Why Violet, You're Turning Violet! A Wicked Vegetable Patch Update

Summer is really kicking up now and the garden is starting to look a lot like Mardi Gras. Less in the way of beads, boobs and blackouts and more in the sense that there is a lot of purple, green and gold out there. It's lovely. I've even started to mimic it in my meals- Pesto and spinach stuffed, grilled portabellas topped with goat cheese, purple/green salad, roasted kaleidoscope carrots an a bowl of spicy cucumber soup. Molly's welcome home dinner and several key ingredients were pulled straight out of the Wicked Park backyard which just makes my heart happy.

Onto the actual update. I went a little nuts this year and when Bruce had several extra tomato seedlings, I went from a planned eight plants to eleven. I say this having just adopted a 12th from my neighbor Sam who had little cherries growing wild.

I can say it. I'm a tomato-aholic. I fuss over them first thing every morning and occasionally visit them at night as well. And now that all twelve have erupted into yellow blossoms and tiny green fruits, I don't even attempt to contain my glee in their presence.

"Look at you! You're a wonder, Black Krim! You remind me of a pumpkin. A pumpkin that will be fully appreciated sliced with krimped edges with a soft burrata. Keep up the excellent work- you should be really proud of yourself."

"And you, little black cherry. A natural overachiever. The first to ripen and surely the first treasure to be plucked and enjoyed without ever making it inside the kitchen. I just can't tell you how much I've enjoyed watching you develop. I know you have a lot of wonderful gifts to share in the future."

Yes, I really do talk to them. The benefit of doing my fussing at 5:30-ish is that no one else is up to wonder at my rambling. In the spirit of full disclosure though, we have had one bit of disappointment. One of my San Marzano plants is afflicted with blossom end rot. Wretched little illness that can really put a dent in a tomato yield. Never fear though, I think some extra calcium and a good series of pep talks should help to clear it up.

Beyond tomatoes, I did mention purple. I'm not kidding- I think it's the Wicked Patch's favorite color. These towers of leafy ruffles are called Jester lettuce and will be growing more next year.

It's delicious and sets of a wooden bowl of salad just so. Grows like a weed too, which works out well.
Ah yes, the Black Beauty eggplant has returned. Key learning from last year was that eggplant doesn't mind our garden's heavy clay soil so I trimmed down from four seriously overproducing plants last year to two this year.

The second of my eggplants is called a Listada de Gandia. I'm convinced I need a dress in this print and it's even prettier in person. I would love any recommendations for recipes that might maintain the look of that gorgeous exterior in a finished product.

The passion for purple has not limited itself to Ground+. Not at all- here's some young hard neck garlic that's taken on deep purple clove casings beneath the white paper exterior. Did I mention young purple garlic is delicious? I used it to make the pesto in the stuffed portabellas at top.

"Red onion" has always struck me as a bit of a misnomer. They are purple to the point of being practically lilac on the inside. And oh my do they taste good caramelized. Clean Out the Fridge Pasta- post coming soon.

Once I wrapped the photo session in my own patch, I walked across to see if I could finagle some eggs for breakfast from our local chickens. I was a little early for them but they came out to say hi anyway.
Have I mentioned how much I love this neighborhood?

Gansu to the Garden: Grilling Season (Citrus Basil Scallop Skewers and Pesto Stuffed Portabellas)

For those of you residing beyond the Great Lakes' finest grid, Chicago just wrapped up a banner weekend. It was this beautiful, sunny bit-o-glory that glittered like a preview of a fine season to come. Saturday was spent harvesting compost, spreading that fertile wormy goodness out on the new vegetable patch, planting onions and garlic, breaking up peat moss and the like. I was devoutly rank by the end of it and it felt like pure perfection.

Sunday opened up to much the same but I don't regret investing most of it in a bar-tending class with the Martini Queen of the South Side- pretty sure you'll see some of those skills popping up as the summer works its way forward. That being said, we were determined to squeeze a few additional outdoor hours in once class wrapped. Time to christen that grill.

Sorry for all the we-talk but it was the usual suspects. Molly, Jaime, Dave and Lisa- with all the travel schedules it legitimately felt like we were all variations on the Goldilocks bears, creaking out of hibernation. Dave is freshly returned from a month in China (hence the Gansu reference) and Lisa is still so excited that she's cooking. "She who brings the wine" has discovered quite a cook's streak and I don't see her slowing down anytime soon. In fact she's quite eloquently laid out her approach to both of these recipes over at Elle Michelle.

