Summer Berries with Strawberry-Almond "Cream"

I've been busy lately, my cooking schedule is off, and I wanted a treat.  Something easy. With that in mind, I went in search of something special that wouldn't take hours to make.

I flipped through my book to grab a bit of inspiration.

It isn't warm enough for ice cream, or the vegan equivalent and it was too warm to make a cake.

My ingredient of choice is almond butter for that creamy mouth feel.  Even though I've been trying to be a more conservative food shopper, I have to admit I'm an almond butter snob.  

Massa Organics has the best.  I get almonds, almond butter and rice from Massa Organics.  I found the farm a years ago at the Ferry Plaza Market in San Francisco. I don't go anywhere else for these ingredients now because--well you really have to taste them to know why they are just the best.  

I'm not really a totally reformed food snob.

We planted strawberries in our yard this year and can save some serious money, if my Cooking Assistant doesn't eat them first.  He's crafty and he often finds a way to get out there. 

Local strawberries are expensive at the market, but they're worth it because picking them is back-breaking work.

Blueberries and raspberries haven't made an appearance at the farmers market yet, but once they do, I never want summer to end.

My Cooking Assistant can smell strawberries across the street.  Look out, guard your berries because he doesn't mind picking them at all.

The northwest is the place to be in the summer if berries are your favorite food in the world.

I bought a cake to go with these berries.  Yes that's how lazy I've been.  I bought it at a natural food store and the price wasn't much more than a grocery store angel food cake. But the ingredient list was startlingly different. The cake from the grocery store had a long paragraph of ingredients.  What are all those ingredients?  I'd rather get a cake with 7 ingredients.

I noticed PCC still had blood oranges. Citrus is a good pairing with berries.  And the almond butter?  

If they suddenly went out of business, I'd rather go without, give almond butter up completely, than to get another brand. I've tasted them, they've got nothing on Massa Organics almond butter.

The berry inspector.

Please may I have some?

Summer Berries with Strawberry Almond "Cream"

(Serves 4)

The simple sauce for these berries can be enhanced with fresh mint leaves or crushed lavender buds.

2 pints strawberries, green tops removed 

1 blood orange, juice and zest

2 tablespoons almond butter

1 ripe banana

1 pint blueberries

1 pint strawberries

2 tablespoons shredded coconut

Blend (in a blender or with a hand blender) about 8 strawberries with blood orange juice and zest, almond butter and banana.

Cut the remaining strawberries into small pieces.  Pour the dressing over the berries and gently mix.  Sprinkle with coconut. You can also add spearmint leaves (like the photo at the top of the page) or add 1 teaspoon of fresh crushed lavender .

Serve on a plain white cake or with a scoop of coconut sorbet.

Baby Kale, Mushrooms and Crispy Shallots

I'm looking for anything easy these days that will change up the cooking rut I often find I'm in when spring arrives.  One of my friends often makes these crispy shallots to add to dishes, so that was my starting idea at the farmers' market this week.  I thought of adding them to purple potatoes, another favorite, these days.  Maybe I'd make a different type of Shepherd's Pie.

I got the shallots and the potatoes this time at Let Us Farm.

And of course the usual mushrooms from Sno Valley.  You can get mushrooms other than shiitaki, if you want, but I like these for their immune system supprt.

I was still thinking about the Shepherd's Pie when I saw this baby kale at Stoney Plains Farm.  Baby Tuscan kale.  All it takes is one vegetable to change my mind.

I didn't use all my shallots, mushrooms or kale--I'm thinking I'll make quinoa fritters with a kale and avocado salad--I think I'm slowly coming out of my seasonal rut.

My Cooking Assistant is never in a food rut.  His fondness for greens never ceases to amaze me.

Keep stirring and cooking the shallots on low until they brown and become slightly crispy.

My Cooking Assistant was quick to waken from his nap.  Basset hounds are slow pokes about food--it's their main motivation in life, and if he can steal a bite quickly, he will.

Baby Kale, Shiitaki Mushrooms and Crispy Shallots

(Serve 2)

6 shallots, finely diced

2 tablespoons canola or extra-virgin olive oil, divided

8 ounces shiitaki mushrooms, tough stems removed and sliced

1 bunch baby kale, roughtly chopped

2 tablespoons raspberry vinegar

Pinch of sugar or Florida Crystals

Sea salt to taste

Pepper to taste

Fresh lemon juice, to taste (optional)

Heat a heavy skillet over medium heat.  Add shallots and 1 tablespoon oil.  Stir constantly and cook until shallots  are browned and slightly crispy.  Set shallots aside while you dry-fry shiitaki mushrroms until they are soft.

Stir and cook until mushrooms are soft.  Remove from heat and set mushrooms aside. Place skillet on heat, add remaining oil and kale stems.  Stir and cook until stems are soft.  Add leaves, stir and add vinegar, sugar, salt and pepper.  Cover and steam for 5 minutes.  Remove cover, stir and serve.  You can add a little lemon juice if you want .

