Nothing Bacon Can’t Cure

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Last night, I headed over to the boathouse for the Prospect Park Alliance Junior Committee’s Summer Soiree. I throw a lot of fundraisers for work, so it is truly a treat to be a guest.

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No dinner and a few hours of open bar later, I found myself getting cozy with a bare air mattress in my friends’ living room. (They offered sheets, but that would have necessitated me getting up.) This morning I walked the hot and humid mile home in pajama pants, my dress bulging out of my gift bag.

I knew I had some nice slab bacon and CSA veggies at home, so I swung by the grocery store for eggs. I sliced about half an ounce of bacon into lardon and rendered these in a cast iron skillet over medium heat. I added a few big chunks of garlic and toasted these in the bacon fat. I coarsely chopped a bunch of chard and sautéed it in the pan before adding salt and pepper. I slid the wilted greens to the side and toasted half of a whole wheat flatbread right in the skillet. I made some scrambled eggs in another pot and threw it all together, adding half of a very ripe tomato.

This plus a latte and I was good to go.

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Dog Day Salad

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It was 95 degrees when I arrived for tonight’s 7:00 CSA work shift. We checked members off on a list, restocked vegetables and loaded the unclaimed food into a car for transport to a local food pantry. As it happened, all four of us were nonprofit workers, so we talked shop–and sweat. By 8:30, we said our goodbyes and headed off in search of air conditioning, dinner and (at least in my case) a cold beer.

My tote contained my weekly share of red and yellow tomatoes, scallions and more of those delightful cucumbers. In the fridge at home I had some fresh dill and Greek yogurt left over from this past weekend’s Russian extravaganza.

Dog Day Salad

1 large cucumber, seeded and diced
2 large tomatoes, diced
3 Tbsp fresh dill
3-5 scallions, minced
2 ounces crumbled feta or farmers cheese
1/4 cup Greek yogurt
1 Tbsp creamy Dijon mustard
1 Tbsp olive oil
2 Tbsp white wine vinegar
Pinch of salt
Fresh-ground black pepper
Juice of 1 lemon

Crack open a cold beer. Toss the above ingredients together in a small mixing bowl, taking swigs of the beer as needed. If you’re not starving, chill this in the fridge for a bit. If it’s all you’re eating, you might want to toast some whole wheat flatbread, tear it up into bits and mix it right in.

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I found that this paired well with a Dogfish Head Raison D’Etre and Dog Day Afternoon, which is one of my all-time favorite movies. Make this salad or not; I don’t really care. But, if you’ve never seen Al Pacino in his prime, do yourself a favor.

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Pretty in Pink Borscht

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Last week’s CSA share included a handful of beets. I knew they would keep until this week, when I had a hunch I’d be getting some more. Sure enough, Tuesday brought another bunch–along with some of the crispest cucumbers I’ve ever tasted.

That very day, NPR reported that this is the hottest summer on record in the U.S. Roasting the beets was out of the question.

But cold borscht was not. I boiled my beets and eggs while preparing my morning coffee and a garlic, beet greens and egg scramble that I ate with a sliced fresh tomato–the first of the season! With the hot work completed early in the day, dinner preparation would really just be a matter of assembly.

Cold Borscht (serves about four)

  • 2 bunches beets (greens reserved for a nice sauté)
  • 2 Tbsp red wine vinegar
  • 4 garlic cloves
  • 1 large onion
  • 3 cloves
  • 2 whole allspice
  • 1 bay leaf
  • 1 tsp coriander seed
  • ½ tsp fennel seeds
  • 1 tsp pink peppercorns
  • 1 tsp green peppercorns
  • 1 tsp crushed red pepper flakes (or more if you like a little heat)
  • 1 Tbsp sugar
  • 2 tsp salt (and more to taste)
  • 2 Tbsp prepared horseradish (or to taste)

Clean the beets by soaking them in water and scraping off any lingering dirt. (I recommend using the edge of a teaspoon; three days and a few showers later, I am still trying to dig dirt our from underneath my thumbnail .) Trim the tops, bottoms and any rogue hairy stuff. Add these along with everything above except the horseradish to a large pot, cover with water and bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer and cook until your beets give easily when pierced with a fork (somewhere between one and two hours). Remove beets and strain liquid into a bowl using a chinoise or other fine mesh sieve. Once beets have cooled, slip peels off with your hands. Add all but one of the beets, reserved liquid and horseradish to the work bowl of your food processor and purée until smooth. You may need to add more water to get the desired consistency. Pour mixture back into the bowl and refrigerate for at least a few hours. (A full day would be fine.)

