WASTE NOT

It's not always easy, this cooking-for-two business.

I'm a schemer and a long-term planner, and that sometimes has me grasping for things that are (or really should be, perhaps) out of my reach--a meal in five courses, an ice cream recipe that calls for a day of stirring and straining, a multilayered cake with icing and glazed fruits? No problem!--when you consider the fact that there are only two of us sitting down at our little table. It's not always easy for me to express myself out loud in words, either, but I do have a tendency towards grand gestures. What can I say about that? It's the personality trait that drives me to cook insanely complicated meals on a Tuesday night. It's the trait that led me to move 2500 miles across the country from my hometown to a brand new city, seemingly turning on a dime. I overshop, overreach, and overdo things out of intense love. It's kind of........my thing.

Luckily for us, we have a huge stash of tupperware.

Because I also have a twisted, artist's imagination, pretty often Tuesday's leftovers become Wednesday's reimagined dinner without too much trouble at all. My domestic counterpart calls these my 'Iron Chef nights' (tonight's secret ingredients are......3 carrots, leftover pasta and a tablespoon of tomato paste! ALLEZ CUISINE!). So many times I've felt like someone's Depression-era grandmother as I've whisked a small handful of leftover green beans or a sprinkling of chopped herbs into a lidded plastic container. Why not? It will get used, or it will sit for a few days and then get thrown away. But damn it, I'm gonna try.

A few night's ago, dinner chez Sweet Laurel yielded a few different leftovers: about two cups of Spring Vegetable Risotto, and a handful of uncooked fiddlehead fern tops that didn't make it onto the risotto. Two things seemed obvious to me.

One, those fiddleheads are seasonal as all hell, and were more precious than gold when I picked them up at the greenmarket. I was not about to let a single one of those little darlings go to waste. Let's pickle those things right up*.

Two, any Sicilian can tell you that the absolute best thing to do in the face of leftover risotto is to roll it up and make arancini. Sooooo, the way to proceed seemed clear.

[ *Which, okay yes, does make me feel like a character in the Portlandia pickling sketch, but whatever......

......'Oh, fiddleheads and three leftover green beans? I CAN PICKLE THAT!' ]

The first thing I was really keen to try was Quick-Pickled Fiddlehead Fern Tops. These are a quick pickle primarily for two reasons: I only had a handful left, and one small jar didn't seem a large enough batch to justify a water bath, canning tongs, and the traditional pickling method.  

So, I opted to quickly blanch these little guys (along with, yes, some leftover raw green beans that had been haunting my crisper drawer) until just tender, then cover them in a vinegary, sweet brine along with bay leaves, mustard seeds, peppercorns and a whole clove of garlic.

These will keep for about a week in the fridge in a tightly lidded container, far less time than if they'd been traditionally pickled. But there are so few of them--and I'm hoping they'll be addictively delicious and we'll inhale them immediately--that it won't be an issue in the slightest.

Mmmmmmmm. Crispy and briney. Your amounts may vary, depending on whether you're working with a full-sized batch of fiddleheads or just a few strays like I was, but either way you can't go wrong with this basic recipe from Serious Eats.

My second idea actually took place two nights ago, when I repurposed the unused portion of our risotto to make arancini, or Sicilian-style rice balls. With their creamy centers and golden crisp outsides (thanks to a showering of bread crumbs and a generous helping of olive oil), these are basically reason enough to keep making risotto, just to have enough to make arancini the next day. These are in essence some very down-home, Southern Italian-style county fair food (deep-fried mac & cheese on a stick? Please, this is mac-on-a-stick's great grandmother from the Old Country); they are little round, golden brown missiles of love. 

This version included chunks of kielbasa (another random refrigerator stray, left over from last weekend's trip to the farmer's market), diced into small cubes and browned briefly in a skillet, then pressed into the center of each palm-sized rice ball. The bread crumbs come from a stash of cubed bread that I keep in the freezer, frozen just before it could go stale, and intended exactly for this purpose (or for making bread pudding on demand, obviously). Just toss a few frozen cubes of bread in the blender or food processor, pulse into crumbs, and go. Why yes, yes I AM super thrifty and ingenious, thank you for noticing.

Arancini of Leftover Spring Vegetable Risotto

2 cups risotto

1 cup bread crumbs

salt & pepper

Olive oil (at least 4 tablespoons, but keep the bottle handy)

1/2 cup diced kielbasa, browned in a skillet & set aside to cool (optional, but awesome. 

