Fresh Tart

I couldn't eat much of anything this terrible, sad weekend, but as my desire to cook has slowly returned, I'm turning to comfort foods. I made pan-seared steaks with a dried-and-fresh-mushroom pan sauce and it was just really nice to serve John and Nathan one of their favorite meals.

I made a good amount of the mushroom sauce with savory French toast in the back of my mind. If you only enjoy French toast for breakfast, you're missing out on a terrific and fast lunch or dinner. I used gluten-free bread for the pic (and my stomach), but if I could eat gluten I'd use challah. Any type of bread works nicely, though, really what you have on hand. Because that's the point - savory French toast is a filling, comforting base for leftovers of almost any type, on the table quickly.

If you're not a mushroom fan, try spinach sauteed with garlic, perhaps with a spot of sausage in the mix as well, perhaps with a pinch of red pepper flakes. Or thin slices of ham and a spoonful of braised beans. Or roasted squash and fried sage leaves. Or in the summer, slices of ripe tomato and crispy bacon. (Best. Thing. Ever.) French toast is rich, so a touch of acid and a shower of black pepper strike a delicious balance.

In case you ARE a mushroom fan, the sauce below is a terrific finish for any pan-seared meat that leaves lovely, crusty drippings behind: chicken, steaks, lamb, venison, veal, pork. Just stir the completed sauce into the hot pan juices, scraping the pan while simmering for a couple of minutes. That's it. However, the sauce is also rich and flavorful on its own, thanks to the beauty of dried wild mushrooms. And sherry. And butter.

Yes.

Savory French Toast with Mushrooms
Serves 2

Mushrooms
1/3 c. dry sherry
2/3 c. water
1 oz. dried porcini mushrooms
6 oz. fresh mushrooms, quartered
4 Tbsp. butter
salt
1 clove garlic, minced
squeeze of fresh lemon juice
few gratings of fresh nutmeg (optional)
1 Tbsp. minced fresh herbs (thyme or tarragon or whichever you like best; optional)
1 Tbsp. heavy cream or sour cream (optional)
freshly ground black pepper

French toast
2 eggs
2/3 c. milk or half-and-half
pinch of salt
4 slices bread (challah, country bread, sandwich bread, gluten-free, any type works)
2 Tbsp. high heat oil (sunflower or safflower)
2 Tbsp. butter

For the mushrooms:
Combine sherry and water in a medium saucepan and heat over medium heat until hot (steaming). Add dried porcini mushrooms to the pan and remove from heat. Let sit for 30 minutes, stirring the mushrooms a couple of times, until mushrooms are soft. Using your hands, scoop mushrooms from the liquid and squeeze excess liquid back into the pan, reserving the liquid. Coarsely chop mushrooms and set aside.

Heat a large skillet over medium high heat. Add fresh mushrooms to the pan, along with a generous pinch of salt. Stir around so the mushrooms are coated with butter, then let them be for a few minutes until they start to brown. Give them another stir, add the porcini mushrooms and garlic, and saute for another 5-7 minutes until the whole pan is browned and glaze-y.

Pour the porcini soaking liquid into the skillet of mushrooms, leaving the sediment that will have settled to the bottom of the saucepan behind. Simmer for 3-4 minutes to thicken the sauce a bit. Stir in the squeeze of fresh lemon juice (to taste). Stir in optional nutmeg and/or fresh herbs and/or cream or sour cream and season to taste with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Set aside and keep warm.

For the French toast:
In a pie plate, beat together the eggs, milk, and pinch of salt. Heat oil and butter in a large skillet over medium high heat. When hot, dip both sides of the bread in the egg/milk mixture and add to the hot pan. Fry bread until golden brown, then flip and brown the second side. Transfer French toast to plates and serve immediately with warm mushrooms.

Tender, egg-y challah bread is lovely on the Thanksgiving table. Not only is it pretty, but it harkens back to my mom's yeasty homemade crescent rolls, but for about one-tenth of the effort.

The honey-rosemary butter plays nicely with turkey, squash, and stuffing.

And everything.

Recipe for Challah with Honey-Rosemary Butter at Dara & Co./Minnesota Monthly Magazine.

I posted this recipe a few weeks ago at Dara & Co./Minnesota Monthly magazine, plus I've written about this dish here before too.  What can I say?  It's one of my favorites.  I thought I'd better put it out there one last time before lovely cherry tomatoes say good-bye until next summer...

If you like tomatoes and bread - which of course you do - then you'll love this simple summer gratin.  Cherry tomatoes and bread are tossed with garlic, Parmesan cheese, fresh parsley, and olive oil, then baked until the bread is crusty and the tomatoes are tender and just starting to burst.  I could sit down with the pan and call it dinner, but that's not very friendly, so instead I make a big salad and split it with my family.  It makes a terrific, easy dinner party dish, especially alongside grilled lamb chops or a whole roasted chicken.

