Breakfast Pizza for Dinner!

It's ramp season folks. And what do ramps go with better than bacon and eggs? Nothing!

After reading about Motorino's amazing breakfast pizza which "delivers a beautiful pool of gooey cheese, runny yolk, pancetta drippings, and fruity olive oil", I was inspired to make my own version. The original plan called for goat cheese ricotta, bacon, ramps, and sunnyside eggs, but my sister did the shopping and some of the cooking, so she also added in broccoli raabe for a contrasting bitter bite.

First, you need to make the dough. I really prefer my recipe for pizza with a puffier crust, but out of laziness I went for the thin crust recipe that just requires a whizz in the food processor and a wait in plastic bags in the fridge overnight. It makes six dough balls, so I stuck three in the freezer, to leave us with three personal pies for the three people in my household. About two hours before I wanted to cook dinner, I took the dough out of the fridge to let it warm up.


Next, Lisa fried up a few pieces of bacon and let them drain on paper towels. She poured out most of the bacon fat (to reserve for future use), while leaving enough fat in the pan to sautee the greens.


After preheating the oven as hot as it will go (520 in our case), Lisa finely chopped ramps and broccoli raabe. She sauteed them in bacon fat until softened and then continued to cook covered for another ten minutes until wilted.


Next I assemble the pizzas on cornmeal-dusted baking sheets, slowly building them with crumbles of goat cheese ricotta, bacon bits, wilted greens, salt, pepper, and crushed red pepper. Finally, I broke an egg into the middle and put them into the oven for about 10 minutes until the crust browned on the bottom and the eggs firmed.


Unfortunately, the crust took longer to cook than the eggs, so the yolks had already firmed by the time the pizza was done and alas, there was no runny yolk to coat the pizza in golden flavor when biting into it. But it was still f*in good.

Jesse rued all times he tried to convince me to cook meat or fish for dinner instead, thinking breakfast pizza for dinner sounded lame. Duh! Of course it would be the best thing ever, and once he saw the beautiful pizza and ate it, he realized the error of his ways.

The Year of Cabbage

If last winter was the year of kale, then I'd say this winter was the year of cabbage.

It's because last year Garden of Eve kept me stocked with kale all throughout the winter when no one else at the farmers markets had green vegetables. Then this year, I couldn't even find kale regularly. But I could still find cabbage.

Plus this year I first realized how delicious cabbage is when sauteed. Much nicer than in bland braised dishes. Slice it thinly, like you would to make slaw, but then sautee it in olive oil with onions, salt, and pepper, letting the onion and cabbage strips brown a bit over medium heat. Then leave it on low heat covered for about 10 minutes until it wilts a bit. The result is perfectly flavored, tender, but with a nice bite. A great side dish.

Or add it to cooked beans and brown rice with some grated cheese and salsa for flavor, as another version of my "healthy rice and beans", an easy dish that is a Jesse pleaser.

Now that the weather is warming up, hopefully we'll be eating things besides cabbage soon.

Scallops with Israeli Couscous and Kale

I sauteed finely chopped kale and onion with onions and garlic, and combined it with simmered Israeli couscous, using the Kitchn's method for cooking this pasta-cum-grain with leafy greens. Then Jesse sauteed scallops in olive oil and herbs de Provence to top it off. Here's what he had to say about it to his friend who gave us the herbs a few months ago:

I used the last of the herbs de Provence you gave me to make seared
scallops with Israeli cous cous and kale and may I humbly say that it
was the closest thing to culinary perfection that I have ever
experienced - in the words of Dr. Seuss "If you never have you
should. These things are fun and fun is good."

Healthy Beans and Rice

It's a typical story but true - after gorging on food of all sorts over the holidays, I actually couldn't stand the thought of any more sugar and started craving whole grains and greens. So I devised this healthy version of rice and beans, with spinach, brown rice, and quinoa for added nutrition. For flavor, I tossed in salsa and cheddar cheese, but plenty of other cheeses would work well with this. Likewise, feel free to swap in an onion for the leek depending on what you have on hand.