Lucky us:

Sharing the screen time above was my main contribution- Citrus Basil Scallop Skewers. Cooks Illustrated has a handy how-to on grilling scallops in their May/June issue and I just so happened to have a bag of the frozen bay variety in the freezer. I love it when that happens.


The recipe tasted pretty great but I think it might have looked even better. Keep your Skittles, this is the much-preferred method of tasting the rainbow.


Just above the skewers themselves was another grill friendly creation. It is a non-secret that I love mushrooms. A friendlier food never did exist in my opinion and, by the by, I held that opinion long before my Mushroom Channel days (client). That being said, those lovely caps were a riff on my first favorite stuffed portabella recipe from a couple summers ago.

Seeing as there was less Oberon involved this time, I had the good sense to simplify. That recipe accompanies the skewers below. I also just have to note that Oberon season is upon us again and it's the equivalent of being grateful for the sunshine only you can drink it. I said it. Bell's Oberon is drinkable sunshine.

In the midst of the grilling process, there was plenty of time for Dave to chase his favorite tail around the garden (not literally though, my timing was just funny for that one on the left). Typically HC has sprinted in the opposite direction whenever Dave comes over. His affection for her is that powerful. I think she must have missed him though because that Hocat was feeling quite coquettish, a reminder of the season.

We finished off dinner with a baby apple pie a la mode- a 7 inch pie dish is the perfect amount for six eaters. That brings my tally up to four pies in two weeks. In case you needed another reminder that the season is changing.

Citrus Basil Scallop Skewers
5 wood skewers that have been soaking in water for at least 30 minutes

2lbs bay scallops, rinsed and dried (And thawed if they were frozen. Come on, guys.)
1 blood orange cut into 1/2 inch wedges
1 tangerine cut into 1/2 inch wedges
1 cup whole basil leaves
15 brightly colored sweet bonnet peppers

1 TB flour
1 tsp cornstarch
1/2 tsp citrus salt (kosher salt will be just fine but go fancy if you're feelin it)
Lots of fresh ground pepper
1 TB citrus zest (I used orange but anything would work here)
2 1/2 TB vegetable oil

First, put your skewers together. Take one pre-soaked skewer and stab one of your bigger peppers. From there the order is as follows: folded up basil leaf, 2 scallops, blood orange slice, 2 scallops, basil leaf, tangerine slice, 2 scallops, pepper and repeat one more time till you get to the end of the skewer and it looks about as pictured.

Second, mix all of your grill marinade ingredients in a small bowl (makes a loose paste) and brush both sides of your completed skewers.

Grill at a medium flame for about 4-5 minutes per side or until they've have a nice, even char grill lines. Enjoy!

Pesto Stuffed Portabellas
1/4 cup prepared pesto (I defrosted some from last summer)
1/2 tsp Dijon mustard
1/2 cup spinach leaves
1/2 cup basil leaves
3 portabella mushroom caps, excess dirt brushed off and stem removed
Cooking spray (I am a new convert to the Spectrum Organic Olive Oil Spray)
Your favorite goat cheese (Prairie Fruits for me, please)

I actually found that the easiest way to start was to give each mushroom cap a light coating of olive oil all the way around then season it generously with fresh pepper. Then I felt ready to start filling.

Stir the pesto and Dijon together and spread an even amount at the base of each mushroom. It's only a small amount of mustard so it doesn't disrupt the pesto flavor but does add a nice bite. You could also achieve this with some fresh lemon juice. From there, start alternating layers of basil and spinach leaves. Three of each is more than enough but it will wilt down. From there, press your goat cheese into the the top leaves to secure all the filling. Top with chopped leftover greens.

These are on the grill the same amount of time as the scallop skewers, though please don't flip them :) 8-10 minutes total (with lid on) or ready when the cap turns dark brown and the goat cheese is getting golden on the top.

