cold sesame noodles with fresh herbs

I have been sweating a lot lately. It's hot. Our little window air conditioner is groaning away like a meat grinder, peppers still on their plants in the garden are literally blistering in the heat, and we accidentally stewed some tomatoes just by leaving them out in the sun for 3 hours.

I don't even want to grill in this weather. The idea of standing over any heat source for an extended period of time just makes me sulky.

So for dinner tonight, I made our favorite cold noodles. They are so easy and so good, they're great for a picnic or road trip, and they made the heat seem not quite so oppressive. Maybe best of all, they come together in about 15 minutes.

Cold Sesame Noodles with Fresh Herbs

1/2 package pad thai style rice noodles

1 tbsp soy sauce

1/2 tbsp mirin (a sweet rice wine condiment, probably near the soy sauce in your supermarket)

a light drizzle of toasted sesame oil

10 leaves each of fresh mint and basil, stacked together, then cut crossways into fragrant little herb ribbons

Cook the noodles according to the package directions. I boiled the water in my whistling tea kettle so that I could step away from the stove, then poured the boiling water over the noodles in a pot off the heat and let them sit for about 5 minutes. They are still a bit chewy that way, which I like, but if you like yours a little more tender you could always let them sit longer.

When the noodles have cooked, strain them over the sink and run them under cold water to cool them and stop them from cooking. Transfer the noodles to your serving bowl. Add the soy, mirin, and sesame oil, toss to combine, and top with the fresh mint and basil.

These noodles are also great with a little fresh cilantro, cucumber, or toasted sesame seeds.

not my plate

I applaud the USDA for finally doing away with the food pyramid, which were notoriously out-dated and allegedly changed due to the funding from various food lobby groups (cough cough DAIRY cough). And I think that the new My Plate guidelines are definitely a step in the right direction; meat or protein is a portion of a heathy meal, not the main focus of the plate. Greater emphasis is being placed on fruit and veggies, also on portion control.

But look at that photo up there. So sad. So puritan. Who could get excited about eating that?

I'm not even sure what that pinkish gelatinous brick of "protein" is, but I think it's charming that they allowed it to retain it's unadulterated can-shaped form. Clearly the fruit and veg came from a can. And I don't think they could have found a more processed looking piece of wheat bread if they tried, probably full of a long list of unpronounceable ingredients and sweetened with high fructose corn syrup.

And this was the plate displayed by the USDA at the UNVEILING of this new program. It's like wearing crocs and a sack on your wedding day. What an amazing opportunity to get people excited about the possibilities of delicious, unprocessed, home cooked food. And instead, they splort open three cans and a bread bag.

I want so desperately to tell anyone desiring to eat better and staring into the joyless abyss of that plate, that eating well doesn't have to look like that, and in fact, it doesn't look like that. Chemicals from those processed foods are not part of your well-balanced diet and they do not belong on your plate. Go to a farmers' market or your local natural foods store, EXPLORE, EXPERIMENT and have FUN with food. ENJOY!

puree of sunchoke soup with creme fraiche and hazelnut oil

For the past two weeks, we have been watching green tomatoes and figs in the garden slowing growing plumper by the day. Delicate sweet pea tendrils reach out and wind their way around our makeshift string trellis. Green strawberries are getting big enough that their stems and starting to bend under their weight. Any day now, we'll have a bed full of blooming red roses and purple hysop. Everything in the garden is just on the verge of early summer fullness.

But not yet. Right now it's a little too chilly and rainy. And according to the weather man, it's going to stay this way for a little while.

So today, my first day off if about two weeks, I am hunkering down indoors with a bowl of soup. It's not what I think of when I think about the middle of May, but it feels pretty good right now anyway.

Puree of Sunchoke Soup with Creme Fraiche and Hazelnut Oil

I know. Creme fraiche? Hazelnut oil??? Not things most of us usually have lying around in the kitchen. You can make this soup without these garnishes and it will still be delicious. But I HIGHLY recommend getting your hands on some hazelnut oil. It's so very good, and it adds a whole layer of flavor to the soup. You can also use the oil to make a great salad dressing ( a la Michael Schwartz of the restaurant Michael's Genuine Food in Miami) with some OJ, extra virgin olive oil, salt and pepper, and a little finely chopped shallots. Just shake approximately equal amounts OJ and hazelnut oil together with half as much EVOO, a pinch of S+P, and bit of the shallots in a jar. It keeps in the fridge for at least 2 weeks, and it's great over sliced avocado, or even some simply steamed white fish. Store the hazelnut oil in the fridge after it's open. It will keep longer this way.

