Sweet Tart

From Grow. Cook. Eat. Repeat. by Su Tee

September 13, 2009

Since I’ve last written, good things have happened in the garden. Beans pods have withered, been picked, shelled and shelved. We voted the orca first for looks (black and white like the whale); we’ll find out soon if it tastes lives up to its outer shell. The cold room has been overrun by squash; from six seeds comes the gift that keeps on giving. Onions and potatoes are at rest in bins. The blueberries and raspberries have been packed away in the freezer to await pie and jam, respectively. The teen twit was on high cuke alert all summer; they rarely made it to the fridge, never mind Greek salad. And the tomatoes. What good friends they’ve been. We stuck to cherry and grape varieties due to bad luck (blight) and taste (bland) with larger varieties over the years, and our tomato bowl has runneth over all summer long. While the twits pop ‘em in their mouths for a sweet antioxidant hit, we fell in love with them all over again as the star of a tart:

Cherry Tomato Tart:

Ingredients:
Tart crust
2 lb onions, chopped
1 lb cherry or grape tomatoes, halved
8 oz gruyère cheese, grated OR 8 oz chèvre frais, crumbled
2 T rosemary OR 2 T dill, chopped
Dijon mustard (optional)
Salt + pepper

Make a tart dough. It can be all butter, or a combination of lard and butter, whichever you prefer. Roll the dough out to fit in a tart pan or ring, trim ends and refrigerate 30-60 minutes. Heat oven to 425º. Place the tart pan or ring on a cookie sheet. Line the shell with foil and weigh it down with beans or some other weight. Bake 18 minutes in bottom third of the oven. Remove foil and weights, poke bottom with fork (to prevent puffing up) and return to oven for five minutes. Let cool.

Prep the other ingredients. First, the onions. Here’s the secret of this tart: you want seriously caramelized onions. That means they have to be dark, dark, dark. So heat some olive oil and fry ‘em up. This could take 30 or more minutes. Be patient. Add some salt, too, a teaspoon or so. I prefer Maldon salt. Meantime, halve the tomatoes and grate the cheese (whichever you prefer). Chop the herbs; rosemary for gruyère, dill for chèvre frais.

Heat oven to 375º. Spread a thin layer of Dijon mustard (optional) on the bottom of the tart. Layer with the caramelized onions, then the cheese, then the herbs, salt and pepper. Arrange the cherry tomatoes cut side down. Bake tart on the bottom rack for 15 minutes, then move tart to top rack and bake until tomatoes just start to brown, another 15 minutes. Cool about 10 minutes before serving.

Serve as a main course accompanied by a salad. It also works as an appetizer.

Barbecued Pizza

From Grow. Cook. Eat. Repeat. by Su Tee

July 29, 2009

So here’s the thing. There’s a heat wave. Huge heat wave. It’s really hot out. Boiling hot. Like crack an egg on the pavement at 8 PM and it’ll sizzle. No way are we using the oven. But it’s pizza night. Gotta have pizza. What an opportunity to experiment: I ask the big Twit to barbecue. With the pizza on a cookie sheet. He’s doubtful but obliges (he’s hungry). The results? Sublime. No. Beyond sublime. The crust is crusty; not a hint of sogginess; cooked to perfection. Lots of crunch but with taste. And on top, crisp and melty all at once, a supreme combo of caramelized onions, stir-fried tromboncino squash, fresh mozzarella and dukat dill. Summer explodes in my mouth. Thank-you heat. Thank-you big Twit. Thank-you barbecue. I’m in love with pizza all over again.

Is that a zucchini in your pocket? Or are you just happy to see me?

From Grow. Cook. Eat. Repeat. by Su Tee

July 29, 2009

I’m out in the garden the other day, picking beans, digging up potatoes, plucking peaches, cutting lettuce, feeling virtuous, when I trip over a zucchini. Literally. It has to be at least 18 inches long and 6 inches in diameter. I mean, how could I have missed this? Well, okay, I wasn’t focused on the zucchini patch because it looked like blossom city, and not pickin’ ready. But it’s been really hot, the soil’s happy and everything’s in a super-charged growing state, hence the mutant zucchini.

