Fresh Tart

As a typical Minnesotan, with one eye always on winter, I get overly enthusiastic about the bounty of perfect, juicy stone fruits and berries available at this time of year. Somehow peaches, plums, raspberries, blueberries, and cherries all make it into my kitchen, all at the same time, without a chance of being devoured before fruit flies start hovering. I'd feel greedy and guilty if not for buttery, cinnamon-laced fruit crisps, better than pie in my book, and twice as easy to assemble. Almost any mix of fruits is perfect in a crisp - the version pictured is plums, peaches, and strawberries, because that's what I had lying around. The version I made this morning is a tumble of peaches, pitted bing cherries, and blueberries.

This is absolutely a recipe to make and eat with children, if you have them, or to toss together on your own. As delightful as a warm bowl of fruit crisp with ice cream tastes after dinner, a bowlful with yogurt and almonds for breakfast is awfully nice too. Take the rest to work for lunch and you too can polish off an entire crisp in one day, the way my son and I did on Saturday.

Then wash the pie plate, poke around for odds and ends of more ripe summer fruit, pull cold butter from the fridge, and toss together another.

Recipe for Warm Fruit Crisp (Gluten-Free...or not) at TC Taste/Minnesota Monthly Magazine.

When I was a little girl, I thought I'd really be a grown-up when I could eat soft-boiled eggs for breakfast, just like my dad. I was fascinated by the way he carefully tapped the top off with a knife, then sprinkled salt & pepper inside before scooping spoonfuls onto bites of seriously buttery toast (we are a buttery family). I only liked the whites of eggs at that stage of my life, so I was too apprehensive to tackle a whole egg for myself, but the elegance of it all definitely motivated me to learn to like the yolks, too.

And oh have I learned, ha! If you cut me open I'd bleed egg yolks at this point in my life. I kind of forgot about soft-boiled eggs for awhile, lured by the sexiness of poached (it feels very impressive when you first learn to poach an egg, even though it's the easiest thing in the world), but they are very much back in my rotation, especially during tomato season. It's hard to imagine a more humbly glorious breakfast than slices of perfectly ripe tomato, hot buttered toast, and a soft-boiled egg or two. The addition of smoked pork (ham or bacon) would be lovely but not necessary.

Recipe for Perfect Soft-Boiled Eggs at TC Taste/Minnesota Monthly Magazine.

Hello hotness, meet your nemesis: cold soba noodles. Chewy and naturally gluten-free, soba noodles make The Perfect summer pasta salad, robust enough to deliver the heat of chiles, the bite of fresh herbs, and whatever savory tasties you have on hand. (If you notice that I often suggest adding random treasures from your cooler to dishes, it's because that's how I exist and cook. It's the challenge, the satisfaction in repurposing leftovers, of not wasting food, of creating something new. Also, I am lazy.)

There are two tricks when working with soba noodles: do not over cook them, and rinse them very, very well in cold water. As in, rinse and rinse and rinse. Also, while the salad is quite tasty upon completion, it tastes even better after chilling for a couple of hours - the noodles absorb a bit of the dressing and the herbs bloom and meld.

I added fresh mint and basil to this version, but of course cilantro would be delicious. While I topped mine with leftover pork, chicken, shrimp, or tofu would all be lovely additions. Toss in a handful of shredded carrots or cabbage. Top with shelled edamame or fresh peas. Pickled vegetables make everything better and would be particularly delightful here. Make this salad all summer long, changing it up each time. See? Truly The Perfect summer pasta salad.

Recipe for Cold Soba Noodles with Fresh Herbs, Cucumber & Pork at TC Taste/Minnesota Monthly Magazine.

I posted a chimichurri recipe here once before, back in February of 2011, upon returning from a trip to Costa Rica. I fell into a deep craving while on that trip, eating the local twist on this classic Argentian sauce on everything that I touched. While the recipe that I posted is bright and snappy, I've grown to prefer this version, mellowed with salt water (salmuera) via the fantastic cookbook Seven Fires: Grilling the Argentine Way by Francis Mallmann.