Diced pancetta would be an even better substitution here)

Divide risotto into approximately 6 portions. Form a loose ball in your palm with each portion, pressing some of the kielbasa or pancetta down into the center of each, then close the ball a little more tightly around it. Each ball should be about the size of a small orange (which is where the Italian word arancini, or 'little orange', comes from in the first place), somewhere between golf ball & tennis ball-sized.

Season bread crumbs to taste with salt & pepper, toss to mix thoroughly. Gently roll each rice ball in the bread crumbs until well coated, set aside.

Cover the bottom of a skillet completely with olive oil, heat over medium high heat. Working in batches (I did two batches of three balls each), place in skillet and gently roll every few minutes until arancini are thoroughly browned. Keep the bottom of the skillet well-coated in olive oil, adding more as necessary. Remove from pan, serve immediately.

EAT YOUR SPRING VEGETABLES!

So, I was passing by a table at my local farmer's market a few days ago, and I saw something that caught my eye. This isn't really all that unusual, there are lots of eye-catching lovelies at my market: gorgeous, multi-colored jars of jam and preserves, upright rows of pickles, heaping piles of greens, cheeses, cured meats, glistening radishes and carrots, golden loaves of bread......yeah, it's kind of an edible wonderland. BUT. There was something new this time, something I couldn't resist coming back and getting a second look at. Tightly coiled little green discs about the size of a silver dollar, all jumbled together in a basket.

[ Fiddlehead fern tops, along with some dark Finnish rye bread I was also powerless to resist ]

Fiddleheads.

Yes, like the fern, i.e. the houseplant you may have seen adorning your grandmother's windowsill or perched on top of a doily on the back of a piano. FERNS. For eating.

I knew they were edible, but I'd never actually had the opportunity to try one before. I'd heard they were pretty delicious, with a tender, mildly grassy, 'green vegetable' flavor similar to asparagus. I scooped up a handful, along with some other ripe-right-now spring vegetables, already making plans for dinner as I went.

I decided to pair the fiddleheads with their close cousin flavor-wise, asparagus tips, further flavored by a slice or two of bacon diced into small pieces. A creamy risotto would form the base of the dish, and be the perfect vehicle for the rest of the asparagus, as well as leeks and a perfect, tender young carrot (grated finely and distributed throughout the risotto for a hint of sweet earthiness and color). Topped with a simple, savory chicken breast, and then garnished with the gorgeous combination of (seriously, they're almost modern sculpture) fiddleheads* & asparagus tips, it was spring on a plate.

[ *I should mention that fiddleheads can be a little difficult to find, as the season for them is only a short window in May--like, RIGHT NOW!--and growing zones may vary. It's sometimes possible to find them frozen, so look around. If you can't find them at all, no sweat. Just substitute an equal quantity of the much-easier-to-find asparagus, and you'll still end up with a dish that is the essence of late spring. ]

Spring Vegetable Risotto with Asparagus and Fiddlehead Ferns 

(adapted from a recipe at The Kitchn)

serves 4

1 cup fiddlehead ferns 

16 asparagus stalks 

2 tablespoons butter 

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil 

2 large leeks (white and light green parts only, rinsed well & diced)

2 cups arborio rice

1/2 cup dry white wine 

approximately 5 1/2 cups hot vegetable or chicken stock 

1 tablespoon fresh thyme, chopped

1 medium carrot, grated

zest of 1 large lemon

salt & pepper

4 small chicken breasts (or 2 large, sliced in half)

2 tablespoons diced bacon

Start by preparing the vegetables. Boil a medium sized pot of water, and have ready a large bowl of ice water. Remove lower 1" of each asparagus stalk and discard, peel remaining stalks. Remove the top 2" of each stalk (the tip) and save these. Slice stalks into 1/4" pieces and set aside. Thoroughly wash the fiddlehead ferns, rubbing lightly with your fingers to remove any of the feathery leaves. Cut off any brown ends. Rinse again if necessary.

Blanch both the asparagus tips and fiddlehead ferns for about 2 minutes, until bright green, then plunge into the ice water bath to stop the cooking. Set aside.

[ Asparagus tips & fiddleheads, chilling together in a water bath ]

Bring stock to a simmer in a small saucepan, then cover and keep warm over low heat. In a large heavy-bottomed pot, heat the butter and olive oil over medium heat. Add leeks and saute until tender and almost translucent, about 5 minutes. Add rice, and stir until grains are translucent at their edges but still opaque in the center, about 3 minutes. Add wine, and stir until liquid is almost completely absorbed. Add warm stock by the cupful, stirring until rice has absorbed nearly all of the liquid before adding the next cup. Stir frequently to develop the risotto's creamy texture and to prevent rice from sticking. Reserve 1/2 cup for the very end of the cooking process.

