Bare Bones

What's a girl to do when she wants to make a tart and her flour bin looks like this?

Well, she could experiment with some of that gluten free flour mix in the cupboard, or she could find a recipe that calls for some other obscure flour. Or, if she has already made bagels that day and is feeling sorta lazy after that, she can reach deep into the freezer and pull out a patty of chocolate short dough the origins of which she can't quite recall. It can't have been in there that long, right?

And then, she will take out a pound of fresh black figs, but in so doing realize that there is a disturbing lack of ingredients for pastry cream in her refrigerator. This is, again, the bagels' fault. She was making bagels instead of going to the grocery store. 

This is what happened to me yesterday. I wanted to make something like this tart, but I wound up making my own instead.  I impulse bought some figs at the end of last week, and they have been waiting for me to be inspired. Well, inspired to do something with them, the figs. I've done plenty of other things since they made their way into my kitchen. Like make lemon curd frozen yogurt, and go to an awesome cookbook club picnic. But those are altogether different stories. 

Back to the figs.

I grew up in a house with a huge fig tree in the front yard. I mean huge. So huge we would have to go up on the roof to pick the figs. Birds always ate them, and my mom would sometimes pick them and sell them to an organic juice bar near Greenlake. I have vivid memories of my mom running out onto the porch during the day to try and scare the birds away. It was pretty futile, but I think it made her feel better. Our figs were green--my mom always said they were Adriatic figs. 

Ours was like this, but about 3 times bigger. Photo courtesy Route79 via flickr.

I don't really know how we had such a prolific fig tree, being in Seattle (Yes, I'm a Seattle native. It's OK to be jealous...), but we did, nevertheless. There was always way more figs than we could do anything with, and I don't really remember anybody but me ever even eating them. I do remember some failed teenaged attempts at making fig type bars, but I guess I had some learning to do in the kitchen department. 

I do still love figs. I almost always keep some dried ones around, and when summer comes I like to eat them fresh with honey and yogurt, or some other tangy dairy thing. So yesterday, with these figs in hand and the mystery chocolate dough thawing on the counter, I got to work. 

Since our chickens are kind of...not really laying a lot right now, for some mysterious reason...I am short on eggs. I couldn't make any fancy fillings from scratch. But I did have some thick, molassesey pecan pie filling that I saved from a big batch I made for a dessert tasting. I know, I know. Right now you are thinking, that sounds...terrible. I know that you are thinking that because I thought it too. And then I thought about chocolate and pine nuts, and then I thought about food processors and that lemon curd frozen yogurt...

And then I made a delicious tart. 

We ended up eating the tart all by itself, because by the time we sat down to eat it I was so excited/curious/nervous to try it that I had forgotten all about the frozen yogurt. Maybe tomorrow.

Fig and Chocolate Tart

serves 8

For the dough: (adapted from The Professional Pastry Chef by Bo Friberg)

4 oz granulated sugar

14 oz unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 lb 2 oz bread flour

2 Tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder

This recipe makes quite a bit of dough, so if you want to cut it in half, use only the yolk from the egg. If it's a touch dry, add a little water, just a tsp at a time, until the dough comes together.

Sift the flour and cocoa powder together and set aside. Mix the sugar, egg and vanilla on a low speed using a dough hook, just until combined. Add the dry ingredients, and mix until just smooth. Press dough onto a parchment paper lined baking sheet, cover, and refrigerate for at least 1 hour before using to allow the flour and butter to really meld.

To prepare the shell for baking, use a patty about the size of a large hamburger bun. Let the dough warm up a bit, and roll it out until it is about 1/2 cm. thick. Gently transfer the dough to your tart ring (on a sheet pan lined with parchment paper) and press it into the sides as you rotate the pan slowly. Instead of cutting off the scraps, carefully press the overhang down into the sides of the pan. This will give the sides a little bit more strength and make them less likely to break when you remove the tart from the ring, since the crust is very delicate. Put it into the freezer for about 10 minutes while you heat the oven and prepare the filling.

For the filling:

1 lb fresh figs

1/2 cup pine nuts

1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chunks, or chop your own from a favorite bar

1 cup of your favorite pecan pie filling, preferably one with some molasses in it

Heat the oven to 350º F. Rinse the figs, and trim off the stem end. Quarter them and toss them into your food processor. Pulse for a minute until the smallest pieces are about the size of a black bean . Add the pine nuts and pulse a few more times. You don't want the filling to be a paste--the nuts and fig pieces should still be recognizable as what they are. 

