Classic Meals: Coq au Vin

In every town in America there is probably a French bistro type restaurant. During my childhood, we frequented several of them throughout the DC area, which wasn't known for its food until well after I left. Le Refuge, Le Fanion, Bistrot Francais and Chez Andre all come to mind and they all had their high points. In particular was Chez Andre's filet mignon with bernaise sauce. However, at none of them was I ever tempted to try the classic but pervasive French dish, Coq au Vin. In fact, to me, Coq au Vin always seemed to me like some sort of dingy, dry and boring stewed junk for people without taste buds.

Healthy Meals: Salmon with Pickled Cucumbers

About a year before I became pregnant with baby girl, I discovered this amazing recipe for Salmon with Pickled Cucumbers. It was in Food & Wine magazine and it was such a simple recipe involving lots of ginger, lime juice and fish sauce, yum! It became the meal we ate whenever I was feeling like I'd eaten too much sugar or meat or butter, which was at least once a week. I also loved eating the cucumbers with brown rice for lunch. Somehow I felt lighter and springier and so much more productive.

Stewed Etna Beans with Apples and Herbs

I've always enjoyed bean soups, baked beans and other bean dishes, but I generally used dried beans from the grocery store. This year, as I've become more and more involved with my local Farmers' Market, I've also become more and more adventurous. I'm no longer shy, sticking to what I know rather than asking the farmer how to cook something. Now, I realize going to the market is about more than purchasing food and supporting your community. It's also about building relationships and educating yourself.

Garlic and Herb Crusted Pork Loin

Like everywhere else in my life, in the kitchen I've had successes and failures. And, while I generally cook tasty meals, the one I made for our friends this past Sunday was out of control with deliciousness and seasonality. You see, last week the very first signs of Fall suddenly blew through New York in the form of gusty rain storms and chilly air. I was in the midst of planning a menu for a small dinner party and my perspective immediately switched from fresh stone fruits, fish and crisp vegetables to stewed beans, a pork roast and, as I wrote about yesterday, Molasses Spice Cake.

Perfect Summer Shepherd's Salad

This has been one of those weeks I wish I could forget or, even better, start over. Ball up the paper and launch it into the trashcan or select all and press delete! Unfortunately, I have a deadline looming over me, baby girl is sick and our wonderful nanny is off for two weeks. Needless to say, my stressometer has boiled over and exploded.

However, one bright light this week was making my most cherished salad in the world: Shepherd's Salad or, in Lebanon, Fattoush. It consists of crunchy cucumbers, ripe tomatoes and thin slices of scallion with a healthy sprinkling of herbs including purslane which is nearly impossible to find at the grocery store, but is sold at my market by a wonderful man who seemed to forsee my week of hell when he laid out his goods last Friday. If you can find it, purslane has small delicate leaves and it's loaded with omega 3s and antioxidants.

Without further ado, here is a recipe you'll turn to again and again when you're bored of lettuce.

Shepherd's Salad (Fattoush)
(Crunchy vegetables, leafy herbs and tangy lemon dressing make for a glorious mixture of texture and flavor. To step it up a notch, toast some pita bread, break it up and sprinkle it over top. You just might die and go to salad heaven.)

What You'll Need:

For the Salad -
3 large tomatoes chopped into bite sized cubes
4 small to medium cucumbers also chopped into bite sized cubes
3 scallions sliced thinly
2 cups purslane, mint and Italian parsley leaves (equal parts)

For the Dressing -
1/2 cup lemon juice
1/2 cup olive oil
1 tsp zaatar spice (optional)
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper

In a large bowl combine salad ingredients. Then in a sealable jar, combined dressing ingredients. Close the lid and shake. Pour a generous amount of dressing over the salad, I usually do 4-5 tablespoons, toss and serve. While most lettuce salads won't keep, Fattoush will keep in the fridge for a day or two. However, it is best the first day!