Jesse called it his "favorite thing you've ever made." Of course - this is exactly the kind of one pot dish he loves - a creamy bowl of hearty grains, protein and greens. I only wish I had made more because he ate about 3 straight servings, leaving me without leftovers, so next time I might double the recipe.

Healthy Beans and Rice

1 cup dried black beans (or 2 cans black beans)
1/2 cup brown rice
1/2 cup quinoa
1 leek
1 bunch spinach
1/4 cup grated cheese
1 cup salsa
salt
pepper
crushed hot pepper
cumin

Soak dried beans overnight (or bring to a boil and then let soak for one hour). Rinse beans and then return to pot covered with two inches of water. Bring to a boil and simmer until tender, about 60-90 minutes.

Combine rice, quinoa, and 2 1/2 cups water in a small pot, and simmer for about 40 minutes until rice is tender.

After about 30 minutes, rinse and chop the leek into half moons. In a large pan, sautee leeks over low heat. Then rinse the spinach, chop into small pieces, and sautee until wilted. Add salsa to pan to warm.

When rice and beans are done, combine in pan with spinach, grated cheese, salsa, and spices. Makes about 4 servings.

Guest post: Finding local meat in Florida

Another guest post from my sister Lisa, who's currently living in Sarasota, Florida, and managing a college campus cafe. The other night she made this delicious looking whole wheat pasta with chicken sausage, and local garlic, onion and arugula. Here's her story:



Celebrating the first week of Worden Farm (the only local, organic farm that sells at the Sarasota farmer's market), I had a Saturday night feast of sauteed garlic, onions and arugula that had the perfect balanced peppery, but mild, taste. Add some non-local chicken sausage from Whole Foods (the quest for local meat in the Sarasota area is still ongoing) and the result was spicy garlic and sausage, sweet vidalia onions and tomato sauce, and filling whole wheat al dente pasta. This was miles better than the pasta dishes I grew up on, which were usually bland and unsatisfying.

Today I will be going to pick up some buffalo meat from a small local farmer, so there may be a new, even more delicous Floridian post awaiting on the horizon.

Heart Attack Day

I hadn't had red meat in a while, and I'd been craving it for weeks. Finally, last Friday I picked up a package of bacon from Flying Pigs and a cut of Grazin' Angus Acres steak, and then unintentially cooked both meats last Sunday, on what you might call "Heart Attack Day." Except since I eat pork and steak so infrequently, I think it's okay to treat myself once in a while.

Brunch was a spiffed up breakfast sandwich featuring sunnyside eggs, bacon, and sliced tomato on toasted rye bread.



I usually put Jesse in charge of cooking the bacon, but this time I wanted to experiment by cooking one batch in the oven and one batch on the stovetop. Google led me to many rave reviews about how awesome oven-baked bacon is - crisp meat and simple cleanup. But I cannot agree. As directed, I preheated my oven to 400 degrees, lined a baking pan with aluminum foil, laid my bacon down, and put it in the oven. And kept checking. And checking. Recipes indicated that it would only need about 15 minutes in the oven, but after more than 30 minutes it still wasn't crispy, even after turning the heat up to 400. So I took it out and ate it as it was - which was fine, it just wasn't that awesome crunch I was craving.

My stovetop bacon was undoubtedly superior - crispy to the point of crunchy - which was the way I like it. It was done in under ten minutes, and I didn't think cleaning out my pan was all that hard. So I definitely fall in the stovetop bacon camp.

Once brunch was devoured, I set to work at marinating my steak. I bought a flat iron steak, because it was the only cheap cut he had left. I read that this is a relatively new cut in the world of meat, taken from the shoulder, and it tastes best after marinating, much like flank steak. After trimming off a ton of fat from the steak, I laid it in my usual marinade mixture of balsamic vinegar, mustard, lemon juice, water, diced garlic, salt, and pepper - and this time I added some chopped fresh sage from my deck.