Dirt, Grit, Growth: Spring and a Not Quite Nicoise Salad

Spring is coming. I'm looking down from 36,000 feet on April 1st and below me it's already been warm enough to melt the snow once, just not thaw the larger bodies of water. Since then, in keeping with a March reputation, there's fresh dust on the ground so the bulk of what's below is white but only half-heartedly so. It's lingering just a little bit longer but it'd probably let you in with your own pop and snacks if you tried to sneak it past at the movies. It's got plans later and its heart isn't really into militancy anymore.

The post-prime garlic cloves I haphazardly tucked into a shallow ditch in October? Sprouting strong green scapes- eight count marching up out of that sticky clay-infested dirt. I've secured a squared, sunnier plot this year and am now in the enviable position of needing to transplant the garlic I never really expected to come up.

In a frenzy this morning, I also managed to pick up my cool weather seedlings and then broke ground in my new patch without ceremony. Okay, maybe not entirely without ceremony. For as fast as I clawed through that dirt today, there were weeks of toiling over seed catalogs, filling in communal excel spreadsheets and transplanting ambitious seedlings that had outgrown their tiny cups. Gina came over as I was putting the first of the seedlings into my plot behind the house. Even before they made it into the dirt, I'd harvested a little arugula and some joker lettuce for our lunch. Not enough to be the dominant ruffage but herein lies the ceremony with a Not Quite Nicoise Salad "recipe" below. Those few fronds are meant to represent the fresh crunch of many salads to come.

Bruce has been the absolute patron saint of growing, providing a home with lights, rich dirt and seemingly boundless curiosity for the process. Growing from seed, knowing how much food could come from a $2 seed packet...these were firsts for me this year. He and Heidi have been running Green Roof Growers for years and coupled with my landlord Ala's intrinsically green thumb, my luck at finding this apartment continues to resonate four and a half years after I moved in. My kale affection is well-documented and to be able to take advantage of its growing season on two ends this year is just really exciting. I imagine myself attending dinners with bouquets of kale tied up with gardener's twine. Maybe some wild arugula providing an attractive ruffle around the edges.

It feels like a good year for walking the walk. I spent my second annual Saturday in like-minded company at the Family Farmed Expo and was so happy to be nodding along with the rest of my crunchy kin. I'm trying. I'm trying to vote with my dollar, to budget in a way that better represents the rest of the world in what I invest in my food. I've always cared. It always mattered. I just haven't always been very consistent in what sounded like the right thing and what ended up being the easiest.

And on an ever so brief personal note, it's April and I've got a March reputation of my own. My wintry mix was the travel and womenfolk whom I love dearly. While the travel and girlfriends aren't going anywhere (I'm on a plane to Seattle while writing this but likely there already for the posting), I'm thawing out. An uptick in daylight and energy lends itself well toward other pursuits. There've been some false starts but my shoulders are finally relaxed and the cold is less daunting this way. Feeling new on the heels of a sleepy season is good for the soul. Bring on the Bambi levels of twitterpation, my greens are in the ground and my salad days are beginning again.

Not Quite Nicoise Salad

Mixed Greens (I use the boxed organic mix with spring greens and spinach)
Purple cabbage, shredded
1/2 cup chopped olives (I had Cerignola, Nicoise, and those delicious extra salty and wrinkled black ones from a Pastoral run)
3 potatoes sliced and steamed
6-8 grape tomatoes (couldn't resist at the store but ready for them to be in season properly)
Handful reduced fat feta
3 hard cooked eggs, quartered

Simple vinaigrette (juice from 1/2 lemon, 1/3 cup olive oil, teaspoon Dijon mustard, salt and pepper)

Arrange however contents your precious little heart then toss with the vinaigrette. Delicious and satisfying lunch, also recommended with a warm demi loaf of crusty bread and some salted butter.

And because I hope you post your lists too...here's what will be growing for me this year!

2012 Wicked Vegetable Patch Roster
Arugula
Joker Lettuce
Lacinto (Dino) Kale
Red Russian Kale
Pentland Kale
Italian Parsley
Tatsoi
Bok Choy
Vitamin Green
Beets
Scarlet Nantes Carrots
Marvel Striped Tomato
Black Krim Tomato
Black Cherry Tomato
Valencia Tomato
Red Pear Sel Tomato
San Marzano Tomato
Listada de Gandia Eggplant
Black Beauty Eggplant
Santa Fe Grande Hot Pepper
Bee Balm
Rosemary
Lavender
Oregano
Sweet Genovese Basil
Sacred Basil

Year of the Green Goddess

That sandwich was a month on toast. A good month. Not a perfect one but a little braver and with a very satisfying crunch at the end there.

