Morels with Madeira Cream and Asparagus is a simple yet luxurious recipe that is delicious on its own or with just about any main –– roasted chicken, salmon, beef tenderloin –– these would all be tasty alongside. But, honestly, it’s great just as a vegetarian main too. Morels are so meaty, I love making them the star of the show.

Fat juicy asparagus is one of my favorite veggies, especially in Springtime. To prepare: snap off the woody ends, trim up the edges, peel the bottom third of the stalk (it can be tough and fibrous) and blanch in salted boiling water for 3 minutes until bright green and tender-crisp.

If you want to get really 3-MIchelin Stars about it, you can also take a pairing knife and carefully remove all the little bitter tasting triangles remaining on the stalk (below the tip). That’s what we used to for every single asparagus stalk when I cooked at Guy Savoy. I’m not sure I really feel that it’s necessary but, if you want an exercise in patience, by all means give it a go!

When sourcing morels look for firm specimens that are not buggy, mushy or dirty. I trim just a little bit of the ends off and prefer to keep them whole while cooking. Morels are expensive! At the time of writing this post they are $34 per pound which is a little less than last year, but still not cheap. The main reason for the high price is their rarity. They only grow from March through May and they are impossible to farm. So choose wisely when buying!

The Madeira mushroom sauce is seriously drinkable –– it’s really that good. So be sure to serve some baguette alongside to mop up all the last drops. Something about morels, cream, thyme and Madeira combined just makes a really decadent and luxurious combination. Enjoy!

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I originally made this recipe about 8 years ago for a Pig Roast I did for Potrero Nuevo Farm in Pescadero and now here I am making it again for a backyard Fourth of July Party with two kids in tow. Oh how life has changed since my Farm-to-Table days.

Tangy green tomatoes make such a great starter. Feel free to batter up zucchini sticks too – the cornmeal crust slips off a little bit but they are still pretty darned snack-able. And if you can’t find fine cornmeal you can use a medium grind but they will be extra crunchy…

I love dunking fried green tomatoes into homemade ranch. But feel free to double up the sauces, remoulade is also great with this. I also make a killer Anchovy Remoulade Sauce that adds a little umami flavor.

Pictured below is Chef Valentin prepping 60 fry baskets for the Pig Roast many years ago…

Finding green tomatoes can be a little challenging if you don’t grow them yourself. The Green Zebra variety is actually ripe when green and too juicy for this recipe. If your market doesn’t stock green tomatoes as a specialty item have a look in the colorful heirloom pile. I often find green ones thrown into the mix or stop by your local farmer’s market and ask.

Here is a link to my original post many years ago…

http://www.amyglaze.com/cornmeal-crusted-fried-green-tomatoes-with-homemade-ranch-dressing/

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Chahr-Shanbeh Suri, the beginning of the New Years celebration, collided with the ten year anniversary of the day Ramin and I met, so we’re making up for lost time. Tonight we’ll be jumping over fire (to take our sickliness away — be gone bad, bad year!) and eating Ash Reshteh soup and tomorrow we’ll cook a big New Year’s dinner.

This Persian herb frittata, KooKoo Sabzi (Kuku Sabzi), is a signature dish for Nowruz. It’s healthy, easy, spring green and super delicious.

As you can see, it’s more herb than egg and it’s an antioxidant powerhouse made with chopped scallions, chives, parsley, dill and cilantro. I add a little Aleppo red pepper for heat (you can sub a few dashes of Tabasco), chopped walnuts and tangy barberries.

Wishing you a wonderful New Year filled with health, happiness and prosperity!

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Short ribs rolled on the bone and braised bourguignon style; this is my signature short rib recipe that I have used now at several different restaurants and it is ALWAYS a hit. It is also my favorite dish to entertain with because it’s absolutely delicious and all the hard work is done beforehand, so I can enjoy my guests.

Creating short ribs rolled on the bone takes a little knife work. However, the extra attention to detail makes a beautiful presentation and a more succulent finished product.

Ask your butcher for a four bone rack of beef short ribs. I have used racks of three bones before but four is longer and easier to roll. Sweetly ask (beg) the butcher to cut the ribs across the rack in 2 1/2 to 3-inch strips. Or take the ribs home, whip out your band saw and do it yourself! Kidding, kidding, let the butcher do it, I don’t want to get in trouble for bone fragments flying all over the place. This meat cut is similar to what is called “flanken” (often used in Korean BBQ) but larger in size.

Figure on three servings per rack. One strip is going to be leaner because ribs tend to be fattier at one end. If possible take the center cut strips only. Pre-cleaned short rib steaks are often available these days, which will also work, just ask your butcher for some bones to roll the steaks around. They do tend to be shorter in length which makes it much trickier to tie but they are always center cut and meaty which is a bonus. Length does matter here because they need to wrap around a bone.

If you’re doing your own knife work: remove the bones from each strip, by cutting under and around each bone. Clean the best looking bone by trimming excess fat from the strip and any silver skin, then roll strip back around bone and tie with butcher string. Sounds easy, but it will take a little practice to get the hang of it. Luckily short ribs are forgiving.

When tying the kitchen string around the roll start at the bottom, then tie the top, last secure the middle. And don’t tie too tight or your short rib roll will have muffin top!

Generously season the short ribs before searing with Kosher salt and black pepper. Once browned, add mirepoix and sauté until lightly caramelized. Add a bottle of dry red wine, herbs and beef stock and bring to a rolling simmer. Braise, braise, braise…

This time around I served these succulent short ribs with celeriac purée, romanesco broccoli, chanterelles, heirloom baby carrots and a cipollini onion – it was magical if I do say so myself!

I love entertaining with this dish because it can be made a day (or two!) ahead and I don’t have to hover over it before serving which allows me more time to be a hostess. And YES! we will have dinner parties again in the future! It WILL happen! Oh, my kingdom for a good swanky dinner party!

Serve with your favorite sides – buttered pappardelle noodles, celeriac purée (pictured) or mashed potatoes and enjoy!

Here is an old Rolled Short Stroganoff Recipe of mine. There are morel mushrooms in the sauce and also mustard and crème fraîche but, otherwise the technique is the same. But just to show you that this basic recipe can be a great starting place for your braised dishes!

http://www.amyglaze.com/beef-shortrib-stroganoff-braised/

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Well, that’s me after Christmas! Fat and full! Here’s my salad cleanse recipe. (Is there such a thing?) No, actually, this is just one of my signature Winter salads. It does feel good to eat it though and it’s always a hit. Even folks that aren’t too sure about fennel and bitter greens finish their plates. I love the peppery arugula with juicy sweet Comice pears, bitter radicchio and endive, a refreshing watery crunch from shaved fennel and torn mint for a cool finish. The honey white balsamic vinaigrette ties it all together. Sometimes I add zest of buddha’s hand too if I can find it!

This Christmas, since it was just a small family gathering, I decided to do some of my own favorite bistro creations – ones that I have used time and time again in different forms for many restaurant menus. I will be posting the rest of the menu over the next week. I hope you’ll give this simple yet elegant and delicious feel good salad a try.

Happy Holidays to you and yours! May your caterpillar cocoon be warm and cozy until we all turn into butterflies in 2021!

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Butternut bisque is like a jazz standard, seemingly simple in it’s melody yet nuanced with individual character and inflection; always promising to bring soul warming satisfaction to its audience. I have made this bisque or soup (it is naturally thick and creamy and no, I did not sauté live crabs for the base) a hundred different ways.

But I think I’ve hit upon the perfect medley after all these years, which is subtle in it’s layering of flavors and truly satisfying. You see, all butternuts are not created equal — some are sweet and some devoid of flavor.

In this recipe I add a sweet and acidic Opal apple that balances out even the blandest of butternuts and also fennel, yellow onion, shallot and homemade chicken stock. There is some serious depth of flavor in the basic melody here and it all comes across as butternut in the final composition.

Now, onto the Dungeness crab. The garnish. The highlight of every Winter here in the Bay Area. Hold your stomachs…

I don’t know what I did to deserve a family that doesn’t like turkey but I am THE ONLY person in my small tribe (minus Little Bean, the pup) who seriously enjoys a beautifully browned Butterball! I love the aroma that fills the house while roasting. I love the leftovers. I can wax poetic from here to eternity about roasted turkey.

My husband, not so much. My daughter Layla, not so much. My daughter Hettie Rose, maybe, but she’s not even two years old and she can only eat a small amount. True, Little Bean, would probably devour the whole bird bones and all if my back was turned but, still, why spend a whole day cooking if the only person who wants to get stuffed is ME?

Since this Thanksgiving holiday is just nuts with Covid restrictions and there are no in-laws to impress or relatives to refill, my husband suggests we do “something else” besides turkey. And I’m like: “Ohhh-kayyyyy….” (pouty face, passive aggressive body language, why do you hate everything I love?). And then Layla is like: “Yeah, I don’t like turkey either.” And I’m like: “YOU’VE NEVER EVEN HAD TURKEY HOW CAN YOU HATE IT?!?!?”.

Oh motherhood, Oh marriage, Oh daughter of an Executive Chef – I know, what are the chances right? Hello? God?!? Anytime you wanna fill me in on my little sin here that caused this avalanche of poultry haters, just go ahead. I’m listening! I’m ready to repent!

Then my hubby says: “You know, I got an invite to go crabbing, how about Dungeness crab for Thanksgiving?”. I stop in my tracks because I LOVE Dungeness crab, I can go to town on crab. I normally serve it the night before Christmas but, in a world turned upside down, why not? Crab mac n’ cheese for the kids and fresh cracked crab for us. Parfait!

So, with this settled, Ramin leaves at 4 A.M. Thanksgiving morning after two hours of glorious sleep (thank you Hettie Rose, you baby you) to meet up with some buddies on the docks in Berkeley for a fun fishing adventure. And these guys come prepared: they dress in layers knowing it will be cold, fill backpacks with bagels and lox, strong coffee and scotch. This is going to be a fun day on the Bay! I can’t tell you how much Ramin is personally looking forward to it.

But just like the weather can change in the blink of an eye, the adventure turns turbulent as soon as they step off solid ground. The boat they board is a wee bit smaller than expected, it is not safe or well equipped, there are no life jackets and it is oversold – passengers are cramped together most with little or no sailing experience and some are dressed for a beach in Cabo, not a day on the Bay. “Oh well” thinks Ramin to himself, “We’ll only be out for a few hours, how bad can it be?”.

The boat slowly chugs out of its slip, sun barely cresting the mountains behind, waves as smooth as a baby’s bottom and heads towards the glorious Golden Gate, the iconic San Francisco bridge and entrance to the Pacific ocean and world at large –– freedom! Ramin’s buddies pour hot toddies all around. They take pictures from the bow of the boat. They enjoy a little sea spray in the face and the crisp cold morning air. It is brisk and beautiful. It is the perfect Thanksgiving morning. Grateful. Thankful. Blessed…..

But, as the freezing cold Winter sun comes up so does the whipping wind and rollicking waves – and the bagels, lox and hot toddies. No one, not a SINGLE person, on the boat is well.

Now there is a big difference between a challenge and a situation that you have no control over – one where there is no road to success. One where freezing cold waves are pummeling you and your body is shivering uncontrollably and your knees are locking up unable to buoy the bounce of the slamming waves. One where you are trying your best to vomit privately and respect Covid restrictions, one where there is no place to sit down because everything is covered in squid slime or throw-up. And one where the captain of the boat is refusing to turn around regardless of his extremely sick passengers – some who are kids.

