A preserving first: plain ol' strawberry jam for #CanItUp

It's strange but true. Until this month, I had never made strawberry jam. All these other kinds (and more), yes—but somehow good old-fashioned strawberry had slipped past me.

Thanks to the monthly Can It Up challenge on All Four Burners, I made it finally happen.

Of course at first I started consulting my cookbooks, and pinning up a storm with all kinds of flavor variations in mind. But ultimately I was seduced by the simple goodness of the strawberry, and chose to leave it unadulterated.

I was initially planning to go with Strawberry Rose Geranium, but couldn't bring myself to harvest half of the blossoms on my small plant, and something inside was telling me to just go it plain.

I basically used this recipe from Marisa at Food in Jars, sans the vanilla bean. Above is what it looked like after macerating in the fridge for 2 days. Then it was to making jam! I even busted out a strawberry apron for the occasion.

After that we ate jam. (Sometimes French breakfast has to happen). The man of the house is always complaining I don't make "regular enough" jams, but based on the fact we're almost through the second jar that didn't seal (wait, I though I hated when that happened...), clearly going with the straight stuff was not a mistake.

There is always more jam that can be made, after all.

Cook the Books 2013 - Tender goodness from Nigel Slater

This month's Cook the Books assignment was Tender by Nigel Slater. I loved this tome of a cookbook and its somewhat non-standard presentation; think part gardening diary, part ode to the seasons (the moody photos especially), part personal narrative, and a lot of enticing recipes. Organized alphabetically by type of produce, he starts each chapter discussing the specific vegetable in both the garden and in the kitchen. The section (when applicable) on varieties was always interesting and informative to read, but I think my favorite feature was the list of seasoning recommendations for that specific vegetable. From herbs and spices to best oils and accompaniments, I felt like this piece showed a lot of his cook's personality, and was plenty useful and inspiring—and I definitely found some things I wouldn't have thought of, but that make perfect sense.

The lineup of dishes served up this month was modest, but across-the-board satisfying.

Chickpea patties with beet tzatziki

I broke in my new food processor (first full-size one I've ever owned) making the chickpea patties! They took a bit of finessing in the pan to get right, but in my opinion the key is to not make them too big, and to let them cook long enough on the first side to crisp and firm up so you can flip them without them coming out a crumbly mess.

Messy

Tidy

Tasty

The color and flavor boost from the grated beet "tzatziki", with additional salt and lemon, is what really made this shine for me.

Chard with olive oil and lemon

First-ever time that I boiled chard. Of course really it's just blanching, but still I was surprised at this preparation, not least at how much I liked it. So I busted out a new technique and a new tool in the kitchen this month!

A pilaf of asparagus and mint (sans the favas)

I saw favas all over early in the month, but by the time I was looking for them to cook with, they were nowhere to be found. So I made the spring pilaf without them and still loved it. The aromatic spices added great dimension, but I cut down the butter called for by about 1/3, and still found it a bit heavy for the dish. In fact, there were a lot dishes in this book that called for heavy cream or a lot of butter, it kind of made me laugh. Of course that tastes good! Maybe the difference of the UK still being cold in spring came into play, but veggies I would think of as lending themselves to being lighter often had a lineup of heavy ingredients. Still, come cold nights, I could definitely see myself turning to some of them. Again, this one I felt like was really elevated by the yogurt sauce, so don't skip it.

Check out some of the dishes Grow & Resist and Ohbriggsy cooked up, and as soon as it's up I'll post the recap of everyone's menus.

Swapper Profile: Micah + Vegan Tater Tot Hotdish Recipe

Hooray for Micah and Vegan Cheddar Bay Biscuits

Swapper community meet Micah! Micah has an infectious sense of humor and fun, and through his terrific variety of creations, you may already know him from the swap. His treats are always vegan, always tasty, and have included Chocolate Dipped Mango, Vegan Chocolate Chunk Biscotti, Assorted Crackers (Caper + Sea Salt, Green Garlic, Lemon + Red Pepper) and more. Also, I do believe Micah deserves credit for introducing one of my favorite swap trends: homemade cocktails for the potluck. Back in August last year, he brought a gingery summer fruit bourbon concoction that clearly set the pace...our last swap had three kinds of cocktails on offer. Way to go Micah (a toast in your direction). He loves biscuits and baking and veganizing as he goes, and he shares his recipe for Vegan Tater Tot Hotdish below. I'm feeling Minnesota already.

Name: Micah

Vegan recipe blog: Big Mike's Eats 

Hometown: Bernal Heights, San Francisco, via Saint Paul, Minnesota

Profession (optional): Attorney

How did you first get involved in food swapping? How long ago?

