Fresh Tart

Asparagus is of course one of spring's best treats. Whether steamed, roasted, or sauteed, everyone adores asparagus snuggled up to eggs or salty ham or even better, both! But my personal favorite is butttery asparagus, especially showered with toasted nuts. This soup puts a good amount of asparagus to creamy use, with brown butter and pecans to gild the lily. A squeeze of lemon and fresh chives keep the gilding in check.

A soup this silky smooth and pretty seems fussy or even fancy, but it's really quite simple to pull together, 30 minutes from start to finish. Given that temps are reaching 90 degrees today, you could eat it chilled with a dollop of Greek yogurt or creme fraiche, with a crisp salad (that includes salty ham and/or a soft-cooked egg!) and welcome spring in style.

Recipe for Asparagus Soup with Pecans & Brown Butter at TC Taste/Minnesota Monthly Magazine.

If you, like I, set strange challenges for yourself like to eat vegetables for three meals a day as often as possible, you will adore this recipe. It's a flavor- and color-packed way to start a day, but of course would make a terrific lunch or dinner. In my mind it exists in the realm of fried rice, but without the rice, so the focus stays on all of those lovely vegetables. (That said, feel free to add rice!)

Do you cook with coconut oil? It's so delicious, and so good for you, you'll find yourself reaching for it again and again when sauteeing vegetables or making breakfast treats like pancakes. I love that it adds a Thai-inspired fragrance for zero effort - build on that with Thai curry paste, fish sauce, fresh lime, and basil and you'll have a pan full of magic in just a few minutes. Assuming that CSA boxes and farmers markets will not be bereft of produce all season long, this is a terrific dish for plowing through a load of vegetables - mix and match with whatever is showing up.

If you don't eat eggs, you could easily make this dish vegan by substituting soft tofu for the eggs. Scramble away! If you aren't vegan and have leftover chicken or pork or steak from dinner the night before, add it! And certainly substitute whatever nuts you like best. Very adaptable.

Recipe for Thai-Style Fried Not-Rice at TC Taste/Minnesota Monthly Magazine.

Angharad Guy

If you love eating well while doing good, get thee to Share Our Strength's Annual Blogger Bake Sale, this coming Saturday at Midtown Global Market. You might not know it, but Minnesota has an incredibly talented, vibrant food blogger scene. We call ourselves Fortify: A Food Community, where we connect virtually and in person with the food industry and food lovers in any industry. We love to cook, and bake, and share recipes, and gather to help out where we can.

This year's event is coordinated once again by Delightfully Midwestern blogger Lisa Nguyen Gaulke. When we chatted about the upcoming event, I mentioned it would be fun to share a recipe from last year's sale with all of you. She said, "You have to ask Angharad for her lemon cake recipe, it was my favorite item and last year's best seller...partially because I bought six slices myself!" And so I did ask, therefore the gorgeous recipe below for Lemon-Drenched Lemon Cake, perhaps the best cake name ever. Angharad's blog is Eating for England and is chock full of perfect recipes, gorgeous photos, and bits and bobs of her travels home to England.

Angharad Guy

Lisa notes that the Kitchen in the Market space at Midtown Global Market is key to the success of the sale. "Bring the kids, walk around, grab lunch, then swing by the sale for dessert. Last year, there were 15 participants and we plan the same this year, with each blogger baking and donating anywhere from 2-4 different kinds of treats. There will be a variety of baked goods - cookies, granola bars, breads, gluten-free cupcakes, even honey and homemade jam!"

And when your treats are devoured: Make. This. Cake.

Recipe for Angharad Guy's Lemon-Drenched Lemon Cake at TC Taste/Minnesota Monthly Magazine.

I had the pleasure just a few short weeks ago of doing a cooking demo at the Minneapolis Home & Garden Show with Sea Change executive chef Jamie Malone. Since the show, Malone was named to Food & Wine Magazine's list of Best New Chefs 2013! Very exciting for her, and for Minneapolis. If you're waiting for a show at the Guthrie to enjoy a meal at Sea Change, you're so missing out. Very soon, when spring arrives, make your way over to their stunning patio, overlooking the Stone Arch Bridge, and feast upon oysters and perfectly cooked, sustainable fish, washed down with beautiful wine. A night to remember, for sure.

