Last January, after our friends Kathy and Rick had spent weeks packing, snow shoveling, ice dam cursing, moving and unpacking, they invited us to lunch. We sat around the granite island in their new kitchen and savored, steamy bowls of cauliflower cheese soup. It was the first pot of soup made in their new home. I asked Kathy for the recipe, she shared it with me and said I could share it with you. Here’s how she (and I) made it:

Hot biscuits, right out of the oven, with soft butter complemented the steamy cauliflower soup perfectly, and a bowl of tapioca pudding completed this white meal.

Before anyone from the color patrol reaches for a telephone or computer to register a complaint, I will explain why I call this a ‘white meal’. Sure there were flecks of orange from the carrots, dots of red and black from the peppers and I admit that the cheddar and cauliflower where not absolutely pure white and yes, the biscuits had a slight golden touch; but, this dinner was as white as the snowy day with brown flecks of beech leaves, bits of red chimney pipes and the gold of Gracie’s coat as struggled to make a perfect doggy snow-angel.

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Rainbow Carrots

(I wanted to share my most recent painting, Rainbow Carrots, even though carrots have nothing to do with this post. )

The first step is to dispose of all of the half-filled jars of mystery sauces that have accumulated since we returned from Italy last spring. The second, and perhaps more difficult part is resisting the jars of exotic sauces at the market. I will make do with only three jars of sauce, mustard, ketchup and mayonnaise. The mustard is grainy Dijon mustard, the ketchup is what remains of the homemade ketchup I made as a Christmas gift for Charles, and I will make mayo as we need it.

Usually, mayo is made with either an egg yolk or a whole egg but recently I made Maionese de leite, a mayonnaise that comes from Portugal. This creamy, egg free sauce, made with milk and flavored with a hint of garlic is less sticky and bit more watery than traditional mayo but it can be substituted for traditional mayo. An immersion blender is necessary to make it. Here’s how I did it:

Homemade mayonnaise is delicious whether it’s traditional egg based mayo or creamy milk mayo but, if your New Year’ resolution is to spend less time in the kitchen, mayo from the grocery store is the right choice for you. Happy New Year!

Here’s a link to my recipe for Mayo made with eggs. 

Download and print a label for your homemade mayo here.

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I don’t know whether it was Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child, a gift from a new friend, daily lunches of pate and camembert with a crusty baguette from the French Market or the fact that ketchup was made in the Heinz factory, a few miles from my home in Pittsburg, that turned me into a ketchup snob. Ketchup had to go. There was no ketchup in my kitchen from mid 1965 until December 2011. Yes, it’s back. There is a jar of ketchup in the fridge and I’m planning to give jars of ketchup to my most sophisticated, foodie friends for Christmas this year.

It won’t be Heinz ketchup, it will be ketchup from Carol’s Vermont Kitchen. My willingness to re-consider ketchup came about because I wanted to give a bright red, edible gift for Christmas. Ketchup is an unusual gift and may result in a holiday smiles. I read ketchup recipes in old cookery books, learned a fair amount of ketchup history, modified a couple of recipes and eventually made a batch of lovely red, nothing like the stuff from the grocery store, ketchup. Here’s how I made it:

Ketchup

1 – 28 ounce can pureed tomatoes
1 medium onion, diced
2 cloves garlic
1/2 cup cider vinegar
1/4 cup light brown sugar
1 Tablespoon dry mustard
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon celery seed
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
sea salt to taste

I put all the ingredients, except the salt and pepper, into a slow cooker and stirred the mixture until it was combined. I set the slow cooker on high, covered it and cooked it for two hours, stirring occasionally. I removed the lid and continued cooking the ketchup, on high, for forty-five minutes until it ‘plopped’ off a spoon. I added the black pepper and salt and turned off the slow cooker. When the ketchup was cool, I stirred it and transferred it to a wide mouth quart jar and put it in the fridge.

I’ve served this lovely red sauce warm with meatloaf, Charles used it right from the fridge on ham and cheese sandwiches and we’ve stirred it into bowls of hot buttered pasta.