Put the filling into a bowl and stir in the chocolate and pecan pie filling. Pour it into your shell and put it straight in the oven. Bake about 35 minutes, or more depending on your oven, until the filling is set in the middle.  Remove from the oven and place the sheet pan on a rack to cool completely. 

If your tart pan has a bottom disk (unlike mine) you are in luck because it will be very easy to get out! Just slowly press the bottom upwards until it is free of the ring, and, using a pancake flipper, gently slide the tart onto a cake plate. If it doesn't, put a piece of parchment paper on top, then a cutting board. Flip the whole thing carefully over, take off the ring, then flip it back onto your plate. Applaud for yourself if your tart is in one piece.

Walking on Eggshells

Here at our house, we keep 8 chickens. I know I've mentioned them before. They're pretty lovely girls all individually, though they do have some quirks.


Right now we are struggling with integration blues. The oldest three hens--Effie, Andromeda, and Mambo--have all been giving the newest 5 quite a hard time. I know it's normal but it's distressing nonetheless. Mostly it's just Andromeda and Effie, and mostly they just chase Shadowfax around and pull out the occasional feather.

Effie, right after meeting the News for the first time. She crowed. For. Ever.

The Original Shadowfax

A little backstory on Shadowfax: Our first Shadowfax was a cockerel, someday to become a beautiful rooster and boss all the other chickens around. But living in Seattle, we couldn't let a rooster hang around, so we traded him for a slightly older bird--a 100% hen version of the same variety, Ameraucana. Isaac and Aaron decided she should still be named Shadowfax, and I went along with it because I was very sad to lose our original. He was so pretty. The new version is all white, and while she is pretty too (and already laying cute little eggs the color of mint ice cream) white isn't the most exciting thing in the flock.

The New Shadowfax

For the most part, the birds all "get along" by ignoring each other. I've slowly pulled out all the obstacles to integration. First the "News", as we call them, lived inside and only visited the outside world a couple of times. Then we moved them into a newly built coop with a run that was completely separated from the "Olds" so they could see/hear/smell each other but not have physical access to each other and each other's stuff. For a while I let them free-range at different times of day. Then we started to let them out into the yard at the same time, but with a bit of chicken wire splitting the yard in two. Then I needed the chicken wire to protect the garden from the girls, so I took it down and let them all be "integrated" but still having separate living quarters in the run/coop area. Now all barriers are down and they have to share a feeder and water.


Poor things. A few weeks ago, when Shadowfax started laying, she knew just where to go--into the Olds' coop, because that's obviously where you go if you want to lay an egg. It didn't matter to her that there were nesting boxes built especially for the News, which I showed her several times. I even put in a fake egg. She laid in there a couple of times. Then she started laying in the Olds' coop and just puts up with the abuse.

That's when the troubles began, because the Olds started to get much more territorial.

The evidence.

They chase her around and pin her down, and then she chases the other News around to try and assert her place above them. I know they'll get the whole thing figured out eventually. Probably around the time the rest of the News start laying . The funny thing is, the Olds really stir up the most trouble when I have to go out into the backyard for whatever reason. The News just try to stay out of the range of the Olds' beaks, hudled in their own little tight group, trying not to invoke the Wrath of Effie.


I know I need to cut off access to the Olds' coop. Our plan is to get rid of it entirely. But, I hesitate. It could go either way I suppose. It could put the Olds in the their place, since they would be forced to live in the News' coop. Or it could end in a bloodbath.


While they are working all that out, I quietly take the eggs and leave treats in their place. The eggs are delicious too--bright yellow-orange yolks with flavor so amazing you can hardly believe it.


I'm guessing everybody knows how to scramble an egg. But do yourself a favor, if you've never done it before. Go to your local co-op, or farmer's market. Splurge on 6 or 12 of the eggs fresh from a local farm. Go home, and poach or fry a couple, so that the yolk is just thickening up. Make a piece of toast from your favorite crusty bread, and eat it. Sop up all the drippy yolk with another piece of toast. (Whatever you do don't boil them, because you'll never get an egg that fresh to peel properly. I usually let them sit in the fridge for a week if I know I want to boil some.)