Approximate Dinner Cost
• Groceries - $12.00
• Leftovers – Expect 8 servings or less as it's so healthy and tasty, you won't feel guilty pigging out on it. Yes, you will actually pig out on this salad. All told, it's around $1.50 per serving.

Sour Cherry Anniversary

The day after graduating college, I met my husband while out with one of my girls - one of the "my girls" I speak of so fondly in Gnocchi, Gah-nocky. Well, the hubby and I met the very night I had sworn off the emotional agony of dating. Before him, everyone was just not that into me and, of course, I never realized it until I was crying with one or all of my girls wondering why oh why couldn't I find love?

They say it happens when you least expect it and I definitely least expected it while sitting in the dirtiest bar in New York, a little jewel called the Cherry Tavern, bored, grumpy and watching my friend try out her very fake English accent on a bunch of blokes who ate it all up. But then a tall blond came my way and parked himself next to me. There was talk of butterflies and cocoons - weird stuff to be sure - and then an exchange of numbers. While he may not remember this, my husband fell in love with me at first sight. Yes, it's true. He called me and wooed me, bringing wine and ice cream on the first date and a bouquet of flowers the next day for our second. With the exception of a three week break up at the end of our first year, we've been together for 9 years: two of them dating, one engaged and 6 married.

This past Sunday we celebrated our sixth wedding anniversary so I decided to make him a special dinner. I had bought a pint of sour cherries at the market and thought duck breast with sour cherries, wild rice and some veggies would be perfect. Oh and it was. So much so that baby girl ate as much duck as we did and got very angry when we didn't give her her own glass of wine. However, she did says cheers and clink her little water glass against our wine glasses as we toasted to ourselves and another 6, 12, 18, 24, 30, etc. - you know to the times-tables, right? - years.

Duck Breast with Sour Cherry Sauce
(This dish is as easy to cook as it is beautiful to look at. It's sure to impress anyone you decide to make it for whether it's a new flame or a lasting love.)

What You'll Need:

1 cup wild rice mix (I like the Lundberg wild rice mix)
2 cups chicken stock
2 Duck Breasts (Moulard or Pekin are tasty options)
1 pint sour cherries
1 tablespoon sugar
1 shallot, finely diced
1 bottle Pinot Noir (For cooking and drinking)
4 sprigs of thyme

About an hour before you'd like to eat, place a small pot over a high heat. Pour in the chicken stock and add the rice. Stir once or twice and bring to a boil. Cover and turn down the heat to a simmer.

Take the cherries, wash them and pit them. I don't have a cherry-pitter so I just cut the cherries and removed the pits by hand. Anyone have a pitter? Is it handy? Then add the sugar to the cherries, stir with a spoon and let them macerate.

Put a frying pan over a medium-high flame. While the pan is coming to temperature, take out your duck breasts, and, with a very sharp knife, gently score the skin in a cross-hatch design. Be careful not to cut the skin. Duck is very fatty - doing this will help render the fat. Sprinkle the skin generously with salt and pepper and place the breasts skin side down into the frying pan. Cook for about 10 minutes or until the fat has been rendered and the skin is a crispy brown.

Holding the breasts down with a pare of tongs, pour out the rendered fat into a container (you can discard this or use it for roasting veggies among other delicious things), sprinkle the uncooked side with some salt and pepper and flip them over. Cook for another 8-10 minutes or until it's medium rare. While I know this is sacrilege, I cut into one breast to see that it's a nice rosy color. You might like other meats well done, but duck is really at its best medium-rare. Remove the breasts and set on a cutting board to rest and reabsorb its juices.


Pour out the remaining fat keeping just enough to glaze the pan. Return the pan to the flame and add the pitted cherries, shallot and thyme, cook for a minute or two and then add about half a bottle of red wine. Let it boil gently until the sauce has reduced by two thirds. I also took a potato masher and squashed the cherries to distribute even more cherry flavor throughout the sauce.

