It’s been a strong first week in the nest; a yield of 19 eggs makes me a very, very proud farm mother. Still reeling at the anatomy of these creatures. We feed them back their own egg shells, mixed with Layena pellets and oyster shells to harden their shells. My priest asked if I fed them enough oyster shells, would I then expect a pearl to appear amid the yolks? No, no—the yolk is pearl enough. I notice these backyard-laid eggs have yolks that are more deeply yellow, and my scrambles look like Santa Fe sunshine. I hereby dub this the coming Summer of Protein. Enjoy this egg-packed frittata, thanks to my Most Valuable Pullet (MVP) for the week, Lucille.
Broccoli Frittata
Adapted from Food and Wine
1 garlic clove, thinly sliced
2 tablespoons olive oil
3 1/2 cups broccoli florets
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper
Salt
Black Pepper
8 large eggs ala Lucille
1/2 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese (1 1/2 ounces)
Preheat the oven to 350°. In a 10-inch ovenproof nonstick skillet, heat 1 tablespoon of the olive oil. Add the garlic and cook over moderately high heat for 30 seconds. Add the broccoli and crushed red pepper and cook for 1 minute. Stir in 2 tablespoons of water, season with salt and pepper and cover. Cook over moderate heat until the broccoli is crisp-tender, 2 minutes; let cool.
In a bowl, whisk the eggs with 1/4 teaspoon each of salt and black pepper. Stir in the broccoli. Return the skillet to the stovetop and heat the remaining 1 tablespoon of oil. Pour in the eggs and cook over moderately low heat until set around the edge, 3 minutes.
Sprinkle the frittata with the cheese. Transfer the skillet to the oven and bake the frittata until the center is just set, about 12 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature.
Izzy reminds me that the aroma of coffee pairs well with a breakfast frittata. She is partial to the Stumptown Hair Bender blend my mother sent for Easter. Thanks, Mom. And Izzy, maybe someday they will make java for bulldogs.
As a tribute to my current rotation, pediatrics, I hereby call upon Dr. Seuss for my culinary inspiration—also, much thanks to my hearty chicken, Betty White, who obliges to churn out green eggs day after day.
Green Eggs and Ham Sandwich, Mexico City Style
Adapted from Food and Wine
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
2 chipotle chiles in adobo, minced, plus 1 teaspoon of adobo sauce from the can
1 small Hass avocado—peeled, pitted and sliced 1/8 inch thick
8 thin slices of baked ham (6 ounces) –I used honey baked ham which I think made it extra tasty.
In a small bowl, thoroughly blend the butter with the minced chipotles and adobo sauce and season with salt and pepper. Spread the chipotle butter on both cut sides of the baguettes. Arrange the tomato slices on the bottom halves of the baguettes.
Heat a griddle or a very large nonstick skillet. Add the olive oil and, when it’s hot, crack in the eggs. Cook over-easy over moderate heat, turning once halfway through cooking, about 1 1/2 minutes. Season the eggs with salt and pepper and top each one with a slice of the Gruyère cheese. Set 2 eggs on the tomatoes on each baguette bottom and top with the sliced avocado and ham. Close the sandwiches and serve right away.
Green eggs are real! I have been asked so many questions lately about the biological aspect of the egg-laying process. Chickens, like humans, are born with a plethora of eggs in their ovaries—a thousand or so. Each day, one little yolk is released from the ovary into the oviduct, and over the next 25 hours, slowly accumulates albumen, or egg-white, around the yolk until it is finally shelled and released into the cloaca—the same hole out of which chicken poop comes! Both the intestines and the oviduct dump out into the same cloaca—but you know, I’ve never seen chicken poop in the nest!
I would eat them in a coop, I would eat them next to poop.
