Better uses of better veggies

Two new and very simple recipes. This time they're good.

Mrs. Gorzynski's Celery Root Slaw

1 knob of celery root (peeled)
vinegarette

Grate the celery root and toss with vinegarette. Delicious! Same texture as cabbage slaw but a very subtle flavor. Highly recommended.

Sauteed Kale and Onions

1 bunch Kale, stemmed and chopped
1 large onion, halved and sliced
red pepper flakes
olive oil
salt
pepper

Sautee the onions in olive oil until translucent, then add the kale. Toss together until the kale is tender, adding a little water if it gets too dry. Season to taste with peppers and salt.

Kale is fast becoming one of my favorite leafy greens, it's hardy enough to stand up to both a lot of cooking (and reheating) without losing any texture and extreme seasonings like hot pepper without being overwhelmed.

No worms here...

I got two new recipes from vendors at the market on Saturday. One was very good. The other...well...

Baked Cardoon
8 stalks cardoon
1 sliced lemon in large bowl of water(for soaking)

1 T fresh chopped oregano
1 T fresh chopped basil
1 cup parmesan cheese
1 cup bread crumbs

Yup, this is the new vegetable I was so very excited about on Saturday. Imagine a really big stalk of celery with spiney leaves, that tastes like a bitter artichoke.

As per the instructions from the guy who sold it and any number of online recipes, I prepped the dish as follows: I cleaned it, despined it (at risk of life and limb or at least poked fingers), cut it into half inch pieces (which immediately had to be thrown into cold water with lemon juice to prevent browning).

After soaking for a while, I blanched it for 15-20 minutes in boiling water. Then scooped it into a casserole dish, tossed it with breadcrumbs, garlic, oregano, basil, salt, pepper and parmesan cheese and baked it for an hour.

It was edible--but I don't necessarily want to do it again. It may well be a welcome counterpoint to a very rich meal, but it just didn't work beyond the first few bites for us. The best way to describe it so you'll understand?

The flavor is such that it makes one think its original use was as a folk medicine to rid one's intestines of parasites.

Never go shopping after late night pierogi...

Good morning! Today I was up, to the market and back before 9, just beating out the rain. As referenced in the title of the post, we went out to a show last night and then had dinner after at Veselka, a Ukrainian place on Second Avenue. Borscht followed by meat and potato pierogi. Not necessarily the best of ideas at 1 in the morning, but we were terribly hungry at the time. Last night's meal heavily influenced my shopping this morning.

The List
Tonje's Dairy
Ricotta
Mozzarella in brine

Gorzynski Farms
fava bean greens
celery root
kale

From the guy who also sells fresh porcinis and boar meat
CARDOON

The heavy purifying green purchases were influenced by last night for certain. (Although I'm not sure that the fava bean greens count since they taste rather like they've been injected with butter.) I knew I was going to get the cheeses because I intend to make lasagne this week.

Cardoon I've neither seen nor heard of before. Evidently it's a Mediteranean herb--looks like celery stalks but with spines on the side--whose taste has been described as bitter, artichoke-like or "like celery on steroids". None of these flavors are remotely similar to my mind, so I have a feeling a lot depends on the variety, climate and what it's grown in. I'm very excited to see what I can make with it! I've done a websearch of recipes and there appears to be an Italian/French split on preparation. The Italian versions lean toward (oddly enough) gratins, where as the French are more likely to be prepared with anchovies. I have a feeling we'll be going Italian...

It's just too good to cook...

I feel as if I'm neglecting the blog, but part of the problem is, so many of the items I've gotten from the market recently have just been too good to alter by cooking.

For example, the cantalope from the past weekend was bisected, seeded and my husband and I attacked our halves with a spoon, plain and with red pepper flakes respectively. Perfection!

Last night, I served lamb stewed with dates, onions and red pepper, black rice and slices of the most incredibly crisp kirby cucumbers. The cold, watery green being the ultimate counterpart to the rich spicy meat.

With produce so fresh, sometimes using it in any but it's simplest form is disrespectful.

Sunday night I made an Indian-inspired meal that had a highlight of sheer genius. The chicken was very good and the green beans with a tomato curry sauce were fine, but the following recipe was really a standout.

Bell Peppers Stuffed with Mustard Dill Curried Potatoes

This was fantastic. Vegetarian, very satisfying and could be used as an entrée as well as a side.

2 large bell peppers (mine were variegated)
4 small Yukon gold and/or new red potatoes
1 red salad onion
4 cloves garlic
1 T dill seed (deck plant from Silver Heights)
1 T mustard seed
1 t turmeric
2 T olive or vegetable oil

Boil the potatoes until tender. While they are boiling, halve (the long way) and seed the bell peppers. Dice one of the halves, reserving the other three for stuffing. Dice the onion and mince the garlic.

