Almond zucchini bread, with a side of statistics

The right to vote is something many of us take for granted, to the point that many simply don't bother. In a heavy turnout year, easily a third of eligible voters don't, according to the Pew Research Center. 

Women got the right to vote several decades before I was born, so that has been my normal. But sometimes I think of my grandmother, who would have already attended college, taught school and staked a homestead claim in Wyoming before she would have become eligible to vote in 1920. 

I've no idea if she voted in the 1920 election, given her remote homestead location, or if she did, whether she would have voted for Harding or Cox. But you can damn well bet she had an opinion. A woman so famed for her bluntness that it was mentioned from the pulpit at her funeral would not have been reticent.

Before 1980, the rate of voter turnout for women in presidential elections was lower than for that of men, according to the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers, but that's been flipped since. This year the media reports a gender gap in early voting, with women leading the way. Best not to make any assumptions about what that means for the outcome; it would be a patronizing mistake to think women vote as a bloc.

Whatever your political persuasion or gender, if you're legally eligible to vote, consider giving it a go this year. Even if the election doesn't go your way, it's surprisingly cathartic. 

And if it doesn't turn out as you had hoped, there's always baking.

Zucchini-almond bread

From “Rage Baking: The Transformative Power of Flour, Fury and Women’s Voices,” by Kathy Gunst and Katherine Alford (Tiller Press). It’s a collection of solicited submissions from many women. In that regard, you could say it’s a bit like a community cookbook, but this one is set in the context of post-2016 political climate. It includes section headings like “The Revolution Will Be Catered,” so that gives you an idea of the ideological bent. 

Baking may not heal the contributors’ rage, but it does help focus attention on something else beyond the news. And it yields tasty things, which also help.

This particular contribution is from Rebecca Traister, author of “Good and Mad.”

Ingredients

1 cup almonds
3 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1¼ teaspoons fine salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 cups sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
3 eggs
2 cups grated zucchini
1 teaspoon almond extract (or vanilla)

Method

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9- by 5-inch loaf pan if you’ve got one. Or if you’re like me and your standard loaf pan is more like 8½  by 4, grease that plus one mini loaf pan.

Grind almonds in a food processor until almost fine.

In medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, salt, baking soda and cinnamon.

In a large bowl of either a stand mixer or handheld mixer, beat sugar, oil and eggs for 3 minutes. They should be slightly thickened. With motor running on low speed, blend in flour mixture. Then add zucchini, ground almonds and almond extract.

Pour into prepared pan (or pans; I’m really glad I didn’t try to cram that all into the slightly smaller size). Bake for 75 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let rest for 5 to 10 minutes before trying to remove it from the pan.

Rating: A decent zucchini bread. Nice texture, and almond brings a bit to the party.

Crustless asparagus-Gruyere quiche

 

I was in the market for a gluten-free asparagus quiche recipe for a gathering. I opted to avoid recipes that required pastry, since I'm only just now dipping a toe into gluten-free baking and that smacks of something that might involve some trial and error to get optimal results. I'm perfectly willing to make my guests guinea pigs, but I'd like them to feel like well-fed guinea pigs, so I pick my battles.

This still delivers all the cheesy custardy goodness of a quiche, and it comes together quickly enough that you could pull it off on a weeknight or for a weekend brunch. 

Crustless quiche with asparagus

Adapted from the Bojon Gourmet website. The original also includes options for other gluten free flour options, so if you don't have that combo on hand, they're not the only choice that would work in this recipe.

Ingredients

1 tablespoon butter, divided, plus a little softened butter to grease the pan
1 bunch asparagus, 12 to 16 ounces, tough ends snapped off and discarded
¼ cup cassava flour
3 tablespoons arrowroot starch
½ teaspoon fine sea salt
Generous pinch of black pepper
6 eggs
1 cup whole milk
¼ cup heavy cream
2 to 3 tablespoons chopped fresh chives
4 to 5 ounces grated Gruyere, divided

Method

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 10-inch quiche pan or 9-inch deep dish pie plate.

Cut tips off asparagus; set aside. Cut rest of the stalks into ½ thick pieces on a diagonal. Heat ½ tablespoon butter in a large skillet. Add asparagus stalk pieces and a generous pinch of salt and cook until asparagus is bright green and tender crisp. Remove from pan to cool.

Add remaining ½ tablespoon butter to the pan and cook the asparagus tips for a minute or so. Remove from heat.

In a large bowl, combine cassava flour, arrowroot starch, salt and pepper. Add two eggs and whisk until smooth. Add remaining eggs two at a time, whisking mixture well in between. Whisk in milk, cream and chives.

Place asparagus stalks in base of prepared dish. Top with most of the cheese. Pour flour-cream mixture over the top. Array asparagus tips on top and top with remaining cheese. Bake for 40 minutes or until golden and puffed. Remove from oven and let sit for a few minutes before slicing. It will settle a bit, but it stays warm for quite some time if you tent it loosely with foil, so it's something you can get completely out of the way before guests arrive so you're not answering the door as the buzzer goes off.

Rating: With that much Gruyere and creamy dairy, it's really hard to go wrong, and this didn't. It's got that classic quiche flavor and custard texture.

Do I miss the crust? Well, if it's a really good one, like my favorite Julia Child leek quiche, then perhaps a bit. but so many quiche crusts I've been served turn out either mushy or dried out, so it's not always a plus. I'll have to revisit a couple of my favorite recipes to compare; it's been awhile since quiche was my go-to so I need to refresh my memory. 

I do know that not having a crust makes it super fast to make, which definitely cannot be said of the Julia Child recipe. I remember a number of angst-filled moments the first time I attempted that for company. It turned out to be heavenly, but again, that pastry came with a learning curve.