I let the steak marinate for about eight hours while I enjoyed a very relaxing Sunday....dreamily reading through pretty magazines on my sundappled bed, and then a scrabble game and pumpkin ale in Black Rabbit's pretty green backyard.



In the evening, I put Jesse to work at the grill. He achieved a beautiful charred crust on the steak, though I have no idea how, because he wouldn't tell me - he's keeping it a "chef's secret"!



For a side, I whipped up colorful smashed potatoes and rainbow swiss chard (the purple tint comes from a mixture of Adriondack blue potato and yukon gold potato). I was going for a cross between potato salad, with its crunch and mayo-mustardy flavor, and colcannon mashed potatoes, dotted with creamy greens. I ingeniously chopped the swiss chard stems into little pieces to stand in for the traditional celery of potato salad, while swiss chard stood in for the cabbage that's traditionally mashed into colcannon. It turned out as deliciously as I had dreamed. I meant to save some for lunch the next day, but it was so good I ate it all at dinner - oops! Together with the hearty iron-rich steak, this dinner was exactly what my body needed!

Smashed Potatoes and Swiss Chard
2 medium-large sized potatoes
1 bunch swiss chard
1 tbsp mayonnaise
1 1/2 tsp mustard
juice of 1/2 lemon
salt
pepper

Rinse and chop potatoes into 2 inch pieces. Add potatoes to a pot of salted boiling water and simmer for about 20 minutes, until tender. Drain in colander, reserving a tablespoon of cooking water.

Rinse swiss chard. Chop stems into small pieces and set aside. Chop swiss chard leaves into chiffonade. Sautee swiss chard leaves in olive oil over medium low heat until wilted.

Combine potatoes, wilted swiss chard, and swiss chard stems in a bowl. Add reserved cooking water, mayonnaise, mustard, lemon juice, salt, and pepper. Stir to combine and then mash with a fork or wooden spoon to desired smashed consistency. Serves 2 as a side dish.

Dog Ate My Pizza

Yeah, there he goes looking all cute and innocent again until...

First the good news. Last time I tried to make grilled pizza, it was a gummy disaster. I think that dough recipe, which works wonders in the oven, was probably just too thick for the grill. Meanwhile, tons of people out in the blogosphere have made grilled pizza with no problems. So I was determined to try again using a different, thinner dough. I wisely chose the mother of all thin crusts: Heidi's whole wheat pizza dough, also following her grilled pizza tips.

Tonight, I came (home from work), I saw (raw sausage and radish leaves turn into a delightful sauteed topping), I conquered (grilled pizza). However, I was so worried about the giving the pizza ample time to cook through in the middle that I let the first couple pizzas burn a tad, but at least it was edible and delicious, compared to last time. Heidi's pizzas are actually so thin that they don't really have a middle, just crispness, so there was no need to worry. Next time, I will leave my dough a little laxer instead of stretching it out parchment thin as she recommended.

But here comes the bad news. I made three pizzas tonight with my own blood, sweat, and tears (okay more just like a little easy labor with the help of a friend). We ate up two of the pizzas but didn't touch the third. It lay there waiting patiently to be packaged into an amazing lunch for tomorrow. I walked my friend to the door when she left. I was gone for about TWO minutes. I came back upstairs. Huge gasp - the pizza is gone! Without a trace. Because my dog ate my pizza!!!

Devil dog strikes again. All of my hard work wasted on his already-fed stomach. What misfortune will he bring next? Only his pea sized brain can tell. And that's why I have no pictures to show for my work, either, because as you could say, the dog ate my homework!

Kitchen Disasters

That was a beautiful and delicious pizza I made last week with local flour, turkey sausage and radish greens, and nonlocal tomato sauce and parmesan. Yes, you can eat the greens that come with a bunch of radishes. I wash them thoroughly, sautee them, and they wilt down a lot. They're a little bitter, but add a nice complexity to pizza.

