New Amsterdam Market Auction!

New Amsterdam's first fundraiser event may be sold out, but you can still support them by bidding to win one of their many awesome auction prizes!

I am so excited about almost everything on this list, I can't decide what I will bid for! Here are my favorites.....

A Small Repast with Alice Waters

Tour and Lunch with Blue Hill at Stone Barns

Uncork New York! case of wine

Bluepoint Kayaking Tour and Clambake

So head on over and indulge in some fun foodie longings to support New Amsterdam Market, the organization trying to bring a permament monthly indoor farmer and artisan market to New York City.

An Indulgent Weekend

I wanted to have a nice romantic dinner on Saturday, so I went to the Union Square Greenmarket to get the goods, and here's what I cooked up with Jesse's help. A flat-iron grass-fed bison steak from Elk Trails, seasoned with salt and pepper, and cooked in butter in a cast iron pan on medium heat for about 8 minutes on each side. At least I think that's how long it was - it seemed to take a long time. The bison farmer recommended cooking it slowly over relatively low heat, as searing it too hot can overcook the bison quickly. It turned out well, but slightly tough. I usually marinate these cheaper cuts like flat-iron and flank steak, but wanted to see if it could stand on its own. Next time I'll go back to marinating.


On the side we enjoyed brussel sprouts steamed with garlic (nice, but I think roasting would give it more oomph) and our usual fries: potatoes sliced, tossed with olive oil, salt, and pepper and roasted in the oven until crispy and tender, dipped into green garlic and vinegar spiked mayonnaise. As well as a bottle of nonlocal Malbec from Argentina via Trader Joe's because I was feeling cheap. And the cocoa applesauce muffins before and after dinner.

On Sunday I planned to make chili in the crockpot and let it cook all day while we hung out. Jesse implored "I want to go out for dinner." I responded, "That would put me over my food budget for this month, but we can go get drinks before dinner instead." Which made a nice compromise for both of us, or so we thought.


So we hopped on the G and went to Cherry Tree, which has an excellent draft beer selection, which turned into more beers across the street at Fourth Avenue Pub in Park Slope. By late afternoon, we started to get hungry but knew the chili wouldn't be done yet. So instead of heading straight home, we extended our outing even further with a stop at Flatbush Farm for appetizers.


Their oysters are amazing every time; never bland/hit or miss like at other restaurants. We also shared the Ploughman's Plate of cheddar cheese, salami, and bresaola (I think that's what it all was), but at $12 I felt it was a bit lacking in the meat for the price. Then finally went on home and ate chili and cornbread (baked in the cast iron skillet, again lacking in other baking apparatus). Total money spent in eating and drinking that day: more than if we had just gone out to dinner. Whoops!

Pumpkin Snickerdoodle Cookies

Now that fall has finally come to Brooklyn for real, with leaves turned yellow and fallen on the ground, it's time to start cooking all that hardy squash lying around. I picked up a sugar pie pumpkin from the farmers market and roasted it this weekend so that I'd have real, fresh pumpkin puree instead of canned glop to bake with. Sugar pie pumpkins are a little smaller and darker orange in color, and also better for baking, than regular pumpkins.

Roasting the pumpkin was easy. First I sliced the whole pumpkin in half and scooped out the seeds and stringy bits. Then I laid it in a baking dish with about a half inch of water so it wouldn't burn, and roasted it in the oven at 425-450 degrees for about an hour. Check on it every now and then to make sure you don't overcook it. The pumpkin is done when you can mush down the flesh with a fork. Next, let it cool for a while so you don't burn yourself. Finally, peel off and discard the skin, and mash up the flesh with a fork so you're left with creamy pumpkin puree. Store in an airtight container for future use within about a week.

At first I couldn't decide what type of pumpkin-flavored baked good to make, but I ultimately decided on cookies because that way there's lots to go around when I bring them into work. Lacking chocolate chips and nuts, I decided I needed something else to amp up the cookies, so I decided on a cinnamon-sugar coating, inspired by the yummy snickerdoodles that Jesse's mom always makes so well. But since these are pumpkin cookies, I took things even further and added extra spices like nutmeg and ginger to both the batter and cinnamon-sugar mixture to bring out the autumn cheer.

The cookies came out a little cakier than I'd hoped, as often happens when cooking with moist pumpkin puree, but nevertheless delicious. They're like mini muffins of heaven and spice and crackly sugar. If they stay just as good tomorrow, these will be in the running for Thanksgiving day dessert (because, yes, I'm getting to cook Thanksgiving this year!)

