It's Easy Being Green (if you're salsa)

It's been too long since I've written here. I spent a while during mid-summer feeling sort of down on food, after reading David Kessler's The End of Overeating and many articles on the bleak realities of American agriculture. The idea that we're making ourselves sick with so much of what we call "food" disturbs me deeply, and for a time I just couldn't bring myself to think about frivolous foodie joy.

I feel better now, though, because it's really hard to be down on food in August. Perfect sweet corn, gorgeous bumpy stripy green, purple and orange heirloom tomatoes, all the basil you'd ever want and then some...it's just too good.

And yesterday, my CSA pickup included a quart of tomatillos, which means I can make salsa. I've got these beautiful green treasures roasting on the grill right now, along with some poblanos, a banana pepper, onions and garlic. I'm loosely following Rick Bayless' recipe for Roasted Tomatillo Salsa, without really measuring anything. I'll freeze some of the salsa, and it will be wonderful in January - bright and piquant and reminiscent of a day like today, 90 degrees and muggy and blindingly sunny (all of which will seem so appealing when I'm wiping slushy frozen mud off my shoes).

You Put the Lime in the Coconut (really)

Another lovely Food Project CSA pickup yesterday afternoon. This week, there were bins overflowing with dark green spinach, and fragrant new cilantro in the fields, just next to the sugar snap peas that my 4 year old happily picked, tasted, and immediately rejected as being "too green." Oh, well.

This gives me the opportunity to make one of my favorite cold summer soups, based on a recipe from raw food guru Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo. It does require me to stray a bit from my loyalty to locally available produce, but seeing as I'm not ever going to be willing to give up avocado or coconut, I'll live with the guilt. This is really refreshing when it's hot, and you can adjust the spice to your own taste. All of the measurements are pretty forgiving, so if there's something you don't like here, leave it out; if there's something you love, double it.

This is part of a series of wonderful blended soups and smoothies that I've discovered in the past few months in a journey through the world of raw food diets (which I've dabbled in but haven't fully embraced - more about that later). You don't have to be a raw foodist to like this recipe, though. If you really don't want to be a raw foodist, leave most of the water out of the soup, add more avocado, and serve it as a sauce over grilled flank steak.


Spicy Lime-Avocado-Coconut Soup

2-3 handfuls spinach leaves
1-2 handfuls fresh cilantro
1/2 large or 1 small avocado
3 tablespoons young coconut meat (or cream of coconut)
juice of 2 limes
1/2 red or yellow bell pepper, or 1 poblano pepper, roughly chopped
1/2 small jalapeno pepper, seeds removed (or, if you're brave, use something hotter like a Thai chile, Habanero or Scotch Bonnet)
1-3 cloves garlic
coarse salt to taste

Place all of the ingredients in a blender with about 1/2 cup water and puree until smooth, adding water as necessary to adjust the consistency.

As an added bonus, when you make the soup, you can annoy your friends and family by singing or playing Harry Nilsson's "Coconut" or, for a really special occasion, you can drag out the Muppets version.

Butter You Than Me

Grilled new potatoes with compound butter and chive blossoms

I have two young children. From time to time, they have, let's say, a little bit of surplus energy. There are days when it seems I'm on a neverending quest to find outlets for this energy, but every so often I find something that works beautifully, and making butter has always been one of those things. If you haven't tried this with your kids, you should. It's especially fun if they've been reading Little House on the Prairie, because they'll get a chance to feel industrious and self-sufficient like pioneer children, but you'll be saved the trouble and effort of some of Ma Ingalls' more bothersome homemaking tasks such as skinning a whole hog.

Little kids like projects. When the projects are messy and also potentially dangerous, their appeal increases dramatically, so I work to emphasize those aspects of butter making. It's really very simple, and you get tangible results fast. I start by putting some nice heavy cream in a glass jar (there's the potential danger) with a plastic top, then tell the kids to start shaking (there's the potential mess). If weather permits, we do this outside, just in case.


When the teachers at our preschool first suggested this activity, I thought we'd be watching little hands* shake jars forever, but it really takes only a few minutes to start seeing results. After some vigorous shaking (with help from an adult every now and then), we see lovely whipped cream:

And then, if you keep going, there's a stunning moment when everything changes. We do this all the time, but it never fails to surprise my kids when, while shaking and shaking and shaking, they suddenly hear a splash as the butter separates from the buttermilk.

At this point, don't shake too much more, or your butter will become hard and nasty. Just agitate a bit longer to finish separating, then strain out the buttermilk and put the solid butter in a bowl. You may have to take over here and "work" the butter a little bit more to get the last bits of water out. This is when you can add some good coarse salt and move on to making a compound butter, which is simply butter with some chopped herbs or other flavoring added. I used our lovely CSA chives for this one, but almost any fresh herb will work beautifully.

Compound butters can be frozen, tightly wrapped in wax paper. This stuff is terrific on potatoes, corn, good bread, grilled fish...almost anything. I like to make cinnamon/nutmeg butter for breakfast.