Add this kale dish to soup, grains, sandwiches, or serve as a side dish for dinner.

Kake, mushrooms and shallots, grilled zucchini, purple mashed potatoes with salsa 

Couldn't you spare one bite for a poor starving hound dog?

Purple Potatoes, Leeks, Mushrooms and Arugula

Plant Start Season

The first three hundred customers at the U-District farmers market last Saturday got a free plant start.  I was so excited when I read the email that I arrived early. I met my two friends, and we walked to the Managers tent  and inquired.  It's a new tent on the north side of the market.

I knew I wanted cilantro from River Farm.  One of my friends also choose cilantro, the other chose a Black Prince tomato start from Rent's Due Ranch.

Just down from the Manager's tent is Let Us Farm--back this week from winter break. The word is, the north end is the busiest end of the market.  "It's where most of the people come in," farm Steve Hallstrom told us. At the very end (or beginning) of the market, Let Us Farm got a little bigger space this year, so business should be good for farmers Steve and Cecelia.

Steve Hallstrom of Let Us Farm

I knew arugula was the vegetable I wanted as soon as I saw it. The rest of the dish and the dinner would revolve around that. For most people, planning meals revolves around the choice of meat, but for vegetarians and those who love vegetables, the best way to decide the what's-for-dinner question is to pick a vegetable that appeals to you and then dream up what you want with it. Every dish can be a supporting character. And with fresh seasonal vegetables you don't need a lot of spices and just a few herbs.

The leeks and shallots both looked so good Steve suggested, "Why not use both?"

I ended up getting both but they each have a mild flavor that can easily be overwhelmed.  I was pretty sure I wouldn't use them together.  The young worker at the booth asked what I planned to do with the arugula. 

"It's coming together now," I'd said.   Sno-Valley mushrooms and probably purple potatoes from Olsen Farms--I knew one thing, this was going to be a main dish."  

It's just a mix and match from the farmers' market.  Isn't that the way good food should be?

And what's not to love about shiitaki mushrooms?  They're good for your immune system for one thing, and they impart a savory flavor.  Sno Valley Mushrooms are also one of the best buys at the market.  But if the price still seems steep, you can grow your own or buy seconds.  

If you're on a food budget, ask a farmer if they have any seconds for a lower price, sometimes seconds are kept behind the booth.

Before we left, I got a baguette.  Our Saturday meal wouldn't be complete without crusty bread from Tall Grass Bakery.

I decided on the leek over the shallots.

At home, the garden is currently under way.  Our arugula and mustard greens are coming up. It won't belong before we have lettuce from our garden.

Potatoes, Leeks, Mushrooms, and Arugula

(Serves 2)

4 small potatoes (waxy like Yukon, white, red or Yellow Finn potatoes)

1 1/2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

8 ounces, mushrooms sliced

1 leek, washed well and sliced

3 to 4 cloves garlic, pressed

1 to 2 tablespoons Mama Lil's Peppers or 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

8 ounces chicken style seitan, cut into bite-size pieces

1 bunch arugula, roughly chopped

Fresh orange or lemon juice to taste

Sea salt to taste

Preheat the oven to 400F.  Wash and dice the potatoes.  The smaller you cut them, the faster they roast.  Place potatoes in a baking dish and toss with 1/2 tablespoon olive oil.  Roast for 25 minutes or until slightly crispy.  Lightly sprinkle fleur de sel or sea salt over them when done.

While potatoes cook, remove tough mushroom stems and slice the tops.  Dry fry (in a frying pan without oil) until they start to become limp.  Add leek, garlic, Mama Lil's Peppers and seitan.  Stir and cook until leeks begin to brown.  When potatoes are done, add potatoes and chopped arugula to the mushrooms and leeks. 

Stir cover and cook for a few minutes, until arugula wilts.  Drizzle with orange or lemon juice.  Add sea salt to taste.

Lemon-Basil White Bean Soup

To make our food budget work, we eat soup a lot.  In fact, soup is so often on our menu, it was really easy to blog about for a year in the soup project.  But I have secret.  I'm a long time soup lover and it's one of my favorite breakfasts. So I'd been dreaming about a white bean soup for awhile, but I was against adding any canned tomatoes. It's a sign I'm tired of winter-early spring fare in the Northwest.  My other option for "something sour" is lemon.  Basil is a perfect pairing for  a spring white bean soup.

You can use small white, navy, or cannellini beans.  I love beans from Willie Green's Organic Farm. And I've gotten them many times, but if you're looking for budget items these days, you can also use white beans from the Grocery Outlet if you want because this soup is about a symphony, not a solo performer. 

I don't use prepared vegetable broth or stock--it's just a pricey way to sell water.  You can make decent soup without any stock at all if you include, carrots, celery and onion and make sure to balance 5 flavors--salty, sweet, spicy (hot), bitter, and sour.   For sweetness I like to add sweet potato and cook it just enough so it begins to fall apart in the soup.