I will never again be able to use the phrase “just us chickens” figuratively, because now I actually have chickens. Three to be precise: an Americauna named Betty White, a Lohmann Brown named Lucille, and a Plymouth Rock, my favorite, Quest Love. We rescued these ladies from Farmer Wayne who kept them alive in the back of his barn in a dark closet of squalor. Today they checked into their new coop in our backyard, a split-level with a patio, two straw-padded nesting boxes, and a roost in the loft. Each of them have already pushed out one egg a piece. Quest Love was the first to let ‘er rip—and it was a green egg! Betty White has proven herself to be a chicken escape artist, and rather light of foot, or, light of claw, and Lucille—she’s just a charmer, a most ravishing redhead. In preparation for the deluge of eggs threatening to tumble from the loins of our new fowl trio, I decided to make a couple of batches of sourdough English muffins in a hurry.
Rustic Whole-Wheat Pillows
Adapted from The Italian Baker
Alternatively, these might make nice pillows for a backyard chicken’s nesting box…
1/2 cup cracked hard wheat berries (100g)
½ cup wheat bran
3/4 cup unbleached all-purpose flour (100g)
1 cup sourdough starter
1 cup warm water
2 1/4 cups whole wheat flour (300 g)
1 tablespoon salt (15 g)
unbleached all-purpose flour, for kneading
Soak the wheat berries in cold water for 1 to 3 days.
Drain the wheat berries and process the berries and bran and flour in a food processor or blender just until coarsely chopped (not too fine, or the berries won’t be crunchy).
Stir the sourdough into the water.
Stir in the berry mixture.
Mix the whole wheat flour and salt and stir in, 2 cup at a time, into the sourdough mixture.
Stir until the dough is stiff and sticky.
Knead on a floured surface until firm, elastic, but still slightly tacky, 8 to 10 minutes.
Place the dough in a lightly oiled bowl and cover tightly with plastic wrap and let rise until doubled (2 hrs). Punch the dough down and knead briefly on a lightly floured surface.
Shape into a long rectangle by flattening it with your forearm.
Cut into eight 5-inch squares.
Place on a lightly oiled baking sheet, cover with a towel, and let rise until well puffed and almost doubled (1 3/4 hr to 2 hrs) Preheat oven to 450°F.
Bake 10 min then reduce the heat to 350°F and bake for 15 more minutes.
Cool completely on racks.
Many egg recipes forthcoming–frittatas galore. I have not been this excited to wake up in the morning since Christmas 1990. Hoping the ladies keep up production on their new chichi diet of Layena Crumbles and oyster shells. As their branch manager, I have decided to keep a public tally of their output to incite a spirit of competition, and perhaps, per my mother’s suggestion, will hang a framed photograph of a dashing rooster on the wall next to the nesting box to get them ovulating. I think Foghorn Leghorn might do– perhaps Sam Eagle muppet for Betty White since she has a fetish for blue feathers.
Let me be clear. I absolutely believe in gluten. BUT, I honor those around me who believe differently and who are biologically intolerant. I have now several times brought my baked goods to parties where they are not welcome. SO, I have decided to conduct a few trial runs in the world of gluten-free baking. This first project, thanks to Bob’s Red Mill garbanzo bean-based flour, was quite a success. Rinse, repeat.
Gluten-Free Raspberry-Ginger Muffins
Adapted from Bon Apetit Jan 2014
1½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon kosher salt
1½ cups plus 1 Tbsp. gluten-free all-purpose flour (use the garbanzo-based stuff from Bob’s Red Mill)
1 large egg
1 cup (packed) light brown sugar
½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted
½ cup whole milk
1 teaspoon finely grated peeled ginger
1½ cups fresh (or frozen, thawed) raspberries
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare your muffin cups (not a garment). Whisk baking powder, salt, and 1½ cups flour in a medium bowl. Whisk egg, brown sugar, butter, milk, and ginger in a large bowl; mix in dry ingredients. Toss raspberries with remaining 1 Tbsp. flour in a small bowl; gently fold into batter.
Divide batter among muffin cups and bake until a tester inserted into center comes out clean, 25–30 minutes. Let cool 5 minutes in pan before serving. I sprinkled the top with brown sugar, flour, and butter streusel, as seen on the muffins here.
Muffins can be made 1 day ahead. Store airtight at room temperature. Here’s evidence that they are very similar in texture to REAL muffins– not like little sea sponges.
