Dear Tomato

 

Dear Tomato,

I don't usually like to resort to this type of language, but you suck. All of you. (Well, not the cherry tomatoes, they are just fine). But you? You are infuriating. You are stubborn and selfish. I gave you just as much as much sunshine as other years (and don't try to tell me the apple tree created too much shade...we all know how wimpy that apple tree is). And yet you refused to turn red! Here you are, bright green, plump, enormous, so very nearly delicious. But hello? It is October 3! You just aren't going to get ripe, are you. I can tell you're going to be a dick about it. I've been watching you since early August...I know what you're up to. And I think it sucks.

Why can't you be more like cherry tomato? Sure, cherry tomato was a little late to the game this year, but she came through. Cherry tomato was in the "shade of the apple tree," too, and she did just fine. I'm talking to you Supersteak. I'm talking to you Big Rainbow. WTF??

I hope you have enjoyed not fulfilling your destiny.

Sincerely,

Liana

With that off my chest, I will now turn my attention to one of the crops that has worked this year: pole beans! These here are Kentucky Wonder Beans, and they are disturbingly large and plentiful.

Last night I used a ton of them in my favorite pasta dish: Orzo with Everything. This is a recipe that my sister made at my house years and years ago, and I have since then adapted to my own mish-mash of ingredients. It's like a big, awesome salad made from whatever you have in your crisper with some noodles added at the end. As a rule of thumb, though, it must contain some sort of pasta, some sort of crunchy element, some sort of bitter element, something salty, something acidic, and something fatty.

Here's how I like to do it:

Get a big pot of salted water going and turn the oven on to 350. Chop up any vegetables you want to roast (I used peeled beets, shallots, and garlic) and put them on a baking sheet. Toss them with olive oil and a bunch of kosher salt and bake them for 20 minutes.

In the meantime, what else do you have in your fridge?

I chopped up some radicchio, arugula, and basil and threw them in a big bowl. And then I blanched my pole beans in the boiling water and chopped those up, too.

Once the beans were boiled, I added my pasta to the water.

I grabbed some olives and capers and tossed a bunch in, and then for crunch, I chopped up some roasted almonds.

A whole package of feta joined the party, and so did the roasted veggies when they were done. And finally, in went the cooked noodles, which sort of wilts the lettuces and melts the feta.

To finish it off, I whipped up a dressing with several glugs of olive oil, a good squeeze of lemon, and a healthy dose of champagne vinegar. (For the record, I ate thirds...no thanks to you, tomato!)

Campfire Apples & Peaches With Whiskey Caramel Sauce

 On a camping trip many moons ago, Robb and I invented an alternative to the classic s'more: we chopped up an apple and threw it onto a piece of foil with a few caramel candies, then we wrapped it up and chucked it into the fire. Once we extracted the bundle, it was pretty yummy. But it wasn't perfect. I seem to recall that the apples weren't cooked evenly, and the caramel stuck to the foil in places and melted in an altogether questionable manner, as though it wasn't quite sure what to do.

Many summers have passed since then, but as Robb and I shopped for our camping trip this last weekend, I found myself thinking fondly of our apple experiment and wanting to do better. The truth of the matter, which I might as well confess now, is that I'm a little tired of s'mores. The stick-hunting, the messiness, the way I always break the graham cracker in the wrong place. (I mean, it's perforated...how hard can it be?) But I DO love dessert, especially while sitting around a campfire, and so I once again reached for a couple of apples and a bag of caramels as I perused the ShopRite aisles.

We were lucky enough to have a visitor join us for dinner at our campground! Morgan, who has made the wise choice to live on a lake in the woods, was a mere hour drive from our camp site and gamely drove up to have dinner with us. After consuming chips and guacamole, stinky cheese and olive bread, corn drenched in hot butter, asparagus drenched in garlic butter, and steaks (for them) and veggie sausages (for me), we got to thinking about dessert.

Robb and I are pretty low-maintenence campers. We should probably have a camping stove. Hell, we should probably have camping chairs. But in a way, we can't be bothered. Instead we just bring an old, cruddy skillet that we can put on the fire, and when we're ready to eat, we sit on a picnic bench or perhaps a log. Done and done.

