Photos this week

white wonder tomatoes

Ahhh, yes. Another tomato post. But, I imagine that entire odes have been written upon first taste of a white wonder tomato. Friends,  I hope you have been lucky enough to receive a few of these excellent tomatoes in your share since the tomatoes started coming on strong. The color is unique and beautiful, of course, but the flavor is truly rich and outstanding. Plenty of sugar, plenty of acid, they do not last long in my kitchen  Pale yellow and cream colored tomatoes are often piled up en masse at the grocery store around this time each year and I have, admittedly, paid good money for them. Alas, a grocery store tomato is a grocery store tomato no matter how pretty. I promise myself that the next white wonder to grace my kitchen will not be eaten out of hand like an apple, but prepared simply and with deep reverence.  Sliced, peppered, salted and stacked high on rough, white bread spread with ripe avocado. We'll probably add a few crisp leaves of lettuce and a couple strips of  bacon hot from the pan. A perfect summer meal.

cherokee purples... summer's jewels

I have never given a different answer to the question, what's your favorite food? Since I began chewing the answer has always been tomatoes. I am a resolute and unapologetic tomato snob. I will pass up a free massage, an hour alone with a good book and a crisp hundred dollar bill for a perfectly un-messed-around-with tomato sandwich. There is nothing better. Toasted white bread. Mayo. Freshly plucked, sliced tomatoes. Salt and pepper. If I had to pick only one food to eat forever and ever, the tomato sandwich would be that food without question. But had better be stuffed with fat, juicy slices of cherokee purples. They are rich, meaty, sweet and little bit briny to the taste. A real tomato eater's tomato. There have been days, recently in fact, when a tomato sandwich made with ripe cherokee purples has been on my plate at every meal. My three year old can easily pick out the few lopsided, crinkled, deeply burnished fruits from our weekly share and set them aside calling them, Mama's tomatoes.  If you ask me, he's gifted.

tomatillos

Something mysterious and divine happens when you toss a few tomatillos with salt and oil and charr them in a blisteringly hot oven. Those hard, tart little green globes emerge from the heat unctuous, silky smooth inside, sweet and begging to be smashed up with a bit of onion, chile, lime, garlic and avocado. There is a little Mexican restaurant in Houston that serves that with huge, sweet gulf shrimp as a cocktail appetizer. From here to Houston is about 1,300 miles but I could see making the drive for that. We could  also just stay here and make it in our own kitchens and serve it over fajitas. At my house we like to stake out a cool spot on the front porch and just scoop it up with chips and wash it all down with a nice cold beer full of lime wedges. That mysterious flavor we're picking up in those tomatillos may be the taste of summertime. 

eggplant has a special place in my heart

I am seriously lucky in many ways not the least of which is my being the mother of a child who begs for eggplant. Lucky for him I seem to be on a one woman mission to cook every imaginable eggplant recipe before I die. I'm about halfway there, I think. Eggplant has an unfairly earned reputation for being difficult to prepare but I find that the huge payoff in yumminess far and away outweighs what little if any extra prep eggplant requires of me. And it does not have to require ANY extra steps at all. Two of my favorite ways to cook eggplant could not be simpler. The first being whole baked eggplant. Just wrap the eggplants in foil, yeah, just like a potato and bake at 400 for about thirty minutes or until tender. Open up the foil and split length wise making a little pocket to fill with a dribble of olive oil, salt and pepper, chopped raw tomato and cucumber and crumbled feta. I could eat that right now. My most favorite, favorite, favorite eggplant recipe is even easier. I slice the tops off the eggplants and then slice them again length wise and make deep slashes in the cut sides. I stuff the slits with whole peeled garlic cloves, rub on a good bit of olive oil, salt and pepper to taste and arrange an a baking sheet and bake at 400 until tender and beginning to caramelize. Then buzz everything in the food processor with a good squeeze of lemon, a glug of olive oil and a handful of parsley. This can be served and eaten as you would hummus or the more complicated baba ghanouj (also completely delicious). Or use it as a pizza sauce as you would tomato sauce or pesto. I suspect that my roasted potato pizza with goat cheese and eggplant sauce played a significant role in my husband's decision to propose. He says no but.... he did ask me in the kitchen with two of those eggplant pizzas cooling on the stove. I may very well I owe much of my happiness to eggplant one way or another.

