I have a new idea for breakfast. I think these count.
Chocolate and Walnut Oatmeal Cookies
Recipe recommended by Kim Wiseman
6 tablespoons unsalted butter
3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup whole-wheat flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 cups old-fashioned oats
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 large egg, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
3 ounces bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
Preheat oven to 350°. Melt butter in a small saucepan over low heat. Remove from heat, and add brown sugar; stir until smooth. Combine all-purpose flour, whole-wheat flour, baking soda, oats, and salt in a medium bowl. Combine butter mixture with the dry ingredients, and add egg and vanilla extract. Fold in walnuts and bittersweet chocolate. Mix well, and spoon by tablespoonfuls onto lightly greased baking sheets.
Bake for 12 minutes or until tops are dry to the touch.
Couldn’t resist this. Thanks for indulging my obsession with my mean-mugging bully. And she is most wanted.
Thunderstorms daily roll through and green the evening sky; feels like New Orleans, or the end of the world. I am writing this from a room in the house where the view from the front window would have me think it is night, while a glance out the back window shows me daylight. Eerie limbo when clouds can sever a house with their own midday horizon. There was a flash flood warning last night, and we appropriately life-jacketed Izzy for disaster. Somehow her neck seems to have grown thicker since last she wore her bulldog life preserver.
This stormy humid summer weather has me in the mood for light Southern-style dinners. Easy salads are perfect also because I’m trying not to make too much of a mess in the house with my parents coming to town today. In fact, my hands are raw from Windexing every surface in the house within inches of its former life. I’m thinking about inviting everyone I know to the house just to prove that in fact I do know how to clean, I just choose to sleep instead.
Cut half of the corn bread into 1/2-inch cubes; reserve the rest for another use.
MEANWHILE, MAKE THE VINAIGRETTE In a small bowl, whisk together all of the ingredients and season with salt. Let stand at room temperature for 1 hour.
PREPARE THE BLACK-EYED PEAS In a large pot, heat the olive oil oil. Add the bacon and cook over moderate heat for 3 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the peas, stock, thyme and bay leaf and bring to a boil. Cover and cook over low heat until the peas are tender, about 45 minutes. Drain the peas and discard the thyme sprigs and bay leaf; reserve the cooking liquid for another use.
Transfer the peas to a large bowl and stir in the butter, lemon juice and hot sauce. Season with some of the vinaigrette. Add the watercress, season with salt and white pepper and toss. Transfer the salad to plates and garnish with the corn bread croutons. Serve the extra vinaigrette on the side.
Don’t look so sad, precious. The sun’ll come out tomorrow. Bet you bottom dollar.
I’m at the giggle stage of deep fatigue here at the end of my last medicine clerkship. Anything could trigger an intractable fit. Several days ago, my husband KP accompanied me to a yoga class—admittedly more as a spotter than as a participant, in case I fell asleep in the middle of a headstand or became unresponsive during shevasana. After a few vinyasa sun salutations, I flowed out of downward dog, grabbed my water bottle and gave it a good squeeze in the general direction of my open mouth. Nothing happened. Forgot to unstopper the nozzle. I pulled at it with my teeth, with a little more difficulty than a normal person might have. All it took was seeing KP in the mirror flare his nostrils at my not-so-smooth water bottle moves to trigger the giggles—and just as quickly as the column of water hit my tongue did it promptly shoot out—a spray of spittle spanning the surface area of three adjacent mats. Major yoga foul. Before a room of sun saluters, I unwittingly invented a fresh new pose: giggling spigot.
Couch-assisted chair pose is the other yoga pose I’ve recently assumed, now that World Cup is in full storm. GO USA! This means for the time being my dinners will be comprised of popcorn, onion rings, green smoothies and beer. Thankfully, I discovered a reasonably healthy version of onion rings, oven-fried rather than deep fat-fried, that tastes amazing when dipped in Pam’s Pepper Jam, which I insist you buy immediately, not just because the jam is delicious but because Pam, who I met at the local grocery co-op, is a lovely human being whose kind spirit surely adds some sort of cosmic anti-oxidants to each jar.
Oven-Fried Ginger Sourdough Onion Rings with Pam’s Pepper Jam
2 medium (or 1 large) sweet onions, sliced ½-inch thick
In three separate bowls, mix:
¼ cup whole wheat pastry flour
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon Mignonette black pepper (Penzeys, MSP, MN)
1 cup sourdough starter
¼ cup cold water
1 egg
1 TB Ginger
1 TB honey
1 cup Panko bread crumbs
Line a rimmed baking sheet with foil and drizzle on 4-6 Tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil.
Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.
Prepare the onion rings by first dipping a ring into the seasoned flour, then into the sourdough batter (let the excess batter drip off), and then coat with the bread crumbs. As you finish the rings, place them on a large plate. Repeat with all rings.
Place the oiled baking sheet in the oven for 3-4 minutes (remember how quick EVOO is to burn). Carefully remove the sheet from the oven and tilt to evenly coat with the hot oil.
Working quickly, place your onion rings on the baking sheet and return to oven. Bake for 8 minutes, then flip onion rings and bake for an additional 6-8 minutes, or until golden brown.
This post is featured with my favorite Sourdough Surprises baking blog community– a group of folks whose work often gets me into giggling spigot pose, and always into my most favorite of all poses—hungry drooler.
“Imagine a Carthage sown with salt, and all the sowers gone, and the seeds lain however long in the earth, till there rose finally in vegetable profusion leaves and trees of rime and brine. What flowering would there be in such a garden? Light would force each salt calyx to open in prisms, and to fruit heavily with bright globes of water–-peaches and grapes are little more than that, and where the world was salt there would be greater need of slaking. For need can blossom into all the compensations it requires. To crave and to have are as like as a thing and its shadow. For when does a berry break upon the tongue as sweetly as when one longs to taste it, and when is the taste refracted into so many hues and savors of ripeness and earth, and when do our senses know any thing so utterly as when we lack it? And here again is a foreshadowing–the world will be made whole. For to wish for a hand on one’s hair is all but to feel it. So whatever we may lose, very craving gives it back to us again.”
― Marilynne Robinson, Housekeeping (ever my favorite book)
Salted Caramel Pecan Tart as Craving
Adapted from the Food Network
1 3/4 cups pecans
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
6 tablespoons cold salted butter, cut into small pieces
1 large egg yolk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
For the filling:
2/3 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 cup heavy cream
4 tablespoons salted butter, thinly sliced and at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 large eggs
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 ounce semisweet chocolate, finely chopped
Sea salt, for sprinkling, and craving
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Make the crust: Lightly coat a 9-inch fluted tart pan with a removable bottom with cooking spray. Spread the pecans on a baking sheet and roast until golden brown, 8 to 10 minutes; let cool. Transfer 1/2 cup of the pecans to a food processor; add the flour, sugar and kosher salt and pulse until the nuts are finely ground. Add the butter and pulse until it is in pea-size bits. Pulse in the egg yolk and vanilla until large clumps form.
Transfer the dough to the prepared pan and press it into the bottom and up the sides. Prick the bottom all over with a fork, then freeze until firm, about 20 minutes.
Line the crust with foil and fill with pie weights or dried beans. Bake until set, about 25 minutes, then remove the foil and weights and continue baking until golden, 10 to 15 more minutes. Transfer to a rack and let cool completely.
Make the caramel for the filling: Combine the sugar, 1/4 cup water and the kosher salt in a medium saucepan over medium heat, stirring just until the sugar dissolves. Cook, swirling the pan but not stirring, until amber, 8 to 10 minutes. Brush any sugar crystals off the side of the pan with a wet pastry brush. Remove from the heat and carefully whisk in the heavy cream, butter and vanilla (the mixture will bubble). Return to medium heat and simmer, whisking constantly, until thick enough to coat a spoon, 3 to 4 minutes. Let cool 5 minutes.
Gently whisk the eggs and flour in a large bowl, then whisk in the caramel. Place the crust on a baking sheet, arrange the remaining 1 1/4 cups pecans in the bottom and add the filling. Bake until set around the edge, 30 to 35 minutes. Transfer to a rack to cool.
Put the chocolate in a microwave-safe bowl and microwave in 30-second intervals, stirring, until smooth. Drizzle over the tart and sprinkle with sea salt. Let the chocolate set before slicing.
I am not fool enough to allow any of my own words to follow Marilynne Robinson, though I crave to write so well.
This is a recipe from the Basque region of Spain. When I studied at Salamanca in college, I recall meeting a boy my age on a country bus who, after drinking half of a 2-Liter of Coca Cola, opened a bottle of red table wine and poured it into the remaining Coke. He offered me a drink of the flat warm mixer, said it was a special drink from Basque country. I declined, with a smile, because he was otherwise charming and tan. But I haven’t held a high opinion of Basque cuisine, until now.