You might never go back to store-bought, and that's a happy thing.

Spilling the Beans

There are some secrets that people who keep kosher might never tell you. Especially people who have only started keeping kosher relatively recently, like me. They might not want to tell you that kosher food isn't all fattening. That it isn't all somehow simultaneously too salty and too bland. That it isn't just bagels with lox and matzoh ball soup all the time. 

They might not tell you those things, because then they would have to share their recipes with you.

Or if you are me, they might not tell you because they are actually keeping secrets. Things their Rabbi might be shocked to hear. Like how at our house, we stopped buying hechshered meat and started buying local, humanely raised meat instead. 

We don't eat a lot of meat at our house, for lots of reasons. It's expensive; it's not always the healthiest, easiest protein; we prefer cheese and real butter over meat and dairy alternatives; etc. A while ago there was some controversy over the way that kosher meat was raised and slaughtered. Basically, it's agri-business as usual. I won't get into the politics of it here because they are too complicated and it will distract me from what I really want to tell you about. Suffice it to say that we chose to start buying local meat instead--at least until we can get a local, kosher option--because we think local and humane is better than kosher for kosher's sake. 

I took a field trip to the farmer's market last week. I had a few for sure things on my list. Salmon, peas, cherries. And I wanted to pick up something to grill. I stopped at the Olsen Farms tent, because I knew I could find something tasty there. I drooled for a second over their 100% beef sausages, but in the end I decided on some ribs. Plain old ribs. Just enough for Joe and I, and a few little nibbles for Lilli. Well, those and a package of all beef bacon, but that's for another day. The ribs were a pretty penny, but they were worth every cent.

I've been craving BBQ probably since I started keeping kosher almost 3 years ago. I knew exactly what I was going to do with these ribs--all I had to do was give them a little bit of my time. 

Lilli went down for a nap and I headed straight to the kitchen. Things have been accumulating in the fridge, just begging to be made into BBQ sauce. I had some leftover chopped up onion, the last couple of chipotles from a chipotle apricot chicken kick a while back, and various tomato ingredients from making a version of these delicious white beans earlier in the week. I put everything I had together and let it simmer for a bit, tasting as it went along and adding dashes of this and that. Then I blended it, in a couple of batches to prevent further harm to the blender. I used a bit as a marinade for the ribs and saved the rest to slather on while they cooked on the grill. 

At this point it was only about noon, and I was nearly beside myself with impatience waiting for dinner time. I calmed myself by licking the spoon. 

Later, as I par-boiled the ribs so they would be mostly done by the time they got to the grill, I dressed up some sugar snap peas. And by "dressed up" I mean I blanched them, covered them in olive oil, and skewered them. It was a simple costume, but sometimes less is more when it comes to grilling vegetables. 

The sun even came out for our BBQ, which made the evening so much better. We coupled it with some simple rum and cokes (Made by Joe while I started the grill, because he's not the best griller in the world. He told me it was OK to tell you that.) It was a perfect dinner for three.

Gratuitous shot of the garden

Ice-Box BBQ Sauce makes about 4 cups, give or take

1/2 Walla Walla or other sweet onion, diced

2-3 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 -1 whole can diced tomatoes in juice

1/2 can tomato paste

1/4-1/3 maple syrup, to taste (I use less)

1-2 chipotle peppers in adobo sauce (optional, or you could add more if you want it spicier)

1/3 cup balsamic vinegar

1/3 cup worcestershire sauce

salt and pepper to taste

A note about making BBQ sauce. It's kind of an imperfect art. You want a little sweet, a little spice, a little tang. It's good to start with a base and taste often as you go. You can adjust any of the ingredients as you see fit for the sauce you want to end up with. It's great on pretty much any type of meat you can imagine. 

Heat a saucepan and add a little swirl of vegetable oil. Add the onions and cook until just beginning to brown a bit. Add the garlic. Add the tomato paste and let it get thick and start to brown. Now add the vinegar to deglaze the pan, and let it come to a simmer. Then add the rest of the ingredients, bring to a boil and turn down to medium-low heat. Let it simmer for 10 or so minutes so that the flavors can combine. Taste often and adjust. If you like it sweeter, add more syrup or maybe even some ketchup or brown sugar. Want a little more tang? Add more vinegar. You can experiment with other spices and also you could add bourbon. Just sayin'. 