  • ¼ cup crème fraiche, sour cream or plain yogurt
  • Black pepper
  • 1 cooked beet, diced
  • 4 hard-boiled eggs
  • 2 Tbsp minced dill plus more for garnish
  • 1 large cucumber, peeled, seeded and diced

Whisk minced dill and crème fraiche, sour cream or plain yogurt into soup and season to taste with fresh-ground black pepper, salt and/or vinegar. Ladle soup into bowls, garnishing with halved eggs, beet and cucumber cubes and sprigs of dill.

It turned out that these were Chioggia beets, which were breathtakingly beautiful, though the dramatic stripes faded a bit during cooking and, ultimately, made for a borscht the color of Molly Ringwald’s prom dress at the end of Pretty in Pink. (Am I alone in having found that dress rather disappointing after all of the buildup?)

Still, it was damn tasty. I served it with a kale, sugar snap pea and pickled red onion salad and toasted pumpernickel bread topped with a crème fraiche spread and some killer smoked salmon that I’d picked up from Josephson’s Smokehouse in Astoria, Oregon. (Astoria is the town where Goonies was filmed, which makes for two ’80s movie references in a single blog post.)

An earthy rosé rounded out our feast, though I suppose that vodka would have been more traditional.


Kale, Sugar Snap Pea and Pickled Red Onion Salad

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Kale, Sugar Snap Pea and Pickled Red Onion Salad

  • 1/2 red onion, thinly sliced
  • 2 Tbsp olive oil
  • 2 Tbsp red wine vinegar
  • 1-2 Tbsp honey
  • 1 Tbsp creamy Dijon mustard
  • Salt and fresh-ground pepper (to taste)
  • 1 bunch kale (I happened to have Red Russian, which worked nicely with the theme)
  • 2 cups sugar snap peas

Combine first six ingredient in a lidded jar and let stand for an hour or more, shaking periodically. Combine dressing with shelled peas and thinly sliced kale and pea pods and let sit for at least ten minutes until kale begins to wilt.

Mid-July CSA Salad

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The tomatoes are here!  Tonight’s CSA share included basil, cucumbers, scallions and some truly glorious tomatoes.  I had a wedge of red cabbage left over from the five-spice kale and cabbage slaw I made for a Fourth of July Party.  And I has some feta–yet another great emergency protein source.

Mid-July CSA Salad

  1. Finely slice a quarter of a head of red cabbage and toss with a teaspoon of salt in a wooden bowl.  The salt will start to break down the cabbage, allowing it to wilt and more fully merge with the rest of your salad.  (Fun fact: sauerkraut is just cabbage, salt and, possibly, seasonings that have been left to ferment.)
  2. Peel a few cucumbers, slice them up in half and scrape out the guts, which will make your salad too watery.  Then dice them and add them to the bow. 
  3. Add a couple of diced tomatoes.  Some folks would have you de-seed these as well, but there was no way I was wasting any of that glorious tomato goodness.
  4. Add a few thinly sliced scallions and some basil chiffonade.  Chiffonade is fancy chef speak for thinly sliced.   I find the best technique is to stack the leaves (about 10 in this case), roll them into a spiral and then slice the whole stack.
  5. Crumble two or three ounces of feta and toss that in too.
  6. Drizzle with a tablespoon of good quality olive oil, a couple of tablespoons of red wine vinegar and some fresh-ground black pepper and toss it all together.

You could toss some toasted whole wheat pita bits or some quinoa in if you’re looking for something a little more filling.  If you are a patient person, you could let it sit for a bit so that the flavors meld.  Alternately, you just could pour a glass of Vinho Verde and get to work.

Independence Eve Cocktail

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The Fourth of July falls on a Wednesday this year.  I’m throwing an 800-person fundraiser on Saturday, so there will be no extra long weekend for me.  Come to think of it, there will be no weekend at all.  And it’s hot.  Really hot.  This calls for a cocktail.

I’m not a big fan of sweet drinks.  Now bitter, that I like.  A few weeks ago, I attended a bitters making class at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, which is just a few blocks from my house.  We toured the Edible Gardens, got some tips on how to infuse our simple syrup, and shared a lovely ginger, lime, cilantro and gin concoction.  We each went home with a bitters base of our own making.  I opted for grapefruit peel, dried lemon peel, lovage, cardamom and violets.  Last night I completed the last of the surprising number of steps necessary to finish my bitters.

Independence Eve Cocktail

Fill a highball glass with ice and add a shot or so of gin.  Add half a shot of Campari and a couple of shots of grapefruit juice.  Pour seltzer to the top and add a few drops of grapefruit or other citrus bitters.  If you’re lazy like me, just poke the top ice cube to mix things up a bit. 

This cocktail is best enjoyed in your underwear sitting near an open window.