As I chopped up apples for dessert, I started eyeing all of the ingredients splayed out on the picnic table and came up with a master plan. Instead of just apples, let's also use these peaches we bought from the farm today. And instead of foil, let's use the skillet. And instead of just caramels, let's add some butter. And just when you think it's done, let's douse the whole thing in whiskey and light it on fire.

 The "lighting on fire" part was particularly exciting as it requires that you dip the pan into the flames so the fruits are terrifyingly close to falling out, then watch as the pan ignites.

When the blue flames appear, you know something magical is happening.

Incidentally, we had to do the whiskey flambe part a few times so that I could get a decent photograph (a task I am still not sure we achieved), so our sauce turned out especially lively.

But wowie zowie was it delicious. After we ran out of the cooked fruit in the pan, we started cutting more fruit and running it through the bottom of the pan. And then I had to get gross and lick the spatula.

  

If you, too, would like to lick the spatula on your next camping trip or even at your next backyard campout, here is the official recipe!:

Campire Apples & Peaches With Whiskey Caramel Sauce

1 or 2 apples (I like Pink Lady)

1 or 2 peaches

8 to 10 squares of soft caramel candies

2 tablespoons butter

2 (or 3 or 4) ounces whiskey (I like Jameson)

Chop up the apples and peaches into bite-size chunks and toss in the skillet with caramel candies and butter. Place the skillet over the fire and stir the ingredients now and then with a spatula (or just flip the fruit around in the pan a bit). Once the caramel and butter begin to melt, keep stirring and let everything get nice and oozy. After a few minutes, appoint a brave person to reach into the pan and try an apple...when it's soft, you're ready to add your booze. Pour the whiskey right into the pan, then tilt the pan ever so gently into the flame. When the pan catches fire, keep the ingredients moving by shaking the pan, and try not to get distracted by the squeals of delight erupting all around you. The flames will extinguish after the flames go blue (which is a sign that the alcohol has burned out). Grab a fork...you're ready to eat! For the ultimate campfire experience, I recommend eating straight out of the pan.

Breakfast-for-One

Dear Friends,
It appears as though I went on summer vacation. I didn't mean to. And I didn't really go anywhere. But there was yoga to be done. And there were knitting conferences to attend. And pottery classes to finish up. There have been all these books to make, and fact sheets to edit (and if you talk to me about fact sheets one more time, I might just have a good old-fashioned tantrum). There have been books to read (Nancy Drew, of course, and I just recently finished re-reading The Color Purple, which blew my mind all over again.) There have been friends visiting, and hardly any enemies, and when people come over they remark on the strength of our air conditioner, which fills me with an odd sense of pride.

There have also been many things to make, like homemade pizzas, glazed pots, knitted baby wear and sewn kimonos. There have been things to dream of making (a quilt, an Alabama Chanin Dress, more individual ice cream cupcakes with homemade magic shell, and of course, someday I'll finish Robb's sweater.) There's also the garden, which is in desperate need of a blog post update (and a good weeding, to boot).

But for now, let's talk about breakfast. Honest to God, I did not know where to begin with so much swirling around my head these days. But when I am confused I find it often helps to start at the beginning. And for me, the beginning is usually breakfast.

As many of you know, Robb works until very late at night. And when he works on the weekends, that means I usually get up and make breakfast just for me. It's not a sad thing, and I don't feel particularly lonely while eating said breakfast. In fact, eating breakfast alone allows you to do all sorts of weird things that you wouldn't do if you were making breakfast with someone else. Just recently, I boiled two eggs and sliced them up into a bowl of chopped kale, which I called "breakfast salad" if only because I was eating it before noon with a cup of iced coffee. (BTW, I don't eat meat, but if you put bacon in breakfast salad, I bet it would kick an enormous amount of ass.) Another favorite is pancakes-for-one, where I literally make enough batter for two pancakes (which is all I ever really want). And then, because I don't like my pancakes too sweet, I do one pancake with blueberries and eat it with butter, and the other pancake plain with syrup. Annoying? Sure! But that's MY problem, and I'm totally cool with it.