I loved the pizza so much that I tried to make it again this week, but with the sick humidity crushing us this week, I decided to try my hand at making grilled pizza. I'm not sure exactly what went wrong, but I tried twice with two pizzas, and both times the edges of the dough grew colored and crispy, almost burnt, while the gummy inner dough refused to cook through, no matter how long I let them linger on the hot grill or in the toaster oven afterward. They looked tasty like they wanted me to eat them, but I couldn't. I salvaged the sausage and radish greens by scraping them off and throwing together with quick-cooking orzo for a meal, while the pizza remains above sadly went into the garbage.

I have three theories - I should have used a dough that reliably produces a thin crust since my recipe usually puffs up a bunch; I shouldn't have topped it with so much sauce and sausage; I should have let the first side cook longer before I flipped it over. We'll see. For now, it's back to my tried and true method for making pizza in the oven, despite the heat.

This meal that we made for dinner last night looks great, but it wasn't actually, because it was pervaded by bitterness. I was so excited about being able to eat radish leaves, that I decided to give carrot tops a try. The bunch that came with my carrots from the Greenmarket looked so pretty and frilly that it seemed a shame to just throw them away.

I made a salad of lolo rosso lettuce, grated carrots, and a garnish of chopped carrot tops, with a roasted garlic dressing. The dressing was a gift from Jesse's mom and was pleasant. But the lettuce was overwhelmingly bitter, and the carrot greens didn't help, being chewy and bitter and not fun to eat. I couldn't even finish my salad. I guess there's a reason why people always throw out carrot tops.

Knowing how much Jesse loves Sixpoint beer, which is brewed in nearby Red Hook Brooklyn, Jesse's mom also surprised us with this terrific growler of Sixpoint Gorilla Warfare, a rich stout. I decided we should use it to cook the mussels. We sauteed garlic scapes and another handful of carrot greens in olive oil, then added mussels and half a pint of beer, and let it cook, covered, until the mussels opened.

I had been craving mussels all week, but it was a bit disappointing. The garlic scapes weren't potent enough to lend the dish a garlicky aroma like I hoped, the wilted carrot greens weren't much to taste, and the stout gave the mussels a slightly bitter taste. I should have known that a mild lager or white wine works better for mussels. It wasn't a total disaster, like the failed grilled pizza, but it wasn't the rich warm broth of mussels that I had hoped for.

But that's how it goes with cooking. You experiment, and you learn from your mistakes. And post them on the Internet for others to learn from as well.

Camping at Little Pond

I don't recommend camping just for a night - it's too much prep work to drag out camping gear, figure out food, pack everything up, set everything up, and do it all in reverse again the next day. But that's what we did anyway Saturday, as we found ourselves on a long drive up Route 17 to camp in the Catskills. We stayed at Little Pond Campground, a state campground that actually features a rather large pond with a beach, picnic areas, and hiking trails. There are even some campsites situated tranquilly right on the water, but those were already taken by the time we made our reservation.

The campsites were quiet and more secluded from each other than other campgrounds I've stayed at. Our site was bizarrely large, as you can see below.
Near dinnertime, I tried to grill potatoes in foil, but our fire wouldn't stay consistently hot. After over an hour the potatoes were still raw and hard. We have much to learn in the art of fire-making for our next camping trip. Our propane-powered camping stove is great for cooking, but I would also like to be able to harness the fire's energy for cooking like Liz.

After giving up on the potatoes and chucking them back into the cooler to be cooked later in the week, we turned to making the rest of dinner: burgers on homemade toast (made with local flour before we left) and topped with beer-braised swiss chard. We simply sauteed half a bunch of swiss chard in olive oil and then let it braise in half a can of beer for about ten minutes. It could have used some more spices, but that was all we had on hand and it worked. Then Jesse came up with the idea to put the swiss chard on the burgers, which was brilliant.