My husband is an expert diver, an open water life guard and a seasoned sailor. To say that this is the ‘fishing trip from hell’ is an understatement. Hunter S. Thompson couldn’t create a bad acid trip more surreal and horrific if he tried. The smell of diesel mixed with cigarette smoke, vomit and old fish replaces the sweet salty sea air. Wild wet whomping waves replace the glassy calm of early morn. The wind, an angry tempest of destruction, replaces the flirty breeze they set out with.

An adventure that began all-for-one and one-for-all rapidly turns into individual survival. And yet the captain insists on going out The Gate to the Farallons, an island known for its unpredictable currents and numerous shipwrecks off its coast, to retrieve his crab pots. No one thought they’d be going out The Gate today – it was supposed to be a simple day on the Bay.

The crew pulls up enormous crab pots amidst waves breaking off the bow one by one. A messy and difficult affair for sure, the crab pots often slipping from their hoist and falling back into the blue depths below while simultaneously soaking everyone aboard head to toe with freezing cold salt water. They fill the massive chests on deck with their clickety-clackety catch. The passengers keep hoping/wishing that each crab pot will be the last but they are seemingly unending.

My Thanksgiving day back at home is also no picnic. Two toddlers, no sleep, a ton of preparations for our so-called simple dinner. Extreme fatigue to the point of nausea. And a nagging suspicion that something is very wrong. I text my husband around 1 P.M. my spider senses tingling, he’s been gone now for six hours. A cryptic text comes back: “Worst idea ever”.

I know my husband. And I know that a text like this means exactly what it states: WORST idea EVER. I text rapid fire back asking for more details as panic fills my heart with ice but, Ramin’s fingers can barely write and he is afraid of loosing his phone overboard. His next text reads: “Sick. Can’t text. Freezing. Farallons.”.

Nine hours later Ramin returns home shivering with hyperthermia, barely able to walk straight, bag of 10 enormous crabs slung over his shoulder like a Santa from the South Pole. He dumps the crab bag on our outdoor table, heads straight for a hot shower barely able to talk and then to bed, covers pulled up to his chin and thick wool hat pulled down around his ears. He cannot get warm. He cannot sleep because his body is still rolling with the waves.

Meanwhile I prepare our dinner. Not that anyone wants it. I retrieve the bag of crabs to find they are still alive! Quelle Suprise! The crabs were supposed to be cooked on the boat! A big fat crab grabs my pointer finger and slices it open with a pinch from his massive claw. I pry his pincher open, finger bleeding, and toss him back in the bag – I’ll definitely cook him first. But, I really don’t want to be dealing with live crabs now, it’s just an added hurdle to a long distance race.

It’s not that I can’t cook crab, I can! But I don’t have enormous pots to get the job done efficiently and I’m not particularly fond of listening to garbled crab screams as I plunge them head first in boiling water. It doesn’t make me feel good. It’s easier to kill lobsters – I just take my knife and quickly kill them blade through the brain in seconds flat. But you can’t do that to crabs unless you want a very messy crab boil.

With three of my biggest pots on the stove I cook and crack his catch. I’m not happy, I’m exhausted and Ramin is beyond sick, he might as well be a ghost on a deep sea shipwreck. This is not the Thanksgiving we had hoped for by any stretch of the imagination.

Ramin comes downstairs to help out and watch the kids as I finish up preparations. He is beat up, his eyes swimming in his head, his every step searching for solid ground, his head pounding, his body shivering, his teeth chattering like one of those funny chomping windup toys.

Children have a funny way of knowing when you are at your breaking point and they like to push you over the edge. I am convinced this is a gene built into every child that probably has something to do with survival although it’s counter intuitive. After much debate, it’s clear that our kids will not eat the crab after watching me cook it and smelling the fishy crab boil aroma that is anything but mouth watering. I cook them steaks instead with rice and put the ipad on the dining table for them to feast on Disney instead. This is not a tradition I intend to keep. This is Mommy survival.

For Ramin and myself I start our dinner with scallops on the half shell cooked in a lovely white wine saffron cream sauce. Followed by this beautiful butternut soup garnished with Dungeness crab tossed in drawn butter.

Ramin is not a soup guy – soup is the last thing on the menu he will order. But I can tell with every spoonful that my butternut bisque is warming him up, bringing him back to life, straightening the rolling rug beneath his tired feet. We dig into a mountain of cracked crab and a delicious winter greens salad and finish with my Mom’s signature poached pear tart.

We relax in our chairs too tired to talk staring at our children engrossed in their movie, listening to jazz and decompressing. Our Thanksgiving is by far the worst, however the crab is by far the best – so fresh, so tender, so sweet. I’d like so say, “So worth it” but Ramin cuts me to the chase with a different perspective: “You know, the next time I buy crab and they tell me it’s seven bucks a pound, I’ll give them ten instead”.

The song ‘Somewhere Beyond the Sea’, comes over the radio – an old jazz standard about love lost and the ever changing nature of the sea. It’s a French adaption of the Le Mer and a perfect ending to a rollicking wet sea adventure. This soup, is sure to be a new tradition at our Thanksgiving table, the crabbing adventure? Not so much.

Scallops in Saffron Cream: https://www.amyglaze.com/scallops-in-saffron-cream/

Pear and Almond Tart: http://www.amyglaze.com/pear-and-almond-tart/

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Brown butter and pumpkin (or any kind of squash for that matter) is one of those legendary pairings and when you layer the tangy goodness of real cream cheese and cozy sweet spices, you get a totally delicious outcome.

This is also a kid friendly recipe. The cake itself is a two bowl deal. One for wet, the other for dry, the wet gets hand mixed into dry and voilà! Cupcakes! I make my own pumpkin pack (of course) and so should you. It really isn’t time consuming or hard and the flavor is much better than anything you can get out of can. The cake is not overly sweet either – another bonus for caregivers who want to give kids a holiday treat without the inevitable sugar high come down / meltdown.

To make pumpkin pack simply quarter a Sugar Pie or Sweetie Pie pumpkin, scrape out seeds (but don’t worry too much about the stringy pumpkin guts) and roast the pumpkin wedges on a rimmed baking sheet with a 1/4 cup of water for 20 minutes at 425˚F until soft. Allow to cool, remove the skin, then blend into a thick purée in the Vitaprep (try not to add any extra liquid). Pumpkin pack makes great soup, it’s a nice addition to homemade breads and biscuits, elevates pie to something truly special and gives cakes a moist crumb with the healthy benefit of vitamins and minerals.

We had a lot of fun decorating these cupcakes with pumpkin candies and candy corn for funny looking turkeys. Since my kids are so young, this was just the right level of difficulty. Layla enjoyed the process and Hettie enjoyed eating the process!

Stay warm and healthy! I did say these cupcakes have fresh ginger in them, didn’t I? Ginger is loaded with antioxidants that help to prevent stress and might help fight diseases and promote healthy aging – so if you need an excuse to indulge, there ya have it!

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What do I mean by salad-y side? Sometimes I get tired of plating protein with the usual cruciferous sides and I prefer to add a hearty salad that can take a little heat from the plate. Enter watercress. This super simple salad was meant to go with my Pink Peppercorn Pork Chop recipe. But, as my husband and I found out, it also goes well with a glass of champagne!

Pink Pearls apples are so pretty and so tasty: tart, sweet, pink, firm – the perfect apple. I add shaved fennel to a lot of my salad creations, I love that juicy anise flavor and it’s a great counterpoint for the peppery watercress. It also gives the salad nice structure.

Back to watercress – I do not buy the hydroponic kind because it’s flavor is mild and it does not create a stackable salad very well –it’s flat, very flat and it wilts easily. I love organic watercress, the curlicue crunchy kind that was probably growing in a swamp somewhere sucking up a ton of minerals; that’s the good stuff.

I kept this salad simple since I planned it as a side for the pork chop. Some toasted Macrona almonds could be added. Maybe a little shaved ricotta salata if desired. But I thought these three ingredients were awesome on their own.

If you are on the lookout for a new (or centuries old) antioxidant powerhouse that you don’t have to massage before eating, check out watercress! It’s on my top ten feel good greens!

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As a kid, any rice smothered in butter and salt tasted delicious, but it wasn’t until I went to work in South India in my mid twenties that I was introduced to extra, extra long grain Basmati rice in all its fluffy fragrant glory. And wow, I’m talking about heaping plates of gorgeous steaming long grained white rice that seemed to be endlessly replenished at every meal – I loved it, I craved it, I learned how to eat with my hands and mix rice and veg dishes with my finger tips on my plate scooping it into my mouth as elegantly as possible (and yes, food does actually taste better when you eat it with your hands). It was heavenly, so delicious, and the rice a perfect counterpoint to all the other intense flavors.

Later, in my forties, when I went to work for Chef Faz and his six restaurants, he taught me personally about the art of making this same beautiful long grain rice but in the Persian style. Chef Faz was absolute on his rice cooking technique. And considering that rice isn’t an easy dish to “hold” in a restaurant, I can say that he mastered and was deeply committed to serving only the best rice in quality and in preparation.

I should also note, that my Mother-in-Law is a phenomenal Persian cook and her rice dishes are among my daughter’s favorite (and mine too!). When Grandma Shahla shows up with a big pot of rice, we know we are going to eat well!

Making rice the Persian way, is not hard. Yes, there are more steps to it than simply measuring the rice and water and putting it on the stove top to steam, but the result is a fluffier, tastier and more fragrant side dish that you can dress up or down as desired.

Just about all Persian rice dishes (of which there are many) have the same basic foundation: wash rice until the water is clear of starch, soak rice in water that is as salty as the sea overnight or at least for 3 hours – it will swell and double in size, parboil rice on the stove top until al dente, drain in a colander and bake rice with a lot of butter in the oven or cook on the stove top with a dish towel wrapped around the lid. I personally prefer to bake it afterwards because the tahdig doesn’t burn as easily and I don’t have teflon cookware, but my Mom prefers to finish the rice on the stovetop.

And of course you’ve heard about the “tahdig” as it’s called, which is the crispy rice crust that forms on the bottom of the pan and is normally served on a separate plate from the rice. The coveted ‘tahdig‘ is an art form in itself and sometimes consists of sliced potato or lavash placed on the bottom of the rice pot in a decorative fashion.

The cherries in the recipe are the last ones from my secret Montmorency sour cherry tree (no, I am not going to tell you where it is!) but you can also use the sour cherries packed in a light sugar water by Sadaf or totally cheat and buy the Trader Joes sour cherries packed in syrup. You’re going to make a syrup anyway, so yes, you can use those in a pinch, but the cherries themselves are not as plump or as flavorful.

This rice dish is one of my favorites. The saffron, cherry and fragrant rice combo is just so beautiful. Traditionally I’ve seen this rice served alongside Cornish Game hens but it can also be served with just about any protein: chicken, beef, fish (sturgeon would be awesome!). We made saffron chicken kabobs to go alongside and koubideh, which I’ll include in the next recipes.

Layla certainly enjoyed pitting the cherries and because she was part of the process, she was more willing to try it too. Not that rice cooked with butter is a hard sell to a toddler, but anything new is intimidating and untrustworthy regardless.