I bring it into the house just so that the Twits can ogle the size, but figure it’s way too big to have any taste except as Freddy (i.e. dog) food. I slice it open and dang! I was wrong. This baby’s flesh is delicate. Dainty, even. New challenge. What to make? While I admit to being Cocoa Loco, chocolate zucchini bread is just not my thing. Nor the Twits’. I round up Emy (housekeeper of all housekeepers) and we figure we’ll start with our ol’ standby, curried apple-zucchini soup. Freezes brilliantly, easy to make, tastes complicated (perfect for a dinner party—just add croutons and grated parmesan and you’re good to impress). We make a double batch and barely make a dent in the vegetable. We figure, hey, it’s pizza night, let’s make a topping. We slice, stir-fry with almost-caramelized onions, toss with crumbled blue cheese and spread over two pizzas. Yum.

But still more zucchini to go. Out comes the mandolin to slice the remainder, enough to fill two 9x12 pans. We leave it in a strainer and three hours later toss with celery leaves, dill, leeks, tomatoes (all home-grown), olive oil and flour, put in pans and cook in oven for a sublime ratatouille that the Twits eat for dinner-lunch-dinner.

All done. Except now it’s one week later, it hotter, the soil’s happier, it’s summertime—and the zucchini is easy.

Cocoa Loco

From Grow. Cook. Eat. Repeat. by Su Tee

July 14, 2009

Yesterday we decided to celebrate all things chocolate. Well, okay, we do that everyday. It all goes back to when my urologist told me long ago to choose one of three: alcohol, coffee or chocolate. Umm, like, no brainer? My family has embraced this dark road with me: they, too, have become See’s Candies aficionados (the world can be divided, at least on the west coast, between those who choose See’s nuts & chews (us! us! us!) and then those who prefer those yucky soft centers). They grudgingly chop bittersweet (70%) chocolate for Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies. My tween Twit concocts the finicky custard necessary for super-creamy chocolate ice cream. My teen Twit is creating a line of chocolate syrups with his fourth cousin (for profit). I wouldn’t dream of making k’mishbroit (the Jewish biscotti) without chocolate chunks and toasted pecans. My friends have given up serving us chocolate desserts; how can they compete with Bubbe Bette’s Midnight Brownie’s 18 ounces of the dark stuff? Me, I’m a simple chocolate girl at heart. Give me a delicate bowl of mascarpone (slightly sweetened with powdered sugar) topped with almond-flavored hot-fudge sauce and I’m a happy camper. But back to yesterday: we toasted the morning with chocolate milk; snacked in the afternoon on Dorie Greenspan’s World Peace Cookies and finished the evening off with bowls of chocolate ice cream topped with hot-fudge sauce. Bliss.

Picky, Picky, Picky

From Grow. Cook. Eat. Repeat. by Su Tee

July 8, 2009

It’s a day of mourning in the household (well, okay, I’m wearing weeds, everyone else is going about business as usual): the Twits* would prefer to get in a car and drive to a store to buy lettuce rather than pick it fresh in the back yard. To quote the Teen Twit: “First I have to walk over to vegetable garden, then I have to cut the leaves, then I have to bring them back to the house and then you make me wash them, and gently, or the leaves get damaged. It sucks, Mum. Why can’t we just be like normal people and buy the bagged stuff?”

Gag. Has it come to this? I thought the next generation was supposed to be scolding us to live greener, cleaner lives closer to the land. True, the Twits do want me to add hens to the lot, but that’s only because they think it’ll be a cool thing to tell their friends (the fact that I make butter is starting to sound kind of old), and has nothing to do with fresh eggs.

However, I am undaunted. I wear my weeds proudly as I march out to the beds and pick the first of the blueberries, the last of the snap peas, the startlingly red beet leaves, the massive zucchini blossoms, the sweet, sweet shallots and yes, the lettuce. And I will serve my undeserving Twits a memorable meal: those crunchy snap peas with tzatziki and fried zucchini blossoms to start, then a rustic beet leaves-and-cauliflower torte accompanied by yes, that ubiquitous salad, gently tossed by hand with a shallot vinaigrette, then ending with blueberry cobbler.