My only nit: The recipe is actually fairly attractive in the pan, but you'd be doing your guests a disservice by making them be the ones to extricate a piece, especially that first one. You really want to get the serving spatula well under the base.

Variation: Zucchini-red pepper quiche with feta

 I wanted to see how well this approach would stand up to substitutions, so I tried this variation. Make as above, only instead of the chopped asparagus stems, I substituted 2 medium zucchini/summer squash, sliced in half lengthwise and then cut into ¼-inch pieces. I used 4 ounces of feta in place of the Gruyere, 1 roasted red pepper cut into narrow slices in place of the asparagus spears (no need to heat them) and 2 tablespoons fresh oregano for the chives.

Rating: The soft cheese didn't result in quite the same quiche texture while it was warm that the Gruyere provided, so I was a bit disappointed. I suspect hard cheeses work better in this recipe in that regard. But the leftovers, served cold, were quite nice, since cold quiche always has a more custardy consistency, so it wasn't a detraction there. The flavors had intensified, and the oregano and feta really came through. I seriously could see making this ahead and just eating the entire thing cold for office lunches or a picnic. 

Our deep blue hydrangea finally bloomed. All it took was torrential rains.

 

Several years ago I stuck this hydrangea in a corner somewhere. It came to the office free, as a trial plant, back when I wrote about gardening for a blog at work. Since it was Zone 5 long before they redrew the zone hardiness maps, I didn't have high hopes. And it turns out those were justified, because for several years it has done absolutely zilch except manage to survive amid a welter of invasive spreaders, which I guess is a form of an accomplishment.

Then the rains came. One day I rounded the far corner of the house where I don't go on a daily basis and was dazzled by this stunner of a bloom. I desperately wish I knew enough to be able to do a better job of color correcting this, because every camera I tried wants to wash it out. It's a deep, vivid blue, many petals so deep they warrant being called midnight.

The plant is nearly twice as tall as it has been every other year (it grows back from the roots each season). The same is true with the Endless Summer hydrangea this year, which also deigned to sport several large pink or blue blossoms after years of managing a stunted proto-bloom about October for the last couple of years. 

For the record, we DO water these plants on a regular basis. After all, hydrangeas are kind of the litmus test for dryness, since they'll wilt first. But I'm not sure we could have managed to dump as much water on as nature did earlier this summer when we were inundated by daily downpours. Apparently the plant requires regular drenching to put on a show. So it may be a one-year wonder, but it was worth trying to document.

And no, at this point, I no longer know what kind of hydrangea it is. In googling, it looks most like a Nikko blue, although on some sites that plant is listed as Zone 6 hardy, and while I stuck it in the most protected spot I can find, there is no part of my Minneapolis hard that could pass for Zone 6. Whatever it is, it's lovely, and worth the wait.

Somehow or another I had never made rhubarb bread. It seems an odd omission that needed to be rectified. I suspect it's because I usually use rhubarb in baked goods, and I have a preference for warm baked goods straight out of the oven on a Sunday morning, so I skew toward scones and muffins over quick breads, which generally should be allowed to cool.

This recipe comes from a 1979 tome on baking, written in calendar format. It smacks of its hippy-dippy era, with a noticeable bent toward honey, bran and whole grains, and rustic line drawing illustrations. This clearly is not written in the era of relentlessly photographed recipes. The receipt that has been bookmarking the rhubarb recipe all this time dates to 1992 from the Hungry Mind Bookstore in St. Paul, so clearly a vacation souvenir.

The cookbook is also sometimes a tad loose on the recipe end. This one says to divide the dough between two "small to medium size loaf pans." Um?? I've got three bread pan sizes in my house, but it seemed fairly clear from the baking time that they weren't necessarily thinking of the standard size loaf pans. Also not thinking of the miniest of loaf pan sizes. I opted for three of the regular minis but should have gone for four since it overflowed a bit so now I've got a mess on the oven floor. They must have had something else in mind entirely that's lost to the ages and 1970s Vermont.  

Rhubarb bread

From Garden Way Publishing’s “Bread Book: A Baker’s Almanac,” by Ellen Foscue Johnson. Now I just want time off to cook my way through the rest of the year. 

Ingredients

2½ cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon ginger
½ cup melted butter, slightly cooled
1 cup honey
½ cup orange juice (or pineapple)
1 beaten egg
1½ cups chopped raw rhubarb
¾ cup chopped nuts

Method

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease four mini bread pans. (See discussion above about size.)

Whisk together flour, baking powder, soda, salt and ginger in a medium bowl. Set aside.

Combine butter, honey, orange juice and egg in a large bowl. Stir in rhubarb and nuts. Stir in dry ingredients until just wet through. Divide among pans and bake. I found the small loaf pans took about 30 minutes until top is springy.

Rating: Delightful. Wonderful flavor and texture; perfectly moist. It comes together quite quickly, so it's a fast fix if you don't count cleaning up the oven if you guess wrong on pan size. Works fine served at room temperature. And now I don't have to go down the hill to get bread for breakfast.

Drink and a nosh: Rhubarb gin and tonic, smoked fish horseradish dill dip

I was looking for more ways to preserve rhubarb for a lingering taste of spring. This puts a splash of spring flavor in a summer drink.

Rhubarb gin and tonic

From “True North Cabin Cookbook” by Stephanie Hansen. This book very much transports you to whatever location you usually call The Lake, whether it's for one week a year, like us, or a family dwelling that seemingly has a built-in homing device, like hers. It has as much of a sense of place as any cookbook that specializes in the cuisine of a particular region. I smell pine and hear loons. 

(The first time we ever heard a loon call was when we were novice campers trying out our cook stove for the first time at Mille Lacs Kathio long before we even moved to Minnesota. It was pouring rain and we seemed to be the only foolhardy campers around, but yet we heard laughter at our inept attempts at lighting the stove, and we really did not appreciate it. Never actually saw that loon. Maybe it was smart enough to be out of the rain.)