I try to involve Layla with every meal that we make. Often I’m wearing Hettie Rose too so she can see and smell everything. Cooking is a language in itself, and when we grow up seeing, smelling and participating in that language we can speak it with fluency when we’re older…

I hope this sour cherry rice dish becomes a staple in your family! It certainly elevates the most mundane proteins to something festive!

Enjoy!

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Yup, it’s that time of year again when everyone needs to figure out what to do with squash. Strangely enough, because I’m breast feeding my little baby Hettie Rose, I crave zucchini like nobody’s business. I have no idea why. But it’s a mighty powerful craving. I literally made my husband go find the nearest farmer’s market and get me some summer squash this last week! During pregnancy I had absolutely no cravings – go figure.

This is going to sound really boring, but one of the best ways to cook zucchini and keep their fresh look and flavor, is to cut it thin, salt lightly and zap in the microwave. I know, I said it: mi-cro-wave. Do you know that even at Le Bernardin we zap stuffed zucchini flowers with mini courgettes attached in the microwave with a little butter overtop? Why? Well, because zucchini is delicate! Yes, a microwave can be great for quickly cooking/steaming veg.

I love squid ink pasta, and I enjoy making it from scratch too but cuttlefish ink is messy and it stains and I have a 3-year old and a 6-month old and I’m just not that cool I guess. Layla would love to make this, but I have to establish major trust before I let her open a jar of black ink. Does the squid ink give a lot of flavor to the pasta? I’m going to say: no. Maybe others will argue with me, but no, I find it’s more about the color. If you want to make it from scratch I really like this recipe from Love and Olive Oil.

So, by this point you’ve realized that this is an easy recipe. YES! It is! Isn’t that wonderful? But, at the same time, it’s about quality of ingredients right? The sea scallops I used were fresh – a rarity to find in markets in Northern California. And, the shrimp were wild and enormous. The squash was just picked and the pasta was artisanal.

Let’s discuss how to cook scallops. Are you still cutting hatch marks across the top and searing them thinking that design is oh-so-cool? You are? Okay, you need to stop doing that. It’s out. When I see that I cringe. The same way when I see duck breast fat cut all criss-cross I want to send it back to the kitchen or throw it at the chef. You just aren’t going to get a better sear by doing it so STOP IT!

The best way to cook big ol’ fat fresh sea scallops is to sear them on high heat on a non-stick surface with a little olive oil along their edges. That’s right, not on their faces but on their edges. What I do is I stack all the scallops I’m using together and make a cylinder and then slowly roll them on their edges on the non-stick lightly oiled surface, allowing them to brown and sear on all sides. This will give you a perfect medium rare.

Shrimp you just throw in the pan with a little olive oil and sear. Don’t over cook those little guys though.

So what else is in the recipe? The pan you just seared the seafood in you’re not going to clean. Instead add some more olive oil and sauté a little minced garlic, then deglaze with white wine, add some cream and toss your barely al-dente spaghetti into the mix and give it a few up and down sauté shakes to coat through.

Next: throw in some Parmesan and again flip the pasta around in the pan to coat. The Parm will tighten up the sauce quickly. Season with salt. Twirl that gorgeous squid ink pasta into a cone with your tongs and place that heaping black pile of deliciousness on the just-microwaved zucchini carpaccio. Put a scallop on the plate and a large shrimp. Dust your pasta with some fried bread crumbs, a little chopped parsley and a few chili flakes. Give your whole plate a squeeze of fresh lemon, a scattering of finely chopped chives and send it on out to your family!

Done. Easy meal. 20 minutes max. Seriously!

The post Summer Squash Carpaccio with Seafood Squid Ink Spaghetti first appeared on Amy Glaze's Pommes d'Amour.

With a prosciutto this delicious, I recommend serving as-is with something complimentary that accentuates it’s natural nuanced nutty flavors without overpowering. I’ve opted for a refreshing summer salad of juicy pluots & plums with mildly bitter frisée & wild arugula, a few ethereal curls of shaved sweet fennel lightly dressed in a puckery red wine vinaigrette. Throw in a little torn mint and some chives plus a handful of toasted hazelnuts and some crumbled blue cheese, and you’ve got a beautiful complimentary summer salad.

What elevates this dish from just another ho-hum light dinner (besides the Prosciutto) is the dukkah spiced flatbread. Whaaat!?!?!? You’ve never heard of dukkah??!!!! Oh my GAWD! Okay, so you need to add this little nutty spice mix to your repertoire because it is great on so many dishes including chicken and fish. And yes, you can buy it in stores (Trader Joe’s carries it) although I think homemade is the best. Dukkah is an Egyptian spice blend of nuts (including hazelnut which really picks up the nuanced acorn flavor of the prosciutto) plus a bunch of toasted spices, a pinch of red chili flake for heat and dry mint which is like a subtle cool breeze to the tastebuds.

This prosciutto find came my way when my Canadian bestie and foodie/chef friend, Ivan Shaw, treated me to a prosciutto tasting when visiting for Layla’s birthday. He of course had heard of La Quercia and I had not. But we were both surprised to see how it stood out against French and Italian products. The subtle acorn and delicate fennel really came through, especially in the fat, while the others were mostly one note.

Get out there and try some American prosciutto!

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You can add celery, horseradish, white onion, celery seed or even black olives to it. But I just like it plain and simple. I think it’s good without any crunch. And it’s important to use a starchy baker potato like the ‘Russet’ that doesn’t hold it’s shape well when boiled or you won’t get that fluffy bite.

My Mom always swore by the “German” potato salad method which, I’ve used on several occasions including a Pig Roast dinner at Tunitas Creek Kitchen many years ago where I smoked the potatoes before hot dressing them. I used  Yukon Gold potaotes for this method because they hold their shape better (and that’s what was growing on the farm).

But I think this creamy style lends itself better to grilled sardines and all that umami goodness which, is what I whipped it up for.  It’s also good with hot dogs, grilled chicken – or just by itself in a big bowl with a big ol’ fork!

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The blue accents are rosemary flowers! And yes, you can eat them! And they taste just like the herb but even more intense with a touch of honey sweetness. I was looking for something colorful in my garden to add to the tomato plate and noticed the pretty little blue flowers with bees swarming all around. I tried one and then quickly googled it to make sure they weren’t poisonous – and they’re not! Hooray! They’re tasty and I’m still alive!

Can you believe, in all my years of cooking, and I never knew you could eat rosemary flowers? They are strong so use sparingly, but they add a neat surprise little bite.

I love using flowers to garnish plates. Some just add a little color pop with relatively no flavor (which is okay too), but others like: rosemary flowers, chive & garlic flowers, bee balm, anise hyssop and nasturtium (flowers and leaves) really pack a punch. I’m always looking for new edible flowers, so if you have a favorite please share!

There’s nothing much to this dish. Just really ripe and delicious tomatoes, some minced shallot, a few leaves of dill, a handful of salted capers (un-rinsed), a generous seasoning of crunchy sea salt and a squeeze of Meyer lemon over top plus a little olive oil for shine. A simple side dish or pretty picnic plate…

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This is my Mom’s recipe for grilled artichokes. I actually never knew there was anchovy in it as a kid. It wasn’t until she passed away a few years ago, and I inherited her enormous collection of recipes, that I found this one typed on a piece of paper in her giant folder. She didn’t add the mint, that’s my addition. And she always barbecued everything over charcoal, which I should do more often. 

Yes, there a quite a few steps to this recipe. But none of them are hard and I think the end result is worth it. My husband doesn’t quite understand the fascination with artichokes as he thinks they are a lot of work to cook and eat. We strongly disagree on this matter, as I think they are every bit worth every bite. I still don’t see him complaining when I cook them…

My artichokes are still poppin’ and I’ve had repeat crops this year! I guess October is the new March in California. I normally leave a bunch of chokes on the plant because the purple thistle is so spectacular when it blooms (is it called a bloom? I don’t know) but this year my chokes were so tasty and surprisingly bug free so I had to harvest.

If I had to choose two foods that say ‘Bay Area’, it would be Dungeness crab and Globe artichokes. Whenever I’ve lived far away from home, these are the two things I crave above all others…

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Mast-o-khiar or cucumber-labneh-dip can be served on its own and accompanied with flatbread and veggies, but it’s also a necessary side to any roasted meat. We don’t eat kabobs or leg of lamb at home without it.

So what makes this simple dip so special you might ask? First off, I use labneh instead of yogurt. It’s similar to Greek yogurt and the later can be substituted, but if you can find fresh labneh I think it makes a difference. What exactly is labneh, right? Well, it’s thicker than Greek yogurt, ultra strained, slightly salty and cultured with a different strain of healthy bacteria. It is a probiotic powerhouse and it will last longer than yogurt in your fridge. It’s consistency is more like cream cheese. Beware, some types of labneh are impossibly thick because they have added gelatin – this is not the kind I prefer to use. It should be cultured naturally without thickeners.

Secondly, the dill and mint added are dry and intense. If you buy these herbs dried from a Middle Eastern store, they will mostly likely come in a big packet as opposed to a small little spice jar, which is handy for this recipe. Lastly, the garlic I add (not a lot, but it is essential), I mash with sea salt and the flat of my chef’s knife, working it back and forth until the salt has drawn out the juice and the blade has pulverized the clove into mush. Making the dip hours, or even the night before, allows the garlic to mellow in the lactic acid of the labneh.

And lastly, I use Persian cucumbers which are not quite as juicy as the English hothouse variety and they hold their shape without getting mushy. If I can’t find the Persian type then I use normal hothouse cukes but, I scrape out the seeds so the dip doesn’t get watery.

To garnish, we use dried food grade rose petals and sometimes some fresh mint and dill. The rose petals don’t really add flavor, but they do add beauty, and sometimes they have a slight aroma as well….

Serve with Lamb Shawarma or kabobs or any roasted meat for that matter. Or simply scoop it up with some flat bread and feel healthy about devouring something so ridiculously tasty!

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Squash Blossom and Walnut Pesto Pasta

I normally like to stuff squash blossoms and deep fry them, but I wanted something quick and fresh this time around. I sautéed the blossoms in a little olive oil with sea salt until slightly browned. Make sure to remove the yellow stamen inside the flower – it’s bitter tasting.

Squash Blossom Pasta with Walnut Pesto and Shaved Summer Squash

Freshly made basil pesto is the best. If you think pesto is played out, then blend up a big bunch of farmer’s market basil with olive oil, garlic, walnuts and real Parmesan and see if that changes your mind. Super market pesto just doesn’t have the same freshness or flavor and often skimps on the expensive ingredients. Pine nuts are traditional with pesto but I prefer the bite of walnuts and they are much cheaper – they’re also local so that’s an added bonus. For a pesto recipe check out one of my older posts: BASIL PESTO!

Basil and Walnut Pesto

I’ve always wondered why zucchini flowers are so expensive in the markets because they are so ridiculously abundant on just one single plant. The flowers I pick from my garden hold up for at least a week and I’m not overly conscientious when I pick them, often storing them in a bag in the fridge. Farmer’s markets should be carrying flowers over the next few months at reasonable prices. Or befriend a zucchini grower in your neighborhood! (but beware, you will be up to your eyeballs in zucchini throughout the season – I always pawn off tons of zukes to whoever will take them!)