The burgers were grass finished black angus from a new Greenmarket vendor, Grazin' Angus Acres. Their farm in Columbia County uses wind power and they also raise chickens to provide the farm's nitrogen needs, inspired by Joel Salatin's sustainable farm described in Omnivore's Dilemna. I recommend taking a look at their website, which has informative information on the health and ecological benefits of grass fed meat. Not to mention that the burger was delicious. And of course, what camping trip is complete without cheap beer? I forgot to pick up tastier local beer, so Jesse's Bud is what I was stuck drinking.

It rained just as we woke in the morning, so we stayed inside the tent until the torrents passed. Unfortunately that meant we didn't have time to cook breakfast before we had to pack up and check out, so breakfast was at Roscoe Diner.

I don't recommend it unless you like institutional style food, down to the bagel that was toast in the shape of a bagel. As I ate it, I realized it's been years since I've eaten that poorly. Luckily, I wasn't a foodie back in the days of my Aramark-catered dining hall, or I don't know what I would have eaten throughout college.

The sun perked up during our long drive home to Brooklyn so I could fully enjoy the lush green landscapes of the Hudson Valley and cry a little inside about not living in the country anymore. Summer in the Hudson Valley is my favorite thing ever. We took a detour on the way to pick up my sister from my hometown and ferry her to the city.

While there, we also stopped at Rosner Soap in nearby Sugarloaf, a cute crafts village, so I could stock up on soap. They make my favorite soap - it comes in a multitude of flavors like lemongrass oatmeal and peppermint tea tree that smell heavenly, it lathers well, it doesn't contain scary chemicals like store-bought soaps, and at $4.50 a bar it's much cheaper than certain $8 Brooklyn-made soaps. Add to that their colorfully painted stores and beautiful flowers, and I get the feel-good buzz of supporting a local vendor.

A Pleasant Surprise

So my sister's aforementioned graduation party took place this past weekend. The menu we planned sounded impressive, but in the end I felt it all fell a little flat. My rosemary roasted potatoes nicely browned but then grew soggy in the hours before they were served. My brownies came out neither fudgy nor cakey, but chalky. The chocolate coating for the strawberries was pasty and watery due to the low quality chocolate chips my mother procured from Shoprite. Then there was the oozing overly lemon zested icing on the lemon ricotta cake; the gummy rice in my rice, chickpea, and asparagus pilaf; the overly lemony hummus and the overly garlicky white bean and spinach dip. We love to cook, but aren't always that great in executing our menus. But everyone still ate most of the food and seemed to like it, so I wouldn't call it a failure by any means.


While at home in Warwick for the weekend, which is positively verdant this time of year, we had the chance to not only enjoy a double feature at the drive in despite the rainy forecast, but to check out the Warwick Farmers Market. It wasn't too large, but featured lots of baked goods, wine, homemade gourmet goods, plants, and a couple meat and vegetable stands. Since my hometown is about 50 miles outside of New York City, there is some overlap between our farmers markets. I was thrilled to see Dines Farms, which used to be my main meat guy until they were kicked out of the McCarren Park Greenmarket for some reason. I had a reliable source of tasty chicken up until then, and haven't had much chicken since. So we got a huge chicken breast and some mushrooms from Dines Farms to cook up for dinner, as well as some kind of wild green from Rogowski farm, which they told us was a kind of Mexican spinach, so I think it was quelites.


We rounded out our dinner plans with a bottle of Seyval Chardonnay Reserve from Applewood winery, which is aged in oak, making it more complex than Applewood's slightly cheaper regular Seyval Chardonnay blend.


We planned on taking a hike but got lazy and read books instead in my sunny backyard before taking our booty back to Brooklyn to cook up dinner. Can you blame us?


I wanted to keep our things really simple, so I didn't even add onions or garlic or any spices. I just chopped up the mushrooms and the quelites, sauteed them in olive oil with a couple glugs of the wine and shakes of salt and pepper, and covered the pan for about 15 minutes until wilted. So simple in fact, that that's really all of a recipe you need.