If you're wondering (and I'm always wondering), that is multi-grain toast spread on top with a thin sheen of Rare Bird's Plum Cardamom Orange Preserves which are then holding a substantial blanket of baby spinach in place. Beneath that we've got some fresh roast chicken (a favorite in these parts) and lower still, mixed greens. From there, we pick the sweetness back up again with thin slices of Granny Smith apple. All good things, yes? Good, great in some cases, but not magic. The magic is that last element before we're back to toast (ashes to ashes). You can barely see it on the bottom there.

A closer look. Thick and rich and fully earning its name- Green Goddess.

These are the ingredients for magic and it was a group effort so my thanks to Pop Pop, Elana and Jenn for their respective bits of inspiration. Pop really was the original goddess charmer and I have clear memories of sneaking dips of romaine spears into the blender in the fridge when he was acting as chef-in-residence on his visits. Anchovies are never negotiable when it comes to Pop and I quite agree with him. One thing I did on my own though? No mayo. No oil. Just all manner of green things and some fat free Greek yogurt. Three veggie trays, two salads and one sandwich later, you would never have known that this was holistically healthy by the responses (mine included).

I brought this one to Gina's annual Eve of the Eve dinner. It did a tremendous job balancing out all that wine.

I brought this one to North Woods New Year's at Bob and Christina's. All the while, whenever I started to run low on the special sauce, I treated it like a starter and just kept adding yogurt, herbs and the like.

Green Goddess Dip/ Dressing/ Spread/ Fantastma

16.7 oz container of fat free or low fat Greek yogurt
4 whole cloves of garlic
1 tin of flat rolled anchovies
1-2 cups of fresh spinach leaves, depending on your preferred level of green
2 green onions, roughly chopped
1/3 cup fresh basil leaves (leaves of 4-5 stems)
2 TB fresh tarragon leaves
1 TB fresh oregano leaves
1 ripe avocado (halved, pitted and removed from shell)
Juice of half a lemon
1/2 tsp of kosher salt
Freshly ground pepper to taste

Optional: 1-2 ounces of Roquefort. Great tip from Pop but clearly a little evil. Not a lot for the whole recipe but does add a little something.

Put it all in the bowl of a food processor and whir till you have a uniform mixture. Scrape down the sides, whir some more. I added a little more spinach and some extra lemon at this point for color and zing. And then I made sure it was safe for at least three coated spatulas. I'm a health hazard, what can I tell you? If you want it a little looser for salad dressing, a little water goes a long way.

Unrelated but I noticed this in all my veggie plate prep...how gorgeous is the inside of a red pepper? Happy New Year. That really was a great sandwich.

Snow Day (Spinach, Sausage and Shallot Quiche)

This is what a Sunday snow day looks like. This is what it tastes like too but never let it be said that I am cruel enough to ask you to imagine that. For the record, you're looking at a spinach, sausage (banger, if we're going to get specific) and shallot quiche, baked into my favorite pie crust.
To be even more specific, this is another view of the same snow day.

Sunday Snow Day from ToKissTheCook on Vimeo.

For those of you in warmer climates (cough *parents* ahem), this is what a snow day looks and sounds like. Please forgive the low-fi recording but I think you get the idea.


Yes, I think we all prefer the view from here a little better though it has to be said that from inside a cozy house, hot coffee in hand, looking at evergreens heavy with snow isn't the worst way to spend an afternooon. It's potentially the best way to spend an afternoon when it involves a long lunch with Miss Rebecca.

The coffee in this case is my latest little addiction- Tanzanian from Steaming Bean. A friend brought an extra pound back from a Colorado adventure and I'm officially hooked.

Incidentally, it washes this down really well and will properly defrost any toes that dare trudge through the snow toward quiche.
I love days like this. I was up early early early for no particular reason and just started making pie crusts. Then watched Hannah and Her Sisters followed by a snowmelt sweatfest and then the lunchy brunchy business above. Tonight is a turkey dinner with yet another neighborhood friend/family and I go bearing apple pie. A great day and it's just nice to write that down from time to time.