Here is the magic gluten-free fairy dust, all thanks to Bob and his Mill in Portland, OR.
Honey and wheat and yeast— it doesn’t get much more Earthy than that. Happy Earth Day.
Pane Integrale con Miele
Adapted from The Italian Baker
Starter
½ cup sourdough starter
2/3 cup warm water
1 ½ cups unbleached bread flour
Stir starter into water, add flour and mix into a fine paste. Let rise, covered, 6 to 24 hours.
Dough
1 cup sourdough starter
1 tbsp and 2 tsp honey
1 cup warm water
3 ¾ cup whole wheat flour
1 ½ tsp salt
Stir honey into the overnight starter and the sourdough starter. Pour the water over the top, and mix in the flour and salt mixture one cup at a time until the dough comes together. Knead on a floured surface until the dough is smooth and not so sticky, about 10 minutes. Place the dough in an oiled bowl to rise, covered tightly with saran, until doubled, about 2-3 hours.
Shaping and Second Rise. Turn the dough out onto a well-floured surface and shape into a round loaf without punching down (because this is 100% whole wheat—we need all the air and lift we can get, right?) Place on a peel lined with parchment. Lightly oil the top and cover with saran to rise until doubled again, 1 hr.
Heat the oven to 450, with a baking stone, preferably. Bake 10 minutes at this temp, spraying with water three times. Reduce the heat to 400 and bake 25 minutes longer. Cool on a rack.
Don’t worry, I have no such medical analogy or educational tidbit on febrile gluteal folds to share with this special Sourdough Surprises edition post on hot crossed buns, though, I was tempted. I am keeping my off-color humor in check as we commemorate the resurrection of our Lord, how’s that? In fact, the cross on these sweet rolls is a beautiful Lenten tradition, even if the interpretation of the cross over the years has been confounded with strange and delicious superstition. For example, it is said that hot cross buns made on Good Friday never spoil. Or, if one were to hang these buns in the kitchen, they bear the power to ensure that all breads baked on their watch shall rise. So it seems that hot cross buns are vying to be the patron saint, or perhaps icon, of all bread?
Bread is a glorious totem for resurrection—but then again, so is sourdough. Risen, indeed, but really, always rising.
Cranberry Orange Hot Cross Buns
Adapted from The River Cottage Bread Handbook
4 cups white bread flour, plus extra for dusting
1/2 cup warm water
1/2 cup warm milk
1 cup sourdough starter
2/3 cup dried cranberries
Finely grated zest of 1/2 orange
1/4 heaping teaspoon each of cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice
2 teaspoons fine salt
3 1/2 tablespoons superfine sugar
1 medium free-range egg
3 1/2 tablespoons butter
Cross paste
6 tablespoons all-purpose white flour
7 tablespoons water
Glaze
1 tablespoon ginger (or other) jam
1 tablespoon water
If you have a stand mixer, combine the flours, water, milk, yeast, salt, and sugar in the bowl and fit the dough hook. Add the egg and butter and mix to a sticky dough.
Add the dried fruit, orange zest, and spices and knead on low speed until silky and smooth. (You can do this by hand, but it will be sticky to handle.) Cover the dough and let rise in a warm place for about 1 hour, until doubled in size.
Deflate the risen dough and divide into 8 equal pieces. Shape into rounds and dust with flour. Place on a floured board, cover with plastic wrap or linen, and let proof for about 30 minutes, until roughly doubled in size.
Preheat the oven to 400°F. To make the crosses, whisk together the flour and water until smooth, then transfer to a pastry bag and snip off the end to make a fine hole (or use a plastic food bag with a corner snipped off, as I do). Transfer the risen buns to a baking sheet and pipe a cross on top of each one, then bake for 15 to 20 minutes.
Meanwhile, melt the ginger jam (this stuff is SO good, total impulse buy at the health food store, and SO worth it) with the water in a pan. Brush over the buns to glaze as you take them from the oven. Transfer to a wire rack to cool. Serve warm, cold, or toasted.
One a penny? I could probably sell these for 10 bucks a piece. Marvelous. These are the Easter eggs of the banqueting table—an absolute find.
