Fire and Succotash

Posted on October 5, 2015 by Tasha

So here I am again! And with a recipe as promised earlier. I was holding onto this post until Bryan’s post on the Fires of Change blog went up, so that all of you not in Flagstaff could get an idea of what heck was absorbing all the energy around here in August/September … the post explains his thoughts and motivations for the new work, and even includes a making-of video with some footage shot by yours truly—ha!

And, how about some succotash? I admit that we’re about done with fresh beans and corn here, but who knows what’s fresh where you all are … we actually snagged what’s probably the last fresh corn and black eyed peas of the season at the farmers’ market yesterday, so we may have one more variation on this in the coming week. I snuck in these photos here and there over the past month or so. It also includes my favorite tips for prepping fava beans—how I love them (I love the black eyes too, what is it about peas?). Here’s to a last taste of summer for those of us in the northern half!

Shelling Fava beans:

Favas do take a little extra work, since you need to shell them twice, but I think the flavor is well worth it. Especially in the second shelling, this is one of those times when being efficient with your hand motions makes a big difference—the difference between a task that feels tedious and one that’s very doable.

Start some water to boil in a medium-size pot on the stove. Split the thick outer pods and pop out the beans. When the water is boiling, drop in the beans. Boil just until they all float, about a minute or two. Pour them into a colander, and either pour a little cold water over them, or just wait until they’re cool enough to handle.

Boiling softens the inner shells covering the beans—they’ll be opaque whitish-green and leathery. They’re not very tasty as you can imagine, which is why we’re taking them off. My favorite way to do this is to use one hand to grab a bean, and hold it over a bowl to collect the shelled ones. Pinch a tear in the shell with the other hand, and use the first hand to squeeze the bean so it pops out of the shell and into the bowl. Reach for a new bean with the first hand at the same time the other hand drops the shell into a compost/discard pile. Repeat.

A quick note on cutting corn off the cob (as long as we’re talking about prepping veggies): any time I try standing the corn up and cutting off the kernels on a flat surface, it makes a humongous mess, which only makes me like this task less. Lately I’ve been holding the corn cob over a big bowl (with fingers as far towards the bottom of the cob as possible) and slicing off the kernels with a knife across the top. I know it looks like I’m about to cut my finger off, but I haven’t come close to that so far …

Fava Bean or Fresh Pea Succotash

Fittingly, this is mainly Bryan’s recipe. He made various iterations of it last summer, after we ate something similar at Riffs (highly recommended when in Boulder, CO). This makes a generous portion for two, or a side for more.

Prep 2 lbs unshelled fava beans (see note above). You can also use fresh shelling peas, starting with about 1 lb unshelled. Shell them and then steam briefly, until just bright green, before adding. I would treat fresh black eyed peas the same way as green shelling peas, except they won’t turn green when you steam them, so taste to see when they’re just barely tender. Lima beans, or any other favorite kind, would also be delicious here. You want to end up with between 1 and 1 ½ cups of beans/peas, depending on the balance you like. I like more beans.

Cut kernels off 3-4 ears of corn, to yield about 2 cups.

Melt 2 Tablespoons butter in a skillet over medium heat. It seems like a lot, but the buttery, slightly salty flavor here is key to offset the sweetness of the corn and make a really lovely contrast.

Sauté ½ of a yellow onion, diced, in the butter until it’s translucent and starting to brown.

Add 2 cloves of minced garlic.

Then add 2 chopped roasted red peppers, either sweet or slightly spicy.

Sauté for a couple of minutes, then push all this to the sides of the skillet, and add the beans or peas to the middle. Cook until they’re barely tender. Stir everything together, and then push to sides again.

Turn up the heat to high, and add the corn to the middle of the skillet. Leave it alone there for a couple of minutes while you sprinkle 2 teaspooons of fresh herbs on top—we like mainly thyme, but you can use a little sage or oregano as well.

Ideally the corn will get slightly browned, but in any case taste it and when it’s barely done, turn off the heat, stir everything together. Sprinkle with salt (we use unsalted butter and about ¼ teaspoon salt) pepper, and smoked paprika if you have it for a little smoky/spicy flavor. Taste for seasoning.

Top with shredded fresh basil, and enjoy while still warm!

Succotash in the wild with another summer favorite, any variation on the (water)melon and feta salad from Plenty.

Peachy

Posted on August 27, 2015 by Tasha

It’s been a crazy few weeks around here. Bryan has been finishing up a HUGE project for an art exhibition opening shortly—huge in physical scale, and in time invested, etc. It took over his life, and then started to encroach on mine too. Many things I’d been planning to work on got put to the back burner, until finally near the install date I was doing nothing besides helping get ready, unless the other thing had an already-agreed-upon-in-writing due date, and even then not too much was happening.