Squash Blossoms

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Spring Radish & Pea Salad

Sumac is a spice we use a lot in Persian cooking. It has a lemonade punch that really gets the salivary glands going. In salad dressings I add it to sweeter vinaigrettes but it’s traditionally used to season meat after cooking and sometimes added to stews and braised dishes. It gives a nice acidic pick-me-up to heartier richer recipes. Go easy on the sumac, I often see recipes online that call for way too much of it – it’s very puckery, just like eating a lemon – and a little goes a long way. I also like to mix sumac with cumin, cayenne, smoked paprika and kosher salt for the rim on margaritas and bloody mary’s.

watermelon radish and pea salad

Radishes are popping now and pictured below are the watermelon radishes from a local farm. But there’s so many more to choose from that are equally exciting! If you want a little peppery spice add black Spanish radish. Or for more interesting shapes & colors there’s always the pretty oblong French radishes, or the purple & pink Easter egg radishes, or the super cute micro radish, Cherry Bomb, that looks just like it sounds – a miniature red bomb.

I added some wild sweet pea tendrils from my garden, otherwise known as mountain pea or vetchling. This wild pea has a tendency to wrap its tendrils over every plant I’ve got unless I weed it out. The seeds and flowers are toxic, but to my knowledge the shoots are edible as well as the starchy bulbous tuberous root, that when roasted tastes somewhere between a water chestnut and a sweet potato. The root is very highly rated for flavor apparently but I’ve yet to try one because I never seem to be able to dig them out.

This wild pea tuber was once a popular item in European farmer’s markets in the early 1900’s. But lost it’s luster somewhere down the line because it couldn’t easily be commercially grown – which is a surprise because I can’t seem to get rid of it! Feel free to substitute pea tendrils from the super market.

Spring Radish and Sweet Pea Salad with baby lettuces, mint, and pea tendril

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Strawberry & Bibb Lettuce Salad for Spring!

Bibb lettuce is also called Butter lettuce, Butterhead and Boston lettuce and can often be found grown hydroponically at the market. I take off the outer dark green leaves and just use the light green to yellow. If you’re using baby Butterhead then figure one per person, the larger heads can easily be enough for 2-3 people or more depending on appetite.

Farm Fresh Spring Strawberries!

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Tamarind Scented Roasted Cauliflower Soup

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By the way, you’ve got about 1 to 2 more weeks of Fuyu’s and then they’re gone…

Fuyu Persimmon, Little Gem Lettuces & Kefir Ranch Dressing

I prefer to add fresh garlic to the dressing as opposed to powdered which is in most Ranch dressing spice packets (along with about 100 miscellaneous ingredients), but I don’t like it to dominate the flavor in something as light as a salad. Powdered garlic always leaves a lingering aftertaste that I can’t seem to get rid of no matter what I do.

A trick I learned when adding garlic raw to recipes: remove the little tiny germ that’s inside of the clove. This part contains most of that garlicky chemical that upsets the stomach. Chop the garlic with a chef’s knife on a cutting board, then pour a teaspoon or two of kosher salt over it. Using a back and forth motion with the blade of the knife, mash the garlic with the salt into a fine purée. The salt helps to draw out the juice and break down the flesh of the garlic clove into a nice pulp that is easily added to sauces or dressings. I also think the salt cures the sharpness of the garlic flavor, but that could just be hearsay.

Fuyu Persimmon & Little Gem Lettuce Salad with Kefire Ranch Dressing

Toss the Little Gem Leaves with the dressing or just pour it over top –it’s up to you. Garnish with pomegrante or avocado or both! A sprinkle of chives and a twist of fresh cracked black pepper overtop is a must “out the gate”.

Some more fun and tasty Fuyu Persimmon Recipes from my website and others:

Kale and Fuyu Persimmon Salad with Blue Cheese Beignets

Persimmon Upside Down Spice Cake

Roast Pork with Persimmon and Mustard Greens

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I look forward to Winter salads in a way that few people do. Juicy winter citrus, specifically blood oranges, are gorgeous this time of year popping with raspberry overtones and sweet acidic flesh. And all the bitter chicories come into season including the many colorful types of radicchio, frisée and endive. I think it’s that bitter-sweet-sour-salty contrast I crave during the darker colder months along with more robust flavors.

Castelfranco Radicchio with varigated pale yellow and magenta leaves

This radicchio, Variegato di Castelfranco, is delicate with variegated pale yellow & magenta leaves. I don’t always find it in the markets because it’s more difficult to grow from what I’ve been told. (I would love some clarification on that if anybody is in the know?) Castelfranco is not quite as bitter as the more common deep burgundy radicchio, although the latter would be equally delicious with any sweet citrus and is easily substituted in this simple salad.

Shaved baby fennel, purple radish, & tiny mint leaves are all that’s missing from the choppy-chop list. Segment the blood orange and squeeze the pith for all the juice into a bowl, mix with a big splash of hazelnut oil, a dash of white wine vinegar, plus a generous pinch of sea salt – and that’s all there is to it – instant blood orange vinaigrette! Toss all ingredients in a bowl and serve.

Blood Orange & Radicchio Salad with Fennel, Radish & Mint

For more blood orange recipes (yes, I love blood oranges!!!) check out these two recipes from last year…

Duck Tamarind  and Beet & Cara Cara Blood Orange Salad with Orange Blossom Vinaigrette

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Chef Faz calls me on a busy morning at our Oakland location to let me know (with effervescent excitement) that he has sourced a farm in the South Bay completely dedicated to growing this melon and, more importantly, that it has arrived. I immediately drive down to our Pleasanton restaurant after lunch service to see what all the fuss is about…

Hami Melon!

Although this melon is Chinese in origin, it is extremely popular in Iran. The taste of home is by far the sweetest nectar and Chef  Faz fondly remembers farming this melon and the pleasure of cutting one of the leash and carving into it for a refreshing slice of  warm, sweet, edible rehydration. These memories are crisp from youth…

Upon my arrival in our Pleasanton corporate office, Chef beckons me to the large hotel kitchen bustling with cooks preparing banquets and corporate events, not to mention line cooks fiercely whipping up late lunches for hotel guests and poolside snacks, to proudly show me his trophy.

Chef Faz with Hami Melon

And what a trophy it is! A gorgeous oversized heavy football, yellow and green with tan webbing. He politely pushes over the pantry cook to borrow his knife & cutting board and quickly slices the melon for us to taste. He doles our samples to the line cooks who are overheated from the mesquite woodfire open pit that is so outrageously hot my face turns a dark shade of crimson every time I walk in front of it. Smiles radiate from the cooks and nods of ‘this-is-soooo-good’ abound. This sweet melon is a breath of fresh air, a respite in the middle of organized chaos. Chef leaves the melon with the pantry cook and declares that we want melon for lunch and nothing else! Who am I to argue?

Like the other two great Chefs I’ve had the pleasure of working with, Chef Faz is passionate about the purity of the ingredient – the excitement of simplicity and rustic perfection in it’s natural form. I have a lot of respect for this no-fuss sort of attitude. There are some things in life that just don’t need improvement.

I have served this melon in a few different forms from this first initial encounter. Sometimes I slice it for an appetizer with proscuitto and burrata, or chop it up into a grilled and marinated calamari seafood salad with cucumber and red onion. Or serve it with a simple wild arugula, shaved fennel, cucumber and mint salad with a white balsamic vinaigrette – very refreshing.

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Rosé Poached Salmon, Lemony Parmesan Cream, Pommes Anna

Chef Eric Ripert, a master at enhancing the natural flavor and texture of fish, prefers the mi-cuit or ‘half cooked’ effect for his main course Spring salmon dish and poaches open lid so the top of the fish is warm and moist but rare while the rest  is cooked perfectly to a hot medium-rare temperature. By poaching in liquid just under a simmer, the fish cooks slowly and the fats don’t coagulate into that white oozing yucky stuff (hey, not to be confused with my super yummy lemony Parm cream, okay?).

Salmon is not the only fish poached at Le Bernardin. The halibut is poached (and totally submerged) in a velouté, a combination of flour & water infused with citrus & vermouth. This is a heavier poaching liquid and halibut is a denser fish, so the natural juices are locked in more effectively. It also gives the fish a sleek glossy look when decanted. It is very difficult when cooking multiple pieces of halibut (white) in a creamy liquid (also white) for a restaurant that seats around 240 covers a night. Think about all those pieces of fish submerged and how challenging it is to pull them out at the right time and keep them organized. Ah, the memories of poaching on the line at Le Bernardin…

Single Layered Pommes Anna

Pommes Anna, a thinly sliced potato cake, is a favorite garnish of Guy Savoy’s – especially with truffle. (If you have eaten at Guy Savoy then you’ve probably had more truffles on more dishes than you ever though possible – and he does get the biggest blackest truffles in France – I know that for a fact). To make Pommes Anna, potatoes are thinly cut and layered into a thick stack and roasted. Chef Savoy prefers each potato to be punched out into a perfect circle and layered singly onto huge sheet trays. They are roasted with lots of clarified butter and each circle must be perfectly golden brown to receive Chefs approval. I mean perfectly browned. Thankfully I never worked the garnish station but I did watch mes amis suffer through the grueling perfectly sculpted veg garnishes from the security of the meat station.

I didn’t bother with all the sculpting for this recipe – I just mandolined those cute little baby Spring potatoes and left the skins on for a rustic look – yeah, total rebellion against my training, but what can I say?

The lemony Parmesan cream sauce is as simple as reducing cream to the consistency of heavy oil and adding grated Parmesan to tighten it up with some lemon zest and a few tablespoons of the poaching liquid. Be careful not to boil this sauce after adding the Parm or the oils in the cheese will separate and the sauce will look broken and greasy. There’s no flour in this recipe and I wish people would stop adding roux to cream sauces because I hate that glop-y white stuff on Pasta and fish. Reduced cream is thick enough on its own! This basic sauce is good for pasta too and it’s great with the addition of caraway seeds if you’re a rye lover.

All these 3-Michelin star techniques are easy! Treat your Mom to a classic French brunch! I’m sure she deserves the very best!

And Happy Mother’s Day to all the Mom’s out There!

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Chorizo & Feta Stuffed Calamari with Marinated bean salad

Or just give me a table somewhere in the Mediterranean on the beach with a bottle of rosé and let me pick through the seasonal menu at my leisure while basking in the sun and salty sea air… that could work too…

A few tricks of the trade when it comes to calamari: if buying frozen tubes (which is fine, I’m not judging, they’re cheap!) make sure to thaw carefully in the refrigerator or under running cold water. Tubes pulled apart while frozen will rip and be unstuffable. If they do break just grill them anyway and slice into rings – they make a great addition to the marinated bean salad.

If buying fresh calamari that are not cleaned either keep the purple outer coat on with the floppy side rudders or peel it all off. I prefer to peel it off. I think they grill and sear better without that flimsy purple coat. However, I sometimes leave it on for braised calamari.

Stuffed Calamari!

Make sure to finger inspect the inside of each tube, that goes for the frozen ones too, and pull out the inner clear plastic-looking cartilage. This innertube cartilage is inedible and it’s easy to choke on because it’s practically invisible. Always check for freshness and keep refrigerated until ready to cook. They go bad quickly. If they smell ammoniated throw them out.

How to Stuff Calamari – do NOT overfill!