As an aside, I love it when the weather cooperates with the imagery of resurrection Sunday. Early this morning, the clouds over Rochester were darkened like the church after the candles have been snuffed out—and slowly, as I have been sitting here with my coffee, watching and waiting, the clouds are literally breaking with light.
Be calm. God awaits you at the door. Rest in peace, author of those words, Gabriel Garcia Marquez. The zest in your flattest literary character is a thousand times more potent than my hottest chile dish. Thank you for making my heart ache, page after page, for showing me “that human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, but that life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves.” (Love in the Time of Cholera) Each time I read one of your stories, I feel as though I get born into a character of yours, and through them, I can freshly imagine some new quality to birth into my future self—an experience that some call moral imagination—but which I recognize to be the organic conch call of truly excellent writing. The sound of your call, Marquez, will echo on through time because the very work itself has cut something like a river canyon into human experience.
Snapper with Charred Tomato and Pepper Salsa
Inspired by Food and Wine Oct 2013
1 red bell pepper, finely diced
1 yellow bell pepper, finely diced
1 jalapeño, seeded and minced
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
6 tablespoons minced red onion
4 tablespoons fresh lime juice
4 tablespoons chopped cilantro
Sea salt
Ground white pepper
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, cubed, plus more for greasing
Four-six 6-ounce, skin-on red snapper fillets
1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved (or tomatillos if you like those)
1 tablespoon olive oil
Preheat the oven to 400°. In a bowl, mix the peppers, jalapeño, olive oil, onion, lime juice and cilantro. Season with salt and pepper.
Butter a ceramic baking dish. Season the fish with salt and white pepper and arrange the fillets in the dish, skin side down. Scatter the 2 tablespoons of cubed butter around the fish and add 1/2 cup of water. Bake the fish for about 15 minutes, until just cooked.
Heat a cast-iron skillet. In a bowl, toss the tomatillos with the canola oil and season with salt and white pepper. Arrange the tomatillos in the skillet and cook over high heat, turning once, until charred, 2 minutes.
Transfer the fish to plates, top with the /tomatoes/tomatillos and salsa and serve.
This dish was as spicy and full of zest as one of my favorite characters from Love in the Time of Cholera,
“She would defend herself, saying that love, no matter what else it might be, was a natural talent. She would say: You are either born knowing how, or you never know.”
And if you do not know love, you have only to give birth to yourself again to find it.
Finally made a pilgrimage to The Penzeys Spices store in the Twin Cities, a Minnesotan Mecca for foodies, where I not only got a free mug that states one of my chief life mantras: Love to Cook; Cook to Love, and free Pizza Spice (whatever that is) but I also had the chance to thank Penziers for sending their quarterly magazines to my house chock full of inspiring recipes and other goodies, like the cake featured below. I also bought some Vindaloo, which I’m sure will make its way into these annals in due course. If I were to own a store that sold something, I would love to sell spices—to know that your contribution to the world is a matter of vivified flavor—to imagine how your handiwork enhances countless spoon and forkfuls across the country. All the palates tickled because of what you ground from the ground.
1/2 Cup cocoa powder (dark and regular, Dutch is best)
1 Cup water
2 Cups sugar
2 Cups flour
2 tsp. cinnamon
1/8 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 Cup buttermilk
Icing:
1/2 Cup butter (1 stick)
4 TB. Cocoa powder (combine dark and regular if you have them)
6 TB. milk
1 lb. powdered sugar
½ Cup nuts, optional
Preheat oven to 400°. Grease and flour an 11×17 rimmed pan (jelly roll pan). In a sauce pan, heat the butter, shortening, cocoa and water. Bring to a boil, stirring vigorously to dissolve any cocoa lumps and remove from the heat. While the mixture is coming to a boil, in a large bowl, sift together the sugar, flour, cinnamon, salt and baking soda. Pour the mixture from the sauce pan into the dry ingredients and mix well. Add the eggs, vanilla and buttermilk and mix well. Pour into the prepared pan and bake at 400° for 18 minutes.