When it tastes like BBQ sauce to you, blend it in the style you prefer. If you use a blender, remember to do small batches so you don't end up with hot sauce all over your cabinets. Although, sometimes this happens to the best of us. Now slather it on your favorite meat and introduce it to a flame. You will not regret it. Even your baby will love it.  

                  

Picnic Fever

Oh, it's been too long since I've written anything. We went camping, and soon after that school ended for the boys and Joe took them on a road trip to Lake Chelan. While they were gone, I had absolutely no desire to do anything but revel in being alone with Lilli and taking it very very easy. That is not to say I haven't been keeping busy though.


Even though the weather here in Seattle has been sort of lackluster--typical gray days with little bursts of warm drizzle--I have nevertheless fallen in love all over again with picnicking. I wish every meal could be a picnic, even though it is much harder to get a 9 month old to eat when she isn't sitting in a chair. We picnic in parks, and on hikes and out of the trunk of the car. It's pretty much the Best. Thing. Ever.

I've also been working quite a bit in the P-patch, and last week I pulled up a few stragglers of green garlic. I had some garlic planted last season that I had trouble pulling out, and so I just left it, knowing that it would grow back next time around and make wonderful sweet tender green garlic stalks. I have a friend who has always raved about her favorite green garlic soup recipe, and how good it is with a little bit of créme fraîche and some toast, so my plan was to give her a green garlic present and hopefully get an invite to dinner in return. Alas, she injured her back this spring, and while I did give her the green garlic, she has been too laid up to have guests. I decided I could dream up my own good recipe, and try it out for myself. I even perfected the required créme. And even though it wasn't perfect picnic weather in the evening, we took it to the park and ate it on a blanket, out of real bowls, since the park is so close to our house.

I looked around for recipes for this miraculous soup and came across several, but most seemed to go back to just one, from Alice Waters. I didn't have any new potatoes, but I did have a leftover baked potato, so I took the peel off of it and put it in to give it some body. This recipe produced a soup that wasn't very, well, green. I know, I know. The "green" refers to the garlic itself. But I had pictured a green soup so at the end I decided to change that by adding a huge handful of the overabundance of rainbow chard I have growing out back. I have to say, I was rather pleased with how it turned out. Too bad I waited until the end of green garlic season to make it! I think I might try out a version with roasted garlic and baby onions because there won't be any more green garlic this year. I'll let you know how it turns out.


A-ny-way.

Back to the picnic. I paired the soup with some zucchini fritters, tomatoes in balsamic vinegar, and a rosé that Joe and the boys brought back for me from Eastern Washington. Oh, and a handful of kalamata olives. And for dessert we had cinnamon grahams smeared with dark chocolate ganache--kind of a fireless, more indulgent s'more. Well, really, I went for a run after dinner and Joe had dessert. Then I had a chocolate protein shake made with coconut milk, which is sort of dessert like. Oh well.

Green Garlic and Baked Potato Soup

adapted from a recipe by Alice Waters

serves 4 (if you don't kill your blender making it and spill soup everywhere)

1/2 lb green garlic, white and light green parts only, in 1/2" pieces
4 cups vegetable or chicken stock
1 medium sized baked russet potato, skin removed and cut into chunks
5-6 big leaves of chard, rinsed and roughly chopped
2 Tbsp olive oil
salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
1 Tbsp or so heavy cream, sour cream or créme fraîche, plus more for serving


Heat the olive oil in a small stockpot. Add the garlic and turn down heat to medium, toss in a pinch of salt. Cover and let the garlic sweat for a few minutes, until it becomes fragrant. It's OK if it browns a little. Brown bits just mean more flavor later. 


Add the potato and the stock, and bring to a boil. Let simmer until the garlic is very tender, about 5-10 minutes.


Turn off the heat and stir in the chard. Cover and let it sit just a few minutes, maybe 5, until the chard is soft but still bright green. 


Process in your blender in 3 or 4 batches, or with a stick blender if you happen to have one. Stir in your cream of choice, and serve. Don't let anybody stop you if you want to take it out for a picnic, even though soup isn't usually a picnic food. Bonus points for real bowls.