I believe my Twits will tuck these memories somewhere deep in their hearts, and when they’re older they’ll remember this meal, and realize how lucky they were to have been blessed with homegrown and homemade food, and that they’ll pass these values, however unappreciated at the time, onto their own children.

In the meantime, I have some picking to do.

Those Whom I Tirelessly Serve

Torta Rustica Pinkita

From Grow. Cook. Eat. Repeat. by Su Tee

July 1, 2009

This past Monday I got ambitious and decided to attempt Provençal Zucchini and Swiss Chard Tart with Whole Wheat Yeasted Olive Oil Pastry, published last week in the NYT by Martha Rose Shulman. Out in the garden I found onions, garlic, beet stems and leaves (chard replacement), rosemary and thyme. But no ripe zucchini, so that was a Young Brothers buy. to While we didn’t have gruyère, we had something similar (well, it was white and smelled strong). My housekeeper kindly mixed together the ingredients for the pastry, but before I had time to roll it, she fell, gashed her head against a corner of the open dishwasher and we ended up in the ER for three hours. She’s going to be OK, but the dough rose way longer than advised. No matter. I rolled it out anyway and fit it into our huge cast-iron pan that I can barely lift. Then I quickly beat the eggs, added the cheese and sautéed vegetables, dumped the mixture on the pastry, turned over the edges in as rustic a way as possible and sent to the oven for about an hour. It was delish and you know what? It tasted even better the next day, cold. So there you go. A one-dish summer dinner. On the pink side.

Strawberry Short-Take

From Grow. Cook. Eat. Repeat. by Su Tee

June 14, 2009

Life is sweet these days: strawberries are in season. I was at Young Brothers yesterday, just about the cheapest place on Vancouver’s west side for fresh fruits and veggies (cash only, no organic but plenty local), and there they were, just picked, nestled comfortably in green cardboard cartons. Local strawberries. They weren’t even their usual, Pacific Northwest soggy selves, thanks to an unusual run of hot weather.

They were beautiful. Ridiculously red. Smallish and almost heart-shaped. I fell in love. I blew my budget and bought four pounds. I cradled the two boxes in my arms as I left the store and cautiously drove home, avoiding sudden stops. At the sink, I gently brushed the dirt away and rinsed them oh-so-slightly in water before standing them stem side down on baking sheets outside for the sun to kiss dry.

Then I blew it. I left them alone. With a teen twit around. And while he does spend most of his time home sequestered in the dank, sweaty safety of his bedroom, he is a strawberry fiend. He ate them all within 20 minutes. He told me later that they tasted like jewels, like rubies.

Like bliss.

(twit = those whom I tirelessly serve)

Get your butter freak on

From Grow. Cook. Eat. Repeat. by Su Tee

April 2, 2009

I have a confession: I make butter. Every other odd thing I do apparently pales in comparison. (And I do odd things, like wash dishes before putting them in the dishwasher.) It’s astonishing: people think it’s bizarre that I make butter, and that I must be weird. I have my brother to thank for this. He always introduces me to his friends or acquaintances as, “This is my sister. She makes her own butter.” He says it with such “ah-ha!” in his voice, as if challenging these individuals to, Trump this! You’d think that people would say Good for you, or ask if it’s hard to do but no; most respond by raising their eyebrows and wondering, Why?

Oh, for heaven’s sake. Making butter does not make me a freak. Really. I make butter because homemade butter tastes cleaner and fresher than processed butter; no color is added, no natural flavoring, no preservatives. I make butter because I make bread, and one of the more sublime experiences in life is spreading fresh-churned, sea-salted butter over a warm slice of fresh-baked crusty bread. I make butter because it’s easy, and it’s one more item I can remove from my family’s list of processed foods we consume. And I make butter because it makes me feel good to make good things from scratch. (Despite the fat, butter is definitely on the list of good things in life.)

If this makes me a freak, then so be it; for all those who would like to freak on with me, here’s the recipe:

Buy some heavy (whipping) cream. Half a liter or a pint’ll do. Fresh from the farm is best, but if you live in a city like me then buy cream where that’s the only ingredient (avoid additives like sodium citrate and carrageenan). You want the cream close to room temperature (it’ll make the process go faster); leave it out on a countertop for one to two hours.