My other favorite breakfast-for-one is this: two hard-boiled eggs heavily sprinkled with kosher salt and pepper, a salad of arugula and cherry tomato with a bit of lemon/olive oil/balsamic dressing, a small ciabatta loaf sliced and smothered in hummus, and a little fruit on the side.

I'm not sure why, but this is a breakfast that sings to my soul. It looks happy, it is happy, it makes you feel healthy and not too full, it can be eaten as little sandwiches or as individual pieces. Forks are optional. And best of all, I don't know anyone else who eats this breakfast, thereby making it my "thing." And you know what? I bet we all have a "thing" we eat that is our signature feel-good food. (And now I'm curious to know what you people all eat for breakfast...could it be that I'm hungry as I write this?)

But soon enough, my days of breakfast-for-one will be over. As of this week, Robb has quit working weekend shifts at the bar, meaning that for the first time in our nearly six years together, Robb and I will have whole weekends together. To go camping! To go to the beach! To go to bed at the same time, and wake up at the same time! And yes, to have breakfast. But what on earth will we eat, I wonder? Am I too set in my breakfast-for-one ways? Will he love hard-boiled eggs as much as I do? Or will we wind up not able to agree and making two breakfast-for-ones to eat together? (Actually, that doesn't sound too bad. It's a very personal choice, after all.)

Either which way, I would like to make this blog post at least somewhat useful, so I thought I would leave you with instructions for how to hard-boil a perfect egg (a task that, believe it or not, eluded me for many many years.) Ready? Here it is:

Put the eggs in a pot with cold water (the water level should be at least an inch above the eggs). Bring the water to a boil, and as soon as it reaches a boil, turn it down to a very low simmer and put a lid on the pot. Set a timer for 13 minutes. When 13 minutes is up, immediately drain out the water, then transfer the eggs to an ice bath. Let them sit in the cold water for at least five minutes (preferably ten). If you crack the shell any sooner, they will be very hard to peel. When you do finally peel the eggs, the yolks will be golden yellow and there won't be any gray or greenish areas. Might I recommend you eat the eggs with an obscene amount of kosher salt? Yes, yes I might.

Cheese Mongers

Disclaimer: This blog post contains many graphic photos of cheese making, and is not recommended for the lactose intolerant or those who are leery of curds. 

With that note of caution out of the way, I'm so pleased to tell you about the adventure I had with my sister, Erin, when she came to town the weekend before last! She said to me at some point on Saturday, hey, we should make something! And I said, like what? And then she gave me a cheese-making book, so that choice was easy. (Thanks, Erin!) We immediately skipped past the do-able cheese-making for beginners and gawked at the beautiful homemade bries; the goat cheeses with fluffy interiors and gooey exteriors that look an awful lot like Humbolt Fog; we talked about Cowgirl Creamery, and we even shared some "all-time best" cheese-eating stories. And then we realized that in order to make many of our most favorite cheeses, one needs about six-to-twelve weeks and many scary-sounding ingredients that have, like, numbers in them. (MM 100 powdered mesophillic starter anyone?)

And so we quickly came to our senses and decided to go back to chapter 1 and make some normal-people cheese. The kind that can be made in an afternoon and eaten that night. After all, we only had the weekend! So we chose two cheeses: Queso blanco from Artisan Cheese-Making at Home, and the microwave mozzarella from The Bust DIY Guide to Life. 

The key to both recipes (and, I suspect, most cheese-making) is this: get some milk, heat it up, add acid to it, and watch it curdle!

Queso blanco began with a gallon of milk in a stockpot, which we slowly heated up to a steamy 195 degrees. It took about 25 minutes, which should have been good sister catch-up time, but instead we just took turns staring at the thermometer, watching it go up one degree at a time. We were very excited!

When we weren't staring at the thermometer, we prepped our cheesecloth! We were very nervous about our cheesecloth for some reason. We were both so sure that it would slip beneath the curds and all of those delicious bits would then fall through the colander holes! So we binder clipped the cloth in place. Total dorks.

