Fresh Tart

Despite our first frost, there are still plenty of tomatoes kicking around! Make a double batch of this easy soup and freeze it for a mid-winter's treat. Or eat it all hot from the pot, which is a good plan too. I make this soup all season long by roasting tomatoes as I pick them, stashing them in the fridge, then at week's end simmering it all into a batch of soup. You could freeze batches of roasted tomatoes as well, see mid-winter's treat mentioned above.

It's always great fun to enjoy tomato soup with a grilled cheese sandwich so if that's what you're in the mood for - back-to-school and chilly nights and such - skip the croutons and cream and grill away with cheese and butter. Slide a slice of tomato or a smear of tomato jam into the middle of the sandwich for a vertically integrated tomato explosion. Killer.

I left the cream in the version pictured, then fried up socca (chickpea flour pancakes) to eat as a warm (gluten-free) flatbread with my soup. Bits of crispy sage, a sprinkle of garlic scape salt, lots of freshly ground black pepper, and an extra drizzle of olive oil made for a fast treat, one of my very favorites.

Recipe for Roasted Tomato Soup at TC Taste/Minnesota Monthly Magazine.

If you've only had hominy in pozole or other Mexican-inspired dishes, you're missing out. Hominy is corn that has been dried and then soaked in lime water to soften and puff the kernels. Simmering hominy in broth softens the kernels even further, resulting in dumpling-like little pillows just begging to deliver brown butter to your palate. At least that's how I think of them. They're darned good baked with cheese as well, macaroni-style, or gratineed with cauliflower, which is how chef JD Fratzke serves hominy at The Strip Club Meat & Fish.

All good.

This dish would be made better with cubes of roasted squash, which I meant to include, but forgot to grab at the market. So add squash! Or halved end-of-season cherry tomatoes, warmed through for a minute in the butter. Toss, toss. I've added a few slices of leftover grilled sausage and been glad, too. It's that kind of dish - fast, cheap, comforting, and highly adaptable.

As a side note, I'd like to advocate for the stand-alone beauty of fried sage. Oh my gosh so delicious. I always fry a few extra leaves to snack on while I make the rest of the dish.

As another side note, brown sage butter is incredible on popcorn!

Recipe for Hominy with Brown Butter & Crispy Sage at TC Taste/Minnesota Monthly Magazine.

If you're a fan of deli-style pickles, then you're a fan of salt-brine fermented pickles. I am too, I am too! In fact, I'll never forget the first time I had fat slices of salty fermented pickles at Upstairs Downstairs Deli in Madison, Wisconsin - bright green and uber-garlicky, I couldn't stop eating them. (What are these? Why are they different? Why are they so addictive? I pretty much drove my college roommates nuts with my constant food chatter and questions.) As much as I love the bite of a vinegar pickle, the milder sourness of fermented pickles does make them go down like buttah.

Bonus: They're incredibly easy to make! Fermented pickles require no vinegar - the tanginess is a by-product of fermentation, which happens with very little effort, right on your counter. Feel free to add any combination of your favorite pickling spices - coriander seeds, mustard seeds, chile flakes, cardamom pods, black peppercorns, allspice, fresh chiles, cloves - or keep them really simple with just dill and garlic. Some recipes suggest adding a few grape leaves, as their tannins help keep pickles crisp. I like the idea if you get around to sealing the jars for later eating, but honestly we devour them so quickly, it's never an issue.

I pretty much smell like a pickle lately, cranking out vinegary & fermented batches of pickled corn, beets, green beans, peaches, watermelon rind, radishes, cauliflower, and peppers, with my Kitchen in the Market Provisions class partner chef Scott Pampuch. In fact we're teaching a Pickling the Market class in just a couple of weeks, on Saturday, August 11. Join us for cocktails and brunch as we wander through the market grabbing what looks good and fresh and then...pickling it! You will leave stuffed with treats both sweet and savory, as well as with more than enough tips to get pickling at home. I hope to see you!

Until then, definitely set a batch of CSA or farmers' market pickles to fermenting...go!

Recipe for Fermented Cucumber Pickles at TC Taste/Minnesota Monthly Magazine.

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.

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.

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.

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.

As someone who spends a lot of time in grocery stores, it's hard to deny the primal thrill of foraging for edibles in the great outdoors. It's similar to the pleasure in picking tomatoes I've grown myself, except a bit more powerful. There is, in fact, a Hierarchy of Food-Gathering Satisfaction, which exists completely in my own mind, and goes something like this: Foraging (hunting, fishing), gardening, farm stands, farmers markets, co-ops, grocery stores. The thrill of the chase apparently persists even in the soul of a city girl.

Especially when you can forage right in the city! There are stinging nettles to be found in almost anyone's yard, which you well know if you've ever grabbed one to yank out of a flower bed (ouch). Next time you see them, put on some gloves, pull them up, then save them to make salt, an idea I'm stealing from my friends Kathy Yerich and Scott Pampuch, who both made and shared nettle salt in the last couple of weeks.

Nettle salt is easy to make and deliciously savory, with a slightly grassy flavor that is lovely with corn, eggs, butter, and bread. Kathy made hers by pulsing fresh nettle leaves with sea salt in a food processor, then spreading the mixture to dry on a baking sheet. Her salt was bright green and pungent, a gorgeous topping for the pizzas we Minnesota Food Bloggers made at our recent gathering at Kitchen in the Market with Zoe Francois. Scott made his by first drying the nettles before pulsing with coarse sea salt. His version had more texture and a softer flavor, which was amazing sprinkled on the popcorn tossed with brown butter he set out at his In Search of Food party at Fulton Beer.

Make it both ways! Recipe for Nettle Salt at TC Taste/Minnesota Monthly Magazine.

It's a little bit ridiculous that I haven't posted about sopes before - I make and devour them several times a week. In fact, I'm a maniacal cornmeal cake fan in general. Chef Thomas Boemer had an insane version on Corner Table's menu a couple of weeks ago, with a bit of lard kneaded in, fried in butter, and topped with pork confit. Oh my word it was so good that I ordered another one to go to have for breakfast the next day.

You can do some pretty serious sope damage at Midtown Global Market as well. Taqueria Los Ocampo's version is a fabulously hot mess, loaded with tender chicken, melted cheese, lettuce, radishes, and sour cream. Add one of their fantastic salsas, alongside a large stack of napkins, and dig it like a day off.

The version I eat most often is the one I make at home. Nothing more than masa harina, a pinch of salt, and water kneaded together before being shaped and fried, they're the perfect delivery vehicle for pretty much whatever you have on hand: Guacamole, eggs any style, salad, cheese, beans, chorizo, tomatoes, pickled things, fried potatoes, on and deliciously on...

Recipe for Sopes at TC Taste/Minnesota Monthly Magazine.