Five minutes before the cake is done, make the icing. In a sauce pan, heat the butter, cocoa and milk over medium heat. Cook, stirring, until it starts to boil. Remove from the heat and gradually sift in the powdered sugar, beating until smooth. Add nuts if desired. Pour over the hot cake.
Apparently I had an improper pan, and what was supposed to be a sheet cake turned into more of a high plateau or domed terrace cake. Very hard to pour the hot fudge icing onto its gentle slope. So, I spread the frosting onto the center space where the terrain was flat, and poured the remainder icing into a side dish for folks to spread on those edge pieces.
Really rich and delicious. In particular, the cinnamon addition and the dark chocolate Dutch cocoa combined magically for a decadent, unique, homemade cake flavor. Truly a luxury if you can afford these calories. Do have a nibble. Remember, cook to love–and love, foremost, includes yourself.
I knew this would happen. I went to Iowa City and began to scratch the itch where my second book wants to break through the skin and into the world. There isn’t enough Benadryl at CVS to suppress it, and now, before the first book has been properly labored and birthed into being, here I am gestating at a second. The approach, this time, will be entirely different. It is a romance.
“Good evening, Miss. Dining alone tonight?” “No. I am on a date.” Wry smile.
He shifts to the right as though my body might have eclipsed the other dinner party guest to whom I refer. I blush, clutching a thick, white paperback to my collarbone.
“I’m on a date with Chekov.”
“Oh,” he smiles. “Well, that will be a long date.”
“That’s the point.”
Medical training is a brutal, demanding monogamy during which I do believe strategic affairs are forgiven. Chekov once said that for him, medicine was his wife, writing his mistress. My second book will be the love child of our creative trysts—Chekov’s and mine. I can say no more.
Boil the potatoes in water to cover until tender; drain. Peel the potatoes and press them through a ricer or mash until very smooth. Keep warm until ready to use.
By hand: Stir the starter into 4 tablespoons of warm water directly into the warm potato mash. Add oil, flour, and salt in a mixer bowl. Add up to 1 tablespoon of water if necessary for the dough to come together. If you make a small ball of dough between your fingers, it should feel very slightly sticky. Knead by hand on a lightly floured surface for 3 to 4 minutes.
First rise: Place the dough in a lightly oiled bowl, cover tightly with plastic wrap, and let rise until doubled, 1 to 2 hours. The processor dough is sticky and delicate because of the extra water, and the mixer dough is slightly tacky and looks chunky.
Shaping and second rise: Cut the dough in half on a lightly floured surface and shape each half into a round loaf, using very light tension in shaping. Flatten slightly with the palm of your hand to encourage it to spread just a bit. Place the loaves, seam side down, on heavily floured peels or rimless baking sheets. Flour the tops lightly and cover with dampened kitchen towels. Let rise until doubled, about 45 minutes. When fully risen, the dough will feel somewhat soft.
Baking: Thirty minutes before baking, preheat the oven with baking stones in it to 450ºF. Just before baking, sprinkle the stones with cornmeal. Very carefully invert the loaves onto the stones (the seam side will open dramatically in the baking). Bake 35 to 40 minutes, spraying the oven three times with water in the first 10 minutes. Cool completely.
Iowa City is a place that consoles me with reminders that true talent knows no location. John Updike, when he was still with us, once gave a talk on a Wednesday here in McBride. The flyer for his reading was on the wall just outside my hotel room. Iowa City gives greatness a human nonchalance. Thanks, Iowa. Hope to be back soon.
Let us remember…that in the end we go to poetry for one reason, so that we might more fully inhabit our lives and the world in which we live them, and that if we more fully inhabit these things, we might be less apt to destroy both. Christian Wiman.