In the seventeenth century, English sailors returned from China with a pickled-fish sauce, called ke-tsiap. That brown sauce went through many changes, traveled to Malaya, eventually met tomatoes and ke-tsiape name morphed to kechap. Before manufacturers settled on ketchup, it was also called catchup, katsup, catsip, kotchup, kitsip, catsoup, cornchop, katsock and cutchpuck. Not only does ketchup add flavor, but some studies show that it may be a powerful tool in the fight against cancer and heart disease.

If this ketchup trivia is not enough to impress my foodie friends – I’ll tell them that ketchup can be used to clean, antique, copper utensils.

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The possibilities are endless – you can present yourself as a superhero or a world leader, a puppy or a princess, a vampire or a bunny rabbit.Halloween treats are everywhere, free when you call out “Trick or Treat” at the home of a friendly neighbor.Thoughts of Halloween disguises and Halloween treats got me to wondering. Could I disguise an often overlooked and sometimes disparaged vegetable, rich in vitamins and minerals and low in calories, in a Halloween treat?

I was thinking about parsnips. To be honest, I have never been a parsnip fan; I’ve cooked them, served them and composted them, generally in that order. My past attempts have been dry, woody, insipid or simply uninspiring.

Time to let my imagination run wild, time to dress up a parsnip as a sweet treat. Grated parsnip, combined with nuts, dried fruit, and sugar, held together with flour and egg, fluffed up with baking powder and oil, disguised in a silver fluted skirt – Say Boo! The costumed parsnip was on its way to the Halloween party. Here’s how I did it:

Parsnip Muffins

I began by preheating the oven to 350 F/175 C and placing foil liners in 18 muffin cups.

I used the largest holes on a box grater to grate two large parsnips to make 2 cups/180 g and one large apple to make 1 cup/100 g. I whisked together 2 cups/200 g of flour, 3/4 cup/100 g of sugar, three-quarters of a teaspoon of baking soda, one and a half teaspoons of baking powder, half a teaspoon of salt, one teaspoon of dry ginger, and half a teaspoon ground nutmeg in a mixing bowl.

I whisked together two eggs, 3/4 cup/180 ml of oil, 1/2 cup/120 ml of milk and a teaspoon of vanilla in a separate bowl. I combined the egg mixture and the flour mixture, added 1 cup/100 g of chopped almonds, 1/2 cup/100 g of chopped dried peaches, the parsnip and apple.

The batter was divided among the muffin cups and baked for 25 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin came out clean. Removed from the pan, the muffins cooled on a wire rack.

With a basket of muffins in hand and a paper asking, “What’s disguised in these muffins?” I set off for a gathering or friends who were putting the church garden to bed for the winter.Fifteen friends sampled the muffins. Their guesses included: coconut, orange, banana, carrots, lemon zest, zucchini, guava, cauliflower, pistachio and my favorite – ground-up donuts. No one guessed parsnips – a perfect disguise!

Perhaps this is the beginning of a new Halloween tradition – Masquerading Vegetables on Parade.

With newfound respect for parsnips I’m looking for other ways to use them. Any thoughts?

Say Boo! A perfect Halloween book, written by my friend Lynda Graham-Barber, along with the parsnips from her garden were the inspiration for is post. Lynda lives in the Northeast Kingdom where she writes, gardens and cooks.

Click here to download and print an ingredients list and recipe.

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Matthew and Alison have a “veg” box from Riverford Farm delivered every Thursday. The organic vegetables and fruit come in a reusable cardboard box and are accompanied by seasonal recipes and news from the farm. The “veg” box, augmented with a bit of meat or fish, milk, cheese and eggs and miscellaneous items like fresh ginger and hot peppers from the grocer at the train station, is the center of their healthy and sustainable diet. This week’s box had leeks, cabbage, broccoli, carrots, parsnips, fennel, potatoes, onions and baby bok choy.

On Thursday, we had “veg” box stir-fry and bok choy with black beans for dinner. Here’s how Matthew did it:

“Veg” Box Stir-Fry

He washed and sliced enough leeks, carrots, cabbage and broccoli to fill a medium bowl, about four cups. For the sauce, he combined a tablespoon of soy sauce, a tablespoon of white wine vinegar, a heaping teaspoon of cornstarch, two teaspoons of hoi sin sauce, a tablespoon of toasted sesame seed oil and a tablespoon of sugar in a small bowl. He heated two tablespoons of vegetable oil in a large pot, added three small, whole, dried chili peppers, two cloves of garlic and a one-inch knob of ginger root, both minced. As soon as we could smell the garlic and ginger, he added the vegetables. After the vegetables had cooked for five minutes, he added the sauce and cooked the vegetables for two more minutes.