Meanwhile, Jesse grilled the hunka chicken along with a couple buttery yellow potatoes from Berried Treasures in a pocket of foil because we are potato addicts. We ate about a third of the chicken that night and smartly saved the rest in the fridge for future use (such as in the yummy chicken, radish, lettuce, and mayonnaise sandwich I just ate for dinner tonight).


But back to that night's dinner. I quartered the potatoes and slathered them with Ronnybrook butter and a sprinkle of fresh sage from my container garden. Then I sliced up the chicken and laid it over the sauteed quelites and mushrooms to practice my plating skills. Plunked down a glass of that white wine. And yum. Now, I've never liked mushrooms very much, but I really enjoyed these. Something about the earthy sour smell usually turns me off, but I always had this hope that maybe it would be different with mushrooms from the farmers market. So that's what led me to give these mushrooms a whirl, and it was a pleasant surprise - their smell and flavor was mild enough to just give a meaty oomph to the sauteed greens without overpowering my nosebuds. Success! If only I knew what they were called so I could find them again. Name that mushroom? Anyone?


It feels like the Dark Days Challenge just ended, yet here is two months later, moving on into One Local Summer. The challenge is this: to prepare and blog about one meal each week using only locally grown ingredients - the exceptions are oil, salt and pepper, and spices. Reading One Local Summer was what inspired me to start cooking local meals in the first place last summer, but I was too late in the game to join. Now that eating local is old hat, here goes another delicious summer, starting with this very first OLS entry of the summer.

Learning to Love Turnips

The fun part about eating seasonally is getting to try new things. There has been a lot of that so far this spring, what with the ramps and spring garlic. When I was at Union Square last week on one of my semi-regular lunchtime farmers market trips, I came upon turnip greens, and realized they would be the perfect side to the bison flank steak I had marinating in the fridge for dinner. At this time of year, the turnip greens are attached to little turnips freshly plucked from the ground, so you can eat the whole plant.


my how dirty you are

I feel like Alice Waters, cooing over baby vegetables emerging from the earth, such as turnips and radishes, that can be sliced and eaten raw in salads or dipped in mayonnaise or butter and popped whole into one's mouth. I added some baby turnips to a variation on my Greek salad last week and they served me just fine.


before: raw potatoes and turnips

However, I've never been a fan of roasted or mashed turnips, which always seem to more sour and bitter than their raw counterparts. But give that I'd only ever roasted old turnips that had been stored winter-long, I thought I would give these baby turnips the benefit of the doubt and hope that they would come out sweeter. They didn't.


after: rosemary roasted potatoes and turnips

But luckily, I also roasted potatoes alongside the turnips to round things out. I scattered olive oil, salt, pepper, and dried rosemary from my container garden over the veggies, and roasted them until they browned on the bottom. Mmm. I managed to eat all of my turnips, with the help of mouthfuls of roasted potatoes.


before: just-washed turnip greens

As for the turnip greens, I wasn't sure how to cook them. I ended up steaming them and then sauteeing similar to my typical kale preparation, which seemed appropriate because its shape, broad leaves intersected by thick stems, reminded me of kale. However, unlike kale, these greens actually do wilt down - from what seemed to be an overwhelming bunch of greens that I feared we would be eating for days, down to two manageable side portions. And those two portions were delicious, healthy, and restorative - a deep green, a little sweet and not so bitter, warmed up with lemon and mustard. Apparently turnip greens are so full of vitamins that they are on the list of the world's healthiest foods. Paired with garlic, also on the list of world's healthiest foods, extra virgin cold pressed olive oil, lean and iron-rich bison steak, and roasted potatoesand turnips, this was one healthy meal indeed. Nothing like devouring a terrific meal and feeling good about myself while I do it.


after: sauteed turnip greens and spring garlic

Sauteed Turnip Greens and Spring Garlic

1 bunch turnip greens
extra virgin olive oil
2 stalks spring garlic
1 tbsp mustard
2 tsp lemon juice
1 tbsp water
salt
pepper
crushed red pepper

Chop baby turnip roots off turnip greens and reserve the turnips for another use. Rinse greens thoroughly. Trim off the stems, and chop rough pieces.