If you manage to save a smidge for leftovers - and that's no small feat - the gratin is fantastic the next day, reheated until hot and crunchy and topped with a poached egg.  Add a shower of more fresh herbs, plenty of salt and pepper, and you've got yourself a killer brunch.

Cherry Tomato & Bread Gratin
Jacques Pepin
Serves 4

One 6-oz piece of day-old French baguette with crust, cut into 1-inch cubes (although fresh bread works nicely too)
1 1/2 lbs. small cherry tomatoes
1/3 c. extra-virgin olive oil
3 medium garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1/2 c. chopped flat-leaf parsley
1/2 c. plus 2 Tbsp. freshly grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 tsp. kosher salt
1/4 tsp. freshly ground pepper

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Lightly oil a 10-inch ceramic quiche dish.  In a large bowl, toss the bread cubes with the tomatoes, olive oil garlic, parsley, 1/2 c. Parmesan, and salt and pepper.  Scrape the mixture into the baking dish and bake in the center of the oven for 35 minutes, or until the bread cubes are browned and crisp and the tomatoes are very tender.  Serve warm or at room temperature.

Bored with broccoli?  Tired of tilapia?  Sick of scrambled eggs?  Add breadcrumbs!  A spoonful of buttery, toasty crumbs can make the most ordinary dish sublime.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Like the portabella mushroom, endive gratin, baked eggs, and fried chickpeas, above.  What began as potentially bland fare - vegetables, an egg, canned beans - became something special with the addition of...yes, breadcrumbs.

Ditto this head of cauliflower.

We eat a lot of cauliflower.  We get tired of cauliflower.  But roast it to caramelize the edges, and top it with caper-and-almond-studded breadcrumbs, and all of a sudden this simple vegetable is wearing a bikini.  Of bread!  Hot.

Any bread will do - gluten-free, sprouted grain, challah.  Grind in a food processor, toast in a skillet with butter and/or olive oil, add a little salt.  Sprinkle over sauteed beans, or an omelet, or pasta, or grilled vegetables, or baked fish.  So not boring.

Roasted Cauliflower with Toasted Breadcrumbs, Capers, & Almonds
Serves 4

1 c. fresh bread crumbs (about 2 sandwich-size slices of bread; I use Ezekiel bread, ground in a food processor to uniform crumbs)
1 Tbsp. butter
4 Tbsp. olive oil, divided
1/4 c. almonds, ground in a food processor (or chopped finely)
1 small clove garlic, minced
1/4 c. capers, dried and chopped
1 head cauliflower, cored and cut into small florets
kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.  Heat a large skillet over medium heat.  Add 1 Tbsp. butter and 1 Tbsp. of olive oil.  Stir in the breadcrumbs, almonds, and garlic and saute, stirring frequently, until breadcrumbs are toasted and golden brown, about 8-10 minutes.  Remove from heat and stir in capers and a sprinkle of salt.  Set aside.

Put cauliflower in a large bowl.  Drizzle with remaining 3 Tbsp. of olive oil, add a generous sprinkle of kosher salt, and stir with a rubber spatula to incorporate oil and salt evenly over florets.

Spread florets on a baking sheet, making sure they're not touching much or at all stacked on top of each other - the florets need room to roast and become crisp, otherwise they'll just steam.  Put cauliflower in the oven and roast for 12 minutes.  Check florets to make sure they're lightly browned on one side - if they are, remove the pan from the oven and turn each floret over with tongs.  Return pan to oven and roast for another 10-15 minutes, until florets are nicely browned and very tender.

Remove from oven, transfer cauliflower to a serving platter, and sprinkle with breadcrumbs.  (Store any remaining breadcrumbs in an air-tight container.)  Add salt & freshly ground pepper to taste.

Greek food and I had a shaky start, which is hard to imagine given how much I love it now.  My first exposure to a fully-loaded gyro - hours into my freshman year, University of Wisconsin-Madison, with my just-met roommate -  completely freaked me out.  So much garlic, with yogurt on meat (wha?), and juices running everywhere...my inner North Dakotan fainted a little bit.  Where are my parents?  Who is this girl I'm living with?  Why doesn't she shave her legs?  What am I doing?  I wasn't ready for feta cheese, not yet.

But after a couple of months of cardboard dorm food, and far too many pizzas, I started to crave food with...flavor.  I fantasized about going home for Thanksgiving dinner when it had never meant anything to me before.  I started exploring flavors outside of the Americanized Mexican-Italian-Chinese food I'd grown up with.  On a whim, I succumbed one hungry afternoon to the intoxicating smells from the falafel cart outside the UW Bookstore and ate the best sandwich I'd ever tasted.  Emboldened, I hiked back to the gyro place and got hooked on Greek salads and that damn sandwich, tender and spicy and dripping with yogurt, yeah.