Not only is this sauce a perfect way to use up bunches of fresh parsley and oregano from the garden, it sits nicely in the fridge for 2-3 weeks, improving with age. Spoon it over strips of steak or vegetables hot off the grill, wrap in fresh corn tortillas, and feast away. Or, make everyone's favorite potato salad by tossing still-warm new potatoes, boiled in their jackets, with the chimichurri and showering the whole with chopped hard-cooked eggs. While the sauce is traditionally served with beef steak, it's equally delicious served with grilled chicken or fish.

Happy grilling 4th everyone!

Francis Mallmann's recipe for Chimichurri at TC Taste/Minnesota Monthly Magazine.

I love recipes like this, pared down to their most basic elements, pure of flavor and intent. You can find a million recipes for cornmeal pancakes, made soft with wheat flour, fluffy with baking soda, sweet with sugar. And while they're all utterly delicious, it's hard to beat the pure corn flavor of pancakes made with cornmeal alone. I personally love them best plain, enhanced with nothing but salty Hope Creamery butter. And maybe a pile of softly scrambled eggs. Gosh.

But for those who'd like a bit of a flavor punch, I offer two variations, one sweet, one savory. I grated orange zest into the sweet version and served them with warm maple syrup and plenty of butter for a lazy Sunday morning breakfast. For the savory version, I stirred in chopped bacon and green onions and ate them hot off the pan. I can't wait to eat them topped with slices of perfectly ripe tomatoes and a sprinkle of coarse salt.

Recipe for Cornmeal Pancakes: Sweet or Savory at TC Taste/Minnesota Monthly Magazine.

Fresh mozzarella with tomatoes is everywhere, even in the dead of a Minnesota winter, when it shouldn't be. We've all seen slabs of rubbery cheese layered with slabs of grainy-pale tomato objects and wondered what on earth happened to this pretty salad.

Certainly in the summer, when tomatoes are ripe, the two can be lovely together, but I'm a bit of a fresh mozzarella purist. Addict even. Really good, fresh mozzarella has such a soft, milky taste, a little bit sweet, a little bit salty, at once both silky and toothsome (not rubbery!), that it hurts me a little to smother it with the acidic juiciness of tomatoes, even good ones.

Caprese blasphemy? Perhaps, but try it this way, simply warmed atop eggs and fresh basil, and you might agree.

Recipe for Fresh Mozzarella & Basil Frittata at TC Taste/Minnesota Monthly Magazine.

Let's call it summer and make plans to eat outside, preferably as often as possible. Dinner al fresco pretty much anywhere feels special, but dinner on a farm is particularly divine for us city dwellers, away from cubicles and concrete, with time to learn about, discuss, and savor food prepared at its source.

In fact, one of the best meals I enjoyed in all of 2011 was an Outstanding in the Field (OITF) dinner, at Riverbend Farm near Delano. I realize that a setting so gorgeous can work strange magic (farm goggles?), but I'm quite sure that aside from the view, the bounty of family-style platters, piled with fresh salads, cheeses, and wood-fire grilled meats, would blow my mind in the dingiest of rooms. When the night ended with chanterelle mushroom ice cream - a dish at once delicious, clever, and just plain fun - I knew I'd had an unforgettable meal.

If you missed last year's event, no worries: OITF is circling back to the Twin Cities on August 9, this time landing at picturesque Little Foot Farm near Afton. Given OITF's stated mission to "re-connect diners to the land and origins of their food and to honor the local farmers and food artisans who cultivate it," there will most certainly be discussion about how Little Foot owners Karen Weiss and Sally Doherty found their calling, especially given they were inspired to raise hogs in general and Berkshires in particular after being served "awesome" Berkshire pork by chef Lenny Russo at a 2005 OITF event.

Weiss and Doherty sell their heritage-breed Berkshire and Gloucestershire Old Spot hogs directly to food enthusiasts and a few local chefs, including chef Mike Phillips of Three Sons Meat Company (formerly Green Ox).

I tagged along with Phillips and chef Scott Pampuch - the two are this year's OITF host chefs - as they scouted the farm for the event and chatted with Weiss about Little Foot's sustainable philosophy and their careful practices for humanely raising and selling best-quality, highly-prized pork (as well as chickens, eggs, produce, and bedding plants).