Steam over simmering water for about five minutes, stirring occasionally, until the turnip greens are mostly wilted.

Meanwhile, mince spring garlic and sautee the garlic in olive oil over medium low heat until softened and slightly browed. Add turnip greens and continue to sautee, turning the heat down to low. Whisk together mustard, lemon juice, water, and spices in a bowl, and then add to the pan, stirring to combine. Cook another few minutes, until greens are completely wilted.

Rice Pilaf with Chickpeas and Spring Vegetables

My dear fun sister Lisa is graduating from college next week, and what would graduation be without a party to celebrate? My mother has relinquished cooking responsibilities for her graduation party to Lisa and I, our family's resident foodies. I love planning and cooking for parties so it wasn't long before we started brainstorming ideas, some of which will surely appear here after the fact. Among those ideas was a light pasta with spring vegetables, which transformed into a rice pilaf instead, because I have a hard time warming up to tomato-sauce-less pasta. I made a test run tonight, and the healthful combination of rice, chickpeas, and tender green vegetables was so wonderful that this one is being added to my rotation.

Spring garlic, also known as green garlic, has just come into season and is making the rounds on the blogosphere. I was eager to try it when I saw it at Union Square today, especially because I figured it would go perfectly in the rice pilaf I had planned for dinner. Spring garlic looks, slices, and cooks like the texture of a small leek, but with a sharper garlic taste and smell. I wasn't sure if I could cook the whole plant, since google resulted in conflicting advice. In his artful New York Times article, Daniel Patterson seems to be telling us only to use the white and light green parts. Meanwhile, Farmgirl Fare encourages us to go ahead and use the whole thing. So I did what seemed right, which was to use the whole stalk, minus the tough outer dark green leaves. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.


This dish is brilliant and warm and very green, like early spring. The creamy chickpeas, heightened by an hour of simmering and a bright tinge of lemon, contrasted perfectly with crunches of asparagus and mouthfuls of soft rice. It would have been more perfect if I were capable of cooking fluffy rice instead of the gummy wet rice that always comes out of my saucepans, but that's a challege for another day. I used a mixture of brown short grain rice and black himalayan rice, lending it a colorfully dark hue, but any rice that pleases you would suit this, as would bulgur or orzo I think.


Likewise, other spring vegetables such as peas or fava beans (which are not yet in season here in New York) would also do well in this dish. I couldn't much discern the green garlic, but I'm sure it helped things along. The parsley came from my herb garden, where it is flourishing over all the other herbs, straight on its way to becoming a veritable bush of parsley. And the cheese is optional, but cheese makes everything better, don't you think? I was out of parmesan, so I used a sharp Edam-like cheese, or a swiss cheese would work.


Rice Pilaf with Chickpeas and Spring Vegetables

3/4 cup dried chickpeas
1 cup rice
2 stalks spring garlic
1 bunch asparagus
couple handfuls baby bok choy
1 tsp lemon juice

The day before or that morning, place chickpeas in a pot covered with a couple inches of water to let soak.

After 6-24 hours, drain chickpeas, rinse, and return to pot. Refill with water, again covering chickpeas by a couple inches, and add a pinch of salt to water. Bring to a boil and then let simmer 45-90 minutes until chickpeas are tender. Drain and set aside.

Just after starting chickpeas, combine rice with 2 cups water and a pinch of salt. Bring to a boil and let simmer until rice is tender.

While chickpeas and rice simmer away, clean spring garlic as you would leeks and dice its stalks, discarding tough dark green leaves. Sautee spring garlic in olive oil over medium low heat.

Rinse asparagus and break off woody ends where the asparagus naturally breaks in your hand. (Reserve ends for future use, such as soup or dip.) Chop asparagus into one-inch pieces and sautee with garlic for a couple minutes.

