A Site to be Seen

Liz and I were a sight to behold (if anyone happened to take notice), as we sat together on my front porch, surrounded by cutting boards and mounds of vegetables. You see, it was too glorious a day to be inside peeling and chopping, so we took our work outside. While our little guys rode their bikes on the driveway, blew bubbles and drew with chalk, Liz and I sat together on my front porch, next to blooming daffodils and early spring flowers, preparing our vegetables for the week.

Liz and I often get together to wash and trim veggies as a way to keep ourselves (and hands!) away from the pita chip and pretzels. We’ll keep sliced vegetables on hand as healthy snacks (for ourselves and the kids!) or add-ins to salads throughout the week.

Sometimes a task as simple as this one can be daunting if done alone, especially with the demands of motherhood. So, on a week when Liz and I are too busy to create full-fledged meals together, we’ll often settle for an hour of washing and chopping!
And on this sunny, 70 degree Spring afternoon, a chore became a pleasure as we sat side by side, peeling and chopping carrots, cucumbers, celery and red peppers, while talking and watching our boys play together.

Kitchen Hospitality

Remnants of last weekend’s torrential rain storms lingered in my kitchen ceiling, which began leaking a few days later. Apparently, my gutters were clogged and the water found its way into the walls and through the light sockets in my ceiling. It wasn’t the greatest week to have an out-of-commission kitchen, since I needed to cater an upcoming gymnastics meet with my friend Lynn and I had plans to make Irish Soda Bread and corned beef for St. Patrick’s Day.

This was a really great time to have friends who have the “my kitchen is yours” attitude that stems directly from Cooking with Friends. Thank goodness for my neighbor Jenn’s St. Patrick’s Day hospitality, without which our mini Irish Soda Bread muffins wouldn’t have been possible.

You see, when Jackie arrived at my house Wednesday, we weren’t quite sure where we’d be baking our muffins. We knew we’d be mixing the ingredients together in my soggy kitchen, but hadn’t yet decided on where to bake them. So, when we spotted Jenn, who had her earphones on and was poised for a jog outside her house, we asked if we could borrow her oven. Without hesitation, Jenn generously agreed!

It was quite a comical scene (if the neighbors were actually watching) as Jackie and I took turns running from my house to Jenn’s, two houses away, with our muffin tins in tow. We were determined to bake these two bite suckers for a St. Patrick’s Day treat. I have to say, the pleasure we witnessed as our 4-year old boys gobble them up made our escapades worthwhile. “These muffins are too good,” they said, licking their fingers clean.

We modified a King Arthur recipe: http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/irish-soda-bread-muffins-recipe, eliminating the caraway seeds, using buttermilk and a raw cane Demerara sugar. The muffins are almost scone-like and could probably be free-formed on baking sheets with a bit of extra flour. In fact, they are so delicious that I’d make them for a Sunday brunch year-round!

Here’s the recipe:

Mini Soda Bread Muffins
Makes 36 Muffins

1 ½ cups white flour
¾ cups white whole wheat flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
¼ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoons salt
1/3 cup sugar
1 ½ cups currants
1 egg
1 cup buttermilk
6 tablespoons melted butter
¼ cup raw Demerara sugar

Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees. In a large mixing bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, sugar and currants. In a separate bowl, whisk together the buttermilk, egg and melted butter. Stir the wet ingredients into the dry. Spoon the batter into in a well greased mini muffin pan, generously sprinkle each with the raw cane sugar and bake for eleven or twelve minutes until firm.

Fried

Wow.

I’ve always stayed away from fried food in my cooking. It just isn’t the healthiest method to prepare food. I do though, on occasion, make my lightly fried chicken tenders and drag the vintage 1960’s deep fryer out for crispy falafel balls or shrimp tempura. But today, the only “fried” item I’m thinking about, is my hard drive. And now I see clearly just how bad frying is.

My regularly scheduled blog, which I wrote from my heart sometime over the weekend about Cooking with Friends as a great way to volunteer, was lost with all the other personal data on my laptop – photos from my kids’ birthday parties, future blogs and other assorted bits and pieces of my life. It’s a real honest-to-God bummer.