Pumpkin Snickerdoodle Cookies

1/2 cup butter (1 stick)
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg
1/2 cup pumpkin puree
1/2 tsp vanilla
2 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp ginger
1 tsp cinnamon
3/4 tsp baking soda

Cinnamon-sugar-spice coating
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp ginger
1 tsp cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cream softened butter and sugar until fluffy. Whisk in egg, pumpkin, and vanilla one at a time. Dump remaining dry ingredients in the bowl and stir until all combined. It might seem dry at first, but keep stirring until it comes together as a dough.

In a shallow dish, combine sugar, nutmeg, ginger, and cinnamon. Take a teaspoon of dough, roll it around in the cinnamon-sugar mixture until coated and then flatten between the palm of your hands, coat with cinnamon-sugar again, and place on a greased baking sheet. Repeat with remaining cookies.

Bake for approximately 10 minutes. Makes about 36 cookies.

Rhode Island Style Calamari

I'm a big fan of fried calamari, and almost always order it when I see it on a menu. On our way back from Maine this summer, Jesse and I stopped in at Portsmouth Brewery for dinner and drinks on a very rainy night. We blindly ordered "Rhode Island style calamari" from their menu, not realizing what that meant until it arrived, fried calamari mixed in with hot peppers - so hot, in fact, that we struggled to finish the dish.

Recently, when I tasted my second batch of pickled peppers this weekend (and whoo boy are they hotter than the first batch - throwing in a couple jalapenos really worked) it immediately called to mind a chance to make Rhode Island style calamari at home. I've been jonesing to make fried calamari for ages, and I figured I would go milder with the spicy peppers by throwing in just in enough for some kick.

This was also my first attempt at deep frying, and I now don't know what I was always so scared of. It takes a lot of oil, but other than that, it's no problem. I heated two inches of olive oil in a big pot over medium heat, and I don't have a cooking thermometer, so I just winged it and figured that the oil was probably hot enough after five minutes or so.

Meanwhile, I removed the squid (pre-cleaned, from the farmers market of course) from from its soak in a bowl of milk, salt, and pepper, drained it, and dredged it in a mixture of half flour-half cornmeal and more salt and pepper. Into the pot they went, about five at a time for about 2 minutes at a time, and then I removed them with a slotted spatula and let them drain on paper towels. Use a LOT of paper towels - the massive oil coming off the calamari soaked right through my paper towels. To finish it off, I warmed up a heaping half cup of tomato sauce with the pickled peppers, and tossed it all together.

As you can also see, the calamari looks rather long and tubular. I stupidly forgot to slice the squid into little rings before dredging and frying them. Don't make that mistake - you'll get more crunchy fried surface area and a more tender bite if you cook them in small pieces. For some reason, a lot of the flour-cornmeal mixture fell off in the cooking process, so it didn't have that restaurant-quality all-around crunchy coating, but it was good enough for us. The peppers, on the other hand, got pushed to the side for being too hot again. Next time I'll leave out the peppers and make a fun mayo dipping sauce.

Triumph in the Quest for Local Meat

And another guest post from my sister Lisa in Florida, where finding locally sourced food is much more difficult than the Greenmarket-haven that is New York City.


After asking around at the Sarasota farmer's market about local beef, and only hearing of one farm (that sells only wholesale and incidentally, the restaurant I manage is strictly vegetarian), I asked the guys behind the meat counter at Whole Foods if they knew of any farms in the area. The older, wiser-looking fellow told me sort of discreetly about a buffalo farm in Bradenton. After much google searching, I found the phone number and gave them (Gap Creek Buffalo) an inquiring call.

Yesterday I undertook the trafficy 25 minute drive north to their house where they sell just from two small coolers. The variety was impressive for the size of the operation. 4 or 5 different cuts of steak, ground, burger patties, ground sausage, link sausage, and of course - a cooler full of hearts, lungs, tongues and other delicacies. After buying almost $50 of meat (wanted to stock up because I hate driving in Florida!), I asked them if they knew of any other farms that sell small-scale like they do, and they just told me plain and simple - Nope. There really aren't any. Unless they're only selling by word of mouth and to very few people.


All this was disconcerting, but my mood was quickly elevated back to a state of meaty bliss after grilling the buffalo burgers with some beer and friends over a charcoal grill. I only seasoned them with a little salt, pepper and garlic and found the flavor slightly milder than beef but distinctive and delicious. The extremely low fat content makes them cook faster than beef burgers so there was less waiting, which I appreciated after preparing the patties and the grill and getting my house ready for guests.

Overall, I (and we) loved it... so even though there may not be any local beef, chicken or eggs on the local horizon, at least we can still cook buffalo over the fire any time we want. Next time I'll remember marshmallows.

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.

Changing?

Things are changing in the world of the Wounded Chef.

But despite this, I still managed to get some fresh local foods in me. Last weekend, I grilled a chicken breast from Quattro and a red pepper, and so my lunch for the week was sandwiches of homemade whole wheat bread, garlic marinated grilled red peppers, and grilled chicken.