To serve, spoon some wild rice on the plate. Then slice the duck breasts in quarter to half-inch slices and overlap about 5 slices together on the plate. Spoon a bit of sauce over the duck and have a lovely green salad on the side. I also served some roasted carrots and turnips we had leftover from our CSA. This is a wonderful meal for celebrations or for any night you want to eat like a king. Enjoy!

Approximate Dinner Cost
• Groceries - $33.00
• Leftovers – Expect 4 servings at $8.25 a serving.

I Got Nothin'

I usually post recipes today, but I just returned to NYC after a weekend of travel with my mom. The pickins were slim in the country as far as food and antiques go so I was uninspired and found nothing to feature. Tonight, I'm cooking a tasty meal for baby girl and my husband so stay tuned tomorrow for the the results... I'm thinking lamb and goat cheese inspired by a restaurant my parents and I use to frequent in Philly!

In the meantime, I came across this great article in the LA Times food section. It's by Russ Parsons, author of How to Read a French Fry and How to Pick a Peach: The Search for Flavor From Farm to Table. Anyhoo, check out this article on how to cook with all the amazing produce that's just starting the flood the market. A demain!

Farmers' Market Finds - May 22nd

Today, I am training it down to the place I was born and raised: Old Town, Alexandria outside of DC. Tomorrow, my mother and I will drive out to a country auction in Western PA. Here's hoping we find some tasty food along the way as well as some fun antiques to add to my mother's staggering collection. My husband, saint that he is, is taking baby girl to see her other grandmother in Connecticut for the weekend. I can't wait to be child-free for a few days even though I know I'll be thinking of her nonstop. Uh, yeah right.

Since I am traveling today, baby girl and I had to improvise and visit the Columbia University market yesterday. I wasn't expecting much so I was truly ecstatic when, at the first stand we visited, rows and rows of the season's first strawberries greeted us. Upon seeing baby girl's hand reach out and grab for a container, the farmer smiled and gave her a berry. While she usually prefers blueberries, upon tasting the sweet sweet goodness of strawberries that are red on the inside too, she screamed 'mah!' He wasn't about to give away any more freebies so Lily and I hoofed down to the ATM and back just to get her Mah! Later that morning, on the way to the playground, she surprised the heck out of me by reaching her little hand out of the carriage and actually saying, 'strawberry.' Hmmm, maybe fresh, local food is good for the vocabulary too.

Also at the market yesterday was plenty of asparagus, spinach and rhubarb for those of you who are adventurous enough to figure out what to do with it. While I love a good rhubarb crumble, I haven't yet ventured forth into the realm of actually cooking with it. Here's to my first CSA package having a big batch of the red stuff so I can tackle my good friend's crumble recipe. Stay tuned!

Why CSAs Rock

So, I am happy to announce that I've just been accepted to the... West Harlem CSA! It was a brutal application process complete with letters of recommendation and a personal essay. Nah, just kidding, but I did nearly miss out entirely. Most devoted CSAers know to sign up in February when fresh fruits and veggies are a mere memory of summers past. Of course, this year, like last year, I only thought, hmm CSA, when asparagus popped up at the market a few weeks ago. I was wait-listed at two others until I found my future Alma CSA at Just Food's website.

What is a CSA, you might ask? It's basically a food coop where members buy a share in a farm's yearly harvest. Windflower farm, my CSA's farm, will be growing fruits and veggies and harvesting pasture-raised eggs this year and I will be getting my equal share. Here's a rundown of why I've joined and maybe you'll be inspired to find one in your neighborhood for this season, or, if you're too late, punch a reminder into your calendar for next year.

Reasons I Joined a CSA:

1. For fresh, local and usually organic fruits and vegetables grown just for me.
2. As if you need to hear it again, eating local and organic is good for the environment. When food travels thousands of miles, not only are natural resources being wasted, but added pollution is being pumped into the air all so we can have strawberries in January.
   