I went to my first SF food swap in spring 2012 and was immediately hooked.  I found out about the swap through a random google search for local food events.

What did you make for the last food swap and what inspired your choice?

I made vegan chocolate chunk-almond-cinnamon biscotti. Biscotti is my go-to for any food sharing occasion because I can make it with anything I’ve got lying around in the kitchen, and everyone’s happy when there’s more biscotti in the world. Except the gluten free folks, but I’m working on that!

Bags o' biscotti!

 What’s your favorite thing about swapping?

It’s an even tie between the excellent people and the excellent loot. The only thing better than heading home with an armload of spicy pickled carrots, homemade bourbon vanilla, and foraged cherry jam is hanging out with the awesome and hilarious people who made those gems.

Who or what most influences your cooking?

Being Minnesotan. As a vegan, I feel like there’s a lot of unchartered water. I’m obsessed with adding to the vegan recipe canon by updating the cultural foods I grew up with by making plant-based versions. Midwestern comfort food is my preferred food genre, which for my childhood meant a big mishmash of Jewish, Northern European, Scottish, Norwegian, and local standards.  I’ve veganized a lot of foods that only a Minnesotan could love, like scotch eggs, Welsh rarebit, haggis, lutefisk, the Juicy Lucy (an outside-in cheeseburger), stovies, Hungarian goulash, deep fried cheese curds, and the penultimate Minnesotan delicacy, tater tot hotdish.

I’ve also built up a hefty arsenal of veganized Jewish comfort foods, which is especially handy around Hannukah and Passover, when vegans can feel trapped between ethics and observance. I’ve covered a lot of the classics: lox, kugel, matzoh ball soup, latkes, beef brisket, Passover macaroons, and the like, but I’m still working on the perfect vegan challah. It’s my white whale.

 I’m basically a split personality cook; when I’m veganizing a classic comfort food, I have no shame about junk food. Minnesotan food traditions are based on pantry staples like boxed soup mix and canned vegetables, and whole foods versions just don’t hit the mark, in my experience.

When I’m making new recipes, though, I try hard to focus on whole foods and local, organic ingredients.  My boyfriend is also a vegan food blogger, and he’s much more committed to whole foods, so he’s an excellent influence. I’m a bad one, as there’s an endless supply of biscotti and cake in the house.

What’s your favorite kitchen tool?

Parchment paper makes my world go ‘round. Silpats are a more sustainable, reusable option, but parchment paper can be cut to size and composted so there’s no cleanup. I can’t stop dipping random foods in chocolate, so parchment paper makes candy infinitely easier remove after hardening, and parchment paper removes the need for both oil and cleanup when baking cookies or roasting vegetables.

In case parchment paper isn’t tool-like enough, I’ll also big up my dowel rolling pin (with tapered ends and no handles), which I bought when I was eighteen and working at a posh cooking supply store. A dowel pin gives a person so much more control when rolling out dough, so you can make ultra thin crackers and wrappers for dumplings, wontons, or knishes.

Micah's crackers from a past swap

Your current flavor or ingredient obsession?

Blood oranges and sweet limes! Their seasons are just ending now, and I’m a little heartbroken. I had never seen either of these darling citruses when I lived in Minnesota, and I’ve been schlepping home about ten pounds of fruit from the Alemany Farmer’s Market each week that they’ve been available. Sweet limes are gorgeous eaten plain; a strong, clear lime flavor, but as sweet as an orange. Sweet lime juice and chili pepper flakes over sautéed collard greens is pretty great. Blood oranges are absolutely beautiful and a little bit tart; I use them for mimosas and chocolate chunk biscotti.

Biggest food surprise?

That carrot greens are amazing.

If the Rapture came tomorrow, what would your last meal on earth be?

Everything that I could find, dipped in dark chocolate. And champagne.

When I'm not in the kitchen I'm...

Blogging about being in the kitchen, painting, doing weird collaborative art projects, or playing chess. Sometimes I go to work, too. 

Favorite local food experience:

Making brunch with friends every Saturday after the Alemany Farmers’ Market. We scoop up whatever weird, adorable produce is in season and build brunch around it, like nettlepesto + baby turnip pizza.