my beloved okra

Sneaky, sneaky okra. You have so many people stumped. I have heard more that a handful of unkind words used to describe okra, slimy, gooey, runny. Usually, I believe, from people who have suffered the misfortune of eating badly cooked okra. I grew up eating okra as most people from the Deep South do and there is not a person in my family who will turn down a plate of okra. Lucky me. Let's begin with a better understanding of okra. It is the tender green or burgundy seed pod of an edible hibiscus relative and quite a beautiful flowering plat as well. When it was first cultivated by whites in the Americas it was grown purely as an ornemental (the same is true at one point in history or another for potatoes, blueberries, tomatoes, celery and pumpkins. What were these people eating?) Okra is widely eaten through out India, South East Asia, and Africa. It is a plant that loves heat and can thrive in imperfect soil. As a child okra was in everyone's garden, growing up through the hard, rocky, red clay soil and the long, dry Texas summer. It can be dipped  in an egg wash and  dredged in seasoned flour and cornmeal and fried up for one, but I love it stewed in a fragrant bath of onion, garlic and tomatoes and a good slug of vinegar. Saute a chopped onion and two minced cloves of garlic until just tender and add to the pan sliced okra, about three cups of crushed tomatoes, fresh or canned, salt and pepper to taste, about a cup of water and a good slug of vinegar. Let that simmer on a low flame for about twenty minutes or until everything is tender and the flavors have all come together.  As they say in my home state, this is some very good eating.

Sungold cherry tomatoes

I defy anyone to produce a single un-messed-with bite of anything on earth half as delicious as a single sungold tomato. It just cannot be done. This is a bit of a silly post and not one about cooking at all as I have never in all my life actually cooked a sungold. The only way I've ever eaten them is directly off the plant or shortly there after and I am just fine with that even though I'm sure that any way you fix them will be a revelation. Alice Waters of Chez Panisse, the famous Berkeley, California eatery has recipes for a sungold cherry tomato martini, a sungold tart and a savory sungold French toast. Yow! I may be missing out. But, I'll never know. And I doubt anyone struggles in the kitchen with what to do with all their sungolds. They are a gift from the Earth and the Sun and the beautiful, dirty faced gardeners tending to them. They best way to honor the work that produces such a gorgeous crop of sungold tomatoes them is to eat every last delicious one just the way you like best.   

purple viking potato

My first taste of the garden's potato crop could not have come in a more beautiful package. Purple and pink streaked skin opening up onto pearly white flesh. Do I eat them or were them as jewelry? Eat them, of course. They were the first things to go. And I can take no credit for any kind of recipe or cooking either. I boiled them in the skins until the were just tender to the knife drained them and bashed them around in a deep sauce pan with salt, pepper, a few sliced green onions and an alarming amount of brown butter. I beat them up till a few skins broke open and let them go all crisp and golden in that fragrant, oniony brown butter and that was all. My husband is from Germany and will not tolerate an inferior potato. He was deeply pleased with this batch. So was I. When the commercial potato is one of the most genetically modified foods on the market, I feel so grateful to be able to set a plate of good, pure and delicious food down in front of my family. It is a gift to be simple.  

Fennel

This week there was a single petite fennel on the very top of my veggie share and I was glad to see it. I do love a complex vegetable. The bulb is crisp and crunchy giving a whiff of clean, cool celery and the fronds are perfumey and sweet-savory, tasting of anise and green vegetal spice. I love it, obviously but I only came to know of it in college. There is typically not much call for fennel in traditional Texas home cooking but, never mind. My first recollection of fennel is one of scent. I minored in Italian in school and my most memorable instructor, Professore Gaudelini, of the big hazel eyes and curly dark hair  wore a fennel scented cologne. Naturally, female attendance was high. Later in college while traveling in France one summer I found that fragrance again in vegetable form growing in gardens and wild along the side of the road and on the table during many meals. I ate fennel once in a memorable soup of creamed white beans, wine and garlic. It was delicious. On another trip to France around Christmastime my husband and I stopped inside the door of a tiny shop that sold only the juices of fresh fruits and vegetables which the shopkeeper bottled on site for each customer. I watched as he fed small, tart green apples, fennel  and grapefruits into his machine and the frothy golden juice bubbled out. I think I told my husband that it was time for us to move to France after that. If anyone has a juicer at home I would love to know what that juice tastes like, it smelled amazing. What did I do with my little share fennel? I cut the fronds off and hung them to dry planning to use them later when canning up pizza and spaghetti sauce. Because that mysterious delicate aroma wafting up from the best red sauce you've ever eaten was probably fennel, it just makes all those familiar flavors newer and more intense. With the bulb I whipped up a quick green gazpacho. A chopped cucumber or two, a clove of garlic, the chopped fennel, salt, pepper, icy cold butter milk or yogurt and an avocado buzzed in the blender until smooth.  Delicious. Also an elegant component of a light summer meal and a great way to show off some local ingredients. I have served this in a frozen wide mouth pint jar topped with sliced cherry tomatoes. I freeze the spoons too and just forget about the ice. It is seriously flavorful and refreshing. And.... if you're felling extra inspired, infuse a batch of simple syrup with a small handful of fresh fennel fronds. Let it steep for about thirty minutes in the sugar syrup and then strain it into a pitcher of lemon juice and ice water. Stir and you've made fennel scented lemonade. Can't get more summery than that.  