When potatoes are done, drain thoroughly. Heat oil in a heavy-bottomed pan (cast iron is best) with the dill and mustard seed. When seeds start to pop, add onion, garlic and chopped bell pepper. While the vegetables are cooking, cut the potatoes into ½ inch dice and add, with the turmeric when the onions are just translucent. Sautee for 5 to 10 minutes, or until edges of the potatoes start to brown. Place three bell pepper halves in a baking dish hollow side up and fill with the potato mixture. Bake in a 350 degree oven until the peppers are tender (30-45 minutes).

This accompanied two other really spicy dishes, so I left it fairly neutral, but it would’ve been great spiced up with fresh or dried chiles as well. Additionally, the flavors really mellowed in the refrigerator overnight, so the leftovers were actually better; it could easily be made the day before and then reheated in the oven.

Week 2:

The Shop

I was very late getting to the market yesterday (mid-afternoon) and I'll never do that again. It was absolute madness. Of course, it was absolutely gorgeous; high seventies, robin's egg blue sky, light breeze coming on the heels of three days of rain, everyone and his brother was out enjoying it. There also seemed to be hordes of trainees--we're talking multiple groups of a dozen or so guys wearing uniform shirts--wandering aimlessly in the shopping zone. When the market is that crowded, shoppers can become a bit testy. However my favorite overheard annoyed comment of the day was some guy on his cell phone just passing through: he was talking about the importance of fresh produce and complaining that he was trying to get to Whole Foods to get some, but "there's something going on in Union Square--tons of people--I don't know what the hell is going on!" Hmmm...glad you're tuned in to the fresh organic produce scene.

Anyway, the summer produce is still in stock, but more and more fall items are showing up in the stalls. I tried to do a bit of a cross-over this time around.

The List

russet potatoes
cantaloup (Hoeffner Farms again, although they're smaller in size this week)
beautiful green bell peppers (varigated with streaks of chocolate and flame)
crimini mushrooms
green beans
gravenstein apples (Terhune Orchards)
pears (Terhune Orchards)

I'm hoping the apples and pears make it into a dish, but honestly, they're so good that I think they'll be gone long before I get around to cooking with them.

Midweek pick up...

On Wednesday as I was walking through the Square, I couldn't resist the kale--huge beautiful heads of it. I incorporated it into a vegetable soup (it was a cold rainy day) that ended up being quite hearty and delicious.

Vegetable Soup for 2

1/2 bunch kale (stemmed and chopped)
1 cippolini onion (chopped)
1/2 pint grape tomatoes (halved)
2 yukon gold potatoes (diced)
2 red new potatoes (diced)
1/2 t red Peter Pepper flakes (home grown & dried from Silver Heights Farm stock)
3/4 cup chopped carrots
3 cloves garlic (minced)
4 cups low sodium chicken stock
black pepper

I started by sauteeing the the onions and garlic in a little olive oil until translucent in the bottom of a small Le Creust soup pot. I added the kale and potatoes tossing until the potatoes got a little brown on the edges. Finally, I put in the stock, carrots and tomatoes along with the red and black pepper. Simmered about an hour--until the kale was tender.

This was really good served with seeded sourdough bread (I like the parbaked you finish yourself). Greg had three bowls.

First weekend out and I'm already tardy due to domestic and social chaos. But I did make it to the market. The fall fruits and vegetables have started to arrive, but alas, they did so at the same time as a mini-heatwave, so the idea of making anything with squash when it was 85, was fairly horrible, so my shopping remained in the summer-vein. Where my memory allows, I've included the name of the stand from which the product was purchased:

blueberries (Fantasy Fruit Farms)
cantaloup (Hoeffner Farms)
red salad onions
red cippolini onions
yukon gold potatoes
red new potatoes
grape tomatoes
radishes
cilantro
cucumbers
ricotta cheese (Tonje's Dairy)
eggs (Quattro's Game Farm)

Saturday's Recipes

I mentioned the social chaos of the weekend, but I should explain: My husband came home late Friday night and announced that his grandmother's birthday celebration on Sunday was not going to be at her favorite restaurant as planned, but instead would be brunch at her house in the Bronx and I needed to make "something sweet". Not only that, but also we needed to go to his production partner's for dinner Saturday night and it would be great if we could bring her husband's favorite appetizer. I'd planned on having all day Saturday for chores and my first creation for the blog. In the end I made three things, but none were even half as complex as I'd planned.

Cantaloup Radish Salad with Mint

1/2 cantaloup cubed
3 large radishes thinly sliced
1 bunch Kentucky Colonel mint finely chopped (from my deck garden, plant from Silver Heights Farm)

All of the above tossed together with a little black peppper made for a really tasty and energizing breakfast accompaniment to rolls.