1 lb sunchokes, scrubbed and rinsed, cut into 1/3 inch thick sections
1 sprig rosemary, leaves removed and roughly chopped.
extra virgin olive oil
salt + pepper

1/4 cup olive oil
1 large shallot, finely chopped
1 large clove garlic, minced
2 tbsp chopped fresh herbs, I used equal parts rosemary and thyme
1 tsp crushed red pepper, or to taste
scant 1/2 tsp nutmeg
salt + pepper

1 cup of dry, appley wine, like Sauvignon Blanc
2 tbsp heavy cream

Preheat the oven to 400.

Heat about 3-4 tbsp of olive oil in a large cast iron skillet over medium high heat. Add the sunchokes, rosemary (chopped leaves and the woody stem) and a generous amount of salt and pepper. Brown the sunchoke in the skillet for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until a golden crust is visible.



Place the browned sunchokes in their skillet into the preheated oven. Cook for about 20 minutes until quite tender and easily pierced by a fork. At this stage, the skillet-roasted sunchokes would make a great substitution for traditional roasted potatoes. I always find it hard not to snack on them all while I wait for the rest of the soup to be ready. They're salty, herby, crispy on the outside and tender on the inside. Yum.

Heat the 1/4 cup olive oil in a large dutch oven or other heavy pot over medium heat. Add the shallot, garlic, herbs, red pepper, nutmeg and salt and pepper. Saute until the shallot begins to soften and become translucent, about 5 minutes.

Add the wine, and simmer lightly until it reduces to about half. Add the sunchokes and stir to combine. Add just enough water to cover the sunchokes, then simmer over low heat for about 10 minutes.

Remove from heat, add the heavy cream, and puree with an immersion blender or a standing blender. If using a standing blender, puree in batches and only lightly cover the top to allow steam to escape. Otherwise, the steam with cause the top to go flying off the blender, and soup with go everywhere.

Taste for seasoning. You may need to add a bit more salt, pepper, or nutmeg. When adding nutmeg, only add a tiny pinch at a time; a little goes a long way.

Serve the soup hot with a dollop of creme fraiche, a drizzle of hazelnut oil, and a turn of freshly cracked pepper.

cleansing root veggies

I overdid it during the holidays. Sweets, snacks, and I think I ate more pork in three days that I have in the past three years. Consequently, we've been trying to tone it down around here lately: lots of kale, less meat.

My new food processor was going to be used for experiments in building pie crusts, but I have decided to hold off on that for a while. Instead, I used the grating blade to make an enormous bowl of root vegetable matchsticks: celery root, parsnip, carrot, and red beets. I also threw in an apple for a little sweetness. This makes an amazing raw salad with just a little lemon juice, olive oil, and salt and pepper. Some toasted almonds might be a nice addition. Or you could add soy sauce, mirin, brown rice vinegar, and a little minced garlic and ginger. The soy sauce root veggie mixture makes a fantastic stuffing for baked spaghetti squash, which, in turn, would pair beautifully with some braised short ribs (although we're holding off on that for a while!)

We used about the last 3 cups of the unseasoned raw root veggies to make untraditional latkes. Just add one beaten egg and a half teaspoon of non-GMO corn starch (or potato starch) as a binder. Season generously with salt and pepper, then gently add 1/4 cup bunches of the eggy mixture into a cast iron skillet with a little less than a 1/4 inch of high heat vegetable oil (safflower, canola, sunflower, etc.) Fry over medium high heat for 2-3 minutes on the first side, and less than a minute on the second. Remove from the pan and drain excess oil on paper towels. Serve immediately.

Less than $5 of vegetables--one carrot, one red beet, one apple, one celery root, and one parsnip--fed us for about a week (not exclusively, of course, but you get the idea). So many options with just one simple preparation! The other great thing about root vegetables is that they store beautifully. Once grated, you just need to add a bit of lemon juice to keep them from browning.

More "resolution recipes" coming, I think.