It took less time for Matthew to cook the bok choy than it took for me to set the table and serve the stir fried vegetables.

Bok Choy with Chinese Black Beans

He rinsed and quartered three heads of baby bok choy, put a splash of vegetable oil, about two teaspoons, one clove of minced garlic and a tablespoon of rinsed, salted Chinese black beans and the bok choy into a cast-iron frying pan over medium-high heat. After the bok choy had cooked for a minute, he added a tablespoon of white wine, turned the bok choy over and cooked it for another minute.

We evaluated dinner as we ate it. The texture of the crisp bok choy and the sweet/sour sauce on the stir fried vegetables were pluses, forgetting to remove the whole chili peppers before serving the stir fry was a negative. We awarded dinner four-stars.

On Saturday, I bought a pint of strawberries and a small container of double cream, (heavy cream in Vermont), at the train station market so that I could make strawberries and cream French toast for Sunday breakfast. Here’s how:

Strawberries & Cream French Toast

I rinsed the strawberries, removed their leafy caps, sliced them and combined them with a tablespoon of sugar. I toasted four pieces of sunflower seed, whole-wheat bread. I combined two eggs, two tablespoons of cream, a teaspoon of sugar and a quarter of a teaspoon of nutmeg in a shallow bowl. I put the toasted bread into the egg mixture, set it aside for ten minutes, turned the slices over, waited ten minutes more so that the bread would absorb the eggy mixture, and then sauteed the bread in butter in a medium cast iron frying pan over low heat.

I found a whisk and recruited Matthew to whip half a cup of the cream. When the French toast was golden, I sprinkled each serving with a teaspoon of sugar, added a generous helping of strawberries and a scoop of whipped cream to each plate. We sat in the sun, enjoyed our breakfast and tried to decide what we should make for dinner.

Here’s a link to the Riverford Farm website. If you live in the UK you may be able to arrange to have a Riverford box delivered. Whether or not you have a veg box delivered, the Riverford site has a great variety of recipes here.

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A gluten free, complete protein it was called the ‘mother of all grains’.

With all of this to recommend it, I decided to add it to my pantry. My first quinoa creation was a resounding failure – a mushy mixture that tasted like wet laundry, (Actually, I have never eaten wet or dry laundry, but that’s the best description I can come up with).

Clearly, it is important not to overcook it and to add flavor at each step of preparation.

My second try, a salad inspired by the fresh flavors of tabbouleh, was a great success with no resemblance to wet laundry. Here’s how I made it:

Quinoa Salad

I rinsed two cups of quinoa in cold water to get rid of the bitter coating before putting it into a heavy bottomed, shallow pan over medium high heat. Ten minutes of constant stirring and the seeds were light brown and aromatic.

Initially the quinoa stuck to the bottom of the pan, but when it was ready it began to dance around in the bottom of the pan, (perhaps inspired by the reputation of its tumble weed cousin).

With the pan off the heat I stirred in two cups of vegetable broth, then increased the heat, brought it to a boil,  reduced the heat, covered the pan and left it to simmer until al dente, about eighteen minutes. I drained the remaining liquid from the quinoa, and set it aside, covered for five minutes, before fluffing with a fork and transferring to a large bowl to cool. These steps resulted in a flavorful and non mushy base for the salad.

I added two cans of rinsed and drained beans, one soy and the other white kidney, the chopped leaves of a bunch of flat leaf parsley, half a cup of sliced scallions, a pint of halved cherry tomatoes and the zest of one large lemon.

For the dressing, I combined the juice of the lemon, a large tablespoon of grainy Dijon mustard, half a cup of olive oil and salt and pepper to taste.

Gently stirred together and served at room temperature, it was a crowd pleaser at a vegetarian dinner of three substantial salads.

notes: any canned beans will work, you may want to brighten the taste with the addition of a bit of wine vinegar, the parsley could be replaced with basil, purple onion instead of scallions, a minced chili pepper or a bit of cayenne pepper would add some heat. Add or subtract flavors to suit your palate.