Ingredients

2 ounces gin
2 tablespoons rhubarb syrup
Tonic water
Ice

Method

Fill a glass with ice. Add gin, rhubarb syrup and fill with tonic water.

Rhubarb syrup

4 cups chopped rhubarb
1 cup sugar
1 cup water

Method

Combine rhubarb, sugar and water in a heavy large pan. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for about 15 minutes or until fruit is soft. Press through a strainer. (The recipe suggests saving the solids for use as a bread spread; it makes a subtle but nice jam on toast.) Chill before using. Makes just shy of 2 cups, so enough for weekend houseguest levels or a small dinner party.

Rating: While technically I didn't need to be in the market for another rhubarb drink, given that the rhubarb martini batch cocktail is heavenly, it's always good to branch out. I was worried this one might be too sweetish, but it actually has some tartness to it. Just really refreshing, and pink! Would definitely not mind pulling that out of the cooler at the cabin. A perfectly viable use of rhubarb that will last past the pick-by-July-4th dictum. Well, if you don't share with others, in which case it won't last that long.

To pair with it, I opted to make another recipe from the same book, both being things that seem northish. Plus we'd brought back a couple kinds of smoked fish from the Fisherman's Daughter on a recent trip north.

Smoked whitefish spread

From “True North Cabin Cookbook"  by Stephanie Hansen

Ingredients

8 ounces smoked whitefish or smoked lake trout (or salmon), skin and bones removed
½ cup cream cheese, softened
¼ cup sour cream
¼ cup Greek yogurt
1 tablespoon prepared horseradish
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon minced red onion
1 tablespoon chopped dill
Juice of ½ lemon
Chopped green onions or chives for garnish

Method

Combine smoked fish, cream cheese, sour cream, yogurt, horseradish, mustard, dill and lemon juice in the bowl of a food processor and pulse until well mixed. Garnish with green onions or chives.

Rating: Fine. Slightly better the next day after the flavors had time to meld. It's pretty mild. If I make it again I might up the horseradish quotient a tad, or more onion, something to kick up the flavor quotient a bit. But if you make it as is, it's perfectly serviceable and won't offend any timid tasters. Would be easy to make in advance for toting to a cabin in the cooler.

To play along: Wesley Stace's "Late Style," a good backgrounder if you're up North looking at a lake view through the lens of relaxation. We saw him open for Loudon Wainwright III on a recent tour and enjoyed it quite a bit.

Yet another rhubarb scone recipe

Did I need another rhubarb scone recipe? Heck, no. I've already tried several, including revisiting a favorite during our recent cabin week. But was I rewarded for trying another rhubarb scone recipe? Hell, yeah.

Rhubarb scones

Adapted from theviewfromgreatisland.com. I ran across this one in my rhubarb Pinterest feed (is it peak Minnesotan to have a rhubarb feed?), but this site has lots of other lovely looking prospects to try as well.

Ingredients

½ cup sugar
2¼ cups flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
8 tablespoons cold butter (1 stick), cut into pieces
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
½ cup buttermilk or half and half
1 cup chopped rhubarb

Method

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

In the work bowl of a food processor, combine sugar, flour, baking powder and salt. Add butter and pulse until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. (Alternatively, if you don’t have a food processor, you can use a pastry blender or two knives to achieve the same result.) Add vanilla and buttermilk and process briefly until dough just comes together.

Remove to a lightly floured board and knead a few times to fold in rhubarb. Pat out into a circle and cut into 8 triangles or pat into a rectangle and cut into squares. (Or use a fluted biscuit cutter to cut rounds, as the original recipe called for.) Place two inches apart on a baking sheet (they spread quite a bit) and bake for about 20 minutes until just turning golden.

Rating: These are superb. Moist with excellent texture, not overly sweet or overly rhubarby, if that's a thing. They also reheated well. OK, so maybe I didn't need another rhubarb scone recipe, but I may have found a new favorite. It's possibly tied for first. It would be worth trying with the biscuit cut-out method, since it was the prettiness in the picture that led me to try this one in the first place only when it came time to make them I was in a hurry.

Chicken salad with tahini za'atar dressing

Sometimes you have to wrestle with a recipe a bit before you land in a spot that suits you.

This recipe appealed to me on several accounts. For one thing, once the snow recedes, it's chive season in my alley garden until snow falls again, so I'm always happy to find new recipes to use what amounts to a free commodity at my house. Also, I had bought a small jar of za'atar to use in another recipe that, ahem, I have yet to make, so it's a spice purchase guilt that needs to be assuaged. 

What didn't appeal to me about the original recipe was it was designed for a lettuce cup form. I object to it on the grounds of both structural integrity — pretty soon after you start eating them, you're basically looking a deconstructed salad that requires utensils — and it calls for romaine lettuce. I get why they specified that: With its firm ribs it's as good a candidate as any for trying to stand up to being pressed into service as a bread replacement. But while I can eat the leafy parts of romaine without ill effects, the ribs contain the same substance that makes iceberg lettuce crunchy, and me and a small subset of the population nauseous. 

So first I figured I'd just toss it all together like a salad.

Tahini chicken salad

Adapted from Better Homes & Gardens, March 2023. If you want to make the original recipe, buy romaine leaves to serve as lettuce cups. Not finding it on their website to link to, however.

Ingredients

¼ cup tahini
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 garlic clove, minced
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
2 teaspoons za’atar spice mixture
½ teaspoon ground cumin
¼ cup salt
2 cups cooked, shredded chicken
1 cup finely chopped celery
2 tablespoons chopped fresh chives
Lettuce or other green leaves for lining bowl
1 cup thinly sliced cucumber
1 cup chopped cherry or grape tomatoes

Method

In a small bowl, combine tahini, lemon juice, olive oil, garlic, mustard, za’atar, cumin and salt. If tahini is thick, add a bit of water to get desired consistency.