Cod with Potatoes and Salsa Verde
Adapted from Food and Wine Oct 2013
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for frying
3/4 pound small golden new potatoes, thinly sliced
1/2 large onion, thinly sliced
Sea salt
3 garlic cloves, crushed
1 1/2 pounds cod fillet, cut into 2-inch pieces
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup finely chopped parsley
In a large skillet, warm 1/3 inch of oil over moderate heat. Add the potatoes, onion and a generous pinch of salt and cook, stirring occasionally, until browned, about 20 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the potatoes and onion to 4 bowls; keep warm.
Strain the oil through a fine sieve into a heatproof bowl, then return it to the skillet. Add the garlic and cook over moderately low heat until golden, 5 minutes. Discard the garlic. Add the cod to the skillet and cook, turning once, until just white throughout, 7 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, add the cod to the potatoes.
Pour off all but 1/3 cup of the oil from the skillet and let cool slightly. Stir in the 1/4 cup of oil and the water and bring to a simmer over moderate heat. Stir in the parsley and season with salt. Spoon the salsa verde over the fish and potatoes and serve.
So smooth and rich. Again and again I am astounded at how from such simple elements, gourmet lifts.
My brother Dave is funnier than Jimmy Fallon. At my wedding, he began the tradition of the pre-toast. Here, I believe, he perfects it. I am SO proud and hope this goes viral so that I can say I am the sister of the pre-toast guy. My favorite part of the clip is the ditzel who says with confidence after he hears Dave’s hilarious best man speech, “He’s going to be such a good doctor.” Dave, let this serve as proof, board scores mean diddly squat in the grand scheme. Doctor-patient relationship is everything. Your humor may prove to be the best prescription you offer. Your compassion and friendship, a lifeline. First Aid is missing a whole chapter on this. You, dear brother, are already board-certified in Humanity and Humor (unofficial ACGME competencies). It appears your waiting room will need to pre-sell tickets. Everyone wants a good pre-toast before their check up.
In a similar vein, this broccoli dish is an excellent pre-toast in and of itself.
Ginger Broccoli Stir-Fry
Adapted from Ginger People
1 bunch broccoli (about one pound)
¼ cup chopped almonds
3 TB olive oil
3 cloves garlic
2 TB tamari
1 tsp lemon juice
1 TB Ginger spread from Ginger People (omg, my new favorite)
Cut broccoli into florets. Saute almonds in olive oil for a minute. Add broccoli and stir-fry until barely tender. Add garlic and give it two minutes. Stir in tamari and ginger spread, and continue for one more minute. Add lemon juice—and bam—there’s your pre-toast. Sooo good.
Would you believe that I have lost not one, but two pagers now, flown from my person while riding the moped? Consequently, I’m not at all mad—proud, in fact (however the Telecommunications desk at the hospital is not so proud, rather, growing weary of my sheepish mug at their office window). But this does mean I’m riding my moped as mopeds are meant to be ridden, like wild steeds. Mopeds are the urban equivalent of galloping off into the sunset on a horse. I swing a leg, kick the stand, (tightly affix my DOT-approved helmet, mother), and revvvvv the throttle to let the entire parking garage know that I am officially POST CALL and will have the rest of the day to do with what I please so long as I can remain conscious! Follow me to freedom! And then I peel out, feeling very much like Prince here, sexy and oblivious.
I would risk a thousand pagers’ lives to hold on to how it feels to speed away from a finished shift, tasting in the wind the endlessness of free time. This just can’t be accomplished in the muffled torpor of a Prius, the highway equivalent of rolling out of bed.
And what of all things did I accomplish with today’s freedom, sexy and oblivious? Fungus ciabatta. This bread had the earthy smell to it that I unfortunately associate with too many anatomical nethers that I absolutely cannot enjoy it as food. I think it is over for me and mushrooms. But I know that many of you adore fungi, and so I offer this excellent recipe.
Ciabatta al Funghi
adapted from Carol Field, The Italian Baker
Makes 2 large oval loaves
6 dried porcini
1¾ cups hot water
8 oz fresh mushrooms, sliced
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 cup sourdough starter
3 ¾ cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 Tbsp sea salt, divided
Soak porcini in hot water for 1 hour. Strain through cheesecloth, but save the water. Roughly chop the porcini and pat dry. Set aside.
Sauté the fresh mushrooms with the garlic and oil and a good pinch of the salt until tender. Let cool. Set aside for the folding part of the recipe.
In your stand mixer bowl, add all of the ingredients (except the sautéed mushrooms) and mix on low until combined. Mix on medium for 2 more minutes and then take it out of the machine to finish mixing by hand until the dough is nice and soft and smooth.
Place the dough ball on the counter, cover with a very large mixing bowl, and let rest 3 hours.