Just now for dinner, I made myself another peanut sauce stirfry with broccoli, pepper, onion, and the rest of the grilled chicken.

And yesterday I helped prepare food for a very vegetarian friendly barbecue. Earlier in the day I went to the farmers market to pick out goods for vegetable kebobs - peppers of varying colors, deliciously sweet cherry tomatoes, onion, zucchini, and mushrooms (from the supermarket because there were no mushroom vendors at the market yesterday). I chopped everything into 2-inch pices and then marinated them for an hour in a marinade using what my friend Cassie had in her pantry - soy sauce, water, salt, pepper, crushed red pepper, and garlic powder. Then we painstakingly skewered all of the kebobs,and thankfully someone else did the grilling work. They were a big hit. Thanks to Cassie for hosting an amazing party - the high point might have been when a room full of singers belted out old-school angsty Alanis Morisette songs.

For the party I also made tabbouleh, a Mediterranean dish that is best eaten scooped up with pita chips, crackers, or flatbread. Last night we ate it with pita chips, but I saved some tabbouleh to bring to another bbq tomorrow, so to accompany that, I just made the rosemary flatbread from July Gourmet that Deb recently spoke so highly of. The recipe is similar to that of homemade crackers I've made before, but the addition of baking powder really lightens things up into a beautifully crisp and tasty flatbread, perfect for snacking. My past cracker were heavy and not crisp, no matter how thin I rolled the dough. Although, actually, I almost think this flatbread is too light - I would sub in half whole wheat flour next time to give it a little more flavor and heft.It's is going to be my new base recipe that I use whenever I want to make some kind of cracker.

Tabbouleh

1 cup bulgur
1 1/2 cup boiling water
2 tomatoes
1 cucumber
handful of fresh herbs such as mint, parsley, basil
1/2 red onion
3 cloves garlic
1/2 lemon
2 tsp red wine vinegar
salt
pepper

Pour boiling water over bulgur in a bowl, stir, and let sit for 20-30 minutes until water is mostly absorbed and bulgur has softened. It will still be a little crunchy. Drain any extra water.

Meanwhile, chop vegetables and herbs into a fine dice and combine in a large bowl. Add the zest and juice of half a lemon, along with the red wine vinegar, salt, and pepper. When the bulgur is ready, add to the large bowl and stir to combine. It is best if made ahead of time and kept in the fridge for at least a few hours to allow the flavors to mingle.

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.

The Brooklyn Botanic Garden and the Perfect Spring Dinner

Now that it's spring, what better way to celebrate than to head to Brooklyn Botanic Garden to see the cherry trees in bloom. Admission is free on Saturdays if you can manage to get there before noon. So last weekend after our hearty breakfast of eggs and ramps, we biked down to the BBG. Well I thought it would be mostly downhill. I'm not sure why, except that going south always seems like it should correspond with going downhill. Little did I know that it would actually be uphill most of the way on Washington Ave to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. I guess that would be why they call it Prospect Heights. I was huffing and puffing, and the hill seemed to have no end, with just ten minutes to go before noon. But we managed to make it with minutes to spare. And it was worth it to see tons of pink cherry trees in full bloom.


I particularly liked the culinary beds, to indulge in fantasies of my own vegetable garden. I think swiss chard is such a pretty plant, with its bright colors and shiny leaves.


I also liked the garden paths winding around a pond with Japanese sculptures, lined with elegant weeping cherry trees, willows, and Japanese maples, complete with cute turtles sunbathing on rocks!



There weren't a lot of flowers out this early in the spring, but there were pretty tulips.


I'd like to go back later in the summer to see how the garden changes with the seasons, to enjoy more colorful flowers, and to see how the vegetables and herbs in the culinary beds have grown.


Later that night we enjoyed a great dinner that felt so wonderfully springy because I was lucky enough to find the first asparagus of the season at the Greenmarket the day before. I snapped the tough ends off the asparagus, rolled them in olive oil, salt, and pepper, and then roasted them for 10 minutes at 400. Meanwhile, I let some quinoa simmer away while Jesse pan-fried thin flounder filets in olive oil and seasoned them with salt pepper.


To top it off, I mixed up an herb mayonnaise using garlic, lemon juice, and some parsley from my urban garfunkel garden. I'm not a big fan of quinoa. Although Jesse loves it for its high protein content, and we often substitute it for pasta or rice for that reason, I think it has a dull soft taste that can sometimes ruin a dish. But with a dollop of lemony fresh mayonnaise, the quinoa was transformed into something I could enjoy. And that is something to cheer about.


We enjoyed dinner with cold mugs of Wiesen Edel-weisse beer. It cloudy wheaty bright taste, great for warm spring or summer days, was the perfect complement to our meal.