In a medium bowl, mix chicken, celery, chives and enough of the dressing to reach desired consistency. I found it took much of it, but not all of it.

If serving as a salad, place lettuce leaves at the base of a bowl (or plates if you’re plating it instead of passing it). Top with chicken mixture. Top with cucumber and grape tomatoes. Pass extra dressing on the side.

If you’re serving as a wrap or sandwich, spread a thin layer of extra dressing on the wrap or bread. Top with cucumber, tomatoes and lettuce and roll up or top with the second slice of bread.

Rating: That dressing is very tasty and it make a very nice chicken salad dressing base. The cumin and za'atar add a really nice flavor to the tahini dressing. But even with water added it's too sludgy to really play well with the lettuce greens and just turns them to mush.

Take 2: So I tried it again as written above, this time mixing the chicken, celery and chives and placing that on a bed of lettuce with the cucumbers and tomatoes on top. It worked better, and I still really liked that dressing mixed with the chicken. (That dressing could totally work as a veggie dip.)

Take 3: But what I realized is this really wants to be a wrap, just not in lettuce form. or else a sandwich. Otherwise there's just too much disconnect otherwise between the lettuce component and the salad itself. Sure enough, in wrap form, this was a dandy chicken salad sandwich.

Spring salad with savory granola

It's still early in the Minnesota growing season, so I couldn't find any of the prettier varieties of radishes, which would help in the looks department. Guess I'll have to make it again soon.

 

I made this one because I was looking for something to round out the outlines of a spring supper. I wasn't sure how I was going to feel about savory granola, but there was only one way to find out.

Little gem and savory granola salad

Adapted just slightly from “Come Hungry: Salads, Meals and Sweets for People Who Live to Eat” by Melissa Ben-Isha“Come Hungry: Salads, Meals and Sweets forPeople Who Live to Eat” by Melissa Ben-Ishay, as published in the Star TribuneStar Tribune. The original recipe called for two small heads of little gem lettuce, but I opted for what looked good at the market, store and volunteers in my garden. I’d say this serves 6-ish, depending on what else you’re serving. Savory granola needs to be made ahead to have time to cool, but it keeps well at room temperature.

Ingredients

6  cups mixed greens such as butter head, mesclun and arugula
2 Persian cucumbers thinly sliced, or six mini snack size, sliced thinly, divided
3 radishes, thinly sliced, divided
1 shallot, thinly sliced, divided
Savory granola for garnish

Dressing:
1 small shallot, finely chopped
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
½ cup olive oil
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon seasoned rice vinegar
2 tablespoons nutritional yeast
¼ teaspoon fine sea salt
¼ teaspoon ground pepper

Directions

Place lettuce in a large serving bowl along with most of the cucumbers, radishes and sliced shallots. Toss with the dressing as desired and top with remaining cucumbers, radishes and sliced shallots.

For dressing, mix chopped shallot, mustard, olive oil, lemon juice, vinegary, nutritional yeast, salt and pepper in a small bowl. This makes plenty, so count on having some leftover because the salad doesn’t need all of that to be well coated. You can make it ahead and bring it to room temperature before mixing. It stays pretty well blended.

Savory granola

1 ½ cups rolled oats
½ cup pepitas
½ cup sliced almonds
½ cup puffed quinoa
2 tablespoons sesame seeds
2 egg whites
⅓ cup olive oil
1 tablespoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon fine sea salt
¼ cup ground pepper

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper.

Combine oats, pepitas, almonds, quinoa and sesame seeds in a large bowl.

In a small bowl, mix egg whites, olive oil, garlic powder, oregano, salt and pepper. Pour over oat mixture and toss to coat well. Spread on prepared pan and bake for 30 minutes. Stir, and bake for another 15 minutes or until golden brown and toasted. This makes way, way, way more than you’re going to need to serve as a salad garnish, but you won’t mind. Unless you mind having a shelf-stable inhalable snack in your house.

Rating: It has merit. The salad dressing can be made ahead and holds up well, and the savory granola falls into the category of Uncle Al Sicherman's standard response when asked how he was: "Odd, but likeable." The salad has fairly assertive flavors from the shallots, so if you're in the market for a mild-mannered supporting player, this might not be it. But if you're open to a bit of zestiness, this delivers nicely, and you can mix up the greens/veggies seasonally.

Nit: Puffed quinoa isn't available on the shelves of every grocery store. I grew tired of looking so I puffed my own. If you opt to do so, toast a very small bit at a time in a large shallow pan over medium high heat, shaking the pan as if popping popcorn, for up to a minute or just until it smells nutty. Otherwise you'll end up with something that tastes like burnt old maids in a popcorn bowl. 

Salmon with couscous-carrot-raisin pilaf

 

If a recipe gives you pause, do you give that pause back — as in give it a pass? Sometimes I do, although if the pause is caused by wondering do those flavors really go together, I'm more likely to give it a whirl in hopes of a pleasant aha moment than if I question methodology. In this case, I was wondering if baking couscous in a pan it doesn't specify being greased would actually work. It works just fine for baked rice, so I decided to go ahead with it simply because it looked so easy, and because salmon happened to be on a great sale at Lunds that week.

Salmon with couscous pilaf

Adapted from Martha Stewart Living Everyday Food, March 2005. Serves 2.

Ingredients

½ pound carrots (about 3 medium), peeled, sliced in half lengthwise, and cut into diagonal ⅛-inch pieces
½ cup couscous
¼ cup slivered almonds
¼ cup golden raisins
2 tablespoons fresh cilantro
½ tablespoon olive oil
⅝ cup water
2 salmon fillets, 6 to 8 ounces each
Lemon for serving, optional

Method

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. In a small, shallow baking dish (I used an 8-by-10-ish), combine couscous, almonds, raisins, cilantro, olive oil, ⅝ cup water, ¾ teaspoon salt and ⅛ teaspoon pepper.