Rinse and roughly chop baby bok choy and add to sautee pan. Continue to sautee another few minutes until wilted.

Combine chickpeas and rice in pan with vegetables. Stir in lemon juice and salt pepper and pepper to taste. Add grated cheese, if desired, and garnish with parsley.

Impromptu Greek Salad and Homemade Hamburgers

Ever since I eagerly devoured an awesome Greek salad at Westville in the West Village, I have been craving the combination of leafy greens and creamy feta. So Wednesday during lunch I followed my cravings. I wandered through the Union Square Greenmarket, beginning with a selection of a variety of lettuces, bright red radishes that were calling out to me, a red onion, and finally, feta cheese from Lynnhaven Farms. Back in midtown, I stole little plastic cups of balsamic vinegar from the deli across the street (shhhh). Then at my desk, I chopped and assembled the. best. impromptu lunch ever. The lettuces had that lively tenderness that signaled freshness.

So I assembled the same salad to accompany burgers for dinner that night, and then for lunch a couple of days later. By then, it was clear that two days in the refrigerator had taken their toll on the lettuce, and they now had the more wilted quality of supermarket mixed greens. See, the difference is noticeable! And although $6 per little tub, the feta cheese was worth it for its creamy, salty tang. It was reminiscent of the goat cheese my mom made when I was a child from the milk of the goats raised in our backyard barn. I didn't know how good I had it then.


As for the burgers, the meat was ground chuck from Hawthorne Valley Farm, picked up from the Greenmarket a week ago and frozen solid. While it took its time defrosting in a water bath, I improvised some hamburger buns that came together surprisingly quickly. The key was taking the necessary amount of flour and yeast out of the refrigerator that morning so they were nice and warm when it was time for baking after work. I used half whole wheat and half all purpose flour to give it a little more fluff than my usual dense all whole wheat bread.

It was a test run for my locavore potluck next month, and they came out good enough that I will be serving them again then. They may not be perfectly round and airy like store-bought buns, but they will be wholesome, made with simple ingredients, and hot from the oven. The recipe below is more for my reference so I can replicate it. And not so much a hard and fast recipe. Because there are things I'm not sure about. Like the ideal size of the pan, and whether the pan needs to have sides so that the buns rise upward. Advice is welcome.

Jesse prepared the burgers with worcestershire sauce, and some freshly chopped sage from the deck. He grilled them to medium-rare perfection served with those salad ingredients again - sliced red onions, lettuce, and feta cheese, albeit non-local ketchup of course. Yum. I'm glad it's grilling season again, that our grill is fixed after a two week hiatus, and that we have another package of local hamburger meat awaiting us in the freezer for a future barbecue.

Hamburger Buns
2 tsp active dry yeast
1/2 cup warm water
1 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp salt
2/3 cup warm water
1 tbsp olive oil

Combine yeast and 1/2 cup warm water and let sit a few minutes until bubbly.
Meanwhile, combine flour and salt. Then add olive oil, yeast mixture, and half the remaining water. Combine in bowl with a rubber spatula. Add additional water as necessary until a slightly sticky dough forms.

Turn dough out onto a floured surface and need 10 minutes, adding flour as needed so it doesn't stick to everything. Return to bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and place in warm place for 40-60 minutes until doubled in size. (My warm place is inside my gas oven with the door propped open, and in that situation, the dough was over-ready and sighing back on itself when I poked holes into it at 45 minutes, so make sure you check on it periodically.)

Preheat oven to 400. Grease two small or one large baking pan. Turn dough out onto a floured surface and gently press down, pressing out air bubbles. Divide in half and set one half aside under the bowl. Divide each half into five balls (ten balls total) and place on pan. Cover with greased plastic wrap and let sit 25-35 minutes until proofed - the rolls will touch each other slightly. Bake for approximately 20 minutes, removing when rolls are golden brown and hollow when you tap the underside.