And for a night at home in front of a roaring fire, because that's just where we're still at, make this simple, elegant fish. I hadn't baked fish in a salt crust before doing the demo with Malone, but I sure will now. First of all, it's really fun. The crust is just egg whites and kosher salt, mixed until it feels like wet sand.

It takes just a couple of minutes to pat it around the fish - and draw on a smiley face, per Malone's suggestion - which can be done ahead by a few hours if you like. After a brief bake, crack open the crust (very impressive) to reveal moist, silky fish, not salty at all but perfectly seasoned, ready to eat alongside spring vegetables with a drizzle of best olive oil. You can't beat if for elegance and simplicity.

I made the version in the picture with whole snapper because I hadn't called ahead for striped bass. After having both (the striped bass at the Home & Garden Show with Malone vs. the snapper I made) call Coastal Seafoods ahead for the striped bass (they can order it but don't stock it); it's meatier flesh is a perfect fit for baking inside the crust.

Chef Jamie Malone's recipe for Whole Fish Baked in a Salt Crust with Fennel & Olives at TC Taste/Minnesota Monthly Magazine.

Last week I shared green juice and flatbread pizza recipes that are perfect for using up farmers market or CSA box produce. This week, same goal, just add booze!

In honor of Earth Day (April 22), I used Prairie Vodka, carefully made in right here in Minnesota from organic corn (gluten-free!). It's a beautiful collaboration, among farmers and distiller, absolutely check out their bucolic website to prove it. The vodka has a decidedly fruity bouquet, so I thought it would be fun to play with CSA box stalwarts mint, honey, and cucumbers - topped with bubbles of course - for a summer cooler.

Why am I writing about summer? Because I predict we will go from horizontal April snow straight to 90-degree May days, with nary a balmy 72 degrees in between, and I want you to be ready to press a cold bubbly tipple against your sweaty forehead. Also, I'm tired of complaining and am ready to just will this winter to be gone. So make this drink to hurry things up! And to celebrate locally-made, organic vodka, and the promise of summer so tantalizingly near.

And then tuck the recipe away for when you're swimming in cukes, and mint has overrun your garden, and you're blissfully complaining about damn Minnesota humidity. Because that's how we do in the land where everyone is above average.

Cheers to Earth Day!

Recipe for Summer Promise Bubbles at TC Taste/Minnesota Monthly Magazine.

Certainly green juices are all the rage right now and I wouldn't blame you one bit if you were rolling your eyes at the trend. We all know how food crushes go, where you suddenly don't know anything about health if you're not snacking on goji berries, sipping kombucha, and whirring spirulina into kale smoothies. 

But this juice trend I actually love and as my fellow spring-starved Minnesotans, I suspect you might too. I've had a juicer for a couple of years but hadn't really used it. As buds pop on the trees, thoughts turn to not just romance but also lighter, more colorful food. And honestly, after being completely fed up with blaming the weather for how sluggish I've been feeling, I was inspired by a gloriously juicy post on Roost (you must take a peek at it, what a gorgeous blog!) to dust off the juicer and make myself a glass...of spring! Kablam! Fresh green juice is at once tart and intensely herbal, with a hint of sweet and salt. It smells like not-winter, and makes me smile, and does other nice things too like wake me up better than a cup of coffee and add a bit of glow to my skin. What's not to love?

When you prep the herbs, vegetables, and fruit for your juicer, you realize pretty quickly that juicing consumes a fair amount of produce each week. Which is terrific, I can't think of an easier way to add a serious blast of plants to your diet. I'm obviously working with co-op and grocery store offerings right now, but I can't help but dream of summer, and farmers markets, and this slick new (to me) way for using up all of the loveliness that arrives each week in a CSA box. I'm the queen of pickles, and I'm happy to make sauces and soups and can and freeze them, but adding fresh juice to the mix is the perfect way to guarantee that nothing in that box goes to waste.