If you feel like living on the edge a bit, you can make cultured butter, which has a slightly tangy taste and a nice rich texture, and, according to people who think about such things, is full of beneficial probiotics and antioxidants. There are two ways to do this:

- Milk a cow, chill the raw milk, skim off the cream and then let it sit out at room temperature for about 12 hours, or until it starts to smell sour, then proceed.
- Get yourself some culture starter (I like Body Ecology) and follow the instructions on the package insert, which basically just involve mixing the starter into organic cream before agitating.

As we don't have a cow and it's quite difficult to find raw milk, I go with method #2. If you haven't tried cultured butter, I recommend it. The culture starter also makes great creme fraiche.

* If, after seeing this photograph, you'd like to engage my services as a manicurist, please email me. You'll need to spend a few days using Playdoh and digging in a sandbox to get the edgy weathered look on your nails, but I can mix colors with the best of them.

Lush.

This is the lettuce I brought home yesterday after our first CSA pickup from The Food Project in Lincoln, MA. I love everything about this organization. The food is just gorgeous - hence the beginnings of my summer obsession with photographing vegetables in strange and intimate ways, which befuddles my children. But look at the color! The Food Project's philosophy, which values sustainable agriculture, community development, and educating young people, is so completely wonderful that it's sort of hard to believe. All that and garlic scapes, too...

Yesterday's share was small, but with such promise of summer: lettuce, bok choy, radishes, scallions, chive blossoms and mint. The herbs have me thinking about compound butters, but more about that later. The lettuce, in addition to being as beautiful as any flower, was crisp and full of flavor. I grew up thinking that the bland white leaves of iceberg lettuce that sat in our refrigerator for, apparently, weeks without noticeable change were what lettuce was supposed to be. I feel a bit weepy when I think about BLTs made with dessicated bacon, iceberg lettuce, spongy white bread, mealy tomatoes (that had been refrigerated - shudder) and Miracle Whip. Fortunately, those childhood experiences didn't leave me permanently scarred, and I was willing to give lettuce another try later in life.

When I've reached my limit on BLTs and salads, I turn to the lettuce wrap to renew my faith in this leafy green. I like to use big lettuce leaves as containers for what might otherwise build a really great sandwich (and I get to feel self-righteous about it, too, for abstaining from bread). My favorite lettuce wrap fillings:

- a mixture of browned ground pork and ground turkey or veal (in equal proportions), seasoned with sauteed chopped onion, soy sauce and oyster sauce (about 1-2 T of each sauce per pound of meat)
- avocado, cucumber and very thinly sliced seared tuna or raw sushi grade tuna, with just a splash of hot sauce or wasabi
- rice noodles (mai fun), mung bean sprouts, cucumber and mint leaves, with Pungent Dipping Sauce (see recipe below)
- any mix of julienned raw vegetables and sprouts with ginger-miso salad dressing
- very thinly sliced fennel, a bit of grated ginger, turkey breast and beets

Needless to say, the possibilites for lettuce wraps are endless.

Pungent Dipping Sauce

I love this sauce and will happily find just about any excuse to eat it. You can dip carrots, jicama or radishes in it and slurp away, but it's really best with some sort of Asian spring or summer roll.

• 2 T fish sauce
  
• 1/4 cup water
• 2 T fresh lime juice
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 T cane sugar or white sugar
  
• dried red pepper flakes, to taste

In a small sauce pan over medium-low heat, mix the fish sauce, water, lime juice and sugar, stirring, until the sugar is dissolved. Add the garlic and continue to heat, stirring, for about 1 minute. Add the red pepper flakes and remove from heat. Allow the sauce to cool to room temperature before serving with lettuce wraps, spring rolls, or over grilled meats. The sauce will keep, covered and refrigerated, for about a week.

Pickled Pink: Rhubarb

There's certainly never a dull moment with rhubarb. Consider these fun facts:

- The leaves of the Rheum Rhebarbarum plant are potentially toxic, but the beautiful red stalks are edible (ooh - danger! intrigue! flirting with death while eating a vegetable!).*

- Legendary Brooklyn Dodgers broadcaster Red Barber used to say that players were "havin' a rhubarb" when fights broke out on the field. Not only did the phrase become one of his trademark expressions, but it stuck so well that Ebbets Field was often called the "Rhubarb Patch."

- When film and stage directors need to create a scene with a crowd stirring in the background, extras are often told to shout the word "rhubarb" repeatedly, thus evoking a sense of hubbub and general excitement.

As if that varied and colorful background weren't enough, rhubarb can also make lovely pies, compotes and even wine. My father loved rhubarb cobbler, and my husband considers the first fresh strawberry rhubarb pie a more critical harbinger of summer than Memorial Day. All that's fine, but yesterday I decided to take rhubarb in a different direction, and pickled it.