Download and quinoa salad recipe with an ingredients list here.

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Watercolor by Carol Egbert

I bought a deep violet eggplant,

Watercolor by Carol Egbert

a sweet pepper that was sap green on one side and cadmium orange on the other, white cippolini onions with forest green leaves, a bunch of celery with chartreuse leaves attached to leaf-green stems,

Watercolor by Carol Egbert

blue-black olives cured in oil, a scoop of grey-green salt cured capers, six Windsor yellow lemons and two kilos of blood oranges.

I created an ad hoc still life as I unpacked the market bags and thought about what I would cook. The caponata I had eaten in Taormina earlier in the week came to mind. Considered a Sicilian classic, caponata, like pasta, couscous, oranges and lemons, was brought by the Arabs when they conquered Sicily in 827 AD. The Arabs, then called Saracens, also introduced sophisticated methods of irrigation that made vegetable farming possible. Making caponata, a salad of cooked vegetables with a sweet and sour sauce, is an opportunity to combine colorful vegetables and Mediterranean history. Here’s how I did it:

Caponata

When I was choosing the eggplant at the market, a fellow shopper suggested that it was important to soak eggplant in salted water for at least half an hour before cooking it. I usually skip this step, but she insisted it that kept the eggplant white and prevented it from absorbing excess oil, so – when in Sicily, do as the Sicilians do. I cut the unpeeled eggplant into one-inch cubes, put them into a large bowl filled with water, added a tablespoon of sea salt, Sicilian of course, and left them to soak for half an hour. I rinsed two tablespoons of salt-cured capers in cold water and put them in a bowl of water to soak to eliminate the excess salt.

I put two tablespoons of olive oil in a frying pan and when it was hot, but not smoking, I added the drained eggplant cubes and cooked them over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until they were tender and browned on all sides. It took about fifteen minutes. I put the cooked eggplant into a colander, poured the olive oil that drained from it back into the frying pan, reheated it and added the sweet pepper that had been cut into one-inch pieces. After about ten minutes the pepper was cooked and had begun to brown and I added it to the eggplant in the colander.

I followed the same procedure to cook one thinly sliced onion and four thinly sliced stalks of celery, including the tender chartreuse leaves. I used a small glass to gently push the excess olive oil out of the vegetables into the frying pan, reheated it and added the rinsed and drained capers and a handful of olives to the oil. After they had cooked for three minutes, I added the capers and olives to the cooked vegetables and returned the frying pan to the heat to make the agro dolce or sweet and sour sauce.

I added a tablespoon of granulated sugar to the oil that was flavored with the caramelized juices of the vegetables and cooked it over medium heat, stirring constantly. When the sugar had melted, I stirred in two tablespoons of red wine vinegar and cooked the mixture until most of the vinegar had evaporated and the sauce had begun to thicken.

I added all of the cooked vegetables to the sauce and gently stirred them together over medium heat for three minutes to combine the flavors. I put the finished caponata into a bowl to cool.

To complete my Arab inspired cooking extravaganza, I made orange-lemonade by adding three tablespoons of sugar to the juice from two lemons and one blood orange to a pitcher of water.

Caponata is eaten at room temperature and served as an appetizer or as a side dish. It can also be heated and served with pasta or polenta and, if the ingredients are cut more finely before being cooked, it can be used as a spread for crostini. Caponata is a recipe that does not require exact amounts or ingredients. Its flavor improves with age and it will keep for a week in the fridge. Some recipes include chunks of tomatoes or tomato paste, green olives can be used instead of ripe ones and anchovies may be added with the capers and olives. The olive vendor, who also sells chocolate from Modica, suggested I could make the caponata “Baroque” by sprinkling it with unsweetened chocolate just before it is served. That sounded strange to me, what do you think?

Download and print caponata recipe with an ingredients list here.

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Blood Orange Juice and the Ionian Sea

The glass of blood orange juice that Charles makes for me with four fresh Tarocco oranges is my favorite way to start the day. Tarocco oranges grow in the fertile soil surrounding Mount Etna. They are sweet, less acidic than other oranges and have the highest vitamin C content of any orange variety grown. The juice is orange in name only, it varies in color from peachy pink to rose dore to nearly garnet red. I love it freshly squeezed and thick with pulp. Although there are  blood oranges in the markets in Vermont, I’ll miss watching the sun shimmer on the Ionian sea as I sip the sweet juice.  Unfortunately, blood orange juice at the edge of the Ionian Sea must be put into the impossible to recreate category.