When it comes to stuffing calamari be creative! Sometimes I use ricotta & herbs, or mushrooms & crab, or sausage & tomato, or feta & sausage. Just keep in mind that the stuffing can’t be too wet. That doesn’t mean breadcrumbs are necessary (I rarely use them), but the stuffing will ooze out during the cooking process if it’s too juicy and this will cause flare-ups on your grill or it will give you a messy pan sear.

Chorizo, Feta, and Mint Stuffing for Calamari

Do NOT overstuff the calamari tubes. They will either break while filling or burst while cooking. Once the calamari hits the frying pan or the grill, it puffs up and changes from a slippery floppy plastic-y thing into a taught turbo tube. Only fill to 1/2-inch of the mouth of the tube and secure it with a toothpick. (pictured above – see how they are just gently filled and they don’t look they are going to pop?)

I prefer to use a pastry bag to fill or just a regular ziploc with the corner cut off – this makes the process much easier. I lie both the stuffing bag and the tube flat and squeeze instead of holding them in my hand. If you’re doing 100 of these little guys, I guarantee my method will make it go faster.

Marinated white beans salad with: cherry tomato, oregano, lemon juice, garlic, and parsley

And one last tip: LUBE your TUBE before grilling or pan searing with cooking oil! This will help to minimize breakage.

Sear stuffed calamari on a hot grill (or hot pan) and remove to a less hot spot to cook through.  They only take a few minutes to cook , overcooked they’re tough and rubbery. The calamari will be opaque white when done. If there’s concern about the stuffing temperature, then by all means stick your finger in there and see if it’s hot! Or insert a testing rod and check it against your bottom lip.

This chorizo and feta stuffing is salty (in a good way) but needs the vinaigrette of the Tuscan salad to cut through it so liberally serve up the tomatoes and beans. Hope this hits the spot!

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Cara Cara & beets salad with fennel, orange blossom vinaigrette, and Maldon salt

There are many types of blood oranges, but only two that are widely available in the U.S. – the Moro and the Cara Cara. The Moro blood orange is medium sized and thin-skinned with a purple blush both inside and out. The flesh (and juice) can range from purple to dark red with a raspberry-orange flavor. The juice looks a little like vampire blood but I love it for cocktails and juice pressé. They are great in salads too, but not so easy to segment. Cut or peel the outer skin away and slice into rounds instead of going through the agony of trying to cut out nice wedges.

Cara Cara blood oranges are big and the flesh is a delicate rose color (as pictured above). You might mistake them for Navel oranges because from the outside they look the same but on the inside, you can see and taste the difference. If Ocean Spray was describing the flavor of Cara Caras, I think they’d call it: CranOrange.

Chioggia beets are those magenta colored bulbous roots that have a pink n’ white bullseye if you cut out a cross section. They are super cool looking shaved thin and served raw in salads – or as a raw chip topped with a little goat cheese. I roasted them here, and they still kept their dramatic stripage. Neato! There’s no reason why you couldn’t use whatever color beet is available. Chioggias were growing at Pie Ranch for an event I catered, so I happily used them up!

I added a splash of orange blossom water to the white balsamic vinaigrette for fragrance. To me, orange blossom is just one of the most beautiful scents on earth and the distilled water pairs well with sweeter dishes and with a little acidity.

More recipes on Beets and Blood Oranges:

Duck Tamarind with Blood Orange Sunchoke Salad

Beet Salad: Raw, Roasted, & Pickled with Lavender Vinaigrette

Beet Leaf Salad with Strawberry Vinaigrette

Grapefruit Glazed Scallops with Roasted Beets & Thyme

Beet & Poppyseed Goat Cheese Tartine with Nasturtium Petals

Chicken Pumpkin Mole (This post has a side salad with Moro Blood Oranges)

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Nopales and Delicata Squash Quiche

This quiche is completely a Pie Ranch creation: from the flour grown & milled on-site, to the foraged nopales (edible beaver tail cactus), to the eggs, to the milk, to the last of the winter squash – it’s a great feeling to be able make a meal from food that fresh.

For the most part I have cut out gluten from my diet. However, I don’t seem to have the same sensitivities with flour from Pie Ranch. The variety of wheat they grow, called Expresso,  is a hard red Spring wheat that is low in gluten and as high as 13% protein. For pies and tarts it is fantastic and yields very flaky pastry crust with a toasty nutty flavor that can’t be beat .

Nopales & Delicata Quiche with Pie Ranch everything!

Nopalitos (chopped nopales) pairs great with eggs because it has a slightly sour taste (remnicient of a canned green bean – yes, I know that sounds terrible, but you gotta trust me on this one). Delicata squash are butternut sweet, but much easier to handle. Just slice them crosswise into rings; don’t worry about peeling, or perfectly cubing, or any of that annoying stuff. .

This is one of my favorite squashes because it’s so pretty as a topping. I often use it on pizzas (no need to cook ahead), in quiches, roasted for salads & sides, or cut lenthwise, roasted and filled with brown butter. The seeds are great too! If you are roasting Delicata as a side dish leave the seeds in the slices for some extra crunchy pepitas!

Thomas Keller has cornered the market on quiche custard filling. I don’t stray too much from his proportions. Of course, when I use fresh Pie Ranch whole milk with a cream float,  it’s often hard to tell exactly what the fat ratio is and I use farm eggs that vary in size and weight but, my quiches always seem to turn out gorgeous. There’s a lot of forgiveness in this recipe.  I love to sauté up whatever is seasonal and scatter it around the bottom of the crust before adding my milk-cream-egg mixture. Don’t be afraid to experiment! If Gruyère cheese is not available, use whatever is! Sometimes I like to use a combo of soft and hard cheese.

More recipes on Quiche, Edible Cactus, and Delicata Squash:

Heirloom Carrot & Nopales Green Salad

Prickly Pear Margaritas

Roast Pork Loin with Fresh Bay Leaf & Prickly Pear Glaze

Mini Quiches in Eggshell Cups

Pie Ranch Quiche & Kids

Delicata Squash Flammekeuche

Delicata Squash with Nogada (walnut) sauce

Nettle Pesto Pizza with Delicata Squash

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Shaved Carrot & Nopales Salad with Farm Cheese and Agave-Lime Vinaigrette

The easiest way to prepare nopales into nopalitos (diced edible cactus) is to buy it freshly prepped and packaged. No joke. But if you’ve got cactus growing on your farm or in your backyard here’s what to do, go to: Pati’s Mexican Table and read her method which I think works the best (and I love her blog besides). She also talks about how to choose the cactus paddle. I could paraphrase Chef Pati, but in her own words:

“Nopales are persnickety, their thorns are almost invisible, but a good clue is that wherever there is a bump there may be a thorn. Then, using a vegetable peeler or small sharp knife, pretty much as if they were asparagus, peel away the bumps and thorns, you may want to lean the nopales against a chopping board, and then rinse again. No need to peel off all of the outer dark green skin, in fact, try to keep as much as you can.”

Nopales when cooked are sticky. They secrete this clear goo that can be hard to get rid of and annoying when used unbaked in a salad (as opposed to a quiche where the goo will cook into the mixture). I blanch nopalitos first in boiling salted water, shock in ice water, and then sauté with a little cooking oil in a smoking hot pan briefly until the mucous evaporates. I haven’t tried grilling them yet, although I hear that works well, and the smokiness from the grill would be awesome with this. Chef Pati prefers to sauté nopalitos like mushrooms until the liquid evaporates and she skips the blanching.

Heirloom carrots from Pie Ranch

Heirloom carrots are polar opposite of course to noplalitos, and sweet as candy. They are beautiful roasted, but this Spring they are so sugary eaten raw and their colors are popping in crimson, orange, yellow, and white; so why not let them be as they are….

You don’t need a mandolin always to get that cool shaved vegetable look. I use a non-serrated vegetable peeler for carrots and put my shaved slices directly in ice water which makes them curl up. They can keep this way for up to 2 days. Holding the carrot flat on a cutting board, use the peeler to shave the carrot from top to bottom with a little more pressure than normal. Smaller carrots will yield better bite-sized curls that aren’t too big and floppy. And I never pre-peel the crimson carrots before shaving them down because all that outer deep red color is lost.

Shaved Heirloom Carrots

Making farm cheese from fresh milk straight from the cow is much easier than one would think. But I’m going save that for another post because you’re probably bored by my rambling and it’s a lengthy process even though it’s not too difficult. Queso or goat cheese would be a great sub if farm cheese is not something you whip up à la minute at home. I’m blessed to work in a rural setting amongst several organic dairy farms and everyone’s got their own farm cheese technique, so I mostly take what I can, where I can! Nopales and soft cheese are a great pairing. If you like pickles and cheese together, you’ll love cactus and cheese together.

Perhaps you’re thinking this is a simple salad that I’ve managed to totally over explain and over engineer. And you wouldn’t be wrong. But sometimes for me it’s the little ingredients, on their own, that get me so excited as opposed to the conglomeration. Thankfully I didn’t go on about the lettuce, and you know I really wanted to! Next time…

For more Nopales Recipes around the Blogosphere:

Cleaning and Cooking Cactus Paddles by Pati’s Mexican Kitchen

How To Cook Cactus Paddles by Mexico in My Kitchen

Cactus and Corn Salsa by Simply Recipes

Huevos con Nopales y Cilantro (Eggs with nopales and cilantro) by Hungry Sofia

Prickly Pear Margaritas by Amy Glaze’s Pommes d’Amour – yes that’s me!!!

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Green Garlic and Nettle Vichyssoise, hard cooked egg, bacon, mustard flowers

Traditional Vichyssoise is a magical combination of puréed leeks and potato served cold. Notice that I wrote ‘potato’ in the singular. Many recipes call for multiple potatoes which tends to lend itself to a soup of library paste. If you were a paste licker in school then go ahead and add them back in. I was a glue sniffer so I never really developed that particular affinity.

Older than the rivalry between paste eaters and glue sniffers is the historical food fight over the origin of Vichyssoise soup. Is it French or American? I’d like to say it’s a fusion, but it was made famous on American soil so I could be persuaded to cross the picket line. The soup is said to have been created by Louis Diat, the chef at the Ritz-Carlton in New York City for most of the first half of the 20th century.

In the New Yorker magazine (1950) Diat said:

“In the summer of 1917, when I had been at the Ritz seven years, I reflected upon the potato-and-leek soup of my childhood, which my mother and grandmother used to make. I recalled how, during the summer, my older brother and I used to cool it off by pouring in cold milk, and how delicious it was. I resolved to make something of the sort for the patrons of the Ritz.”

Other food fighters/historians say that the French chef Jules Gouffé was first to create the recipe, publishing a version in Royal Cookery (1869) and that Chef Diat must have changed it slightly by serving it cold and therefore calling it his own. OH, WHO CARES?!! It’s a basic combination that’s delicious!

Tender nettle tops and green garlic

I love the classic combo of potato & leek and adding green garlic to the mix isn’t really a stretch, nor are nettles since they just add to the earthiness of the purée and they give it some color. And leek & potato soup needs some color. However, I serve the soup warm because I think the flavors taste better that way. Sorry Chef Diat, but I’m not a die hard fan of cold Vichyssoise.

Green garlic has a short growing period and can be found in farmer’s markets NOW. It often looks likes spring onions when packaged but the white parts are streaked with a little red.  This green garlic is from Pie Ranch along the beautiful coastal highway 1.