TATER TOT HOTDISH Recipe by Micah

Prep time: about an hour
Yield: one large casserole dish, about 8-10 servings
Preheat oven to 425f

Ingredients

- 1 32 oz. bag tater tots (I use Ore Ida- reliably vegan)
-1 finely chopped onion
-1 12oz. package of vegan ground beef (Smart Ground original veggie protein crumbles from Lightlife)
-2 tsp garlic powder
-sea salt and pepper to taste
-1 ½ c. vegan creamy portabella soup from Imagine foods
-1 14oz can or bag of frozen French cut green beans
- ¼ c. daiya cheddar shreds (for the gooey insides)
- ½ c. daiya cheddar shreds (for the crispy top)

Directions
1. Bake tater tots at 425 for about 20 minutes or until golden and firm- you want them nice and crispy inside the hot dish, but don’t let them brown- they’ll finish baking when the whole hot dish is assembled. 
2. While the tater tots are baking, chop the onion finely
3. Heat 2 tbs canola oil over high heat in a large skillet. Add the chopped onion and sauté until translucent, then 
5. Add the package of vegan ground- crumble it into the pan, and fry the onions and ground together with the garlic powder, a pinch of salt, and a few cracks of fresh ground pepper for about 8 minutes or until veggie ground is cooked through
6. Pour the 1 ½ c. mushroom soup into the pan and continue to cook and stir over medium-high heat until well mixed and the soup has cooked down a little, about six minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste. It should taste vaguely like beef-a-roni. In a good way. The best way. 
7. Scoop the onion-ground-soup mixture into a large casserole dish
8. Open and strain your 14 oz. can of French cut green beans, and spread them evenly over the layer of onion-veggie ground-soup
9. Sprinkle approximately ¼ c. of the cheddar daiya over the green beans

10. Make an even layer of the baked tater tots over the green beans. If there are any very soft parts, make sure they’re facing up
11. Bake at 425f. for about 15 minutes so tater tots can get crispier
12. When tater tots are golden brown and firm, remove from oven and sprinkle the remaining ½ c. daiya shreds evenly over the top. Place back in the 425f. oven and bake another 15-20 minutes until the daiya shreds on top are lightly browned and crispy.
13. Serve hot! 

Reheating note: You can cover leftover hot dish with foil or in Tupperware and refrigerate, but when it’s time to reheat, bake it in the oven or toaster oven (350f for about 10-15 minutes, or until tots are crispy again). The tater tots will get soggy in the fridge, so you need the dry heat of an oven to get them nice and crispy again.

Micah's Tater Tot Hotdish at the swap

Briefly, Cook the Books 2013: Mile End Cookbook

I put my library request in early, I swear. But it was Passover and it seemed like I wasn't ever going to get my hands on a loaner copy of The Mile End Cookbook for April's Cook the Books due to the number of holds ahead of me... But then a librarian friend introduced me to the brilliance that is Link+, and thanks to inter-library coordination it was ready for me to pick up at my local branch within a few days. I was over the moon pleased with myself, and I settled in to flipping through the recipes and hungry thoughts of making cinnamon buns and challah, lotsa pickles, and a bunch of different kinds of latkes, to start.

But with taxes due and a barely planned vacation to take, it turned out that for most of April I was swimming with fishes in Mexico instead of cooking at home.

So this month is short and sweet, with just two simple dishes cooked but (as usual) many more savored with my eyeballs. I was also proud because not only did I use up a lot of things in the fridge before leaving the country (greens and herbs from the swap, bacon, salami, eggs, etc.), I also did not need to buy anything specifically for these recipes, except the beans!

Mish-Mash - This recipe caught my eye immediately. Salami with eggs? Yes please. With just a few ingredients, this is great and easy-to-prepare meal which will be on the menu at our joint going forward for sure.

As I sought ways to cook anything amid the pre-trip crunch, it turned out the Maple Baked Beans were just the thing to take to a friend's BBQ. They were very tasty on grilled sausages, and we ate the leftovers as beans on toast with eggs as our last dinner at home. Breakfast for dinner, always a winner.

Next up for May is Tender by Nigel Slater. And I can sure do with some veggies in my diet after all those tacos and beer!

Boozy Swap Recap x2: January & April presented in pictures (and glasses)

We had a packed house for our January swap, and a big crowd for our 2 year anniversary swap in April too. The most noticeable theme? Booze! Yup, at the January swap we had bourbon cocktails being made to order as samples the awesome Earl Grey Soda Syrup shown below, plus a couple homemade wines on another table, and the April swap had not one but THREE kinds of alcoholic beverages on offer for the potluck, plus cordials and other spirited elixirs on the swapping block. There were even flavored sugars for cocktail glass rims. Now you know how SF swappers roll...

Along with the alcohol there was a lot of garden fresh produce, so it really felt like spring up at our April swap.