Place salmon fillets on top of couscous mixture. Season with salt and pepper. Cover with foil and bake for 30 to 35 minutes until salmon is opaque. Plate salmon, fluff couscous mixture and serve along side salmon with lemon wedges.

Rating: This recipe is super fast to make, particularly if you've prepped the carrots ahead, and it tastes just fine. Would I make it again? If you asked me right as I was trying to plate it, I would have given you an emphatic no, because underneath some reasonably fluffable couscous, there's a layer of crunch you can only chip off the pan, which immediately triggers demerits. It diminished my ability to enjoy the dish, knowing that some serious pan clean-up awaited. I always factor clean-up time when considering if a recipe is a fast fix.

But I have to say, that pan wasn't so horrible afterward after a good soak. I used my Dansk enamel Kobenstyle pan that my mother gave me years ago, and much like the Le Creuset pans I sprung for decades ago when I could least afford them, I am always astounded what a soak and some baking soda will do in fairly short order. Still not convinced about the methodology of this recipe given the layer of crunch, but it was a fast prep meal.

Many years after I bought those enamel pans, I learned my mother was very upset with me because I had splurged on cookware instead of buying a proper dining room table for our dining-room-less one-bedroom apartment. We entertained small groups just fine; young, poorly paid journalists are not fussy about tablecloth-covered card tables surrounded by mismatched chairs so long as they're getting treated to decent home-cooked food and free booze. I don't think the dining table we eventually bought qualified as proper in my mother's mind either, since I later realized she really coveted a dark cherry French Provincial style dining set for herself (and by extension coveted it for me, despite that not being my style). Poor honey. She was a good sport all those years with the round oak table my dad bought for $5 at a farm auction while Mother was standing beside him and didn't even realize he was bidding. It was perfectly serviceable with three leaves, just not the bit of formal loveliness she always had in her mind's eye.

I stand by my pans and priorities. But I wish she could have had a table that met her vision.

Is there any moral to all that rambling? Maybe you do you. But if you don't have decent pans, be prepared to order takeout to serve on your beautiful table when you can't get food out of the pan.

Pumpkin soup with maple syrup and five-spice powder

 

While this recipe would make a great fall soup, it did just fine on a day that's rainy and in the 40s. Still in comfort food mode, with a few loaves of real bread rising even now. Because it was that kind of week.

Very simple pumpkin soup

From Bon Appetit ‘s Best Entertaining Recipes compilation. Looks like it dates to August 2004 or so.

Ingredients

2 (15-ounce) cans pumpkin puree
4 cups water
1 cup heavy cream
1 large garlic clove, peeled and pressed
¼ cup maple syrup
4 tablespoons butter, divided
½ teaspoon Chinese five-spice powder
4 ounces shiitake mushrooms, sliced

Method

In a large heavy pot, combine pumpkin, water, cream and garlic. Bring mixture to a simmer. Add syrup, 2 tablespoons of butter and the five-spice powder. Simmer another 10 minutes, whisking periodically.

Meanwhile, heat remaining 2 tablespoons butter in a small pan. Cook mushrooms until tender and starting to pick up color. Season soup to taste with salt and pepper. Serve topped with cooked mushrooms for garnish. Serves 6 as a first course.

Rating: This is a lot like pumpkin pie in soup form, so yum. But even if it weren't that tasty, I would make this again just because it's so stinking easy, and very pantry friendly. I used 1 can of pumpkin and one equivalent thereof of pumpkin I'd cooked, pureed and frozen last year. It comes together very quickly with minimal ingredients and dirtying of dishes. It may not be quite as rich tasting as this winter vegetable soup that also uses maple syrup, but if you're looking for a less thick soup for an appetizer, this one would be a decent choice.

If you want to make the soup ahead, just reheat and then finish off by cooking the mushrooms. The soup is fine without the mushrooms, but it does give it a bit of visual interest. If you're among those for whom mushrooms are too slimey, by all means skip them.

Butternut squash pasta with bacon, sage and brown butter

 

Three weeks ago the red-winged blackbirds were back by the lake's marshy areas singing their signature ascending three-note call. Last week we saw our first butterfly of the season, and today a dragonfly. The daylilies are pushing up and the trees are bravely budding out. Clearly it's spring-ish.

So I cooked a fall recipe. Because that actually really did make sense, since there was one butternut squash remaining on the orchard rack in the basement from last fall, and the sage plant will no doubt take at least a temporary a dive when we take it back outside. Still a few freezing overnight lows in the extended forecast, but time to be wrapping up last fall's bounty ahead of upcoming spring markets in three weeks. 

Basically, it's a perfect recipe for the time of year where I want even the mildest of winters to be over, but haven't sloughed off enough winter lethargy to truly developed spring ambitions. I want at least a week of just being able to walk around without coats before entering the prolonged months of all the physical labor that pretending to garden entails. If I had a hammock, I would crawl into it to rest up. Except I'm pretty sure that I couldn't get out of it again without help. But this recipe could make it worthwhile.

Butternut squash pasta with bacon and sage brown butter

From “Homemade Kitchen” by Alana Chernila

Ingredients

1 small butternut squash (1 to 1½ pounds), peeled, seeded and cut into 1-inch chunks
1 medium onion, cut into ½-inch wedges
1½ tablespoons olive oil
½ teaspoon kosher salt
4 ounces bacon, sliced
1 pound farfalle pasta
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
10 fresh sage leaves
½ cup grated Parmesan cheese

Method

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper. In a large pasta serving bowl, toss together squash, onion, olive oil and salt. Spread mixture on prepared baking sheet and bake for squash is tender and onions have picked up color, about 30 to 35 minutes.