Salt cured capers are sold by weight at the market. They are about the size of lentils and have a sharp and sour taste that is lovely with chicken or fish and are a crucial ingredient in the tomato/potato salad I tasted on a recent trip to Marsala. Although it isn’t easy to find salt-cured capers in Vermont, there are jars of vinegar-cured capers in the pickle aisle of every grocery store. Here’s how I made the tomato/potato salad when we got back to Ortigia.

Tomato/Potato Salad

I peeled and cut into one-inch chunks, five new potatoes that had been steamed until they were tender. I added three medium tomatoes that had been seeded and cut into chunks, two thinly sliced green onions, one tablespoon of roughly chopped, salt-cured capers that had been soaked in cold water, rinsed and drained, two tablespoons of chopped flat leaf parsley, three tablespoons of olive oil, two tablespoons of red wine vinegar, three grinds of sea salt and five grinds of black pepper to the still warm potatoes. With a jar of vinegar cured capers from the market this souvenir goes into the can be recreated category.

I don’t remember when Italian flat leaf parsley won a place in my heart and kitchen. It might have been when I planted my first herb garden or perhaps it was when Fiorina Paci, my older son’s Italian great-grandmother, combined it with garlic and green beans from her garden. However it happened, the good news is that this tasty herb is available year round, in the produce department of nearly every grocery store, generally next to its curly leafed cousin. I use it in Sicily and in Vermont to flavor vegetables, chicken, fish, beans, and grain and rice salads. Seasoning with Italian flat leaf parsley definitely has a place in the can be recreated category.

Download and print tomato potato recipe with an ingredients list here.

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Windmills Power Pumps Sea Water into Salt Pans

I saw saltpans along the shore of the Mediterranean where harvesting sea salt has been a tradition since the 8^th century BCE when the Phoenicians established Motya, a small island off the coast a few miles south of Trapani.

Tiles Ready to Cover Harvested Sea Salt

Sea salt obtained from solar evaporation contains a variety of minerals that make it more soluble, more easily absorbed by food and add flavor – all good reasons to use it.

We visited Erice, a medieval village often in the clouds near Trapani.

Every street in Erice is paved with with stones set in this pattern.

Crest on a Wall in Erice

Old and New in Erice.

On Tuesday, we visited the fish market. It bustled with cooks choosing tuna, swordfish, squid, octopus, cuttlefish, mackerel or smaller, unfamiliar fish. Rather than ordering pasta or couscous with seafood for dinner that evening, I ordered pasta with Trapani style pesto. I hadn’t expected the pesto to be red but it was delicious. Donna, the cook, invited us into her kitchen and with Charles as the translator, she shared her recipe and explained that she used a food processor but a mortar and pestle was more traditional. Here’s how she did it:

Pesto Trapani Style

She lightly toasted four tablespoons of blanched almonds in a dry frying pan. She peeled and seeded six ripe, plum tomatoes and cut them into chunks. After the almonds were ground to a fine powder in the food processor, she added two medium garlic cloves, peeled, a generous cup of fresh basil leaves, two tablespoons of fresh mint leaves, the tomato chunks, half a cup of olive oil, a pinch of sea salt and three grinds of pepper. She pulsed the mixture in the food processor until it was smooth and used a spoon to encourage the basil leaves into the tomato puree. Donna topped the cooked pasta with pesto and three slices of eggplant that had been dipped in olive oil and cooked on a grill until tender and slightly charred.

Traditionally, this cold pesto is served on steaming, al dente busiate. Busiate is pasta made by winding a thin strips of fresh pasta, one at a time, around a Sicilian knitting needle, sprinkling it with flour and sliding it off to dry. This effort is repeated until there are enough noodles for four people. Fortunately, this pesto has enough zing that I will serve it on linguini from a box when I make it. With or without eggplant, pasta with pesto Trapani style is a New England dinner option to keep in mind when the snow has stopped flying and tomatoes and basil appear in the market.

Download and print pesto recipe with an ingredients list here.

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