Season

Roasted Tomato & Pancetta Pasta

August 30, 2018August 29, 2018

If you follow me on Instagram, you know that I love my garden. Even this year, when it hasn’t been that productive (I blame the early heat waves and the incredibly dry summer), I love going out to check on my plants every morning. It’s hard to put into words the way my garden makes me feel, but I figure other people feel the same way. Although it happens over and over again, I am simply dumbfounded that I can put a tiny fleck of seed into the ground and get a big, productive plant that will feed me delicious fruit or vegetables. Isn’t that just amazing?

Anyway, I thought my dad was the big gardener in my family (he was an agriculture major in college, is very active in his local p-patch, and can answer my “what is this plant?” text messages about 80% of the time), but it turns out my mom is pretty great at it too. She just put in a bunch of garden beds at her house and she has nearly 20 tomato plants. She has been sending me lots of pictures of all her produce, so I feel like I’ve been watching things grow alongside her. But I am in Seattle staying with her this week and when I see how excited she gets to show me her big prize tomato or her amazing cucumbers the size of my arm, I see where I get my wide-eyed awe from.

To celebrate tomato season (and you really should, at this point, be eating as many tomatoes as you can) and the fact that you can now turn on your oven without wanting to immediately die, make this pasta. Savory, rich, and bright, it captures some of my favorite flavors of the season.

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Miso Cream Cheese Toast with Crunchy Vegetables

August 9, 2018August 9, 2018

I was going to post a pasta dish this week – it’s really good and summery but still creamy and light – but I just couldn’t bring myself to suggest that you turn on both your oven and your stove. I don’t know about you, but we are in the middle of a heat wave. It’s another heat wave, or maybe it’s the heat wave we’ve kind of been having all summer despite a couple days last week. We have established a system of closing our windows around noon when it starts to get really hot outside, turning on the air conditioning when the inside temperature gets unbearable, and then opening the windows in the evening once the outside temperature is lower than inside or maybe if there’s a slight cool breeze blowing by.

On days like this, I can’t imagine eating anything hot. In fact, I would prefer that everything I ate was cold and crunchy, preferably also maybe juicy or with a little tang or spice to it. These toasts almost fit that bill – no juiciness really (unless you include the cucumbers that I GREW IN MY OWN GARDEN – sorry, I’m excited), but lots of crunch from the sliced vegetables and tang from the miso cream cheese. You do have to turn on your toaster, but it’s worth it, I promise.

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Spring Pea Blintzes

June 27, 2018June 26, 2018

I’m going to be honest folks. It feels a bit challenging to write about summer and my garden and produce when the world is falling apart. But here we are. I know, pea blintzes can feel trivial – they do to me too. I can’t spend 100% of my waking hours reading articles and calling representatives and being depressed about the state of the world, so I am doing my best to act like everything is normal and it’s all going to be fine. Despite the fact that at the moment it’s looking pretty bleak.

Now that we’ve got that depressing shit out of the way, I guess let’s talk about my garden. That sounds fun doesn’t it?

I feel like I’m in produce overdrive! Between our expanded beds and the CSA we have this year I’m having trouble keeping up with the lettuces, greens, peas, and radishes. I’ve been eating salads for every meal and adding sautéed collards or bok choy to everything I make. When shelling peas started coming in from my garden, these blintzes popped into my mind and I wasn’t able to get them out. I don’t recall eating that many blintzes as a child, but I know it happened, and that they were a treat filled with sweet cheese and topped with fruit. But every since eating blintzes stuffed with mushrooms at Malka’s chanukah pop up, I feel like the world of savory blintzes is a whole new world.

My little garden didn’t produce enough shelling peas for a full batch, so I supplemented with some frozen ones, steamed them with some lemon juice, layered them on top a creamy spiced cheese filling, and wrapped it all up in pillowy crepe-like pancakes. The result was just this side of savory, delicate and lovely, a dish that could be eaten at brunch or for a light dinner.

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Rhubarb Blondies

May 21, 2018July 27, 2018

A little while ago, I went to lunch at one of my favorite cafés (which, disclaimer, is also owned by my dear friend) with Jonah and another friend who was in town. After we finished eating, we were waxing poetic about their brown butter miso cookies. These cookies are quite possibly my favorite cookie of all time, and I do not say that lightly. They are certainly in the top three cookies I’ve ever had in my life. Why? First, when the miso mixes with the brown butter and sugar, it creates this amazingly complex butterscotch flavor. Second, I love anything with miso. You know that, I know that, why even pretend like it’s not true? As we were sitting there, talking about The Cookies, we decided to play a game called “will it miso?” We decided that pretty much all produce will miso (though I’m sure there are exceptions). Will cheese miso? I’m not so sure.

This got me thinking about the bag of rhubarb I had at home in my fridge. I hadn’t decided what to do with it yet – there was talk of ice cream, as well as the previously posted gluten-free rhubarb poppy seed bread – but all this talk of miso in baked goods got me thinking. We got home, I did a little research, and I got cooking.

Don’t be scared by the (optional) miso in this recipe. As I mentioned above, it mostly provides an extra butterscotch flavor, making it a little richer and complex. If you don’t have any miso, head to the store and pick up a small tub. You can use it every which way, and once you learn its magical power of making everything delicious, you won’t be able to stop using it. If you get stuck there are plenty recipes on this very blog that feature it, like this caramel apple cake, this sticky toffee pudding, these roasted vegetables, this roasted squash and tofu, and these vegetable quinoa bowls.

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