Divide dough into 2, flatten each dough section out with your fingertips and scatter mushrooms on them. Roll them up, flatten out again and repeat. Roll them up again, shape into loaves (making sure that no mushrooms are sticking out) and let rest, seam side down, on a prepared baking sheet. Cover and allow to rise 3 hours.
Preheat oven to 400°F, 40 minutes before baking.
Spray loaves with water. Bake for about 45 minutes. Let cool on racks.
This bread smells like the aroma I would imagine a bathroom in a Hobbit woodland home carries. Not bad, just earthy, for those who like that sort of thing.
Good luck, pager. Hope you last longer than your friends. Hold on tight.
What I love about internal medicine happens also to be what I love about this stew—Everything is included. Wide variety. When you tire of the taste of carrots, have a tomato. When you’re sick of chicken, grab a piece of pork; when you’ve heard enough heart sounds, there are bowels. When you’ve stared at chest X-rays too long, excise a lipoma. Sick of prostates? Here’s a pap smear. There is no run of the mill—only spice. Booya.
Booya Posole Community Stew
Adapted from The Food Network
4 tablespoons salted butter
1/2 large sweet onion, diced
1 large carrot, diced
2 stalks celery, diced
1/2 large red bell pepper, diced
1 jalapeno pepper, minced
Fine sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup crushed fresh or canned plum tomatoes
1 rotisserie chicken, all the stuff you want dissected off
2 pounds pork shoulder, slow-cooker cooked and pulled off the bone
1 tablespoon minced fresh thyme
1 tablespoon sweet paprika
1 3 -inch cinnamon stick
4 cups low-sodium chicken stock
3 bay leaves
1 15 .5-ounce can white hominy, drained and rinsed
2 ears fresh sweet corn, kernels cut off
Chopped fresh cilantro, for topping
Directions
Heat the butter in a large stockpot over medium heat. When it melts, add the onion, carrot, celery, bell pepper, jalapeno and 1/2 teaspoon each salt and pepper. Cook, stirring, until the vegetables are soft and sweet, about 20 minutes. Add the garlic and tomatoes and cook until thick and jammy, about 10 minutes.
Add the thyme, paprika, cinnamon stick, 1 teaspoon salt and 1 teaspoon pepper to the stockpot. Add both meats, the stock, 4 cups water and the bay leaves. Bring to a simmer and cook, partially covered, stirring once in a while, until the pork is very tender when poked with a fork, about 1 hour, 30 minutes.
Add the rotisserie chicken meat and the pulled pork to the stew. Add the hominy and simmer the stew another 30 minutes to 1 hour, or until everything is really tender and the meat is falling apart. Add the corn and cook 5 more minutes.
Remove the bay leaves and cinnamon stick. Taste to check the seasoning and add more salt, if needed. Serve with the chopped cilantro.
Leave nothing out. My motto for good food, and for life.
Some dried purple flowers fell into the shower drain from my head this evening. It occurred to me they could have been stuck in there for some time, and unbeknownst to me, took a quiet ride through my daily life like little stowaways buried under red curls. Which tree I brushed to get them in the first place, I have no idea. The surprise I got in the shower is almost the exact same surprise I feel when I realize I know the answer to some medical trivia asked of me on rounds or by patients. Where did this knowledge come from? How long has it been tucked into some neural fold, under a shrub of red curls, a little stowaway fact that has clung to me with no conscious effort of my own? My learning process in medical school, I suppose, is a lot like walking through a grove of tall flowering trees in the rain. Petals do stick to you among the many that seem to fall underfoot. I much prefer the gentle imagery of medical school like a stroll under flowered boughs to that of the violent fire hose analogy medical students evoke when trying to make excuses for why they can’t remember important things. Thank you, little thoughts like dried flowers, for pressing yourselves into the folds of me as though between the pages of a book—so that years later I might marvel at the rediscovery of a familiar spring.
Raspberry Orange Cookies
Adapted from the inside of a box of butter I bought recently, meant to recycle, but didn’t. Thankfully I rediscovered the box and these cookie instructions in a perfect moment of hunger and boredom. The rest is now history.
1 cup butter, softened
1 ½ cups flour
½ cup powdered sugar
¼ cup corn starch
2 tsp orange zest
½ tsp cinnamon
½ tsp vanilla
6 TB raspberry preserves
Place butter in a large mixing bowl and whip until creamy. Add in the remaining ingredients. Drop 2 tbsp, 2-inches apart, onto a piece of parchment paper on a baking sheet. Bake at 375 degrees 12-15 minutes, until edges are lightly browned. Let cool. (Don’t worry, I didn’t let any wildlife, flora or fauna, fall into the cookie dough from my tangled do.)