If you too are dreaming of garden-ripe treats, get thee to Seward Co-op this coming Saturday, April 13, for their 12th Annual Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA) Fair from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Bring the kids and meet with more than 30 participating farms as you decide which CSA share to purchase. Make sure to enter drawings to win a meat bundle from the experts in the co-op’s meat department (valued at $200); copies of Seward’s 40th Anniversary book for sale; and $1,500 worth of full grocery cart giveaways to several lucky winners (eligible with a $20 purchase). See the full list of farms and start planning for a bounty of fresh produce, flowers, cheeses, and meats!

Slam a juice before you head over to get inspired...

Recipe for Blast of Spring Green Juice at TC Taste/Minnesota Monthly Magazine.

And for lunch or dinner, make this lovely Spring CSA Box Pizza via Seward Co-op! The colors and flavors are just stunning. Bring on spring and short of that (snow-cough-snow), see you at the fair!

Spring CSA Box Pizza
Recipe via Seward Co-op
Serves 4

Holy Land Lavash bread (or flatbread naan), one package 
2 Tbsp. olive oil
1 bunch asparagus, woody end snapped off, sliced lengthwise into 1-inch pieces
4 petit pan or sunburst summer squashes, sliced thin
3/4 lb. sliced wild or farmed fresh mushrooms
1 – 4 oz log of Stickney Hill fresh chevre (goat cheese), broken into small pieces, set aside
1 lb. fresh mozzarella, sliced as thin as possible, set aside
1 large spring onion, bulb and green part sliced thin, set aside
2 Tbsp. shredded Parmesan cheese
1 Tbsp. fresh thyme leaves, picked from stems 
sea salt & freshly ground black pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 450 degrees F. If using a pizza stone, preheat that in the oven too. Otherwise place individual pizzas directly on the center rack.

Lightly sauté asparagus summer squash and mushrooms separately, but in the same pan, using the 2 Tbsp. of oil divided. Use more oil if needed. Set each vegetable aside separately in small bowls.

Lay out the 4 Lavash breads on a board or on the counter. Divide and distribute the mozzarella cheese among them all. Distribute all the other sautéed vegetables evenly among the pizzas on top of the mozzarella cheese. 

Divide and distribute the chevre pieces with your fingers evenly among each pizza in 1/2- to 3/4-inch pieces. This is kind of messy as the cheese is a bit wet and sticky. 

Sprinkle the spring onion pieces around the pizzas as well as the Parmesan cheese. Distribute the fresh thyme among them. Season with salt and pepper.

Place in the preheated oven for 15 to 18 minutes, turning mid way as needed. Bake until crust is golden brown.

Serve with a side salad… some of the ingredients of which you may have found from the very same CSA Box!

I know, I know, I should have posted this before Easter, but lamb with gremolata is lovely all spring (year) long, so make it this week instead! I had let gremolata - a relish of minced lemon zest, garlic, and parsley - slip out of my rotation but it's back with a vengeance, thanks to helping out at a Cooking the Market class at Kitchen in the Market last week.

Have you ever taken a Cooking the Market class? Led by co-owner chef Molly Herrmann, the classes are pure improvisation, cooking with imagination and instinct, the perfect cooking class in my mind because it captures exactly the joy (and reality!) of cooking at home. Molly leads the class through a tour of Midtown Global Market, pointing out potential ingredients from The Salty Tart, Holy Land Market, Grassroots Gourmet, Produce Exchange, and El Burrito Mercado. The goal is to step out of your comfort zone and experiment with new ingredients while a chef provides guidance and assistance. Add music and wine and you've got a winning evening out with friends, coworkers, or family.

Last week's gremolata topped a dish our group named Mediterranean Tacos: socca (chickpea flour pancakes) topped with harissa, crispy Brussels sprouts, fried haloumi cheese, and preserved lemon gremolata. So lovely! And a pretty terrific Meatless Monday dinner if you need ideas...