Richard's Favorite Mango Salsa
I know, mangoes aren't regional, but I said from the beginning the market goods would be enhanced by and occasionally enhance other things. Non-greenmarket items will be italicized.

1 pint grape tomatoes quarterd
1/2 red salad onion diced
1 T chopped cilantro
1 T lemon juice
2 medium mangoes cubed
1 clove finely chopped garlic
salt and pepper

Toss all the ingredients together and allow to sit out at room temperature for a couple of hours so the flavors blend.

I've made this recipe at least a dozen times and it's always different due to not only variations on my part (cilantro v. parsley, garlic v. cumin) but to the characteristics of the produce itself. This time around the tomatoes were the biggest factor, I like using grape or cherry tomatoes because I don't like salsa to be runny, however they're usually incredibly sweet. These tomatoes weren't sweet at all, but intensely tomatoey--almost as strong as tomato paste--and thus it was really savory with just a little bit of sweet bite from the mango.

Lemon Olive Oil Cake with Lemon Ricotta Cream and Blueberries

The cake was a dairy-free (thanks to my lactose intolerant sister-in-law) lemon chiffon that was in Gourmet a few months ago and can be found on Epicurious.com, so I won't spend a lot of time on that other than to say I used the Quattro's eggs (lots of 'em, separated, and blended several ways) and the whites meringued up like a dream. It wasn't bad, but it would've been a heck of a lot tastier if it'd been made with butter.

Lemon Ricotta Cream and Blueberries
1 pint fresh ricotta
zest and juice of 1/2 lemon
1 t. vanilla
confectioners sugar to taste
milk to thin

1 pint blueberries

I used a stick blender to whip the first 5 ingredients together throughly to make sure all the lumps were out of the cheese and then returned the cream to the original cheese container. Once at his grandmother's, I sliced the cake into thin wedges and served with a dollop of the ricotta and a sprinkling of blueberries. It looked really impressive! The blueberries were not only a flavor contrast but a color contrast.

It also ended up being a really good dessert for people with very different tastes/dietary concerns. Everyone could choose how much ricotta cream or how many blueberries they wanted on their cake; or, in the case of my husband (who hated the olive oil taste of the cake) to have a bowl of blueberries with lemon ricotta cream on top.

How this idea came together....

ME

I grew up in Wisconsin where my dad kept fruit trees and a sizable vegetable garden in our backyard. My mom taught me to cook, much of the time using the things my dad had grown. Making dinner most summer and fall nights involved the phrase--Tina, go outside and pick what's ready.

Now I live in New York City. Manhattan to be exact. No matter what I've done to pay the rent, cooking has always been my art and my sanity. Moving here, I learned that the freshness of produce in many grocery stores is questionable and really, they just don't have the same flavor that home grown does. To meet my desire for freshness, I became adept at smuggling frozen meat and fresh produce in from Wisconsin and growing a few vegetables in tiny containers on our terrace. Due to limitations of space and the unacceptable overhead that airline tickets added to the cost of seckel pears, my efforts were frustrating.

Then I discovered the Union Square Farmers Market.

I make a couple of visits a week, picking up lunch here or a dinner side there. But Saturdays are the best. I go early in the morning, do a sweep through--eyeing what's available at all the stands--then working my way backward to pick up whatever looks best. Then take it all home and figure out what my purchases can be paired with to compose entire meals for the weekend. It can be challenging, depending on season, availability and expense. It's definitely rewarding and more often than not, absolutely delicious.

The Blog

On Mondays, I have an exchange with a friend in D.C., in which we describe the highlights of our weekend's culinary exploits. An informal accounting of triumphs and the occasional defeat. I look forward to it each week.

I've taken a couple of recreational cooking classes at the Institute for Culinary Education so I get their class publication. The last publication I received listed a class entitled Greenmarket Cooking:

Richard Ruben, author of The Farmer's Market Cookbook and IACP 2003 Cooking Teacher of the Year, will teach you to take advantage of the best seasonal offerings. Part walking tour, part cooking class, the class commences at the Union Square Greenmarket to shop for the day's meal, then heads back to the school's kitchens to prepare an impromptu feast. Employ your creative spirit and enjoy a complete meal from the ingredients that you discovered at the market.

I started laughing aloud when I read it. My husband asked why. "They have a class in here for $95 that I would call "Saturday". Thus inspired by my family, love of fresh local food and to a degree, the Julie/Julia project, I decided to challenge myself to blog one year of Saturdays...what's good at the market, what I buy and what dishes I make from my purchases as well as how they rate with my gustatory guinea pig(s). In the end, I hope to have a seasonal record not only of produce, but also of my extemporaneous recipes.

I almost feel like I'm cheating starting at the end of summer given the abundance that results...but tomorrow, I begin!