Spinach Sausage and Shallot Quiche
1 half pie crust recipe ( or just make a full one and save the other half for some other noble cause)
1 8 oz package frozen organic spinach (thawed and wrung of as much liquid as possible)
5 pork bangers (I love Spencer's- great quality, posh tasty)
2 shallots, minced
1 cup shredded or shaved Pecorino cheese
7 eggs
3/4 cup whole milk (2% would work fine)
Pinch of Nutmeg
Salt and Pepper (hooked on Maldon Smoked Salt)

1) Put your pie crust together, chill it for at least an hour, roll it out, put in your pie or quich dish and put it in the fridge till you're ready to fill it.
2) Preheat oven to 400 F.
3) Saute your bangers in a frying pan over medium heat, ensuring even browning on all sides. Bangers tell you they're done by splitting open. Once your little meats are split and browned, put them on a plate lined with paper towels and let them cool a bit.
4) Saute your shallots in the banger drippings. There are healthier ways to do this but I ran 5 miles this morning and was feeling a little cheeky/counterproductive. Sue me.
5) Scramble your eggs and use a basting brush to glaze the top of your quiche crust. You'll appreciate this later when your edges are all glossy. Once that's done, add your milk and continue to beat egg mixture till everything is incorporated and it's a uniform consistency.
6) Add spinach, bangers, cheese and sauteed shallots to egg mixture. Season but go a little heavier on the pepper than the salt- both the bangers and the cheese are giving you a little extra sel already.
7) Pour mixture into your pie crust, tent loosely with foil and bake for 1 hour at 400. Check it at 45 minutes and remove the foil if you need some extra browning on top.
8) Once the quiche is set in the middle (no more jiggling), pull it out and let it cool for 10-15 minutes before slicing. Know that sounds like torture because the house is going to smell really really good but it's worth it to have slices that actually come out of the pan in the way nature intended.

Monday Soup: Curried Lentil Stew with Kale, Red Onion and Coconut Milk

I've just now had the exquisite experience of craving something comprehensively wonderful and then being able to realize the bowled vision in my own kitchen.

I cook a lot. I like it. It's like meditating without the the mat that smells like plastic and feet. And still- this is exhilerating. I've never made this recipe before and yet on the first attempt I'm content. That does not happen at my house. I may be satiated, even happy, but rarely am I content. Happy is a fleeting high, content means I want to stop moving for more than a string of minutes.

It started a few weeks ago when I picked up take-out from Mana before babysitting. I think I've mentioned it before but 2.5 years since it opened, that place still blisses me out. Having fresh, inventive vegetarian food a 5 minute walk from my door has not ceased to be a treat. Anyhow, on the night in question, the special was a lentil soup. I can't say I was immediately wooed but figured I was due for something healthy to temper my standing order of collard greens and polenta.

I slurped that first spoonful and then did not take more than a few sparse breaths from brim to bottom of my borrowed bowl. Sweet and spiced and warm and textured- I've been thinking about it ever since but today the longing was so powerful that I called them. I called Mana. The first thing I asked was whether they'd be serving my magical soup this week.

Yes, I'll hold.

A new voice on the line- Jill Barron, the chef. She does not schedule her specials but she's glad I like the soup and incidentally which lentil soup did I like so much?

Quiet on the line.

Then I tried to describe the flavors. It was confirmed to be Curried Red Lentil soup. I may have then started shamelessly guessing ingredients. Palpable desperation over soup. She, rightly, refused and said to keep checking back.

I stewed (pun intended).

I had lentils.
I had a huge pot of homemade chicken stock taking up refrigerator real estate (one equal to its size had already been frozen).
I had a large red onion. And garlic. And carrots from my CSA box
I had gorgeous bunches of dinosaur kale.
I had curry and cayenne.

I had soup.

A quick audit of Google Reader directed me to this recipe on Epicurious. Well, my $.89 pound of lentils were green, not red. And I had kale in lieu of chard. Then I saw a few other recipes. Some folks were putting coconut milk into their versions. I nosed around and found a little can picked up on a whim on Argyle.

As soup is another tremendous vehicle for the stuff I love so dearly, I also took stock of a rogue purple potato and the last of my cherry tomatoes. In the back of the fridge I found a jar of Chile Colonial Chile Crunch (oh condiment of kings) and a lone Greek yogurt.