At exactly 195 degrees, we nervously poured in our 1/3 cup of white distilled vinegar. Almost immediately, the curds plumped up and pushed away from the whey. I was about to say it was like magic, but it wasn't. It was like SCIENCE.

We took turns stirring the curds and making gross faces, because curds are gross looking. And then, after we let it sit for about ten minutes (the whey turns sort of green at this point, by the "whey"...and the book told us it was normal, so no judging). Scooping the curds out of the pot and into the cheesecloth was sort of the best part. So we took this video. (It's really short. And bad.)

And then I took lots of close-up shots of curds. 

Once the cheese drained a bit, we sprinkled a teaspoon of kosher salt over the cheese and mixed it up with our hands. The book did not warn us that the curds would still be very hot! Apparently this cheese-making business is not for sissies. After a few minutes exclaiming "hoo-ha-ha-hawt!", we hog-tied the cheesecloth and strung that puppy to the sink to drain. Isn't it horrifying looking? Horrifyingly delicious, that is.

In the meantime, we needed to get our mozzarella on. The recipe in the Bust DIY Guide to Life is called "Around the Whey, Girl," and I am very proud to tell you that I resisted singing the LL Cool J song while making this cheese.

 

I'll admit, Erin and I were both dubious about this one. We love mozzarella SO MUCH, and we were certain we would somehow fail. At one point she said, look at that cheese in the photo! It's perfect! And I had to confess that it's actually a stock photo. (Sorry, Erin! Sometimes insider information can be discouraging.)

We got out our big guns: Citric acid and vegetable rennet, both purchased at Brooklyn Kitchen that morning. This time, we combined our gallon of milk and citric acid in a stockpot and heated it up to a mere 90 degrees. At that point, we added the rennet and stirred softly, while an explosion of curds started to form. (Again: SCIENCE.) The recipe tells you to let it sit for three to five minutes, the less time the softer the cheese. Since Erin likes her cheese hard (there should probably be an innuendo there), we let it sit for five. 

At this point, I think we did something wrong, because the recipe tells you to "cut" through the curds with a knife, but ours looked like this. It was like cutting through cottage cheese soup with a knife, so...we skipped to the next step. Which was fine!

Next came the fun part: Kneading the mozzarella! It starts out looking kind of soupy, but then you drain off some of the whey and heat the mozzarella in the microwave for a minute. And then you knead it again and it starts to look like this:

And then you heat it in the microwave for 30 more seconds and knead it again and it starts to look like this:

A shiny happy ball of cheese!

Since it was Erin's last night in town, we decided to take our picnic to Robb's bar and have an al fresco dinner, including a baguette, tomatoes, pesto, arugula, and an advil container full of kosher salt (it made perfect sense at the time.)

And now you're probably wondering...how did it taste?? It tasted amazing!! Both of them! No really! The queso blanco was like a much more flavorful cottage cheese. I liked to scoop mine onto crackers and eat it with lemony arugula. Yum! And the mozzarella was so very much like mozzarella, we were shocked. In hindsight, I would have gone for a slightly softer cheese (thanks a lot, Erin), and one less round in the microwave, but with a slice of tomato and a generous sprinkle of kosher salt, it was quite perky indeed.

And of course, in documenting our feast, Erin (being the big sister) had the sense to smile for the photo with her mouth closed, unlike yuck-o wine mouth to her right.

And that, my friends, is the story of how two sisters make cheese. But guess what? You don't need to have a sister to make cheese! You just need a gallon of milk, some acid, and a dream.

What's In the Bag?

 

Know what's awesome? I will tell you what's awesome. Sitting at work, editing away when your coworker knocks on your door and says, hey, do you want some greens from my garden?

There is really only one answer to that question: hell's yeah!

 

Natalie is the cookbook editor at Stewart, Tabori & Chang. She is lovely and generous in every possible way, but this one really takes the cake. Manna from Brooklyn is what I call it! Last year we became gardening buddies when we discovered that we both have backyard veggie gardens, and now we get all giddy about our plants together and swap tips (yesterday I explained to her how to make a manure tea for your plants, which is just as gross as it sounds). But when she came in yesterday with these bags and bags of greens, I was totally floored. We have kale! Spinach! And rainbow chard!