While risotto is cooking, add the blanched asparagus tips, fiddleheads and diced bacon to a skillet, saute over medium heat for about 5 minutes until bacon has begun to crisp. Remove everything from pan (leave behind about a tablespoon of bacon fat to flavor the chicken, remove excess if there is any) and set aside. Add chicken breasts to pan, working in batches if your skillet is not large enough. Brown chicken on both sides over medium-high heat, until cooked thoroughly (length of cooking time depends on thickness of chicken breast). Sprinkle lightly with salt & pepper, set aside.

When rice is almost done (about 25 minutes), stir in the chopped asparagus stalks, fresh thyme, grated carrot, lemon zest, and the final 1/2 cup of stock, stir well. Allow to cook for several more minutes, until the remaining liquid is absorbed. Taste for seasoning, add salt or pepper as desired. The risotto should be creamy and tender, and the vegetables cooked but with a slight remaining crunchiness.

Place several heaping spoonfuls of risotto on each plate, topped with a chicken breast and a portion of the bacon, asparagus & fiddlehead mixture. Enjoy your spring veggies!

[ This post was originally written--by me!--for the Botanica at the Farm blog on 5/19/14 ]

BEEBOPAREEBOP, RHUBARB SODA

There's a crate I've been avoiding at the farmer's market.

It's full of pink-hued long stalks that look kind of like Swiss chard, and also somehow remind me of celery. They look stringy and sour, are rumored to have poisonous leaves and be incredibly tart....kids jam the cut ends into bowls of sugar and then gnaw on them, apparently. Not in my childhood, however. We grow and eat the fruits and stems of a lot of pretty gnarly plants in the desert (Nopales? Prickly pear fruits? Those I will happily nom on), but rhubarb is a cold-winter-loving plant that never made it as far south as the growing zone of my childhood home. Thus, I never even saw a rhubarb stalk until about two years ago.

But rhubarb's got two things going for it. One, it's been a long, long six-month winter break around here without the farmer's market, and now that the weekly stalls and trucks have reappeared for the season the boyfriend and I have been falling on them like a pack of starving hyenas. Subsisting on preserves and the limited pleasures of watery supermarket fruit has been okay (First World Problems, guys, I know), but I'm ravenous for some real, in-season fruit goodness. And the first official fruit-like substance (technically a vegetable, but why argue over semantics?) to show up in any market is rhubarb.

Or 'RuhBa', as it is apparently known in my neighborhood.

The other thing rhubarb has going for it in my world is pie (not surprisingly, since rhubarb was dubbed 'pie plant' in Laura Ingalls Wilder's day and before). More specifically, the catchy little jingle from A Prairie Home Companion that is the first thing that always comes to mind whenever rhubarb is mentioned.

    'Wouldn't this be a good time for a piece of Rhubarb Pie?' Garrsion Keillor intones from the radio. 'Yes, nothing gets the taste of shame and humiliation out of your mouth like Beebopareebop Rhubarb Pie....'

    'Damn straight it would, Garrison!' I reply cheerfully, humming bee-bop-a-ree-bop-Rhubarb-Piiiiiiie.

Yep, I know, I really ought to get out more.

Besides, look how beautiful they are in a bouquet of tender whole carrots! More gorgeous than roses.

So, even though I was unfamiliar with it, rhubarb pie has always been on my mind. The other night at a restaurant, I was served a lovely slice of rhubarb tart to end the meal. It was like a simple deconstruction of rhubarb pie, a golden square of puff pastry on which rested a hefty spoonful of poached rhubarb, surrounded by a drizzle of creme fraiche. It was delicious: buttery flakiness punctuated by warm mouthfuls of soft, tart fruit. And it got me a bit obsessed with the tangy, elusive vegetable-fruit in earnest this time. I was determined to make not a pie, or even a deconstructed tart, but the simplest thing I could think of that would allow me to enjoy the fruit directly (without jamming stalks of it into a bowl of sugar and chewing, because, no)......a rhubarb syrup.

Using this method from The Kitchn, I combined 4 cups of rhubarb (slice the stalks into 1/2" segments, but discard the scary leaves) with 1 1/2 cups of sugar and 1 1/2 cups of water in a saucepan. Bring to a boil, then lower to a simmer for about 20 minutes. The fruit will begin to soften and fall apart, and the mixture will thicken slightly into syrup and become a brilliant pink.

After 20 minutes, remove pan from heat and place a mesh strainer over a heatproof bowl. Strain the mixture through the mesh, pressing on the leftover fruit solids with the back of a spoon to extract more of the syrup. Once all the liquid is in the bowl, chill completely and then pour into an airtight container (like an adorable ceramic-stoppered glass bottle) and refrigerate. 