I’ve been cooking a lot though. It’s the kind of situation where logically it would make sense to just make a big pot of soup and eat it for the whole week. But, it’s my absolute favorite time of year for eating. All the ingredients for ratatouille are sitting there, fresh and glowing, at the growers’ market, and it would be make me feel much more deprived not to cook them and eat them. And it turns out, not surprisingly, when I’m not spending my creative energy on other projects, I end up experimenting more with food and making up recipes. And, when Bryan is burning lots of extra calories working on huge sculptures all day, he’s more excited about having dessert, and any time I’m stressed I definitely want dessert. Any two weeks in which we ate two of these pies can’t be that bad.

Although things evolve and change, and I’ve been excited to have so much fiber stuff to share lately, I wouldn’t want recipes to disappear entirely from this space, so here you go. I’ll be back soon with a little more about the sculpture project & the exhibition (which is really pretty cool) and maybe even one more recipe. But for now:

Weekday Peach Pie with Nut Crust

(adapted from various bits of the Joy of Cooking)

This isn’t a humongous Southern-Sunday-dinner peach pie, but instead one you can make if you just grab a few extra peaches at the market. Pecans are my favorite for this crust, which is the same one I use for pumpkin pie in the fall, and just happens to be gluten free. You can use other nuts that grow near you and/or you like, and it should work fine.

Preheat the oven to 375° F

Peach filling—put all this in a bowl:

1 1/2 lbs peaches (weighed whole), cut into 1/4″ thick slices. (Freestone peaches are much easier to slice.)

1/4 cup sugar if your peaches are ripe and juicy, maybe a tablespoon or two more if they are firm and tart.

1 1/2 Tablespoons quick-cooking tapioca or cornstarch for thickening. I ground the tapioca in a spice grinder to get finer grains, which I think I read about in an Alice Waters cookbook.

1 Tablespoon fresh lemon juice.

1/4 teaspoon almond extract (optional but I like it).

A small pinch of salt.

Stir up the filling and let it sit while you make the crust:

You can either put all these ingredients in the bowl of a food processor and pulse together, or grind the nuts first and then mix everything by hand. Either way, don’t chop the nuts super fine, or the crust won’t have a lot of structure, a texture like coarse crumbs is good.

2 cups pecans (or walnuts, almonds etc.) chopped, see note above.

4 Tablespoons butter (especially if you’re making it in the food processor, it’s important to soften the butter first, otherwise you’ll end up with chunks of unmixed butter).

3 Tablespoons sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

Butter a pie pan well, and pour in the mixed crust in it. Use your fingers to press the crust over the bottom and up the sides of the pan, getting it reasonably even if you can.

Prebake the crust in the preheated oven for 10 to 15 minutes, until it starts to brown. The edges of this crust are apt to burn, so cover them with a pie shield or strips of aluminum foil first. If the sides of the crust start to sag or the bottom gets too puffy, you can push them back in place with the back of a spoon.

While the crust bakes, beat 1 egg (the smallest egg you can find) with just a tiny bit of water, until well beaten.

When the crust is warm and starting to brown, take it out of the oven and glaze it with the beaten egg. This is the key to putting a moist filling in the nut crust without getting a soggy crust! Use a pastry brush to apply a thin layer of egg wash all over the inside surface of the crust, up over the sides, etc. The egg will want to slide down, but just keep brushing it up, until the warm crust starts to absorb it and hold it in place.

Put the egg-washed crust back in the oven for just a couple of minutes, until the egg is cooked and shiny.

Then pour in the peach filling. Cover the edges of the crust again, and put the whole pie back into the oven until the juices of the filling are thick and bubbly, about 45 minutes. No matter what you do, the edges of the crust will probably get a “bold” baked color (as the bread makers say). If it goes all the way to burnt, just scrape off the very top. This crust is really simple and delicious, so it’s totally worth it.

Here’s to a weekday-peach-pie kind of week …

Washing Fruit and Veggies on the Road

Posted on August 15, 2014 by Tasha

So, you’re driving along on a late-summer road trip, the farmers’ markets and road-side fruit stands are overflowing with beautiful produce, but you hesitate to buy a bunch of berries or tomatoes if you can’t figure out a way to wash them, right? Here’s our solution. All you need is a container (a tub that yogurt came in is perfect) and some water. A cooler is optional. I’m not really sure why it took us so long to figure this out. It works a lot better, and uses a lot less of our drinking water, than trying to pour water with one hand while somehow holding and scrubbing fruit with the other hand by the side of the road. Even if you are on your way to a house or hotel where you could wash fruit, this has the advantage of letting you eat it right NOW, while you cruise along with the windows rolled down, or at your favorite picnic spot.

Put your produce in your little tub, and pour in enough water to cover it. Swirl everything around with your fingers for a minute or so, and then hold the fruit back and pour the water off. If a lot of dirt comes off in the first round, or you just want to make sure it’s really clean, repeat.

Then you can put the clean tub of fruit in your cooler, or on top of the parking brake between the seats for easy access. If you’ve washed something like tomatoes that does better dry and room-temp than cold and wet, you can dump them out onto a towel, or use one of those little green plastic baskets to store them. If you knew how many picnic style meals we’ve eaten, consisting mainly or entirely of various versions of caprese sandwiches, you’d laugh out loud.