But why on earth is she foisting all of these veggies on her editorial colleagues? Well, apparently, their crops this year were insanely plentiful, and now they need to clear out the spring greens and get their summer plants into the ground. So, it's harvest time! And the employees at STC  are the winners when it comes to this bounty.

These pretty colored stalks are A-OK with me. (I would do two thumbs up, but see, I'm holding all of this chard.)

And as if that wasn't generous enough, today she knocked on my door again and suggested I take this giant GIANT bag of arugula and mustard greens. Natalie, you're killing me! How will I ever repay the favor? Let's just hope we have a really really big tomato crop this year...and then, we shall embark on a delightful Brooklyn veggie exchange.

What's In the Bag?

So here's the deal: yesterday I posted a totally kick-ass post about how much I love old books and how to determine which of your old books are worth something and which ones you can feel okay about cutting up and crafting with. I even got philosophical, which took some major energy. But then something happened with Blogger and it was "down" for awhile so you couldn't see the post. And then the post came back! (YAY!) But now it has disappeared. Like FROM THE FACE OF THE EARTH. And I just can't bring myself to recreate the philopophical mood I was in yesterday. So guess what? I'm gonna do the opposite! This here is my answer to Blogger killing my spirit. It's called "What's In the Bag?" And it's probably the lamest blog post ever but I DON'T CARE.

Today I went to the farmer's market with Jess and her little dog Mister. We both work near Union Square, so we've decided we're going to make weekly dates to meander through the market, chit-chat, gossip, and gripe, and hopefully buy some new exotic veggie to experiment with at home. So what was in my bag today?

Chevre! This is some pure goat cheese chevre, lightly salted, and you know that the second I got back to the office I pried off the lid and began eating it with a spoon. Tangy and exquisite. Yum! You know what I'm gonna eat the chevre with?

Broccoli rabe! I have never actually cooked broccoli rabe before so this will be very exciting. I've got some fresh pasta at home, so I'm thinking a little goat cheesy garlicky pasta for a carbo-riffic Friday night.

Know what else we got? Dutch pretzels! I have to say, though, they were a little overly salty. Those Pennsylvania Dutch must be so thirsty all the time, cuz I know that I am very thirsty after eating just one of these this afternoon!

And thus concludes the first installment of my new feature: What's in the Bag? I'm thinking that this is now going to happen every week this summer. Let it be both something for you to mock AND something to inspire you to stop by your local farmer's market. Right?

Also, eff you Blogger! I made the most out of it anyway so you can suck it.

Ryan Devlin's Chili Will Make You See God

I love my friends. I love chili. I love dogs. So since Saturday night included all of these things, it was naturally a really awesome night.

For months now, me, Robb, Jess and Ryan have been talking about having a chili cookoff. This was after a series of dinners where we repeatedly tried to injure each other with hot peppers. (The last one involved a late-night "hot pepper tasting contest" at our house where I offered Jess a slice of cheese to cool the burn of a Thai pepper, and she grabbed the whole hunk of mozarella and put it in her mouth like a compress.) Alas, Jess and Ryan decided to host, and Ryan made the declaration that his chili would "make us see God." And boy, did it! Like a total jerk, his chili was hands-down the best. Pictured above, it ruled the chili universe with a smoky chipotle burn that hit you right in the middle of your forehead, and creamy cannellinis that were a textural odyssey in beanery.

Six people brought over their special blend of chili (only five shown here...Mo's crockpot had yet to arrive), and about 20 or 30 of us milled about tasting, talking, critiquing, and dodging the four dogs that ran about like banshees. Best of all, every single chili was totally unique. From Jess's green chili with chicken to Tom's pork-and-bacon chili with a nice garlicky kick, not a single chili was the least bit similar.
These two lovebirds tasted every chili together and jotted down the heat and flavor ranking for each one in order to accurately tally their results. I don't think "appearance" was judged here because, as you may have noticed, chili is not attractive. That is why there is only one photo of people eating chili...this is literally the only somewhat attractive photo I have from the night. So from here on out I'm going to stop showing pictures of chili.
Know what else isn't attractive?Close-up shots of Chris and I eating cornbread. Okay, enough of the gross food shots, let's move on to the main event: puppies!!
Everyone, this is Mister. He is Jess and Ryan's new puppy, and he is so small and wobbly with the biggest eyes ever. Absolutely irresistable!
He also moves very quickly, so it's hard to keep him in focus. But look at his big blurry eyes!
He's cute when people pet him.
And Mister even helped Jess tally the results of the chili cook-off. I guess I should mention that Ryan's chili won...by a mile! (Total jerk.) We tied Tom for second. Good for us!