And then...then I met Mary Pappas, almost 20 years ago, and my love of Greek food was cemented.  Mary would bring Greek treats - made by her mother-in-law and Yaya (grandmother) - into our office to share.  We would shamelessy attack and devour them.  Our staff birthday lunches often took place at It's Greek to Me, or Christo's, or Gardens of Salonica, and as a group we would eat obscene amounts of our favorite mezze, namely warm pita slathered with taramosalata, melitzanosalata, skordalia, and htipiti.  When I was pregnant with Nathan, Mary threw me a baby shower and had her mother-in-law and Yaya prepare all the food (I'll never forget that party, The Best, sigh)...spanikopita, pastitsio, meatballs, salad, baklava, on and on...

So many happy memories.  Which now include my son!  Was it the amount of Greek food I ate at the end of my pregnancy, including that shower?  Whatever the reason, he loves it, and I'm thrilled.  Sharing a favorite dish with a child is an incredible experience.  Overall, we have many more misses than hits, but Greek food in general, and souvlaki (below) in particular, are now among his favorites.  Garlicky grilled pork, wrapped in warm pita bread and topped with tzatziki, the yogurt sauce that scared the crap out of me way back when.

The marinade is delicious with chicken too.  Serve with rice instead of bread to change things up.  Make extra marinade and toss with tomatoes, zucchini, and red onion - skewer and grill alongside the meat.  Use leftover sauce to make this tomato-feta sandwich for lunch the next day - also fabulous.  Lots of variations - have at it!

For more pork grilling ideas, and a whole menu for a Memorial Day barbecue (pork ribs, crunchy-creamy coleslaw, & strawberry shortcakes), check out my post this week for Dara & Co./Minnesota Monthly magazine.  I've got grilling pork on the brain - but only because the options are deliciously endless.

Souvlaki
Serves 4

Note: you can marinate the pork for up to 24 hours before griling.

2 lbs. pork tenderloin or pork loin, cut into 1-inch cubes
3 Tbsp. olive oil, plus more for the bread
3 Tbsp. red wine
1 Tbsp. dried oregano
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp. coarse or Kosher salt, plus more for the bread
several grinds of freshly ground black pepper
2-4 loaves of pita bread (I like the flatbread loaves, not the pocket bread; I actually use the 365 brand of naan at Whole Foods)
Tzatziki (recipe below)

Put pork into a large Ziploc bag.  In a small bowl, whisk together the remaining ingredients and pour over pork.  Seal bag, massage the marinade into the pork a bit, and refrigerate for at least 1 hour and up to 24 hours.  Heat grill.  Lightly brush or rub olive oil onto both sides of the pita bread.  Sprinkle one side lightly with salt.  Skewer pork loosely on metal or soaked bamboo skewers (discard Ziploc and marinade).  Grill pork for 5 minutes on each side, or until pork is cooked through (do not overcook for optimum tenderness).  Transfer skewers to a cutting board and let rest while you grill the bread.  On the still-hot grill, lay bread on the grate.  Grill for a couple of minutes on each side, just long enough to leave grill marks and soften/heat the bread.  Remove pork from skewers and serve with the warm bread and tzatziki.

Tzatziki
Makes about 1 cup

1/3 c. grated peeled cucumber
1 Tbsp. grated onion
1 Tbsp. minced fresh dill
2/3 c. Greek-style yogurt (Fage is an excellent brand)
salt and pepper to taste

Stir all ingredients together in a small bowl and chill.  Keeps for up to one week in the refrigerator.

Snow Day! Woo hoo! No school, so Nathan's home with his dad (playing outside, I'm quite sure) and John's working here at home. My plan is to snowshoe - of course! - then head out with John for a La La Lucia's Lunch. How fabulous!

It feels like a baking day, although I admit I won't achieve it. But what a nice day to bake foccacia or challah, huh? I love the idea of sitting in front of the fire with a book while waiting for the dough to rise. And to smell baking bread mingled with woodsmoke? Heavenly! Freshly-baked bread with a steaming bowl of garlicky cabbage soup, sprinkled generously with melty gruyere, yeeeaah. Or even a quick version of simple tomato-garlic soup or black bean soup. Wow, any of those sound damn good. (Bonus: toasted challah, or French-toasted challah, The Kill, for breakfast tomorrow... Or warm foccacia sandwiches for lunch...) Have a cozy day!

Hey, me again, just have to report on our romantic Lucia's luncheon feast, groan. We each opened with plenty of fresh, warm bread and perfectFrench salads. Then tucked in to hearty walleye gratins - pieces of tender walleye and diced potatoes napped in a decadent sauce and run under the broiler until crispy and browned. To finish? The best damned piece of truly evil devil's food cake I've had in years - check out the guilty resignation on John's face as he's forced to dig in, ha. And then...yes, there's more...we stepped next door to grab some items from Lucia's To-Go. Uh, yeah, that should do us for the day. Enjoy yours!