3. Eating local and organic is good for you. The farther produce travels the fewer nutrients it retains upon reaching your mouth.
4. Accountability - yeah, that's a big one for me. While you might be buying organic raspberries from Chile, who from the FDA is actually overseeing the farming? Who is protecting our interests as consumers? When you buy from local farms that are a short drive from you, you can go visit and see for yourself where the food is coming from and how it's being raised.
5. It's cheaper. Huh? Yes it is, by a lot. My weekly produce bill comes in at well over $50 a week if not $70. Provided this year's crop is a good one (and that's always the risk, you do as well as the farmer does), then I won't have to supplement my weekly CSA goody basket with outside produce. I will be spending $40 a week for fruits, veggies and a dozen eggs from June through November which means I'm cutting my shopping bill in half!

I'll still be going to the market every week to see if there's anything I can't live without and to pick up meat, milk, cheese and bread, so keep tuning in on Fridays for my Farmer's Market Finds column. And, starting on Tuesdays, I'll be filling you in on what I'm getting from my CSA and how much. Will one week be nothing but kale? I hope not, but if so, I'll give you the good and the not so good and the how to cook all this stuff anyway every Tuesday.

This is my first experience with a CSA. I've never been a get psyched kinda gal probably because I am still traumatized by my years of forced participation in an all girl's convent school. But I am psyched and I'm excited to enter a world of community support where we will enable our local farmers rather than our corporations. Maybe, come next winter, you'll be signing up for a CSA too.

Farmers' Fish?

My husband and I lived in Park Slope, Brooklyn for three years and frequented the farmer's market at Grand Army Plaza, which, in my humble opinion, is second only to the mighty Union Square market. Every Saturday, we noticed a line at this one particular stand and, no matter how early we roused ourselves, the goodies were always gone before we got there.

What was sold at this mystical place? Fish! Fish at a farmers' market? Ew gross! you might say and we did too until it dawned on us that NYC is actually an island within spitting distance of the Atlantic Ocean and Long Island Sound. This stand would bring in fresh seafood that really truly still smelled like it's old home, the ocean.

Due to extreme laziness - that must've been the cause - we never did get to sample the offerings of the fish stand at Grand Army Plaza. However, we just happened to hit the Union Square market early enough this week and scored big time. Little babies who wake up at 7am every morning will do wonders for getting you killer fish - er, shellfish as is the case this week.

We bought 2 pounds of sea scallops that were so fresh and perfect, they basically talked to me. Wondering what on earth to do with them, I copied our good friends who cook outrageous Risotto Milanese with scallops and a balsamic vinegar reduction. It's so simple and light and the pleasing touch of saffron accentuates the scallops' sweetness and saltwater freshness. Even my daughter was gobbling scallops and risotto with her little spoon. Served with a salad of fresh market greens lightly dressed with lemon and olive oil, the entire perfect meal only took 30 minutes to put together. Give it a go!


Risotto Milanese with Scallops and Balsamic Vinegar

Bring to a boil and then simmer about 5 cups of chicken broth (homemade if you can manage it, but I use organic all the time!) in a small pot. Pat the scallops dry and set them aside. Chop up a medium onion and add it to a large hot pot sprinkled with a bit of olive oil. After about 5 minutes, once the onion has softened, measure out 10 ounces of arborio rice and pour into the pan mixing it into the onion. Add a pinch of crumbled up saffron to half a cup of wine and pour over rice and onion mixture. Keep stirring and stirring – the key to a good risotto is the stirring. Once the wine is absorbed, add a ladle-full of chicken broth. Stir until it’s absorbed and keep adding ladle-full after ladle-full until the risotto is soft, but al dente. Turn off the heat and add a pat or so of butter and half a cup of Parmesan cheese.

With your other hand – keep stirring! – add about a cup or so of balsamic vinegar and a teaspoonful or so of sugar to a small pot. Stir and bring it to a boil and then simmer until it reduces down to a thick syrupy texture.