Meanwhile, place bacon on another baking sheet at bake at 450 for 18-25 minutes until crisp. Cut into pieces when cool enough to handle.

While squash and bacon cook, heat a large pot of water to boiling. Salt liberally and cook pasta until al dente. Drain, reserving at least a cup of cooking liquid. Place pasta in the large serving bowl in which you mixed the squash. Add cooked squash and bacon.

Heat butter in a small sauce pan until butter foams and takes on a light brown tint. Add sage leaves and cook briefly. Add mixture to pasta bowl, along with Parmesan, and enough reserved pasta cooking water to reach desired sauce consistency. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Rating: You really can't go wrong with roasted squash and bacon over pasta, and this recipe definitely does not go astray. Totally cheating with those ingredients, and while it uses a certain number of pans, it still meets my kitchen ROI bar. It serves 6; Dave really enjoyed the leftovers for lunch, because bacon.

Pretty sure this one can enter the rotation along with pasta with balsamic-roasted squash, bacon and blue cheese and roasted butternut squash Alfredo pasta.

Lemony white bean soup two ways, plus lemon garbanzo bean orzo soup with spinach, and chickpea soup with feta and herbed oil

 

If you really like one aspect of a recipe but not another, don't be afraid to take another swing at it until you find something that suits your taste. And test out other recipes of the same vein until you find your favorite. In this case, I wound up in a mini dive into lemony bean soups after trying this recipe from a recent Bon Appetit. This post is all about the marriage of lemons and legumes in soup form.

Lemony white bean soup

Adapted from Bon Appetit, March 2024

Ingredients

1 medium onion, coarsely chopped
2 celery stalks, chopped
Zest and juice of 1 lemon, divided
6 garlic cloves, chopped
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon kosher salt
8 ounces white beans, soaked overnight and drained
1 quart broth, or more
2 tablespoons butter
Parsley for garnish

Method

Pulse onion, celery, lemon zest and garlic in a food processor until chopped fine. Heat olive oil in a large heavy pot. Cook onion mixture and kosher salt until vegetables soften. Add beans and broth and cook, partially covered, until beans are tender. The original recipe suggests this would take 1 to 1½ hours. Pretty sure it took me nearly 2½ hours and I had to keep adding broth to keep it from turning into just cooked beans, so allow some leeway for both the time and the amount of broth. Add butter and lemon juice and serve garnished with parsley.

Rating: This soup had a nice bright flavor with the lemon, garlic and butter really coming through. But while I liked that aspect, it wasn't going to make it into the keeper pile because of a few knocks against it: There was such a disconnect between the clear broth and the beans with seemingly nothing to tie the two together. Plus, it's not the lookiest of dishes. And it really took a hit on the kitchen time ROI meter, since from start to finish time it takes a lot of cook attention and yielded a very scant 4 servings. If I'm going to spend that much time on a soup, it's good to have the leftovers to make it seem worthwhile.

Still, I really liked that flavor, so I tried again:

Lemony bean soup, Take 2

Note: After soaking beans overnight and draining them, I placed them in a slow cooker with one small onion, quartered, some lemon pepper seasoning and 1 teaspoon salt. I covered the beans with enough water to cover by a couple of inches and cooked them on low for 4 to 6 hours until tender.

Ingredients

2 medium onions, chopped
3 celery sticks, chopped
Zest and juice of 2 lemons, divided
12 garlic cloves, chopped
2 teaspoons kosher salt
3 tablespoons olive oil
16 ounces white beans, soaked overnight and cooked until tender, divided
1¾ cup broth
2 tablespoons butter
Parsley for garnish

Method

Pulse onions, celery, lemon zest and garlic in a food processor until finely chopped. Heat olive oil in large heavy pot. Cook onion mixture with salt until vegetables are softened. While onions cook, puree 1 cup of the cooked beans in the same food processor bowl. Add beans, bean puree and broth to pot and cook for 30 minutes to allow flavors to blend. Add butter and lemon juice and salt and lemon pepper to taste. Serve garnished with parsley.

Rating: This was fine out of the gate, but absolutely stellar the next day when flavors had time to blend and it brought out the amazing double zing of lemon and garlic. The slight added creaminess of pureed beans tied it together nicely, and making the beans ahead and then just adding them to the soup when I was ready to make it made my perceived invested time factor go way down. Yes, I know you have to cook the beans in advance, but in a slow cooker I barely have to pay attention so I can mentally discount that effort, so for me it counts as less time. Plus, it serves 8 quite reasonably.

Note: That method of prepping the veggies in the processor was pretty slick.

Lemon chickpea orzo soup

Adapted from the Simple Veganista

Ingredients

1 tablespoon olive oil

½ medium onion, diced

3 carrots, peeled and diced

3 large garlic cloves, minced

7 to 8 cups broth, water and/or liquid drained from chickpeas

1 cup orzo

⅓ cup tahini

Juice of 2 to 3 lemons

Large handful of spinach

Chopped fresh dill

Method

Heat oil over medium heat. Cook onion and carrots until onion has softened. Add garlic and cook a minute more. Add the broth and/or water. Bring to a boil. Stir in orzo and garbanzo beans. Reduce heat and boil gently until orzo is tender. (I found it took close to 15 minutes.)

Turn off heat. Stir in tahini and lemon juice to taste. Add spinach and stir to wilt. Add fresh dill to taste and season with salt and pepper. Serves 8 reasonably well.

Rating: Quite nice, and no significant tinkering needed. I had wound up accidentally upping the tahini amount because I got a bit carried away when measuring and was too lazy to try to feed it back into the jar. Definitely better looking than the other bean soup, with more cheerful color to help counteract winter on a day when we woke up to fresh snow, it started snowing at 10 a.m., and wasn't forecast to stop for a full day. There's a nice creaminess from the tahini, color from the carrots and spinach, and just a slight bit of heft from the orzo. Better ROI on kitchen time, since it relies on canned chickpeas, which in this case was just fine.