Happy Poetry Month, y’all. Examined Life, I’m coming your way. For the record, I think Wiman’s sentence would retain its truth if the word food were to be substituted for the word poetry. In the end, we go to food for one reason…
Sauteed Shrimp with Gremolata and Spiced Butter
Adapted from Food and Wine Oct 2013
SPICED BUTTER
1/2 tablespoon Madeira (I used brandy)
1/2 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 1/4 teaspoons ground mace (never realized mace was also a food)
1 teaspoon piment d’Espelette (I’m no fancy pants, couldn’t find this anywhere so I used chili powder)
Kosher salt
1 stick unsalted butter, at room temperature
GREMOLATA AND SHRIMP
1/3 cup finely chopped flat-leaf parsley
1/2 tablespoon minced lemon zest
1/2 teaspoon minced garlic
12 large head-on shrimp (about 1 1/2 pounds)—heads and tails left on, bodies shelled and deveined (I only had the little ones at the ready— no big deal, but I cut the spice butter recipe in half)
Kosher salt
Freshly ground pepper
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
MAKE THE SPICED BUTTER In a small bowl, combine the Madeira, lemon juice, mace, piment d’Espelette (or chili powder, if you’re a plebian like me) and 1 1/2 teaspoons of salt; mix well. Let the spice mixture stand at room temperature for 10 minutes, then mix in the butter.
PREPARE THE GREMOLATA AND SHRIMP In a small bowl, combine the parsley, lemon zest and garlic. Season the shrimp with salt and pepper. In a large skillet, heat 2 tablespoons of the olive oil. Add half of the shrimp and cook over moderately high heat, turning once, until golden brown and just cooked through, 2 to 3 minutes per side. Add 2 tablespoons of the spiced butter to the skillet and cook until lightly browned; add 1 tablespoon of the lemon juice and toss to coat the shrimp in the sauce. Using tongs, transfer the shrimp to a serving platter. Strain the butter sauce through a sieve into a small bowl. Repeat with the remaining olive oil, shrimp, lemon juice and 2 more tablespoons of the butter. Season the butter sauce with salt and drizzle it over the shrimp. Top with the gremolata and serve.
Perhaps I misinterpreted these instructions, but I dipped the shrimp in the lemon/garlic/parsley mix and then sautéed them. I thought I had committed a major foul when the skillet began to smell like an old stairwell that had been urinated in—fortunately, the smell burned off as soon as I added the spiced butter. Very unusual combination of spices—almost nutmeg-like taste with the mace.
Also, because I bought a ridiculous amount of shrimp—partly because I miss New Orleans, but also they were on a wicked sale—I also made these shrimp tacos. Now that I think back on it, I wish I had combined the gremolata and the shrimp tacos— So this post is kind of like a Bubba Gump litany of shrimp. Shrimp gremolata, shrimp stew, spiced shrimp, shrimp tacos…
Shrimp Tacos
Adapted from Penzey’s Spices
1-2 Cups shredded kale
1 Cup chopped tomatoes
1/2 Cup chopped onion
2 red fresno chili peppers
1 5-oz can chili peppers in adobo sauce
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 cup water
4 TB. lime juice
1 tsp. cumin
1/4-1/2 tsp. salt
1/4-1/2 tsp. pepper
1 avocado, diced
1/2 Cup chopped fresh cilantro
2 TB. Olive oil
2 lbs. medium-sized shrimp, shelled and cleaned
2 garlic cloves, minced
Salt and pepper to taste
18 taco shells
For the salsa: In a large bowl, combine kale tomato and onion. In a blender, combine the arbol chili peppers (remove handles from the peppers, break in half and discard the seeds-be careful to wash your hands after), garlic clove and water. Blend until smooth. Pour over the cabbage and add the lime juice. Mix well. Season with cumin, salt, and pepper to taste. Stir well, cover and refrigerate. Add the avocado and cilantro right before serving.
Meanwhile, over medium heat, warm the oil in a medium skillet. Add the shrimp and garlic and season with salt and pepper. Cook the shrimp, turning over until they are opaque and turn bright pink-orange, about 6 minutes. Warm the taco shells while the shrimp is cooking. Stuff the taco shells with warm shrimp. Top the tacos with the salsa and serve.
Very VERY spicy, so if you are serving this dish to party guests, be sure to have a mild alternative to the salsa. Otherwise, enjoy the clearance of nasal passages! The kale I substituted for cabbage, because I have something personal against cabbage. I think it was the right choice.