As we talked, there might also have been a fair amount of piglet cooing going on, even by the charcuterie boys (the pic up top might be one of my favorites, ever). Oh my goodness the Gloucestershire Old Spot piglets are adorable with their snuggly snorting and flirty sly smiles. We were smitten!

You'd think it might have been tricky to move from petting pigs to planning the menu but alas, it was a seamless progression. Both Phillips and Pampuch are known for their pork mastery, so it goes without saying that the meal - which will also include piles of gorgeously prepared vegetables - will be at its essence utterly porktastic. The charcuterie was begun the very next day, in fact, with the butchering of two hogs.

Picture a dinner table set with a colorful variety of snappy, custom-made condiments to sample with each course, including the spicy-tangy-sweet Rhubarb Mostarda pictured below. Serve the mostarda as a foil for rich pork belly, pork terrine, or pork rillettes.

Buy tickets for this year's dinner at the OITF website. See Little Foot Farm's website if you're interested in purchasing heritage-breed pork, chicken, eggs, produce, or bedding plants.

See you on the farm!

Chef Matt Morgan's recipe for Rhubarb Mostarda at TC Taste/Minnesota Monthly Magazine.

Tickets for Outstanding in the Field 2012 - August 9, at Little Foot Farm in Afton, Minnesota - are on sale. I bought a ticket and then thought, Hey! I should post the pictures I took at the 2011 event, at Riverbend Farm in Delano...last July...

Yeah. In fact I have several pretty posts in the queue, waiting for me to dust them off and share them. I guess it takes a looming one-year anniversary to kick my butt into gear.

Or a new batch of pics! I tagged along just this week to Little Foot Farm with host chefs Mike Phillips and Scott Pampuch as they scoped the site for this summer's event and chatted through the menu. Stay tuned this coming week for more information, a recipe, and some fun pics, both here and on TC Taste/Minnesota Monthly Magazine.

Until then, here's a mere fraction of my snaps from last year's shindig, taken while eating, drinking, talking, and running around like a sundress-clad lunatic. Damn I had fun, particularly because I was lucky enough to attend with two of my favorite people in the world, Debbie & Stuart Williams. The three of us attempted the 2010 event but were too late to the game. I put myself on the mailing list so we wouldn't miss the next go-round and I swear we were the first to buy tickets.

Yes.

It turns out that July 26 was one of the prettiest days of the whole of last summer. Riverbend Farm was nothing short of breathtaking in the late afternoon sun, sparkly and lush and golden. Stu did his wine genius thing, handing out glasses of deliciousness mere minutes after arriving.

He's good that way.

While we all enjoyed pretty cocktails in the shade of hosts Mary & Greg Reynolds' front lawn, the crew was putting the finishing touches on the signature Outstanding in the Field table, snaking it's way in this case through a wheat field with a lovely view of the river (bend!).

Why one wears boots to farm dinners, courtesy of Debbie Williams.

It's the best fun of all for me to see the crew pull the meal together, having a blast while working their asses off, crafting a gorgeous meal out of fire and freshness. It's a sight to behold, truly.

Cucumber Salad with Goat Milk Creme Fraiche, Mint, Basil, Shaved Onion & Tomato

Field Salad of Greens, Soft-Boiled Eggs & Summer Vegetables

Braised Goat with Cornmeal Cake, Chile-Stewed Turtle Beans, Mustard Greens & Pickled Vegetables, my favorite dish of all of 2011. Divine.

Thousand Hills Grass-Fed Skirt Steak, Wood-Roasted Potatoes, Radishes, Green Beans & Chimichurri

I might have spilled my wine. And pissed off the wine gods for my wastefulness...look at the angry eyes in that stain! Luckily no one snapped a pic of my dress hung up on the back of my chair. Between that move and posing for pics in the middle of the wheat field, I had a pretty mosquito-bitten arse. Utterly deserved for being such a dork, of course.

And so totally worth it.

This Chanterelle Mushroom Ice Cream (recipe below), with Black Trumpet Caramel Shortbread, Morel Sugar & Toasted Wheatberries, blew my mind with its layers of earthy, creamy sweetness. A collaboration between forager Kathy Yerich and chef Scott Pampuch, I've thought and talked somewhat obsessively about it all year long.