A couple more notes: basil does well in the cooler with the stems in the water, or in a sealed plastic bag with a little moisture inside (kind of like the cooler version of this method), but not if the leaves touch the ice (they’ll frost and turn black). Thanks to Bryan for hand modeling, and for being as enthusiastic about fresh local edibles as I am.

Michigan Winter in Pictures

Posted on January 6, 2013 by Tasha

Out here in Flagstaff, winter is (assuming it snows enough) bright days with the sun bouncing light from the snow everywhere, white too bright to look at and deep dark shadows. Ponderosa pines collecting snow in huge clumps in their needles, and then when the sun comes out, dropping them with a window-shaking thud on the roof over my head, or on my actual head while I’m shoveling. It’s getting your skiing in before the snow melts down, and watching the flakes float past my studio windows when it snows again, which is one of my very favorite things about this room.

In Michigan, from whence we just returned, winter is different. And to me, totally beautiful. The bare branches against a grey sky are a delicate tracery of subtle colors and shades, more muted but lovely scenes are in the dried branches, the white fields. After spending the morning playing with my little nieces, I escaped outside with only my camera. I got that “what are you finding out here to make the picture worth your freezing fingers?” look from at least one Midwesterner I ran across, but that’s the beauty of something unfamiliar, seeing the hibernating landscape with my fresh eyes, I saw worthwhile photos everywhere.

The landscape also meshed well with these thoughts from Kimberly at The Year In Food:

And I love darkness, in the sense that this is a season of long, dark nights, quiet, rest, hibernation. There’s merit to embracing it rather than fighting it and I try my best to do so each year. Perhaps easier said and done from the mild coast of California than in the thick of a midwest winter. But that season of rest is here, nonetheless: the fallow land, the bare trees, the grey skies, the long nights, the snowy mountains off to the east and north. Let’s embrace it, friends.

I often find myself this time of year longing for warmth, summer, light and long days of it. But seeing a new winter landscape reminds me of the beauty that is here right now, a quiet one perhaps, but one worth enjoying just as it is. Here’s to embracing your season, wherever you are!

Asian Coleslaw Recipe Sketch

Posted on August 9, 2012 by Tasha

This is a family recipe in a few ways. I first got obsessed with this salad a couple of years ago when one of my aunts was making it a lot. Hers was inspired by two different recipes (neither for Asian coleslaw), which I bothered her until she sent me, I thought it was so good I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I have been making my version of her salad (below) for long enough that it’s established its own pattern in my head of what “Asian Coleslaw” is like.

So, during our craft retreat, another aunt decided to make “Asian Coleslaw” with some veggies left in her fridge. Great! I offered to help, and had to laugh as soon as she started putting things in. Parsley? Olive oil instead of peanut or sesame? If you’re putting that, why not add this cauliflower? No? As it became more and more clear that our visions differed (and of course her version was also delicious) I realized that here was one of my own lessons coming back to me, of course you can make it with whatever you have and whatever you like! Please feel free to experiment.

Asian Coleslaw

This much will feed four as a side.

Combine in a bowl:

1/2 small cabbage (your favorite kind) shredded

3 medium carrots, grated

1/4 cup chopped cashews (peanuts and or/sesame seeds would also be good)

3 green onions/scallions, chopped fine (optional)

1/2 cup chopped cilantro (and/or parsley or other herbs)

Dressing (I make this in my little food processor):

1 Tablespoon shallot, or 2 cloves of garlic

1 Tablespoon fresh ginger

2 Tablespoons toasted sesame oil (you can also use peanut)

Juice of one small lime (or splash of rice vinegar, although I like lime better)

2 – 3 Tablespoons soy sauce or tamari

2 teaspoons sugar or maple syrup

Squirt of hot sauce (or add serrano or another hot chile)

Process the dressing until everything is combined and chopped fine (you could also mince the solid ingredients by hand and combine everything in the bowl). Pour the dressing over the salad, toss, and you are done! This also keeps quite well in the fridge for several days.

I realized as I was thinking about posting this recipe that’s a really a year-round salad. I tend to think of it almost more for winter, since the ingredients are still readily available, and it provides a little something fresh when almost everything seems warm and stewed. But, it also makes me think of my cousin (sweating out the Brooklyn summer without AC) and everyone stuck in the Midwest heatwave – a tasty way to get your veggies without ever turning on the oven. I’m still making it here, even though our monsoon-season weather has been exquisite, so close to perfect that I keep sitting on the (brick) front steps with my laptop to feel the breezes. I’m telling you, the world’s best weather is in the mountain southwest, once it starts to rain.

One last note, my DIY envelope tutorial was featured on KP’s blog today! We became friends in person (when we lived in the same country) now I love keeping up with her fun projects and lovely photos (plus she has a recycle project challenge)!