The nice thing about recipes like this is that nothing needs to go to waste. After straining, the leftover sweetened fruit is fantastic as a jam-like spread for toast, or just eating with a spoon like applesauce (not gonna lie, totally did this while standing in the kitchen). 

I ended up with about a cup and a half of finished syrup, and a little less than a cup of leftover fruit 'jam'.

Pour chilled rhubarb syrup into club soda or seltzer to make a fabulously pink soda (I know, what is it with me and the bright pinkness at the moment? I think it's a spring thing), about one part syrup to three parts soda. I'd love to try this in prosecco or any other sparkling wine....or maybe some of these cocktail recipes? Enjoy it while you can, because rhubarb season will be over in a few more weeks!

PINK IS THE NEW BLACK

Is it true that you are what you eat? If it is true, then maybe the reason I've been craving foods lately in the brightest of pink hues is because New York City has been swaddled in gorgeous, fluffy fuschia, cherry, magenta, raspberry, and palest delicate shell pink for the past few weeks. SPRING IS HERE. A late arrival for sure, considering the fact that it's halfway through May already and the cherry blossoms have only just now faded from the trees (every branch was absolutely bursting with pink blossoms about a week or two ago). This last austere winter gripped the eastern states hard and didn't seem to ever want to let any of us dour-faced New Yorkers out of our matching somber black puffy coats. But now spriiiiiiing (imagine a cartoon bluebird alighting on my outstretched finger as I say that) is here at last, and we're all finally popping out of our down-filled cocoons to reveal the bright colors beneath! 

In my case, this spring awakening is also manifesting itself in the desire to make muffins.

SO MANY MUFFINS.

I had a very specific idea last week for a light, springy muffin studded with juicy little chunks of raspberry, light golden and cakey, the finishing touch on which would be a thin layer of bright, sugary pink glaze. Sounds perfect, right?

I've been tinkering with a few basic methods for a perfectly cakelike gluten-free muffin for a while now, and while it's still a work in progress, I think I have a few good ideas going. The new idea I played with this time is separating the eggs; combining the yolks with the rest of the liquid ingredients and whipping the whites into soft peaks in a separate bowl to provide structure (missing when you don't use gluten) and hopefully some airy lightness as well. So often when I make any kind of gluten-free baked good it turns out to be denser, lower, and sometimes a little more crumbly than the 'original' recipe I was trying to emulate....a fabulous improvement in some cases, but not so in a muffin. For some reason, I'm hellbent on getting a light, fragrant & tender little version of cake in a paper cup.......otherwise, it may as well be a scone, right? Not that I don't love scones. But they're not muffins.

Luckily, I think the whipped egg whites version is a strong theory. The foamy whites are then gently folded back into the batter just before it's ladled into the cups and baked, and I think the result is lighter and fluffier than previous attempts I've made. More delicious muffin research, obviously, is called for. Who wants to volunteer to come over and help me taste all this....er, science?

Glazed Raspberry Muffins

[ loosely adapted from a recipe at honey & jam ] 

Makes 8 large muffins 

1 cup finely ground almond meal

1 cup brown rice flour

1/2 tsp salt 

1/2 tsp baking soda 

2 eggs, separated

1/4 cup melted butter 

1/2 cup honey 

1/2 cup milk

1 cup fresh raspberries (sliced in half)

For the glaze:

1 cup confectioner's sugar

1 tsp milk

1 tablespoon fresh raspberries (about 3 large berries)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Prepare a muffin tin by either lightly oiling the cups or using paper liners. 

Mix dry ingredients well in a bowl. In a second bowl, combine melted butter, honey and milk, add 2 egg yolks and mix well. In a third bowl, beat 2 egg whites with a whisk until soft peaks form. Combine wet and dry ingredients from first two bowls until everything is well incorporated. Gently fold in raspberries, then gently fold in beaten egg whites until just combined. Spoon batter into muffin cups immediately. Bake for 25-30 minutes, until muffin tops are golden brown. Remove from oven and let cool to room temperature while you prepare the glaze.

Crush fresh raspberries in a bowl with the back of a fork (they do not need to be perfectly pureed, although you can certainly use a blender to make this glaze.....I like the slightly 'rustic' look of whole raspberry seeds and bits of fruit that shows fresh fruit was used). Add sugar and milk, continue stirring with the fork. It will seem too dry at first, then will loosen into a glaze as you stir. Pour over cooled muffins, spread with the back of the fork or a pastry brush. Allow at least an hour for the glaze to set firmly (if you're patient), or devour immediately (if you're me). 

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