(The instructions actually said to wait to add the raspberry preserves until you’ve already formed the cookies and then to press a thumb print impression in the top of the cookie dough and then add the preserves with a little dollop. I don’t think mixing hurt anything, flavor-wise, but they certainly weren’t as pretty.)
I suppose it might ruin the romance of this little blog vignette if I mentioned the whole truth, that a dead beetle also dropped alongside the purple flowers into the shower drain. Not all that we carry without our knowing is so pleasant a surprise.
I worked with a physician in the primary care internal medicine clinic last week who quickly established herself as a personal heroine of mine. In our introduction, she handed me a pound and a half of thick, finger-girth asparagus and said, “Enjoy these, which are from my garden.” She had just returned from a walking tour of Sicily (which is exactly my kind of vacation, see South Downs Way), to a forest of asparagus among other towering, verdant vegetables, bison, and chickens. I promptly went home after my first day working with her, newly inspired, and planted tomatoes, peppers, cauliflower, kale, lettuce and herbs.
Dr. Ward is a physician who, more than anyone I’ve ever encountered, holds fast to her guiding principles—one of which being the personal responsibility each physician has to drive down the exorbitant costs of health care. She packs a lunch not because she prefers her own cooking but because she maintains that “no lunches are free”—even the institutional cost of a grand rounds sandwich is something she would rather spare patients having to absorb in their fees. Love it. Plus, when you have a sandwich like this from home, stuffed with your home-grown asparagus—how could a free lunch compare? Dr. Ward, this one’s for you. Thanks for the asparagus, and endlessly, for your example as a brilliant woman in medicine.
Grilled Asparagus on Graham Bread with Smoky Chipotle Dressing
Inspired by Food and Wine
1/4 cup ketchup
1/4 cup mayonnaise
2 tablespoons Famous Dave’s BBQ sauce
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
1 jalapeno, chopped
5 garlic cloves, chopped
1 chipotle chile in adobo sauce
Salt, preferably smoked salt
2 pounds medium asparagus, peeled and trimmed (From Dr. Linda Ward’s garden, the best internist in Rochester, MN)
Olive oil, for drizzling
Slices of Graham Bread lightly toasted (recipe below)
1/4 cup raisins
4 scallions, thinly sliced
1/4 cup crumbled feta cheese (optional, I don’t like feta so omitted)
In a blender, combine the ketchup with the mayonnaise, vinegar, mustard, garlic and chipotle. Puree until smooth. Season the French dressing with salt.
In a large pot of boiling salted water, cook the asparagus until bright green, about 2 minutes. Drain the asparagus and spread them out on a large baking sheet to cool.
Preheat a large grill pan. Drizzle the asparagus with olive oil and season with garlic salt. Grill over moderately high heat, turning, until tender and lightly charred, about 3 minutes.
Spread the cut sides of each roll with 3 tablespoons of the smoky French dressing. Arrange the grilled asparagus on the toasted Graham bread and top with the raisins, scallions and crumbled feta. Eat as you would a piece of bruschetta. Yum!
The sauce, in particular, is new favorite of mine. It is so flavorful and the graham bread really soaks up the flavor and provides a nutty contrast. To make the Graham Bread, you need graham flour, which is ground from red hard wheat berries (organic if you get the Bob’s Red Mill bag as I prefer)
Graham Bread or Pan Completo
Adapted from The Italian Baker
Starter
¾ cup sourdough starter
2 cups warm water
3 ¾ cups graham flour
Mix, cover with plastic wrap, and let sit overnight so that flour can develop and relax.
Dough
½ cup sourdough starter
1 tablespoon warm water
All the Starter
1 tsp salt
2 cups graham flour or stone-ground whole wheat
1/3 cup all purpose flour for kneading
Stir water into the starter and slowly add flour and salt, slowly stirring the stiff dough and eventually kneading for 10-12 minutes. Slam the dough down on the counter (crashing the dough) toward the end to develop the gluten. Place the dough into a lightly oiled bowl and allow to rise until doubled, at least 2 hours.
Punch the dough down and cut dough in half. Shape each into an oval loaf to place into oiled loaf pans. Cover with a towel and let rise until tops are at the brim of the loaf pan. Heat the oven to 375. Make parallel slashes across the top of each bread and bake for 40 minutes. I knocked the loaves out of the pans and let them rest on the baking stone to cook the outsides for the last ten minutes.
This bread is also fabulous when toasted and topped with scrambled eggs.