The nettles were foraged for me by farmer Debbie at Pie Ranch and she somehow managed to collect around 4 gynormous garbage bags full so I could make a soup for 65 people. Unless you’ve attempted to harvest nettles, you have no idea how much heart went into this. They sting like crazy! People, there are poems written about how badly nettles sting! Shakespeare even mentions it (Henry IV 2.3.9-11)! Don’t go harvesting without gloves. Long sleeve shirts and full pants are a must…

Green Garlic and Nettle Soup

Sometimes you can get nettles in farmer’s markets but if you live anywhere that’s rural you have probably mistaken them for weeds in your back yard or seen them growing in forests or along roads. Read my previous blog entry about how to handle nettles). Stinging aside, they are worth the effort because they are packed with antioxidants and many herbalists and lots of Irish lore say they cure just about everything that ails. I like them for their color, more than flavor  – which is about as exciting as spinach – and also their health benefits.

This soup was inspired by my Spring commute along the coastal highway, maybe I should rename is Pescaderossoise!

On one side of my drive is the Pacific coast with the waves crashing against the cliffs and on the other are mountains and fields of green that are completely covered in flourescent yellow from the mustard cover crops. This picture was taken early in the morning and you can see the marine layer still floating over the mountains. Unfortunately the snap doesn’t do the view justice. I had to pull over to get the picture anyways, it was just too pretty to let go…

Pescadero mustard cover crops

More on nettles and green garlic:

Woodfire Roasted Artichokes with Wheatberries and Nettle Pesto

Nettle & Green Garlic Purée with Poached Egg

Nettle Pesto Pizza with Delicata Squash and Bacon

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Pie Ranch crudité platter of gorgeous Spring Veggies and confit onion dip.

I like to do all sorts of dips depending on what’s available on the farm. Sometimes I make a spicy white bean dip or a spinach dip, but this time I was motivated by the last issue of Bon Apetít which highlighted an onion dip. As a kid I used to love that stuff. Remember that onion flavor packet you would add to sour cream instantly transforming it into an irresistable concoction? I remember ripping through whole bags of ruffled potato chips simply so I could shovel more onion dip into my mouth.

Crudité platter with Pie Ranch gorgeous produce

I made this onion dip in a similar fashion to making French onion soup: I sliced a 5 pound bag of  sweet yellow onions thin on a mandolin. Then I tossed the onions with olive oil to coat, fresh thyme, a tablespoon of sugar and a big 3-finger chef pinch of sea salt and let them cook down slowly (low heat) in a pot on the stove without stirring. When the bottom layer was nice and caramelized I gave them a stir and continued cooking until all was brown. Deglazing the pan with white wine, letting it cook off, and deglazing with more white wine is a must after the onion is caramelized. I used almost 1/2 bottle of dry white wine after deglazing 4 times and letting it reduce after each addition.

When the onion is confited, let it cool and then chop it up (mince) by hand. I’m a sour cream fan and if I wasn’t conscious of my healthy guests I would have only used sour cream for this. Instead I split the mixture with 4 cups of greek yogurt and 4 cups of sour cream. So yes, this makes a lot of dip! It will feed up to 55 people!

If I haven’t convinced you with my crudité platter that raw veg as an appetizer is the way to go. Check out some of these beautiful veg platters for inspiration from the Huffington Post!

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Perhaps I dislike wings so much because for family meal at Guy Savoy in France, twice a month I had to prepare them for a staff of 45. Which sounds like a no-brainer until you have to cleave hundreds and hundreds of wings into drumettes before roasting and saucing.

I mean think about it – if you’re a 21 year old male and you’re cooking two shifts a day (lunch and dinner) and you’re job is super physical, how many wings do you think you’re going to eat to get full? 10 maybe? More? Yeah, that’s a lot of wings… and they don’t even use Frank’s Red Sauce over there. They like ’em deglazed with balsamic vinegar! (Yes, I know France is backwards – I’ve been saying that for years!)

Edible After School culinary students grill Jalapeño poppers for a private party

However, jalapeños are an ingredient that are rarely if ever used in France and I have yet to tire of them stuffed, sliced, pickled, BBQ’d, blanched, raw – you name it – I think they’re a great little pepper that is tasty on its own or added to other dishes.

Here’s an easy appetizer for the Super Bowl. Simply mix bay shrimp with a little Mexican crema to coat, add shredded Monterey and Cheddar cheese , season with a little salt and a squeeze of lime, plus a few dashes of hot sauce. Over stuff halved and seeded jalapeños et voilà!

Heat up the BBQ on medium-high. Season the grates with a little oil. When the grates are hot, Barbecue poppers until the cheese melts and the skins are lightly charred, about 2 minutes. Easy!

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Smashed Parsnips and Rutabaga

Parsnips are one of my favorite root veggies. They look like a white carrot and taste similar (and they are from the same family) but they have a more herbacious flavor and a starchier consistency. It’s always a toss up whether to cut them into sticks and roast with carrots or mash them up in a chunky purée. They also make great chips if you have a mandoline and can slice them thin enough to fry.

Rutabagas are a yellow turnip and unsurprisingly they are quite turnip-y in taste. They can grow to be huge in size. I’ve seen them almost as big as a basketball before. Stick to the baseball size ones because they are more tender and flavorful.

Parnsips and Rutabagas!

I cook them separately in a light water-cream mixture. Then I mash ’em together with extra butter and olive oil that’s been steeped with bay leaf. Don’t over smash these two or they get gummy.

Parsnips and rutabagas cooked in a cream and water mixture

The sweetness of the parsnip is a nice balance for the earthy rutabaga. A twist of cracked black pepper over the top, a must.

Smashed Rutabaga and Parsnip for Thankgiving!

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Two varieties that are gaining popularity in conventional markets are: the Delicata, which looks like a fluted variegated tube and the Golden Nugget, which is bright orange and shaped like a top. They are both sweet and nutty in flavor. They both have edible skin. And they both make pretty wedges.

Roasted Winter Squash in Walnut Sauce

The inspiration for the sauce is from the Mexican dish Chiles en Nogada which is a stuffed poblano chile smothered in a walnut crema sauce with pomegrante seeds. It’s a very easy sauce to make –  just blend walnuts and crema (or crème fraîche) with a little honey and a pinch of nutmeg and cinnamon.

I dust the plate with cinnamon and ground guajillo chile for a little kick. Mint would be a nice touch but alas I couldn’t find the day I photographed the picture. Leave the seeds in the Delicata while roasting, they add crunch and extra nutty-ness. (And we can all use extra nuttiness).

Delicata and Golden Nugget Squash in Nogada Sauce

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Cornmeal Crusted Fried Green Tomatoes and Zucchini Sticks

Regardless, this was down right delicious. (Never met a fried vegetable I didn’t like!) I wanted a salty starter for our Tunitas Creek Kitchen Pig Roast and green tomatoes were still going strong on Potrero Nuevo Farm  – so why not? We used three deep fryers to turn appetizers out for 65 people. It went smoothly until we overloaded the circuits, but nonetheless my incredible chefs re-wired and got it all figured out without too much fuss. Never a dull moment in the farm kitchen!

Chef Stefan Moser at Tunitas Creek Pig Roast: Fried Green Tomatoes

We taste tested different varieties of green tomatoes, including the Green Zebra – which is a ripe tomato that is green. The chefs and farmers preferred the dry farmed Early Girl’s. This is an intense small (red when ripe) tomato that is packed with minerality, high sugar, and high acidity. The big heirlooms were good too but didn’t fry quite as well because they had more water content – they were still delicious – but if one has options then go green Early Girl or Molina or use the ripe green zebra but make sure it’s not over ripe.

What do you mean the electricity is out? Arrgh!!! ( Chef Jose Castro & Stefan Moser)

The zucchini sticks were tasty too. We cut medium size zucchini long, but they didn’t coat too well in the cormeal. I didn’t hear any complaints for uneven coating from our guests. Fried, is arguably the best way to eat zucchini. Of course homemade ranch dressing with any veggie is irresistible.

Gawd, what’s happened to me? I used to be so Frenchified and now I’m all country Western. Fine dining is boring – give me some fried food and ranch dressing any day of the week!

Just to give you an idea of what 65 appetizers looks like….

Rice bran oil is best to fry these tomatoes in. It has one of the highest smoke points of all frying oils and it is used in Japanese cuisine for tempura. Any flavorless oil with a high smoke point will do, just make sure it can take  375˚F without catching on fire or becoming toxic as some oils will at a certain heat.

I’m not making a plug for deep fryers, but after using so many restaurant professional fryers its hard to go back to rinky dink home kitchen appliances. I used Warning Pro and thought it was great for the price. It’s lightweight, big enough to hold a few hand-fulls of fries or tomatoes without the temperature dropping, it has a nice little electronic dashboard and cleans easy. It’s not fancy but who cares? It’s a deep fryer not a brushed copper KitchenAid. And for $100 compared to other more expensive brands, I think it gets the same job done.

Chef Valentine getting ready for the rush…

I love Ranch dressing, it’s definitely a guilty pleasure, and we made two versions for dipping – cool ranch and hot ranch.  I don’t know who invented “ranch” but I’m grateful.

Pig Roast at Tunitas Creek Kitchen

Fun times on Potrero Nuevo Farm with Tunitas Creek Kitchen!

For more Pig Roast Sides:
Smoked Potato Salad with Tarragon and Hard Cooked Egg

Dragon Lingerie Succotash & Hot Bacon Vinaigrette

Cowboy Up Cattle Beans

Sautéed Greens with Pine Nuts and Red Spring Onion

How to Roast a Whole Hog on a Spit

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Sautéed greens from the farm to the frying pan. Jay Jackson Photography

(As if succotash, smoked potato salad, cowboy-up cattle beans, cheddar scallion cornbread, cornmeal crusted fried green tomatoes, and fire & ice watermelon and tomatillo salad wasn’t enough.)

And when those beautiful rich dark greens are grown and harvested by Suzie & Jay Trexler, co- manager’s of Potrero Nuevo Farm,  right before cooking – that’s about as fresh and healthy as it gets – that is truly Farm to Table.

Farmers Suzie & Jay Trexler, Jay Jackson Photography

The trick to setting out a dish of vibrant greens is to blanch them first. I toss the greens in boiling salted water for about 2 seconds then shock in a big bowl of ice water. On the pick-up (or when you’re about to serve them) quickly sauté and serve. They will not only keep their color but also their vitamins and minerals. And if you are cooking for a crowd they can be blanched the day before too.

I topped these with some toasted pin nuts, sliced red spring onions, a pinch of chile d’arbol (hot!) and squeeze of lemon.

For more great pics of our Pig Roast check out Jay Jackson’s website.

Dragon Lingerie Succotash & Hot Bacon Vinaigrette

How to Roast a Pig on a Spit

Cowboy Up Cattle Beans

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Dragon Lingerie Succotash: Jay Jackson Photography

I wanted a colorful chunky pig roast side that would showcase  all the late season summer veg still goin’ strong at Potrero Nuevo Farm including: dry farmed tomatoes, corn, padron peppers, and pole beans.

Although this is not a traditional succotash (tomatoes are rarely included, I’ve subbed padrons for bells, and there’s no cream/mayo sauce but a hot bacon vinaigrette instead) it’s my updated rendition of  a normally terrible tasteless dish. Sorry – not tryin’ to offend here – I’m just not a Lima bean fan because they often taste mealy to me. And I hate canned corn.