As you'll see in my next two posts, preparations for the August 9 event at Little Foot Farm are already well under way. See you there?  

Chanterelle Ice Cream
Chef Scott Pampuch
Makes 1 quart

Note: Start the ice cream the day before you plan to serve it.

1 c. (8 oz.) egg yolks (about 10-12 large yolks)
4 oz. dried chanterelle mushrooms, crushed with a rolling pin
2 1/2 c. heavy cream (like Cedar Summit)
1 1/2 c. whole milk
1 1/4 c. granulated sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
1 tsp. salt

Freeze the bowl of your ice cream maker per manufacturer instructions, at least a full 24 hours before you spin the ice cream.

Add the egg yolks to a small bowl and whisk a bit to break apart the yolks. Leave whisk in the bowl and set aside.

Combine mushrooms, cream, milk, and sugar in a large saucepan. Set pan over medium heat and warm the mixture, stirring constantly, until sugar dissolves (do not simmer).

Temper the egg yolks by slowly whisking one ladleful of warm cream into the yolks. Slowly whisk the egg yolk-cream mixture back into the pan of cream. Stir in the vanilla and salt. Cool mixture to room temperature, then cover and chill overnight. 

When you're ready to churn the ice cream, working quickly so the cream stays very cold, strain the mixture through a fine-mesh strainer, pressing down on the solids to extract all of the cream and flavor (discard solids). Immediately transfer mixture to the frozen bowl of your ice cream maker and spin according to manufacturer instructions (usually around 30 minutes). Transfer ice cream to an airtight container and freeze until ready to serve.

Here's a potato salad to make all season long, with whatever fresh herbs you have on hand. The creamy, tangy dressing requires nothing more than a quick whir in the blender and ta da! - a bowlful of bright green deliciousness that had me eating it straight from the bowl, goddess-style.

Here's also a potato salad to customize to your heart/stomach/cooler's content. I added chopped capers because I was craving their salty punch, but a jar of pickled asparagus beckoned as well. My mom always put chopped hard-boiled eggs in her potato salad, which I didn't love as a kid, but absolutely adore now.

As the season progresses feel free to add:
asparagus
shelled peas or fava beans
cherry tomatoes
fresh corn
sweet onions
torn spinach, arugula, or other greens
green beans
snap or sugar peas

The dressing, as you will (hopefully) soon discover, is as lovely spooned over salad greens, or as a dip for hot or cold vegetables, as it is tossed with potatoes.

Recipe for Green Goddess Potato Salad at TC Taste/Minnesota Monthly Magazine.

Perhaps it's cliche that I read MFK Fisher's The Gastronomical Me and wanted to immerse myself in the world of food, but that's OK. Who wouldn't want to do exactly that after reading that sexy, scrumptious book? My goodness that woman could write, my mouth waters (and my heart swoons) just thinking about it.

There's one passage in particular that has had me making simple cauliflower gratins for years. I purposely don't look back at the specifics, I just count on how incredible she made cauliflower roasted with cream and Gruyere sound, swiped through with crusty bread and enjoyed with cold wine.

Lord.

So here's my version, so simple, so completely gluten-free, so much better than the pasta dish I served to Nathan and John tonight (in my opinion). I threw in some arugula leaves this evening because I had them, but you wouldn't need to include them.

Cauliflower Gratin
Serves 4 as a side or 2 as a main course

1 Tbsp. soft butter
1 head cauliflower, cored, separated into 1-inch florets
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 c. heavy cream
fresh whole nutmeg
sea salt
freshly ground black pepper
1 c. freshly grated Gruyere, Parmesan, or other favorite cheese

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Smear soft butter into a tart pan. Sprinkle minced garlic across the bottom of the pan.

Bring a large pot of nicely salted water to boil. Add the cauliflower and boil for 3-5 minutes, until cauliflower is tender-crisp. Drain thoroughly in a colander, then transfer cauliflower to tart pan, distributing evenly.

Pour cream over cauliflower. Grate a bit of fresh nutmeg over the cauliflower, then sprinkle lightly with a little salt and several grinds of black pepper. Top with cheese.

Bake gratin for 40-45 minutes, until light golden brown. Remove from oven and let sit for 10 minutes. Serve warm.