What do they say? Pride comes before the fall. Duly noted. Now seconds please.


Curried Lentil Stew with Kale, Red Onion and Coconut Milk
Makes 6-8 servings

Ingredients:
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 large red onion, thinly sliced
2 carrots, peeled and diced
3 cloves of fresh garlic, minced
1 purple potato, diced (totally optional but very pretty)
4 teaspoons curry powder
1/3 teaspoon cayenne pepper (or Aleppo pepper if you have it)
5 1/2 cups of broth (I had fresh chicken broth but vegetable would work as well and makes this purely vegetarian)
5.6 oz can of coconut milk (about the size of a can of tomato paste)
1 large bunch or 2 small bunches dinosaur kale, leaves pulled from ribs
1 pound green lentils (about 2 1/4 cups)
1/3 cup bulgur wheat
Sea Salt to taste
6-8 cherry tomatoes, quartered
1 1/2 Tablespoons Greek yogurt
Chile Colonial Crunch (I'd knock it off with the namedropping but I can't think of a generic category that describes the stuff)

Directions:
Heat oil in heavy large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add onion, carrots, potato and garlic; sauté until golden, about 15 minutes. Mix in curry and cayenne. Add broth, kale and coconut milk. Stir to incorporate. Increase heat; bring to boil. Add lentils and bulgur; reduce heat to medium.

Cover; simmer until lentils are tender, stirring twice, about 15 minutes. Add the cherry tomatoes during the final stir. Season to taste. Divide stew among bowls. Top with yogurt and a proper dollop of chile crunch (it's hot, so go easy at first).

Summer in a Sandwich: A Wicked Vegetable Patch Special

That, my friends, is a sandwich. Summer layered lovingly, stacked high between two halves of a toasted pretzel roll. Every flavor a reminder that the real season is still new. We've only in the last three weeks stepped into the high grass of harvest in the Midwest. I like to think I know a little bit more about that this year.


The view above (click for the real detail) is from day 1, week 3 and week 6. I'm talking to you now from the beginning of week 8 and can bear witness to even taller tomatoes. I remain absolutely enamored of this new hobby.

Through that lens, I'd like to share the first two eggplants of my eyes. I think you can hear the cliche I was going for but it still sounds weird (I'm going with it). They are such a dark purple that in this light they look black but get past that onyx exterior and there's a pale flesh with just the freshest tint of green. I was weeding when I realized just how big the eggplants had gotten and since these two, we've enjoyed four more, even trading one for a tomato and some arugula.

The gift of an overzealous farmers market trip brought extra pretzel rolls so I set about deciding what I could make with my haul including eggplant, chard, basil and cabbage from the garden, an onion from the garden of a friend, yellow squash from my CSA box and that traded tomato. And some found feta, which made up the first layer of the sandwich I couldn't keep myself from.
On top of the feta went a thick layer of lightly steamed greens. There are a lot of lovely vitamins hidden this sandwich's foundation but those greens are the real powerhouse so this is not a time for frugality of sandwich. With a modest pinch of truffle salt over the top? Perfection.

From there I took a cue from my inspiration in both activity and appetite and slow roasted the eggplant and squash. This row made it into my sandwich but the rest made for sweet accoutrement to other meals for the rest of the week.

A lovely tomato, grown in the same garden that produced many other layers. Bartering for vegetables is the weekly pleasure chest that bartering for Halloween candy was annually as a kid. Only this kind of trade enriches my palate rather than a dentist's pocket.
That last layer is a crisp, clean crunch of basil. I've got no shortage on aromatics this year and I am throwing basil into everything.

Look at that. Stacked to heaven with homegrown angels. There's something so incredibly satisfying about knowing where every piece of this sandwich came from.

With feta and a little love (Jaimeson's vocabulary word for olive oil) as the only accompaniments to the bread, the vegetables unique flavors absolutely shine through. Okay, there may have also been a nice drizzle of balsamic over the tomato layer but I was going to keep that between me and them.

It was such a spectacular sandwich, it deserved to look like something special. Parchment paper and a little garden twine did the trick. I love how at home a vegetable sandwich looks, wrapped in the same twine their leafy vines grew up in the back yard. My thumb just might be green after all. Don't worry though, I'll still wash it.