My Husband showing me how to shuck corn. Ha! Jay Jackson Photography

A little history lesson: succotash (a mixture of lima beans, corn, and shell beans with bell peppers or tomatoes) was popular during the Great Depression and sometimes cooked with a pie crust on top. Obviously this would make a hearty comfort dish and provide protein and other beneficial nutrients on an extremely tight budget. I wonder if the cream base that is normally served with this dish as a cold picnic salad would taste rather rich if served hot with a flaky topping…

That being said, I prefer my version.

Dragon Lingerie beans lose their cool color when they are cooked but they are still intriguing in the flesh with a lacy purple appeal. When farmers Suzie & Jay Trexler (co-farm managers of Potrero Nuevo Farm) asked me if I wanted to include these in our Pig Roast menu I was afraid they would be tasteless. Quite the opposite –  fat and sweet!

Dragon Lingerie Bean

Hope you join us next year for our 2014 pig roast….

More Pig Roast Sides:

Cowboy-Up Cattle Beans

Smoked Potato Salad with Hard Cooked Egg & Tarragon

How To Roast a Hog on a Spit

For more pictures see Jay Jackson’s amazing collection: http://found-images.smugmug.com/Tanitas-Creek-Half-Moon-Bay

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Smoked Potato Salad , Jay Jackson photography

If you’ve never had a smoked potato, then you’ll be nicely surprised at how they elevate this simple picnic side dish to a whole new level.

I smoked these in the wood under our pig the day of our event but I’ve also made them in smokers before. You can do this in an oven too with a packet of mequite chips too or a regular charcoal BBQ.

Potrero Nuevo Farm potatoes

Tarragon flowers, tarragon, parsley and hard cooked egg garnish the top along with red spring onions and a mustard vinaigrette.

And look at these gorgeous red spring onions from Potrero Nuevo Farm! Wow!

Red spring oinons!

More Pig Roast Sides:

Dragon Lingerie Succotash & Hot Bacon Vinaigrette

How to Roast a Pig on a Spit

Cowboy Up Cattle Beans

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Cowboy Up Cattle Beans. Photography by Jay Jackson.

Cattle beans are some of my favorite because they are black & white and keep their color when cooked. They are great in stews and soups or served with a smokey-spicy light tomato broth as a full side dish. It’s hard to describe bean flavor but I think nutty and meaty would be my best effort. I used some of Farm Manager Suzie Trexler’s pickled watermelon radish, and carrot around the beans for color.

There are a lot of people out there who will tell you that soaking beans overnight isn’t necessary especially if they are freshly dried (two years is considered “fresh” for dry beans). I’m going to tell you the opposite: every time I have not soaked beans beforehand they take much longer to cook, the skins break, and they cause gastro-intesinal problems. Seriously.  It’s also easier to see how much you are working with after they have plumped up. Guesstimating beans for a huge event is always a problem because some beans look small and then quadruple in size and others stay roughly the same. These cattle beans tripled in size.

I cooked these beans the day before the pig roast in a vegetable broth with thyme and bay leaf. To reheat I strained the liquid, brought it to a boil, and added more seasoning: ground dry guajillo chilis (you can sub guajillo powder), smoked Hungarian sweet paprika, cumin, tomato sauce, salt, and ground coriander to taste. Then I poured the ranchero flavored liquid over the beans and brought the whole pot to a low simmer before serving.

I was cooking for 75 people and needed burner space the day of but they can be made in one go. This was a big hit and an unusually beautiful one with the pickled veg.

A word of advice on cooking beans: do not salt your cooking liquid in the beginning of the process. It can change the texture of the bean and also the salinity can mysteriously disappear and then reappear. Beans will soak up the salt from the water and if you just taste the water (and not the bean) during the cooking process you will continue to add more salt. When the beans are soft enough to taste you will be disappointed. I lightly salt the bean liquid mid way through the cooking process and then adjust seasoning at the end.

More Pig Roast Sides and Pictures…

How to Roast a Pig on a Spit

Smoked Potato Salad with Tarragon and Hard Cooked Egg

Dragon Lingerie Succotash & Hot Bacon Vinaigrette

Sautéed Greens with Pine Nuts and Red Spring Onion

Jay Jackson Pig Roast Pictures

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Lavender Fields Forever at Potrero Nuevo Farm in Pescadero

It only takes about about a teaspoon of dried lavender to add lovely perfume and a little extra herbal flavor to your salad dressing. Add too much lavender and you veer towards creating a fantastic smelling and yucky soap tasting vinaigrette – blech!

Watermelon Radishes for Tunitas Creek Kitchen. Do you see how excited I am to use these? Totally elated!

Co-Farm Manager’s Suzie & Jay Trexler, love to saddle me up with beautiful produce for our Tunitas Creek Kitchen events  (I know, poor me right? It’s real tough cooking with just picked produce and smelling lavender from the fields in my kitchen – real tough). They wanted to highlight watermelon radishes for a private luncheon so went for a simple salad with baby lettuces, fennel, mint, and mandoline shaved radish.

Watermelon Radishes up close!

For our upcoming pig roast (this weekend) Suzie has some pickled too, which I’ll share with you on a separate post.

Watermelon Radish from Potrero Nuevo Farm

Restaurants pay top dollar for this colorful radish. They are sweeter tasting than red radishes and have a slight turnipy flavor. Normally they are not peppery the way some radishes can be. And they are SO pretty in pink.

Nope, sorry, they do not taste like watermelon…

But they are really delicate in flavor so it’s nice to keep it simple no matter how you’re using them.

Watermelon Radish & Mint Salad

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Wheat Berries and Roasted Onions, Fennel, and bacon

I have used wheat berries in tons of ways: creamy ‘risotto’, garnish for salads and soups, baked into bread, and as a substitute for rice. Even when fully cooked the wheatberry will not be soft like rice, it has a slight crunch when you bite into it which I like.

Cooking wheatberries is similar to cooking wild rice, except I use a ratio of 1:3 wheat berry to cooking liquid (water or stock). And I don’t worry too much about steaming the berry, instead I just let them simmer until al dente – about 30 minutes.

I have the benefit of using a huge wood fire oven at Pie Ranch but this recipe works equally well in a regular oven minus, of course, that great smokiness.

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Thinly slice squash, tomatoes and eggplant (eggplant doesn’t grow well on the coast but you can add it to this if desired). Place rounds on a bed of sautéed leeks, season with sea salt and a splash of white wine and a drizzle of olive oil and a few sprigs of thyme and whole unpeeled garlic cloves.

Pop in the oven and roast on high until veg is soft and slightly caramelized.

Enjoy this dish with fish or meat. It’s light and versatile. Tian Provençal was a recipe for my class at Pie Ranch on Summertime French Cuisine. Everyone enjoys a few easy recipes in between the more difficult ones…

For more pictures from our French Cooking class at Pie Ranch go to:

https://www.facebook.com/AmyGlazeCom

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It’s hard to imagine for us Americans that mayonnaise is anything more than a condiment for sandwiches but in France they are used in so many ways – and not on sandwiches funny enough. One of my favorite emulsified sauces is the truffle vinaigrette at Guy Savoy that accompanies poached chicken, artichoke, and truffle. The acidity, creaminess, and black truffle jus are a perfect match.

The emulsified sauce with leeks vinaigrette or Poireaux À La Vinaigrette is also used for chacuterie and butcher cuts such as beef tongue served cold. It’s sometimes called a butcher sauce.

The trick to making mayonnaise is starting with ingredients that are all room temperature. An egg yolk straight out of the fridge will break the emulsion. Also adding mustard to the egg yolk first and then whisking in the oil in a slow stream works best.

For more pictures from our cookin class at Pie Ranch go to: https://www.facebook.com/AmyGlazeCom

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For the raw beets: shave very thin on a mandolin and be careful to not shave off your palm in the process. Raw beets are sweet and crunchy and I love the bright pink circles of the Chioggia variety.

Roasting beets is a far less daunting process than most people think. scrub the beets and place ’em into a roasting pan with a little water and cover tightly with tin foil. Bake on 450˚F until a knife pierces easily through the center of the beet. Rub off the skins as soon as they are cool enough to handle (the skins comes off much easier when they are hot) and put half  into a spiced pickling liquid.

For more pictures from our French Farm to table Cooking Class go to: https://www.facebook.com/AmyGlazeCom

I love adding a ton of herbs in my salads and this one has everything Pie Ranch had to offer: tchives, dill, mint, cilantro, and basil plus gorgeous red and green butter lettuce.

Ah the joys of cooking on a farm! Won’t you join us for our next French cooking class?

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Like when this idea for wheat berry pilaf and artichoke, which I basically adapted (stole) from David Lebovitz, just popped up magically in my inbox. There I was in the middle of a farm to table dinner going: now what am I going to do with wheat berries that I have not done before? (Because I use these a lot at Pie Ranch). And there his message was glaring at me – a recipe for freekeh which is a wheat berry pilaf of sorts with artichokes!

Woodfire Roasted Artichokes with Wheat Berry Pilaf

And there I was with a box of artichokes and a granary of wheat berries! Yes, sometimes I feel very lucky to have inspiration hit my inbox at just the right time. Our recipes are different due to different cooking circumstances, conditions and raw ingredients but I’m ever so thankful for the idea! Thanks Chef!

I normally make risotto with wheat berries but due to the large number of lactose intolerant people at the party I served a side for my side dish – I put out nettle pesto to mix in with the pilaf for those who were so inclined. However I did use a ‘risotto’ method in preparing the wheat berries minus the end steps which involve cream and cheese.

First I toast the berries lightly in an enormous high sided pan with olive oil and a handful of shallots stirring vigorously, then I deglaze the pan with a half bottle of wine again stirring the wheat berries vigorously until all the vino is absorbed (this stirring vigorously is said to get the starch rockin’ and give a silky texture to the risotto, although please note with wheat berries it is pretty much a lost cause to try and get any sexy texture goin’ on). Then I add the rest of the bottle of wine and again let the tough little suckers drink their fill while “rockin” the risotto.

Nettle Pesto: a side dish for my side dish

Lastly, I cover the wheat berries with chicken stock stirring every 5 to 10 minutes, and adding more stock as it gets absorbed. Normally freekeh is made with cracked wheat berries, but I use whole wheat berries at Pie Ranch and they do take about an hour to fully cook. The nutty flavor and high protein is well worth the effort. I figure on a ratio of 1:3 of wheat berry to stock with extra on hand. They will absorb a lot of liquid!

Turning artichokes is my nemesis. I used to do about 15 crates of these every other day in France until my hands were stained black permanently and constantly swollen from invisible tiny thistles sticking in my fingers. Try grabbing a sauté pan and cooking over the fire when your hands are in that kind of pain! However, for the right crowd I can be convinced to go to town on a box or two. I used both large artichokes and baby ones for this recipe. The larger artichoke bottoms are diced small and hidden throughout the pilaf, the baby artichokes are in the limelight.

The trick to keeping artichokes from oxidizing is acidulated water. After I peel and/or cut off the leaves of the artichoke I rub it all over with a lemon half and toss it into a container of lemony water. If I am cooking the artichokes in water over the stove I use what is called a “blanc” which is acidulated water with a few tablespoons of flour. I don’t know why the flour aids in stopping the oxidation process but it does work. (That’s what you get when you train in France – a lot of rules and not a lot of explanation as to why things work the way they do).