The red alert appeared by way of the eerily blue screen on my computer this morning, after a vicious wind and rain storm pounded us throughout the night. Was this the dread “blue screen of death?” Yes, my laptop was plugged in at the time. And no, I hadn’t backed up all my data. The tech support guy used the term “fried” to describe my situation and it was at that descriptive moment that I realized that frying has no place in my life.

Indeed, my hard drive is fried, like a mozzarella stick or a piece of calamari.

We sometimes turn to similes to shed light on life. Frying is not a positive word, nor is it healthy. It clogs arteries, circuits and chips.

A Sure Sign of Spring

As I wrote out a hefty check ($500 plus dollars) for my CSA share the other day, I was transported to warm weather moments of crispy kale chips, pastel colored cauliflower sauté and green garlic scape stir fry. I imagined times together with Debbie, scrubbing the dirt off the summer vegetables and talking about what to create with our weekly bounty. I pictured how excited my three children would be, nibbling salted salad turnips, sweet garden peas and fresh Edamame. I remembered kitchen conversations about colors we didn’t know vegetables came in, how our CSA share supports the farmer and the benefits of eating locally grown foods.

As the pen hit the paper, I realized just how much I’ve missed my farm fresh organic vegetables as a source of cooking inspiration and dietary variety. The Crocus flowers may be blooming on my neighbor’s front lawn, but to me, the signature on this check is the surest sign of spring and summer.

To find out about CSA’s in your area, this website is a great resource: http://www.localharvest.org/csa/

To fill a cookie jar

There are so many reasons to cook with friends and as you probably know, I do them all! But, sometimes you just need to fill the cookie jar with something delicious and homemade. That’s what Jackie and I decided when we got together to make chocolate chip biscotti last Wednesday. Sure, with news of a snowstorm looming, we could have decided to stock our freezers with dinner foods (and certainly both could have used it!), but we set our needs aside and went for pure desire.

Put simply, we envisioned ourselves snowed in and needing a homemade crunch with our morning cup of coffee.

Since Jackie and I have made biscotti together many times, we knew it would be a slow double bake process. That’s why I started my batch early and had two logs baking in the oven before Jackie even rang my doorbell. To speed things up, I had all the ingredients ready for her—all she would have to do is measure, pulse and mold.

While the biscotti baked, we sat down to enjoy a delicious lunch and then a cup of coffee with one of our newly baked biscotti on the side.

Since my kids seem to have discovered the hidden biscotti, my cookie jar is empty again. And with such busy weekends – plays, dinner plans, gymnastic meets, skiing—I haven’t been able to replenish it yet. It’s clear that everyone enjoyed the biscotti “down to the last drop” and it was a good idea to toss aside our cooking needs.

Chocolate Chip Biscotti
Makes two dozen

These chocolate chip biscotti are a perfect accompaniment to a cup of coffee and make a great hostess gift or teacher gift.
2 ½ cups flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
¾ cup sugar
¼ teaspoon salt
2 eggs, plus another one for a wash
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 tablespoons butter, softened
3/4 cup mini chocolate chips

Pre-heat the oven to 325 degrees. In a food processor fitted with a steel blade, mix together flour, baking soda, sugar, salt, eggs, vanilla and butter until resembles a wet sand and starts to stick together. Transfer the mixture to a well flour pastry mat or floured surface and separate into two mounds. Divide the chocolate chips among the two piles and begin molding the dough into a log 8 inches long and 2 inches wide. Repeat with the other mound of dough. Brush the top and sides of the logs with a pastry brush and transfer to a parchment paper lined baking sheet.

Bake in the center rack of the oven for approximately 30 minutes until golden and cooked through. Remove from the oven and cool for about 10 minutes. When cooled, slice the logs on a diagonal into ½ inch slices. Lay pieces on a baking sheet and cook for another ten minutes or so until hardened. Cool and store in a cookie jar!