Lilli's Forest

When we decided that we actually were going to need a bigger home a little sooner than we originally thought, I was sad and also excited. It was stressful, to say the least, to be selling a home at "the bottom" but we just trusted our agent and did what was best for our family. It was going to be nice to have a real yard and a bedroom with a door, even though it meant leaving behind the little house that we had carefully made into a home over the course of a couple of years.


I was lucky enough to quickly find a great home for rent very close to our then current location. Just across the big park that is close to us. Obviously, this was fantastic because we love our neighborhood and the friends that live close to us, and also our P-Patch would still be walking distance (though not in the optimally placed location of just up the block). But the house came with hideous khaki walls throughout. Well, except where the walls were lime green or sunflower yellow instead. I would rather have just plain old white. Normally I would have decided to paint everything, but my time is so limited now for projects, so I decided just to make do with what I had and do some crafting instead.


For Lilli's room I envisioned a kind of woodland theme. There is a painting of a bunny that my dad painted, for me I guess, when I was a girl and had a bunny for a pet. And I got some green rugs that sort of made the floor look mossy. And a pretty pink lampshade with a grassy border. 


I wanted to put in a wall mural or decals, but the walls have too much texture and nothing will stick. I got the idea from somewhere to hang handkerchiefs from twine strung across where the bed would be. I had those up for a while before it really started to get on my nerves how unfinished it looked. Then I saw this idea. I ran with it. I was dyeing a shirt for Joe for a costume anyway, so I decided to dye them pink like little cherry or apple blossoms. I twisted those into the ropes and left a few of the hankies up for a while, and then added the butterflies, but it still looked kind of off. And then: Eureka! Felt leaves! I love the look of leaves that are silvery on the underside and just barely green on the tops, and I happened to have a bunch of light gray felt sitting around that was leftover from wedding crafts, so I got some olive green fabric paint and that is when the seeds for the forest got planted.

 

The Family

I want to tell you a little bit about our household, before we get too far in our relationship. You might just decide this blog will be a little too wacky for you, but I think you will find us to be wacky in an endearing sort of way. I hope you do anyway.

Here is a list of the people/animals who live at our house:

First there's me: Venessa. I am a pastry chef by trade but mostly just a person with a passion for creating. I grew up in the Great Pacific Northwest and I am so so glad I still get to live here. My parents are both artists so I grew up with a bedroom full of paints and dress-up. It pretty much hasn't changed, except that I added passions for cooking and urban farming on top of that. 

Next up is Joe: He's my amazing husband, and this blog was really his idea. He planted the seed in my head while I was out planting seeds in the dirt. He's an avid cyclist; he loves my cooking; and he makes me laugh everyday, even when I don't want to be in a good mood. I could go on and on about him, but I'll save that for later. He's also the reason we keep Kosher. 

Tagging along with Joe are his two sons, my super funny and bright step-sons: Isaac and Aaron. They're 8 now, but when I met them they were just 2 1/2 and cute as buttons. They're witty and energetic and they keep me on my toes. They also dearly adore the next member of our little clan...

Our littlest farmhand: Lilli! She's 8 1/2 months old now, and is my treasure. She always has a smile for you, especially if you happen to be a member of the animal kingdom. She's just started crawling, and the world better watch out because she is going to do big things someday. She was born at home (someday maybe I'll tell you about it, if you're curious) and she is the inspiration for a lot of the projects I have found myself in the middle of lately. 

We also are fortunate to have a whole circus of animals who live with us:

Scourge, the cat. She's a little bit on the silly side and we love her for it. She puts up with our antics pretty well, and as a reward she gets to eat challah with us on Fridays.

Our veteran laying hens: Mambo, Andromeda and Effie. These girls are going on their 3rd summer and they are still laying like champs for now. They love love love our new house, because there is a much bigger yard for them to rule. Also, who knew that chickens could climb stairs?

And our newest members of the flock: Shadowfax, Harriet, Minnie, Hot Dog and Reepicheep. We brought these gals home in March, and they are almost full grown now. All the names have a story, but it's a long one to tell  so I'll spare you for now.

Recently we added a colony of bees. We're keeping them at the house of a friend who has a much bigger yard than us, and also fruit trees to benefit from the pollinating goodness of a couple of beehives on the property. They don't have names really, but they sure are fun!