You may have had gremolata atop osso bucco, where its bright, fresh zing is a traditional contrast to silky braised meat. But you don't have to think hard to imagine that it is just fabulous tossed with warm (or cold) new potatoes with olive oil, or spooned over a pan of sauteed peas, or swirled into soup, or sprinkled over seared fish...on and on. Add mint if you like - terrific with lamb, of course - or shallots instead of garlic. Some recipes call for adding anchovies which would probably make the best egg salad sandwich ever (still have Easter eggs to use up?) For me, when spring is frustratingly near but not yet quite here, punches of color and zest are not just welcome, but essential.

Recipe for Grilled Lamb Chops with Gremolata at TC Taste/Minnesota Monthly Magazine.

Remember Poppycock, the massively addictive caramel-glazed popcorn with almonds that has graced every dorm room on every campus ever? Well apparently I still love the stuff, because when craft ice cream whiz kids Benny Solberg and Erik Powers - aka the Froz Broz - asked me about collaborating on an ice cream flavor (whee!), what we came up with together is in a nutshell Poppycock ice cream. Hellooo brown butter, salty caramel, and glazed almonds, spun into a popcorn-infused custard base. I'm telling you, this beauty hits all the right crunchy-creamy-salty-sweet notes.

It may still be ridiculously cold outside, but it's the perfect time for ice cream.

Benny and Erik swung by my house to demonstrate the ice cream's various steps, chat about their business plans, and perhaps share a couple of cocktails. Have I mentioned that they are awesome? Smart and funny and talented times 1000, the fact that they're churning the coolest ice cream flavors in town is really just a bonus. A decidedly delicious bonus! Born from their mutual passion for cooking with local ingredients, the long-time friends decided to invent adventurous ice cream flavors...a new one each week! With flavors like Sweet Pea Mint; Tomato; and Black Pepper Grape Syrup with Pita Cracker & Chevre (to name just a few), the Broz work with local farmers to incorporate peak-season ingredients. Every flavor I've tried - I'll confess I've been lucky enough to try several - has been just beautiful to eat.

These are ice cream flavors you think and talk about afterward.

I know your next question: Where can I buy some? And the answer is: You can't. Not quite yet. For now, they give away two pints of each weekly flavor, so definitely subscribe to their blog and leave a comment to enter their drawings. Or, hire them to make you a special small batch. And then, if you like, contribute to their equipment fund, because in their words, "Making our own base is crucial to the quality and breadth of flavors we create, we have no choice but to get the expensive pasteurization equipment required to get legal with 'the man'."

While you're waiting for the Froz Broz to take over the world, churn yourself a batch of Caramel Popcorn Candied Almond and forget there's still snow on the ground.

Happy Brown Butter Spring!

The Froz Broz recipe for Caramel Popcorn Candied Almond Ice Cream is at TC Taste/Minnesota Monthly Magazine.

My son Nathan and I have been enjoying the privilege of volunteering at Perspectives Kids Cafe on Friday evenings. Founded by Sue Zelickson in 1998, Kids Cafe is a nutrition and self-esteem program for high risk and homeless youth living in St. Louis Park. Under the leadership of "Chef Dan" Tobias-Kotyk, the cafe is humming five days a week, serving more than 55 elementary aged children each day. Chef Dan, along with volunteers like Nathan and me, work with the children as they prepare, serve, and clean up a nightly dinner. The food is deliciously cooked from scratch, from Chef Dan's time-tested and popular menus and recipes, with fun twists and education about nutrition and what makes fresh food taste good.

The whole crew sits down to dinner together. The kids talk about what they like - and don't like - as well as howl with laughter at how much taller my son is than I am. The little boy sitting next to me last Friday lost a tooth during dinner, while the other kids debated the merits of cinnamon rolls with butter or without (breakfast for dinner is a favorite, as is Chef Dan's famous Chicago-style, deep-dish pizza, yes).