Well. Why on earth did I wait so long to consider this application? These rhubarb pickles are tender and tangy, with a nice spicy kick at the finish. I think they'll be fabulous with simple grilled meats. I'd also consider using pickled rhubarb to top a baked sweet potato or a green salad with some cheese. It's quite simple to make:

Pickled Rhubarb

4-5 large fresh rhubarb stalks, chopped
2 cups apple cider vinegar
1 cup white sugar (I prefer cane sugar)
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1-2 T kosher salt
a pinch of dried cloves
a small (1-2 inch) piece of fresh ginger, thinly sliced
1-4 small dried peppers such as jalapeno or habanero

Combine the vinegar, sugars, salt, cloves and peppers in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil, and stir until sugars dissolve. Remove from heat and let the mixture cool for about 5-10 minutes. Place the rhubarb pieces in a large glass jar, and pour the hot liquid over them. Let cool for 30 minutes, then refrigerate for 24 hours before serving to allow the flavors to mellow. The pickles will keep, refrigerated, for 4-5 days.

A note on the dried peppers: I used two small dried habanero peppers, and the resulting pickles were pretty hot - not blisteringly, tongue-numbingly hot, but hot. Jalapenos would make a milder pickle, and if you really don't want much heat you could omit the peppers altogether or use 1/4 tsp of red pepper flakes for brightness without strong heat. The ginger also spices it up a bit, and next time I make these I'm going to use twice as much, I think, to make the flavor a little more complex.

*OK, so you'd have to eat pounds and pounds of bitter rhubarb leaves before you suffered any significant consequences, but it's more fun to say the plant is really dangerous.

Ratish.

More fresh spring radishes today. This one just cried out for a little transformation.

I also used the radish greens in my all purpose Good for You Green Soup. I've been used to tossing them into the compost and dismissing them as nasty, bitter and generally inedible, and for that I repent. The soup made with these greens had a bit of watercress flavor - it's certainly worth a try.

Good For You Green Soup is one of my favorite versatile comfort foods, easy to make and pretty reliable, and, if you don't indulge in the last minute splash of dairy, actually pretty low in calories. The base is nice and simple, and almost any spring vegetables work as accents. I've made it with asparagus, radish greens, spinach and kale. The soup is forgiving because you really don't need to measure ingredients - just toss in a handful or two of what you like. Mix the greens (spinach and asparagus are nice together). Leave out the leeks if you don't want to be bothered with them.

For 2-4 servings, you will need:

6 or 7 new potatoes, peeled and diced
Chicken or vegetable stock (about 2 cups)
Salt to taste
1 sprig of fresh herbs such as thyme, marjoram, oregano (or about 1 tsp dried - use what you like, and use more if you like the flavor)
1 medium shallot, sliced
1-2 cloves garlic, sliced
1-2 leeks (white and pale green parts only), finely chopped
Any of these spring greens: 8-10 asparagus spears, woody ends removed; 1-2 large handfuls of radish greens, spinach, watercress or kale (if using kale, remove the leafy green parts from the ribs and chop)

Put the potatoes, stock, salt and herbs in a saucepan over high heat and bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat and simmer until the potatoes are tender, 6-8 minutes. Meanwhile, heat the butter or oil in a small skillet and gently saute the leeks about 1 minute, then set aside. If you're using radish greens, add them to the skillet, stir a bit and cook over low heat, covered, until the greens have wilted, about 5-8 minutes.

When the potatoes are soft, add the leeks and asparagus or greens to the saucepan and simmer, covered, about 5 more minutes (if using asparagus, cook until it can be easily pierced with the tip of a paring knife). Allow the soup to cool a bit, and then puree (I use a stick blender, but you could cool this more and puree in a regular blender, too).

You can serve the soup hot or at room temperature. If you'd like, heat in a saucepan before serving, and stir in a splash of cream, stirring until heated through. The potatoes will make the soup thick and creamy enough, but adding dairy at the end does give it a nice velvety texture. Then top with fresh ground pepper, crumbled bacon, or chives.

A final radish note: after feeling very pleased with myself for creating the delightful radish art pictured up top, I learned about La Noche de Rabanos, a Mexican Christmas festival that celebrates local agriculture in Oaxaca. Let's just say the carving gets a little more elaborate than mine.

Spring

This is what came home with me last week. My daughter and I drove past Verrill Farm in Concord, MA, and I was completely taken in by these gorgeous things out front, all local. Fiddleheads, ramps, radishes, asparagus. Heather, who is 4, is highly suspicious of all vegetables (we're working on that), but even she had to admit that those radishes were beautiful. She asked me if they would taste like their colors, and for a moment I was tempted to say yes, but I know that a 4 year old expects bright pink to taste...well, nothing like a radish tastes. They were bitter and crisp and peppery and I ate all of them in one fell swoop. Sliced, on really great crusty bread with really good rich butter and some salt. If you're wondering what one does with the rest of that stuff, especially the fiddleheads - just blanch them, saute them in olive oil for a few minutes, and eat. I did the same thing with the asparagus, chopped up the ramps and added them to the saute pan, and that, with what was left of the good bread, was dinner. I'm telling you, I don't do recipes if I can avoid it. I figure that food that grows in more or less the same place and is ready to harvest at more or less the same time can all be eaten together and will taste good.

And it did. It tasted like spring.