound perfect, but possibly a bit of a biker joint.  It was great.  An open air Tiki hut with wooden decking and chairs in the sand overlooking the marina.  http://www.tikiwaterfrontseagrill.webs.com/ If you didn't know exactly where you were going you'd never find it.  It's right across from the ferry to Peanut Island, a little island park I intend to check out later.

Inside the hut, we sipped the best mojito I've ever had, and munched on conch fritters while waiting for dinner.

F had the oyster po' boy and I had a huge salad topped with grilled dolphin fish. So fresh and good.  

The salad had big chunks of hearts of palm grown around here.  They've figured out a way to grow it sustainably.  Rather than cutting out the heart of the palmetto tree, they harvest side shoots.  Clever, and delish.  I'm going to try and track down a grower and take a look at the operation.

After dinner, we sat by the marina with our feet on the sea wall, listening to a great house band until the day caught up with us.  

Check in tomorrow for more adventures in the surf and sun.

-MJ

In Minneapolis there is  Bar La Grassa.  They make a killer gnocchi tossed with cauliflower and scented with orange.  

In St. Paul there is a chef named Micah, who is a friend of mine.  While lounging in his kitchen this week he mentioned that once a month or so he opens the Silver Spoon cookbook and cooks up a recipe he's never done before.  Cool idea, right?!

Put the two ideas together and you get dinner!  I've made gnocchi, so why not fool around with the BLG flavors.

Start with some potatoes, peel and boil them up.  Then roast some cauliflower in olive oil.  400 degrees for 30 minutes should do it.

Mash the hot potatoes, mix in egg and flour and you're ready to shape these little cuties.

I rolled the little blobs of dough over an upside down fork.  To tell the truth--cutting little pillow shapes from a rope of dough and leaving them as is, is pretty much good enough for a Thursday.

Boil the gnocchi in salted water and gently toss with some soft butter, a teaspoon of grated orange peel and plently of black pepper.  Some chives are nice too.  Use a rubber spatula to be extra gentle.

Take a closer look.  mmmmmmmmm

POTATO GNOCCHI 
makes 4 generous servings

2 1/4 pounds russet potatoes, peeled and boiled until tender
1 3/4 cups flour
1 egg
1 teaspoon salt
Mash the potatoes while hot.  Stir in remaining ingredients.  Knead to make a soft dough.


Pull off fist sized balls of dough and roll into ropes 1/2-inch thick.  Cut ropes into 1 to 2-inch pieces.  

If desired, roll each piece over the tines of a fork or a grater to make a pattern on one side and a finger dimple on the other.

Bring a big pot of water to a boil and generously salt.  Use a spatula to lift dumplings a few at a time into water.  They will sink then float when they are done.  Scoop them out with a pasta scoop or slotted spoon.

I while ago I posted my favorite pasta recipe.  Now it's time to fill it.  I've got two yummy recipes to do the job.  One rich garlicky spinach and cheese and the other butternut squash.