Here's Sugar, who I interrupted mid-snooze.
And here's Sugar wondering how my camera will taste.
I can't remember the name of this dog, but he was so hilarious and moved so quickly, this is all of the documentation I have. With his bucking bronco antics, he was our entertainment for the evening, for sure. He, and all of the other dogs, and the chili, and the awesome friends that is.

Thanks for hosting, Jess and Ryan!

Preservation

For many people, October may seem a little late in the year to just start thinking of preservation. I believe August, or even September--when foods from the garden are wildly abundant--are the times of year when most people think to preserve their foods. But in our household, we tend to be too busy eating everything in sight to actually look ahead and preserve the fruits (literally) of our labors. And so October winds up being the month when we say, oh crap, we forgot to save ANY of this for later. We also recall that we forgot to give any to our neighbors (oops!) as we were too busy eating whole tomatoes as hand-fruit like complete gluttons.

The first sign that it was time to start thinking of preservation was when Robb pulled 84 (yes EIGHTY-FOUR) hot peppers out of the pepper patch. He'd kind of just been letting them hang on, turning nice and red, so that they'd be ready any time we found ourselves in a taco mood. I don't think either of us realized how many were out there. Eeeps! This photo of Robb, where the hot peppers are literally spread out as wide as his wing-span, is possibly his proudest/happiest moment.

Robb put each variety in its own ziploc bag and threw them in the freezer. We did this last year with a handful of Thai Dragon peppers and it worked just fine. They defrost in minutes, don't get mushy, and stay nice and spicy. Is it ironic that something hot survives well in the cold? Perhaps.

Canning tomatoes, on the other hand, is a little more complicated than throwing hot peppers in a freezer bag. But still a worthwhile endeavor! This year, by the time it occured to us that we should can tomatoes, we had literally run out of them. (Gluttons!) Actually, we had enough for about one quart jar, but who wants to can one jar of tomatoes? So on a very industrious Saturday morning, we made our way to the farmers market and loaded up on the end of the year's crop. You can tell by their "glistening" that they're about to turn the corner to rot-town. Gross!

Because we also decided to do laundry, clean the house, watch Law and Order and I don't know what else (it was a really busy day), we didn't actually have time to can the tomatoes the day we bought them. But the glistening signs of rotten tomatoes were freaking me out, so I flash boiled all of them and peeled their skins, putting them safely away in tupperware until we had more time to can.

The following night, I got out all of our canning equipment. Even my fancy totally impractical porcelain measuring spoons from Anthropologie! Within a couple of hours, we had five lovely jars of tomatoes.

Two of the quart jars were from "someone else's garden." Whose garden? I don't know. But look at my handiwork with the pinking sheers on my homemade stickers!

One was from our garden (yay!). And one quart (plus whatever is a size smaller than a quart...a pint?) were the "fancy pants heirlooms" that we got at farmer's market for $4 a pound. We literally paid $15 for three tomatoes! So dumb. But rest assured, these are the fanciest pants canned tomatoes you ever did see. I feel like I want to put them in a museum, not make them into spaghetti.

These are the tomatoes with my mocassins. Just cuz.

OK, and one last thing. Miracle of all miracles, we have carrots!! We planted the seeds in March and have been pulling these puppies out of the ground since July, laughing hysterically at their impossibly puny size. The other night, Robb decided to start digging. Lo and behold, he pulled a few freaky-looking huge carrots out of the ground! This one even had two legs, like a little carrot man.

(No Carrot Top jokes please.)