For baby artichokes I peel off the outer leaves, cut them in half and scoop out the inner little fuzzy choke reserving the stem and the soft light green leaves. For mature artichokes, I take a serrated knife (a good strong long serrated knife – not a little flimsy steak knife) and saw off all the leaves at their ends down to the base. Then I scoop out the choke and rub lemon all over.

Woodfire Roasted Artichokes

I know you’re thinking: but all that waste! All those good leaves! (You must be from California if that even crosses your mind because Californians practically grow up in artichoke fields!) Pigs love artichoke leaves. If you have pigs feed the leaves to them! If not, compost or steam separate.

Cooking the artichokes is easy peasy: coat with olive oil, season with sea salt, place on a roasting tray like the one pictured above with lemon slices and toss in the wood fire pizza oven until they are soft – about 15 minutes. Yes, you can do this in the oven too at 450˚F. And yes, the artichokes will turn a little black in the wood fire oven but that’s okay. The smokey flavor is fantastic. I do not par boil the chokes before roasting unless I’m BBQ’ing them.

The final finish to this wood fire roasted artichoke and wheat berry pilaf is of course the addition of bacon and perhaps a side dish for your side dish like nettle pesto. David likes to throw in a handful of parley which is a nice idea.

Thanks again David for the inspiration!!!!

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I know all you actors out there have a hard time separating this fibrous ruby-red stalk from a vocal warm up… rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb….me, me, me me, me, me….unique New York, unique New York, unique New York…

Sweet Tart Quick Pickled Rhubarb

Rhubarb has a marvelous puckery fruity flavor that makes it versatile as a white meat garnish or a dessert filling. But here’s the problem – it gets mushy, really mushy when cooked– and as a meat garnish this is not the desired consistency. Hence my newest version of quick pickled rhubarb that does not involve canning or boiling away that fabulous stalk to pink goo.

Quick pickling anything is as easy as making a brine or pickling liquid (a mixture of vinegar, salt, sugar, and spices). Boiling it. And pouring it over the vegetables of desire and letting it stand until cool.  Then refrigerate for a few hours and eat up! Quick pickles can last up to a week in the refrigerator. For sweeter quick pickles add more sugar.

Quick Pickled Rhubarb with Star Anise, Clove, Cinnamon, Black Pepper, and Red Chili

Use the red-ist stalks you can find. Although ripe rhubarb can be green too (can it be called ‘ripe’? Somehow that doesn’t seem like the correct term here.) I think it makes for prettier presentation when red. I should also mention that the pickling liquid makes for a terrific vinaigrette. I like to serve this little pickle side dish along chicken or pork.

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Farmhand Salad with Blue Cheese Buttermilk Dressing

That’s because if I had my way I would just slather this dressing all over the salad until nothing was visible but creamy tangy milky goodness. What can I say – I’m the daughter of a farmer who used to drink homemade buttermilk straight from the jar!

This salad was the first course for a lunch I cooked at Pie Ranch for the SF based company Good Eggs. If you’re living in the Bay Area and you’re not taking advantage of Good Eggs, by all means check ’em out! They have an online Farmer’s Market that allows you to shop local farms and artisanal products and have it all delivered to you.

When I cook at Pie Ranch all ingredients are of course grown/raised onsite which includes the milk products. If you happen to be traveling the beautiful coastal highway over the weekends you can stop in and buy veggies and pie and pastries. The pastries are made by a local bakery using flour grown and milled onsite. Here’s Pie Ranch’s Yelp page with the address so you can bookmark it on your next journey to Santa Cruz. They also have barn dances once a month that are a lot of fun…

Little Gem Salad with Blue Cheese Buttermilk Dressing

I always figure on 1 little gem lettuce head per person and I use one per plate allowing the bigger darker leaves to be the bottom of the rosette and the inner brighter leaves to mound on top. Colorful radish and nasturtium petals dot the greens with sprays of peppery watercress and a sprinkling of chives. A crack of black pepper over the top is a must.

The recipe below gives instruction on how to make buttermilk and mayonnaise from scratch. Of course you can just go buy it instead. But both are simple to make by hand…

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Lollo Rosso, Red Romaine, Red Leaf, Shaved Fennel, Mint, Orange, and Sour Grass Flowers

My idea of sour grass as an edible plant changed to it being a really bad weed.

Much later as a young married adult in my very first house, I had an incredible garden. In my SF Mission garden I planted 5 fruit trees, annuals, perennials, roses, herbs, strawberries, vegetables – it was magical and a lot of work. That little sour grass plant tried several times to sneak its wild ways into my carefully crafted-to-look-whimsical garden. But I stamped it out quickly and mercilessly…

Sour Grass and Mustard Flower Fields Forever

Now my commute from San Francisco to Pescadero winds south along Highway 1. The freeway divides the rugged cliffs & ocean from the verdant mountains splashed with flourescent yellow. Mixed in with mustard flowers, the neon sour grass is untamed and glorious. I cannot get over how beautiful it is this Spring – truly breathtaking. Who would have thought?

Speaking of glorious, the lettuce in Pescadero right now is gorgeous. This salad is a mixture of ruffly red Lollo Rosso & deep purple Red Romaine from Del Sur farm and beautiful red leaf lettuce from Pie Ranch. I always love shaved fennel (Blue House Farm) with orange & mint. Navel oranges are at their peak and they’re inexpensive right now – even the organic ones.

Sour grass flowers just adds a little color and a little imagination. They do contain oxalic acid (as do turnip leaves) so I wouldn’t advise eating bushels of them, but they are hardly the weed I once thought them to be…

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Nettle & Green Garlic Soup with Olive Oil Poached Farm Egg on Grilled Bread & Bacon

Green garlic is one of my favorite ingredients and it is only available for a short time in the beginning of Spring. I’ve only seen it sold at farmer’s markets and it should be hitting the stalls in the next few weeks. Green garlic looks like a thick green onion and it adds subtle garlic flavor & depth without overpowering. They are fabulous for soups and purées.

Nettles grow abundantly in the forests and along riverbeds. Heck, nettles grow just about everywhere! I’ve even seen them growing out of planters in San Francisco. But there’s a reason they’re called stinging nettles so pick with gloves on and use tongs while cooking. If you can get past the sting, they have a nice spinachy-hay flavor and they are packed with antioxidants. I like to blanch them first to remove the sting but also to preserve as much nutrition as possible.

Here’s an old post on why it’s necessary to be careful! with nettles (OUCHY OUCHERSON!)

Green Garlic & Nettles

The farm egg is poached in extra virgin olive oil. This tasty technique was recently introduced to me by my friend Kat, who also happens to be an extraordinary events planner and in her spare time (ha!) the General Manager of a well known restaurant in SF. She thought it was so delicious that she actually bought me a bottle of really expensive olive oil so I could test out the method for myself. And you know what? It is soooooo good – THANKS KAT!

If you’re a poached egg lover, you gotta try this. Use a good extra virgin olive oil because it ads to the flavor. The eggs poach a little more flat than if dropped in water (see picture?) but the the heavy consistency of olive oil keeps the white tender and shapely. And the flavor – Woweee! – much better than water.

Nettle & Green Garlic Soup

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Duck Tamarind

Having a few years of experience cleaning hunted duck of shot and preparing it in multiple different ways for extremely demanding French chefs & clientele, I have hit upon one way of preparation that I truly love when it comes to duck breast; so that the end result is a moist breast with extra crispy skin and nicely rendered duck fat.

Duck Tamarind Sliced

The technique is easy: heat a sauté pan until it’s smoking hot (no oil) and place duck breast skin side down. As soon as you hear the sizzle of fat hit the pan turn the heat down to low and cook slow, without moving it, until you can begin to see the sides of duck breast start to turn grey-ish brown (just after the fat layer) about 4 to 5 minutes. If there is a lot of fat under the skin then this step might take longer.

From here you can remove the remove the breast and finish the cooking later. Or, to serve it up immediately, turn the heat back up to medium-high and “kiss” the breast on the other side for two minutes – just until the sides no longer look raw and the meat has a little spring to it when pressed on. Let rest and then slice.

Watercress, sunchokes, morro blood oranges, persian limes, hon-shemeji mushrooms, mitake mushrooms, red spring onion

I like the idea of keeping this dish light and fresh for Valentine’s Day but still satisfying and earthy. The salad is a combination of peppery watercress with shaved sunchoke (they taste a little like jicama raw), marinated red spring onion, roasted mitake and hon-shemeji mushrooms, and winter citrus – in this case blood orange and persian lime segments.

Watercress, sunchoke, roasted mushroom, & persian lime salad

Persian limes are very sweet, so don’t be fooled by their yellow color. The vinaigrette is a mixture of persian lime juice and the marinated spring onion vinegar. Sunchokes are best shaved last minute as they tend to discolor like apples. I peel them before shaving.

Wishing you a romantic Valentine’s Day…

xoxoxo

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Todd Parsons Photography: http://toddparsons.net

The French named this creamy soup after her. Why? Perhaps the milky color of the cauliflower reflected her complexion as the website The Old Foodie points out or for the shape and color of her powdered wig? Perhaps because the silky smooth rather curvaceous combination of cream and cauliflower reflected her – ahem – personality?

All I know is that this soup has a seriously sensuous mouth feel and when a little black truffle jus is added and a touch of white truffle oil – it’s magique.

Todd Parsons Photography, http://toddparsons.net

It is common in France to see the name ‘du Barry’ attached to a dish that has a cream sauce or even a mornay sauce (which is a basic white sauce with egg yolks added for extra richness) as well as dishes with cauliflower.  I have also made this soup adding egg yolks at the end to give an even more luxurious finished feel but I don’t always find it’s necessary.

Black truffle jus is very expensive. It can be left out if it’s not easy to find or doesn’t fit the budget. However, white truffle oil is often sold in tiny bottles and will give quite a powerful truffle kick even with just a few drops. I also like porcini mushrooms with cauliflower soup, but if you use the dried mushroom liquid (which is tasty) it will change the color a little bit.

A little trick of the trade and a beautiful look to cauliflower soup is shaving some of the larger florets on a mandoline and floating them on the soup. The white on white is stunning for full portions.

Excuse my shameless sales pitch here but a Vita Prep blender will totally change the way you cook. I use it more than any other kitchen appliance. It’s amazing for soups, purées, sauces, vinaigrettes, juices, smoothies, jams, sorbets, etc. And it can take hot and cold liquids and keep them hot or cold. Here’s the new one, it’s super expensive, but I have an old one an it works just fine! I tote it around with me from farm to farm – very durable. Amazon has a range of Vita Preps some with variable speeds (mine only has two).

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Double Beet Borscht Soup

Here’s my easy version of the blended borscht (and I serve it hot), but with both red and golden beets cooked separately. Ladle the two soups into one bowl and give it a swirl with a knife tip.

The micro greens on top are called ‘bull’s blood’. But not to worry, they are really just beet shoots.

I made this particular soup (pictured above) meatless and dairy free for my vegan customers, but it can certainly be made with chicken or beef stock and topped with crème fraîche or sour cream. Just be careful about not blending the sour cream in unless you don’t mind eating a soup the color of pepto bismal.

These beets were from Pie Ranch and were fresh and sweet so I didn’t add too much spice wise: cinnamon, cumin, coriander, and bay leaf plus a little sherry vinegar to add a touch of acidity to balance the sweetness.

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