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Eat Your Veggies

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I’ve taken on a full CSA share this year. This is an ambitious quantity of vegetables, even for a serious vegetable lover. My goal is to keep some staples on hand that will allow me to convert pretty much anything into a quick weeknight meal. Whole wheat flatbread and ricotta cheese are on the list.

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Tonight I seasoned the ricotta with nutmeg. I used a vegetable peeler to shave thin slices of zucchini and marinated them in lemon juice, fresh basil and a fruity olive oil. I topped it off with a few sliced cherry tomatoes and some scallions that I halved and grilled in the same cast iron pan that I used to toast the flatbread. When making something this simple, it’s important to season each element.  I added salt and pepper as I went and then sprinkled a little fleur de sel over the top.

I ate this with some green leaf lettuce dressed with Greek yogurt, white wine vinegar, a minced garlic scape, pepper and a bit of honey. For dessert I polished off some strawberries that were definitely not going to keep through my long weekend in Sonoma. Then I turned a bag of leafy greens over to my appreciative neighbor and dragged out the suitcase.

The Kale Caesar Cure

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That last margarita was definitely not necessary. I awoke this morning to a trail of clothes leading from the front door to the kitchen, where I had stopped off to grab a glass of water before planting my face in a pillow. Note that I did not actually drink the water, despite the advice of the drag queen in house slippers who read our palms on a dimly lit street corner somewhere in the West Village. But that’s another story.

Something healthy and restorative was in order.

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Kale Caesar

  1. Heat a cast iron skillet to medium-low with half a tablespoon of butter and a thinly sliced garlic glove.
  2. Cube a slice or two of stale bread. (I had some sourdough rye on hand.) Add the pieces to the skillet, stirring to coat. Add some salt and pepper, turn the heat down to low and stir occasionally while you continue your preparations. If you have not figured it out yet, the goal here is quick croutons.
  3. Hard boil an egg. Put an egg in a small saucepan, add water to cover and place over high heat. When the water comes to a boil, wait a minute or two, then turn off the heat and let the hot water continue cooking your egg for about ten minutes. Drain the water and cool the egg quickly by adding a couple of rounds of cold water and maybe even some ice. (This helps ward off that greenish gray ring that screams Continental breakfast at a crappy chain hotel the morning after your friends’ wedding.)
  4. Toss the following ingredients into a food processor or mash together with the back of a fork: 3 anchovies (I used sardines because I had an open tin), juice of 1 lemon, 1/2 tablespoon Dijon mustard, 1/2 tablespoon mayonnaise, 1 clove garlic, pinch of cayenne, pinch of sugar, black pepper.
  5. Rinse and finely shred your kale. I went with some young lacinato, which is also known as dinosaur kale, that I got in last week’s CSA share.
  6. Add the kale, dressing, croutons, some grated parmesan or romano cheese, and a pinch of smoked sea salt if you’ve got it. Toss the salad and add your peeled, sliced egg.

This plus an iced coffee and I am feeling a good bit better. Now if I can just figure out how to get the remaining glitter off of my eyelids before this afternoon’s babysitting gig.

Summer Solstice Salad

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Yesterday was the summer solstice. Here in New York City, we hit 97 degrees though it apparently felt like 102. Con Edison warned of likely power outages. My coworkers and I did our part by working with the lights off, which had a calming effect on an otherwise nutty day. I worked late, but it was still steamy by the time I got off the train in Brooklyn. It was 8:00 and I was hungry, but there was no way I was creating any more heat in my stuffy apartment.

Summer Solstice Salad

1 scape, thinly sliced (shallots, garlic and red onion would all work here)
1 tablespoon Greek yogurt
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1 tablespoon good quality olive oil
Juice of 1/2 lemon
1 teaspoon dried oregano (fresh would be even better, as would Italian flatleaf parsley, chives, etc.)
Pinch sugar
Fresh-ground pepper
1 can chickpeas, rinsed and drained
1 sweet red pepper, minced

  1. Combine all but the last two ingredients in a jar and shake vigorously. Then combine with the chickpeas and red pepper in a bowl.
  2. Now root around the fridge and pantry and see what you’ve got. I had some red leaf lettuce, baby heirloom tomatoes, feta and oil-cured olives. Hearts of palm or artichoke hearts would have been an excellent contribution from the pantry.
  3. Pack half of your lightly marinated chickpeas away for a future snack, toss everything together in a wooden bowl, and grab a fork. I find that salad for one is best eaten directly out of the bowl.

Midway through my meal, there was a gentle rap at the door. I grabbed my trusty wooden bowl and the remaining strawberries and joined my neighbors on the roof. The sun was just finishing its descent and there was a cool breeze in the air. Wine was poured. Plants were watered. Berries were eaten. And thus concluded the longest–and perhaps hottest–day of the year.

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