Summer squashes sweet and savory

Ahhh... lovely tender summer squashes. The perfect answer to, What else should I put in this pasta, this casserole, this omelette? Summer squash, of course. It is mild, versatile and copiously abundant in the summertime. But abundance can present a new challenge... Zucchini and summer squash have been known to inspire a kind of guerrilla vegetable hit and run bombing. During the height of summer neighbors are delighted by the first basket or two of squash left anonymously on the porch. But by the time that fifth basket turns up a kindly gardner may find the front gate locked. So what to do with all that squash? Simply, eat it up. And fairly quickly owing to its delicate nature. It doesn't freeze well at all and while I hear that it dehydrates beautifully in a low oven, I can't be bothered and I can't fathom where I would store all that put by squash. By the end of tomato season my shelves are full. So we'll eat it up simply, grilled or sautéed and quickly with a lovely ginger dipping sauce. Make it up by whisking together  a small, finely grated onion, one clove of minced garlic,  a tablespoon of grated ginger, the juice of one lemon, half a cup of tamari, one teaspoon of sugar, one teaspoon of white or rice wine vinegar and a tablespoon of ketchup (the ketchup only sounds gross). I can live on this stuff. A single batch will probably last a couple of meals and this sauce goes beautifully on just about every vegetable I can think of. Knock yourself out.
 But when you have made dinner and washed the dishes and find that you have barely made a dent in your weekly squash share do the following: Grate up about two squashes and squeeze out some of the water. Add that grated squash and the juice and zest of one large lemon to a thick batter made up of one cup of brown sugar beaten into a stick of butter until fluffy, two eggs, a cup of polenta, two cups of self rising flour, a tablespoon of vanilla and a half teaspoon of salt. Drop  rounded tablespoons of the mixture onto a buttered sheet pan and bake at 350 for eight to ten minutes. Now you have a large, beautiful batch of lemon-polenta squash cookies (they are a charmingly old-fashioned Italian summer snack with a beautiful name I cannot remember). I am sure that no neighbor would lock the garden gate on someone bearing a plate of these beauties.

Magic beans

There is a reason why beans feature so prominently in fairytales. They are profound and elemental... plant a bean in the ground, give it sun and rain and what do you get.... more beans. They are also a fairly early crop to be so very rich in flavor and nutrition. They could be eaten fresh off the plant or dried for winter storage. In many languages beans are referred to as poor man's beef. The mythology is lovely and deserved and as I prepare a meal of beans I like to remember the thousands of years of cultures who ate simply and lived close to the earth not by choice but as a means of survival and ritual. I  find very little need to embellish something as pure as a batch of green beans. We like a quick simple saute of green beans in butter with a clove of crushed garlic. A sprinkle of coarse salt, a few flecks of crushed red pepper and a squeeze of lime juice at the very end. The eating and talk of magic beans around the dinner table is lovely but the half hour spent on the porch with my little one sharing a glass of ice tea and quietly snapping beans together is truly magical.

Cabbages and the magic of sauerkraut

Well hello there summer. We can forgive the soaring temperatures, biting, stinging bugs and the ivy poisoning (well, almost) since you've come bearing the gift of good eating. The long days of summer are such a time of abundance and good flavor but I some days I find myself agonized at the thought of standing over a hot stove. But all this food!!!! It needs to be eaten, processed, put by.... My better judgement can be relentless. Sometimes we need to forgive ourselves and in the meantime stock up on a good stable of hot weather recipes that do not require cooking. Lacto-fermented Sauerkraut is one of my best. Start by draining about 3/4 a cup of whey from a batch of yogurt and set that aside. Shred a large head of cabbage, any variety is just fine, a large head will yield 8 to 10 cups of cabbage. Place the cabbage in a bowl large enough to accomodate a dinner plate. Add to the cabbage on finely sliced onion and two shredded carrots. Toss everything together until well combined in the bowl and sprinkle over two heaped tablespoons of salt and a grind or two of pepper. Now, go find a three year old, give him a potato masher and tell him to pound away. He will do this FOREVER so you can go put your feet up but you might want to lay a towel down first. After a good pounding the salted veggies will have given up quite a bit of liquid.This is when I add other flavoring agents, a little red pepper, a bit of sugar. You can really get creative sampling as you go to get an idea of what your finished kraut will taste like.Once you're set on the ingredients pour over the drained whey a tablespoon of raw vinegar and enough water to cover the baby kraut completely. Drop in a dinner plate to keep the veggies submerged and cover with a clean kitchen towel. Place your bowl in a cool spot in the kitchen out of direct sunlight or if counter space is limited in your kitchen you can put the bowl of ferment somewhere else out of the way like say a high shelf in a coat closet. As long as you PROMISE not to forget about it and leave the country for a few weeks. But even if you do.... this is the kind of mistake I tend to make once. Check up on the bowl every other day to make sure that everything is still covered with the fermenting liquid and add a bit more water if needed. Magically in about three to four days you have your own batch of traditional lacto-fermented sauerkraut. Keep in in the fridge for about two weeks, not that it will go uneaten for that long. Sauerkraut also freezes beautifully and thaws with all of its active cultures alive and kicking.  This is definitely one of those foods that once you make and eat your own you will never buy it again.