The magic of Kids Cafe isn't just the food, though. It's the calm, funny presence of Chef Dan, who is an educator by training and a chef by accident. After graduating from college, he substitute taught while cooking at the Ukrainian American Community Center to pay the bills. When Perspectives was hiring a kitchen manager with teaching experience for their new Kids Cafe, it turned out that the cooking teacher was their man. Fifteen years later, Chef Dan says  his favorite part of the job is working with the kids in the kitchen, seeing the children try new foods, and having the children develop favorite meals to cook for the whole group. 

He cooks at home too, making up and adapting recipes for his wife and daughters' soy, dairy, and gluten allergies. When I told him I couldn't eat gluten, he said he had a recipe for Mexican-style meatballs that I might like. We made them with the kids a couple of weeks ago and...ding ding ding! Huge win, absolutely fantastic. Nathan asked me to make them at home, I asked if I could share the recipe with you, and luckily Chef Dan said...yes. So here you go! The meatballs are made with crushed tortilla chips, in a spicy tomato-chile sauce, to serve over rice. It's worth mentioning that I've also eaten them wrapped in a warmed corn tortilla, and Nathan pointed out they'd make an incredible meatball sandwich, so make the whole batch and try them as many ways as you can think of.

Note that the meatballs aren't browned before adding to the sauce. They emerge so tender and flavorful, I may never brown another meatball again. Great technique.

Chef Dan Tobias-Kotyk's recipe for Meatballs in Tomato-Serrano Chile Sauce at TC Taste/Minnesota Monthly Magazine.

Is there anything more fun than conjuring something delicious from nothing but your imagination and leftovers? Don't answer that, but instead consider the primal satisfaction that comes from being both resourceful and frugal. I may have read a few too many Laura Ingalls Wilder stories as a young girl, but preparing meals from a perfect recipe with perfect ingredients is neither as fun nor as tasty as making things up as I go from whatever I have on hand. Urban pioneering. Or something.

Anyhow, that's all a long explanation for how I arrived at making this harissa, the of-the-moment condiment that is making its way into every meal at our house. Not only was the harissa itself arrived at in my attempt to not waste lovely ingredients leftover from other recipes, but in turn I'm using the harissa to make up an endless number of flavorful dishes on the fly.

I'm calling this harissa although it's really a deliciously ubiquitous chile-tomato paste, relevant to put a Middle Eastern spin on a dish, but also at home in Tex-Mex and Asian dishes as well. The depth of flavor comes from toasting the chiles and spices as well as roasting the tomatoes. I lean on the grocery-store versions of harissa and chile pastes as much as the next person, but you really can't beat the intensity and freshness of flavor achieved by making harissa yourself. Harissa typically doesn't include tomatoes, but I do love how the tomatoes temper the paste's heat, and add a level of acidity, that I think widens harissa's horizons. Scrape the finished, cooled paste into a jar and enjoy for several weeks, in any way you can think of.

A few ideas to get you started:

Spoon over leftover steak, pork, chicken, tofu, or any number of vegetables and roll into warm corn tortillas.
Smear on grilled flatbread and top with an egg fried in olive oil.
Stir into broth for cooking couscous or rice. Serve the cooked grains with a dollop of yogurt or sour cream, olives, fresh herbs, a crumble of cheese, and toasted nuts. Top with a poached egg to gild the lily.
Swirl into a bowl of pretty much any soup to take it from just fine to truly incredible. Think Asian noodle soups, Italian-style broth soups, Mexican-style tortilla soups.
Whisk into vinaigrettes.
Add to pasta sauces, creamy or tomato, for lovely color and depth of flavor.
Mix into and onto meatloaf or meatballs.
Brush onto grilling or roasting chicken.
Spread on generously buttered bread before making your best grilled cheese sandwich ever. Ditto quesadillas.

Do not be surprised if you consider rubbing it into sore muscles!

Recipe for Chile-Tomato "Harissa" at TC Taste/Minnesota Monthly Magazine.