Take out an electric stand mixer and attach the wire whisk. (You could do it the old-fashioned way and shake-shake-shake the cream in a jar, but I’m just not that virtuous.) Pour the cream into the bowl. Drape a dishcloth over the mixer, then whisk at high speed (you’ll get lots of splatters if you don’t use the dishcloth).

The cream will whip and then separate into butter and buttermilk (this process has taken anywhere from three to six minutes for me). Stop whisking. Remove the butter from the whisk attachment and the bowl; place in strainer. Wash thoroughly to remove buttermilk film.

Pour the buttermilk into another bowl and not down the drain; it’s delicious, particularly when used in pancakes or Caesar salad dressing.

Wash out and dry your mixer and attach the beater paddle. Place the butter in the bowl and beat again, this time to remove any excess water. Pour off the water and wash the bowl and butter again. Put the butter back in the bowl and this time whip it. Add sea salt or herbs to taste.

New Month, Fresh Start

From Grow. Cook. Eat. Repeat. by Su Tee

April 1, 2009

Today is the first of the month. Otherwise known as Give Me Please among the twits. As in, Give Me Please My Pocket Money. You see, for two years now, the twits and I have lived on a budget. And we have learnt that in order to successfully do so, we must pay for everything we possibly can in currency: it’s remarkable how the list of necessary purchases shrivels when one is forking over cold, hard cash. (It did take the chief twit one year to learn that VISA is not a foreign word that means, “I’ve run out of pocket money so I’m using plastic, but since I don’t see the statement, it doesn’t count.”)

So back to the first of the month: I go to the bank and withdraw a princely sum, to be distributed between the twits and myself. I manage the food budget, so I keep the bulk of it. It’s no mean sum that the twits receive: their pocket money pays for all non-essential items or services. Teen twit banks his and tries to chisel the grandparents for more; tween twit sticks hers in her wallet, to use for the odd movie or when she must pay half the replacement cost for say, a lost cell phone or mouth retainer. (Yeah, I’ve been called heartless from time to time; somehow I’ve learned to live with it.)

Me, I see that first day of the month as a fresh start to eat within our means yet stay as unprocessed and organic as possible. Today I’m heading down to the docks for some fresh-off-the-boat halibut. One pound will do it. Brush on olive oil, grind on pepper and salt, sprinkle chopped Italian parsley. Cook at 425º ten minutes or so, then serve with shaved fennel and roasted red peppers gently tossed in a shallot vinaigrette plus short-grain brown rice. Done.

Please Don’t Eat the Veggies

From Grow. Cook. Eat. Repeat. by Su Tee

April 1, 2009

I should be delighted. My teenage twit is eating his fruits and raw veggies: strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, apples; carrots, celery, cucumbers, lettuce, peppers. While part of me is delighted, other parts–-the growing and buying part, the washing and prepping part, the budget management part–-are, what’s the word? Oh, yeah: annoyed. It just takes so much more time, energy and money to fill a twit full of fruit and vegetables than vacuum-packed bags of sugar and preservatives. I water, weed, soil amend, pick: he just eats. The other twits weren’t even aware that we grew cucumbers, strawberries or raspberries this past summer; teen twit got to them first. I buy and wash; again, he just eats. The quantities, they’re breathtakingly impressive: two pounds of carrots, a celery head, five red peppers, a quart of frozen blueberries-–in a sitting. (And no, he’s not trying to jump-start his colon.) Does anybody out there know how aggravating it is to open the cooler at 6 PM to retrieve two heads of romaine for the Caesar salad you were looking forward to all day, only to find a plastic bag, empty except for a drooping leaf (justification for leaving the bag in the cooler). I made him start to wash the veggies. But that’s almost worse–-he eats on the job. It’s getting expensive. Growing season hasn’t really begun, we eat organic, we live in Vancouver, BC (not a cheap city). He’s causing havoc with my food budget. Please don’t get me wrong. I like that he eats his fruits and veggies. I just never thought I would ever say to my twit, Enough with the roughage. Go eat a cookie.