We also have a plethora of fish, who I can't leave out because Isaac and Aaron are very proud of them. Diz, the goldfish, is at least 20 years old. There are the cloudfish, who all have names but I can't remember any of them. And then there is Bloody Mary--she was adopted when the boys were going through a scary stories phase. 

All in all, it's a pretty full house. But, I don't think it would be our house if it wasn't for all the friends we live with. 

Créme Fraîche X2

Last Wednesday I had a few glasses of wine with some friends I don't see enough of. We decided that no matter the weather on Saturday, we were going to BBQ. I promptly forgot all about it, especially that I had offered to host.

On Friday, James called to ask what I was planning on putting together, and what could they bring. Talk about think fast! I knew that I was planning on making salmon cakes for dinner, and that I wanted to grill asparagus. I also had a new potato salad recipe on the menu. He decided to pick up some early corn and some rosé, and that they would bring dessert. Okay, plan in place.

Saturday rolls around...early. Lilli decides that 6am is the perfect time to wake up after staying up late to have Shabbat dinner at Joe's parents' house. After trying to sleep through her kicking and squirming and rolling and practicing crawling in our bed for a while, I got up and made cinnamon pecan coffee cake. "This is the best breakfast I have ever eaten" is declared an hour later by two ravenous 8 year olds. OK, next. Make a picnic, go to the zoo. Make a pitstop first for chicken feed. 3:30pm, eat ice cream. 4:30 head home, and then make a quick trip to the grocery store for a few key ingredients I knew I didn't have.

Joe kindly took Lilli with him and the boys to the park down the street so I could focus on making dinner without having to stop every 5 minutes and play a game. In the hour until he brought her home, I was able to defrost 1 1/2 lbs of leftover salmon and then make the cakes, and put together a lemon mayo sauce to go with; roast 3 lbs. of small delicious potatoes and some garlic for the potato salad; slice a loaf of bread to grill; rinse and trim a bunch of asparagus; and probably something else that I am forgetting, like do the dishes. This is about when I realized that not only did the salmon have créme fraîche, but also the potato salad was going to be dressed with the stuff. I've been trying unsuccessfully for weeks to make it from scratch and it has yet to turn out as thick as it should be but it still tastes good. I plan on getting it right, but for now I'm content with trying.

About 6:30 people showed up and it got a little more fun. Copper set the table and entertained Lilli while I finished everything up. The boys brought a friend home from the park and proceeded to go wild in the backyard. Drinks were poured, bread was eaten, and it was a perfect evening despite the chaos that threatened to storm in at any moment.

This potato salad recipe is very simple. It's plain but in a good way. Sprinkling the vinegar on the potatoes while they are still hot allows them to really absorb that flavor. The tang from the créme fraîche really works well with the rich flavor of a well roasted potato. It doesn't keep as well as mayonaise based salads, but you won't have to worry about that because there won't be any left. I wasn't even able to take a picture because it was gone too fast!

Roasted Potato Salad with Créme Fraîche

adapted from Good Day for a Picnic by Jeremy Jackson
serves 6


2 lbs potatoes (I used a mix of yukon, red and purple)
3 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil, plus a little extra
salt and fresh ground black pepper
6 cloves garlic, peel on
2 Tbsp champagne vinegar
3/4 cup créme fraîche
2 Tbsp toasted pine nuts


Preheat oven to 450ºF. The original recipe calls for you to peel the potatoes, but I prefer to leave the skin on. Cut the potatoes into spears and let dry a bit. Toss in the olive oil in an ovenproof skillet or onto a baking sheet. Salt and pepper to taste. Wrap the garlic in foil with a little drizzle of olive oil and put them in with the potatoes. Roast for about 45 minutes, stirring every 15 minutes or so, until the potatoes have gotten nice and golden and crusty. The garlic will be done also.


While the potatoes are still hot, cut them into smaller, bite sized pieces. Jeremy Jackson recommends a serrated knife. In a good sized bowl, toss the potatoes with the vinegar. Press the softened garlic out of the skins and mush it into a paste. Add it to the potatoes and toss the whole thing again. Taste for salt and pepper.


Let the whole thing cool a bit, and then spread the créme fraîche on top, sprinkling the pine nuts over last.