When your risotto starts coming together, sprinkle some salt and pepper on the scallops. Throw them into a hot pan and sear on both sides until they are a nice golden brown.

To serve, spoon some risotto into bowls, pop a few scallops on top and drizzle with a bit of the reduced balsamic. Enjoy!

Approximate Dinner Cost
• W/Wine - $39
• W/o Wine - $24
• Leftovers - 3 nights of rice with chicken thighs and salad came to $6 per meal for us three
• Breakdown - Scallops $13, Saffron $3, Arborio Rice $3, Butter $.50, Chicken Broth $3, Parmesan Cheese $.50, Salad $2 and Wine $15

*Author’s Note – If you or someone you’re cooking for has a dairy allergy as my daughter does, just pull out a serving of risotto before adding the butter and cheese. It’s super creamy and tasty even without the dairy.

Here Chicky Chick Chick

Thank God Manhattan is only 13 miles long because it takes forever to get anywhere. Sure, some argue otherwise, but they, like myself, have been sucked into the vortex of blocks and neighborhoods rather than miles.

I live say 85 blocks, about 4 miles, from the Union Square Farmers' Market. In suburban time, only a 5 minute drive, but in Manhattan time, it's a 30 minute train ride and then a 15 minute walk. With a baby stroller, add a back-straining 10 minutes for hauling the stroller up and down subway stairs while smiling adoringly at any person who looks like they can walk and therefore help with the stroller.

Don't get me wrong, I love New York and I love that I actually experience the weather and walk on streets and in parks rather than overheated malls, but occasionally, when it’s cold and rainy and I just don’t have time, I am eager for a driveway outside my house containing an awaiting car where I plop baby-girl into her carseat and drive off into the sunset.

This weekend, after the above journey, my husband, baby girl and I arrived at the farmers’ market to find a stand filled with pheasant sausages, chickens, ducks, eggs, smoked chickens and on and on. I was in love. After chatting with the farmer about how he treats his animals, he found the biggest chicky for me, which weighed in at 4.5 lbs and then he said, "$21." While the chickens at Whole Food are generally $8 or so cheaper, look at the title, I am emulating Alice right? Sure, I am, but my hubby, not so much.

“No thanks,” he said and rolled our daughter away. Since he had the cash and the baby, I had to follow. However, after about five minutes of heartfelt sulking and explaining it's less money than one entree at a nice restaurant, he gave in and I got my beauty-full chicky with her little neck and organs tucked inside.

Usually, when I roast a chicken, I stuff it with herbs and lemon or roast loads of root veggies alongside it. But this time, chicky was too stunning to mess with so I left her all alone covered in soft butter, salt and pepper. Alice does say, with the freshest ingredients, do very little. I cooked it at 400 degrees for an hour and a half, basting whenever I remembered and what came out was the most beautiful golden bird I'd ever seen.

After I put the chicken in the oven I decided the gizzards and neck couldn’t be wasted so I simmered them uncovered in a little pot of half water, half white wine, a clove of garlic, some peppercorns and a bay leaf. Mixed with the drippings from the chicken and a little white whole wheat flour and salt, it was the best gravy ever. Some buttered peas, organic, but frozen and brown rice cooked in chicken broth and my husband and baby girl were thrilled. Did I mentioned the local Finger Lakes Pinot Gris? Delish!

Approximate Dinner Cost
• W/Wine - $38.50
• W/o Wine - $23.50
• Leftovers - 4 nights at $9.63 per meal including vino - not bad!
• Breakdown - Chicken $21, Peas $1, Rice $.50, Butter $1 and Wine $15

*Writer's Apology - Of course, I was so into my cooking and racing against time before my husband and baby girl returned from the playground that I didn't take a picture. Sorry! New to this blogging thing. I myself can't stand pictureless cookbooks unless it's a book by Alice of course.