Note: Like most soups with pasta, this one tightens up a bit as leftovers, so you may want a tad more broth on hand for reheating. I used the tiniest of orzo varieties, and it didn't really need more liquid since it loosened up once heated through, but you might if you use the standard size orzo.

Chickpea soup with herb oil and feta

Adapted from “Eating the Greek Way,” by Dr. Fedon Alexander Lindberg

Ingredients

1¾ cup garbanzo beans
1 large onion, chopped
3 tablespoons olive oil
Juice of 1 lemon
1 tablespoon cornstarch
3 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
¼ cup olive oil
1 large handful of mixed herbs (I used parsley, lemon balm, thyme, tarragon and oregano)
¼ cup grated Parmesan cheese
Feta chunks for garnish

Method

Soak beans in enough water to cover overnight. Drain and rinse.

Heat olive oil in a large heavy pot over medium low heat. Cook until onions are softened. Add drained beans and add enough water to cover by 2 inches. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer until chickpeas are tender. The recipe suggested about 1½ hours. I cooked them for 2¼ and in retrospect wished I’d cooked them even longer, so allow plenty of time.

Mix cornstarch and lemon juice in a small bowl. Stir into soup and add parsley. Remove a couple of large ladles of the soup to a glass bowl. Process with a stick blender until it’s sort of pulpy-chunky. Stir back into soup.

To make herb oil, in a small food processor or blender, combine olive oil, herbs and Parmesan to make a loose pesto.

Serve soup garnished with feta chunks and a swirl of the herb oil. Serves 6-ish as a side, 4 as a main course.

Rating: Nice flavor, although not as brightly lemony as the other two, despite using lemon balm in the herb mix. It's fairly mild, and I did wonder whether I might have liked garlic in the herb oil, but there's really nothing wrong with it as is. The feta and herb oil work well with it and make it a bit lookier than it would be otherwise. My only real nit was that the soup really could have benefited from softer chickpeas than I achieved in a rather lengthy cooking time. They certainly yielded to a fork test, but this soup really needs them to be on softer side. Tempted to try making this into a crockpot recipe so I can more readily outwait it.

To be clear, I would be happy to be presented with any of these bowls of soup, but in some cases I might be happier if I didn't have to make it. 

Crockpot chicken two ways: Marbella and cumin carrot stew

Kowalski's had a great (and rare) sale on chicken thighs recently so I stocked up. Great candidates for firing up the slow cooker for some warm late-winter meals.

Spiced chicken stew with carrots

Adapted from “One Pot” from the kitchens of Martha Stewart Living. If you’re wondering why it counts as a one-pot meal when it dirties two, it’s because they were figuring on using a slow cooker that has a browning function, which I lack. I used a mix of regular orange carrots, some purple and yellow baby carrots and a parsnip, since I turned out to have fewer carrots than I thought I did. It made for nice color variation.

Ingredients

2 pounds carrots cut 1½-inch long
2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1 cinnamon stick
¾ teaspoon ground cumin
2 tablespoons olive oil
8 bone-in chicken thighs (about 2½ pounds)
½ cup golden raisins
½ cup fresh cilantro leaves
¼ cup sliced almonds, toasted

Method

Place carrots, garlic, cinnamon and cumin in a crock pot.

Heat oil in large saute pan. Season chicken with salt and pepper and brown chicken in oil. Place atop carrot mixture in slow cooker.

Cover and cook on low for 8 hours (or 4 on high). Add raisins for the last 15 minutes of cooking. Serve garnished with cilantro and almonds. They suggest serving it with cooked couscous.

Rating: Not sure I'd classify this as a stew, exactly. The cumin flavor helps infuse all those carrots. Maybe a useful dish if you're looking for a weeknight family meal and need to use up some carrots. Not company-rated, by any means.

Ack! I forgot the parsley garnish. It's prettier with that. And if I'd bothered to light it properly.

Slow cooker chicken Marbella

Adapted from something I saved from somewhere online dubbed Party-Picnic Chicken, but when I try to follow the link now I get a dead end so I’m not sure where to credit it. The internet is filled with slow cooker versions of the the classic from "Silver Palate Cookbook" by Julee Rosso and Sheila Lukins. This one subs apricots for the prunes, which might be blasphemy, but it's a damn tasty bit of heresy. Plus, I had apricots on hand, and I'm unlikely to deliberately procure prunes on a regular basis because there are tastier dried fruits with a consistency I find preferable..

Ingredients

8 bone-in chicken thighs
¼ cup orange juice
¼ cup olive oil
¼ cup red wine vinegar
4 large garlic cloves, minced
1 tablespoon dried oregano
1⅓ cup sliced Spanish green olives
2 tablespoons capers
⅓ cup brown sugar
⅓ cup dried apricots, sliced
2 bay leaves
Chopped parsley for garnish

Method

Place chicken in slow cooker. Sprinkle with garlic, oregano, olives and capers. Combine orange juice, olive oil and vinegar. Pour over the top. Sprinkle brown sugar and apricots over chicken. Tuck in bay leaves and season with salt and pepper.

Cover and cook on low for 6 to 8 hours. Serve chicken pieces with juices drizzled on top and sprinkled with that parsley garnish that I forgot at picture time. Couscous makes a good accompaniment to soak up the sauciness. Serves 4.

Rating: Now this is a slow cooker chicken recipe you could conceivably give to guests. Nice balance of sweet and savory. Dave called it nom-tastic. Certainly a worthy repeater that takes very little prep time. Good ROI of kitchen time. I wouldn't class the first recipe as a keeper, but this one definitely qualifies.