There was so much other good stuff too! But, I'm off to Mexico in a couple days, and am trying to cram a lot in before I leave, so am keeping this post short. I did just finish my taxes though, so cheers to that! Since this snapshot view has no doubt left you wanting more, go peruse the full photo galleries from both swaps here and here. Then mark your calendar tentatively for the first weekend in June.

Cook the Books 2013: Soup weather = Tom Yum Goong

March was filled with more work travel, lots of family occasions and visitors, and now a cold...so it didn't allow me much time in the kitchen to try out this month's Cook the Books selection, Good Fish by Becky Selengut. But, my Tom Yum Goong (Spicy Shrimp and Lemongrass) soup was just what the doctor ordered, and I've got the ingredients on-hand to make the Wild Salmon Chowder with Fire-Roasted Tomatoes and Quinoa Cakes with Smoked Trout and Chive Sour Cream in the next few days. I also have BIG love for sardines, so always have them in the pantry and will try not just her version of Pasta con la Sarde for sure, but the fresh Skillet Sardines too.

Anyhow, on to what I did make...

Cooking shallots and lemongrass is up there in terms of kitchen smells, but it's the kaffir lime leaves that are the magic ingredient here and will transport you right into the heart of Thailand as you cook this deliciously, evocatively, fragrant broth. Or at least that's what happened to me.

Though this isn't an overly complex recipe, making the stock takes some time, so once again I broke it down over two days. Be sure to brown the shrimp shells over high heat in order to impart their distinctive flavor to the broth.

Tom Yum Goong (Spicy Shrimp & Lemongrass Soup)
Adapted from Good Fish by Becky Selengut
Serves 4

2 tablespoons high-heat vegetable oil (I used safflower)
1 medium onion, diced
1 small carrot, diced
2 ribs of celery, diced
1 lb shrimp, peeled and deveined (shells reserved)
5 to 6 cups of water
3 tomatoes, medium dice, or one 14-oz can of diced tomatoes with their juice
6 Kaffir lime leaves, or zest of 1 lime
6-8 thin slices of fresh, peeled galangal or ginger
2 jalapeños, halved (remove the seeds and membranes if you want to decrease the heat of your soup)
1/2 cup sliced shallots
3 stalks of lemongrass, cut into 1-inch pieces, woody top half discarded
1 cup cremini or button mushrooms, thickly sliced
3 tablespoons fish sauce
3-6 tablespoons freshly squeezed lime juice (2-3 limes)
Salt
Whole cilantro leaves, for garnish

Making the soup stock

Add 1 tablespoon of oil to a stockpot over medium-high heat. Once hot, add the onion, carrot, and celery and saute for about 5 minutes, until lightly browned.

Turn the heat up to high and add the reserved shrimp shells. They will turn their recognizable pink almost immediately, but saute about 3-4 minutes until they are lightly browned.

Add the water to the pot. If you are using canned tomatoes, drain the juice into a measuring cup and add enough water to total 6 cups.

Stir in the sliced galangal, jalapeños, and kaffir lime leaves and bring to a boil.

Scrape the bottom of the pot to loosen any browned bits and simmer gently for approximately 30 minutes. (This is when the fragrance magic happens)

Strain the stock through a fine mesh sieve and set aside. If you make the night before, store the stock in the fridge overnight.

Making the soup

Heat the remaining tablespoon of oil over medium-high heat, and add the shallots and lemongrass. Saute about 8-10 minutes until  lightly browned.

Add the mushrooms, tomatoes and reserved stock and bring to a gentle boil. Reduce to a simmer and add the fish sauce. Simmer for another 10 minutes, then add the shrimp and turn off the heat (the residual heat will do the cooking for you).

Add the juice of 2 limes and season to taste with salt. Add more fish sauce if necessary, as well as lime juice which will brighten the flavors. A little sugar or honey can help if your soup is tart or bitter.

Be sure to taste the soup at this stage and balance the flavors according to your palate.

Serve garnished with cilantro leaves, and remember you can lightly chew on the lemongrass stalks to release some of their flavor, but do not try to eat them!

Cooking notes:
While deveining shrimp is not the sexiest job in the kitchen, it was actually a first for me and I kind of enjoyed it. This takes about 10 minutes, so plan your prep and cooking time accordingly. Selengut's website includes a number of how-to videos, including one on deveining shrimp.

I had exactly, to the drop, 3 tablespoons of fish sauce left in the bottle. I love it when that happens!

Here's an in-depth, Spring-filled post reviewing this cookbook by Oh, Briggsy, with the monthly round-up post coming soon from Grow & Resist!