So why did I put the best recipe last? Pure vanity. Sometimes I just want to go ahead and eat so I can't be bothered to take the time to light the food properly, and in Minnesota, natural light does not come at dinner time most of the year. Clearly I'm cooking for us first.

Kielbasa sauerkraut soup with wild mushrooms

 

Fresh wild mushrooms are definitely not free, so I only tend to buy them for a specific recipe .... which I then do not make. Usually they're called for in some recipe that I don't have time or energy for at the point I would have intended to cook it. So if I'm half on the ball, the mushrooms get repurposed for something else before they go bad. If I'm not, it's some expensive compost fodder.

This recipe is so simple it really shouldn't have triggered that reaction. But it did. Three times. My ability to muster the energy and attention to cook a new recipe, and thus blog about it, is a pretty reliable indicator of how my life is going. For several months, mine was kind of off the rails working 12-hour days during the work week and several hours on weekends and faux vacations/holidays.

I'm not completely out of the woods yet workwise, but I finally had time for this recipe that comes together in less than an hour. Handy, since winter finally decided to reassert itself, and this helps take the edge off after a commute where people don't seem to remember where the lanes were the day before.

Polish hunter's stew

Adapted from Better Homes & Gardens, December 2023. I'd link to it online, but I can't find it on their site. Serves 4 passably well.

Ingredients

14-ounce kielbasa, sliced into ½-inch pieces
3 tablespoons olive oil
8 ounces mixed wild mushrooms
1 cup chopped onion
½ teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons tomato puree
3 cups water
2 cups sauerkraut
½ teaspoon dried dill
Fresh dill for optional garnish

Method

Heat olive oil in a large deep skillet. Brown kielbasa. Remove from pan and set aside.

Add mushrooms, onion and salt to the pan. Cook, stirring often, until tender and the onion has started to pick up a bit of color. Add tomato paste and cook for 1 minute. Add water, sauerkraut and dill. Return kielbasa to the pan. Cover and simmer 15 minutes to allow mixture to heat through and flavors to blend. Serve topped with fresh dill leaves if desired.

Rating: Very hearty. Decent flavor, providing you like kielbasa, which is mainly what it tastes of. Not too time consuming to fix. Aside from the mushrooms, it's relatively pantry friendly, since the rest of the ingredients have staying power and you don't even have to have a decent broth on standby. I opted to add dried dill to the soup, since I had no fresh on hand, it not being summer when I'm overrun with it. I could see making it again the next time I want to play fresh mushroom roulette.

Pickle rollups in cheese ball form

 

These are basically Minnesota sushi inverted, so they seemed like a plausible thing to try for Super Bowl fare, when fancy seems a tad out of place.

Dill pickle cheese ball bites

Adapted from "Homestead Recipes" by Amanda Rettke of the I Am Baker blog. Makes about 20 cheese balls. I used these hamburger pickles.

Ingredients

1 8-ounce container cream cheese, softened
½ cup finely diced dill pickles plus ½ cup finely minced dill pickles, divided
½ cup diced ham
3 tablespoons ranch dressing seasoning mix
⅓ cup minced fresh chives
⅓ cup finely chopped pecans

Method

Line a large food storage box with waxed paper.

Mix cream cheese, ½ cup finely diced dill pickles, ham and seasoning mix in a medium bowl. Shape into small rounds, slightly more than ½-inch round. Cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.

Combine remaining minced pickles, chives and pecans in a small bowl. Roll cheese balls into mixture, pressing to coat well. Return to storage container and chill well until ready to serve.

Rating: A little too soft and messy for good finger food served couch-side. Definitely want to serve them as chilled as possible for structural integrity sake. Plus the flavor had intensified a bit more the second day. I kind of feel about these the same way I felt about the "undeviled eggs" that I decided really worked better in the more traditional form: Both were tasty enough versions, but no tastier, and decidedly harder to eat as finger food. 

If you want a good mini cheese ball that holds up as finger food, these mini rosemary roquefort cheese balls are the hot ticket.

 

 

Triple orange scones

 

Every year I have to try at least one new recipe from the Taste holiday cookie contest. This year I tried the Aperol sparklers, which called for sweetened dehydrated oranges. I had a lot left over after baking the cookies and was looking for a way to use them up. This was my second attempt at making a scone recipe with them; the first turned out a tad dry and not worth sharing, but these have merit.

Triple orange scones

Adapted from a recipe for lemon poppy seed scones found on Epicurious that's been in my recipe collection long enough that it predates this blog. But I remember they were tasty. No sign that the Ledbetter's restaurant referenced as the source still exists in Monroe, Conn. But the recipe lives on, and it made a good base to riff on.

Ingredients

3 cups flour
1 cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar, divided
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
Zest of 1 orange
10 tablespoons cold butter
1 egg, beaten
2 tablespoons orange juice
A scant ⅓ cup milk
⅓ cup chopped dried, sweetened oranges (I used Trader Joe's)

Directions

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper. 

In the bowl of a food processor, combine flour, 1 cup sugar, baking powder, salt and orange zest. Cut butter into small chunks and add to bowl. Pulse to combine until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Mix egg and orange juice and add to bowl. Pulse briefly. Add milk in thirds, adding enough so mixture just comes together. 

Remove to a floured board. Press into an 8-inch circle. Sprinkle with chopped oranges and press into the dough. Cut into 8 wedges and transfer to prepared baking sheet, placing well apart, because they will spread. Sprinkle with remaining 1 tablespoon of sugar.

Bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until light golden brown and firm to the touch. 

Rating: Definitely tasty, and reasonably moist. I'm considering buying more of the dried oranges just to make them again because that flavor really comes through. Maybe near next Christmas.

In the meantime, I clearly need to make the lemon poppy seed scone recipe again to refresh my memory.