You can still find sweet potatoes at the market or you can check for the best price in grocery stores.  I love the local variety, but sweet potatoes are one of the "clean 15," along with asparagus, eggplant and kiwi.  

The "clean 15" means they are okay to purchase as non organic, according to the Enviromental Working Group.  So if you see a non organic sweet potato price bargain and you're on a food budget, go for the deal. 

Another farm vendor I love at the market is Olsen Potato Farm.  Their well-tended varieties make eating potatoes fun.  My favorite is the Purple Majesty with purple flesh inside purple skins.  Any red potatoes will do in this soup, but you might want to consider organic since potatoes are always on the "dirty dozen," list and no one needs extra pesticides with their soup.

I get my shiitaki mushrooms at Sno-Valley Mushrooms.  But if you can't get Sno-Valley mushrooms, you can often find decent quality at natural food stores.  You can also use regular button mushrooms if you have a tighter budget than mine.  This soup is just as delicious with less expensive mushrooms.

Here's this week's recipe.  I hope you like it as much as I do.   My Cooking Assistant of course gave his lick of approval.

Lemon-Basil White Bean Soup

(Serves 4)

When you sautee the onions, don't let them brown much.  A brown color will transfer to your soup and this soup looks best with the orange glow of sweet potatoes.

1 to 2 tablespoons canola oil

1 onion, red or yellow, peeled and diced

1/4 cup chopped red or green pepper

4 or 5 shiitaki mushrooms, tough stems removed and sliced

4 cloves garlic, minced

1 carrot, diced

1 potato diced

1/2 sweet potato, diced

1 tablespoon chopped Mama Lil's, or 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

4 to 5 cups water

1 teaspoon dried thyme

1 cup dry white or navy beans, soaked overnight and drained

1/4 cup chopped kalamata olives

2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil

Juice of 1 Meyer lemon

1 bunch spinach, tough stems removed and chopped

Sea salt to taste

Heat a heavy soup pot over medium heat.  Add oil, onion and peppers.  Stir and cook until onions soften.  Add mushrooms and garlic and continue to stir and cook until garlic begins to brown.  

Add carrot, potato, sweet potato and Mama Lil's peppers.  Stir to coat vegetables, then add thyme, water, white beans, and thyme.  Cover and simmer on low for one hour or until beans are soft. 

Add olives and basil.  Cook for 10 minutes.  Then add lemon juice.  Place the spinach in the bottom of the soup bowl.  Ladle soup over the leaves and stir to wilt the spinach.  Add sea salt to taste.

Kale, Potatoes and Green Garlic

With spring kale, green garlic, shiitaki mushrooms, potatoes and a hint of lemon this dish is a breath of spring (without the sneezing and allegies, of course.)

I could have used something more exotic than kale and I do get excited by the new greens that come to the market in during the spring, but my heart belongs to kale. This week it was Red Russian. It's the variety I also like to grow because it's tender and tasty.

I got a great looking bunch of kale at Whistling Train Farm. I can't wait till my own plants in the garden are a little bigger.

I got green garlic too, but wasn't sold on any recipe in particular to pair them with until I saw the potato decorations at Olsen Farms.

Who can resist this cool display? Mr. Potato Head had morphed into Potato Bunnies.

  

Every holiday they have a different display at Olsen Farms.  This photo is from Halloween.

The potatoes at Olsens may be a little more costly than organic potatoes in the store, but if you think all potatoes are the same, you haven't tasted Olsen's potatoes.  My favorite is the Purple Majesty.  

I like to think they have more antioxidants with the purple flesh and skins and some experts verify this idea.  In fact, there have been reports about the purple antioxidants in the potatoes as beneficial in colon cancer.

With low carb diets all the rage now, potatoes get a bad rap.

Another must add ingredient--shiitaki mushrooms from Sno-Valley. You know these have lots of health benefits.

My Cooking Assistant likes greens so much he mistakenly removed the tops of our strawberry plants in one garden bed just last week.  I couldn't really blame him because he was practically weaned on greens and strawberry greens are one of his favorites.

New flash:  for those of you who are lazy chefs like me, this super easy recipe is one to add to your recipe line up.  And for budget shoppers, this one won't break your budget.  If you can get your kale and green garlic from the garden it's even more economical.  I recommend getting your potatoes in the ground now, too.  Be sure to move them from last year's potato patch because they can attract pathogens in the soil if you leave them in the same spot evey year.  In fact, potatoes can get so many diseases and problems, I'm amazed they remain so cheap in grocery stores.  They must really spray the non organic potatoes.

I count myself lucky that we have great farmers like Olsen's farm who keep heirloom potatoes going.

Kale, Potatoes, and Green Garlic

(Serves 4)

2 tablespoons canola oil, divided

1/4 cup chopped onion

1/4 cup sliced green garlic

8 ounces shiitaki mushrooms, tough stems removed and sliced

1 tablespoon Mama Lil's Peppers

1/2 cup chopped seitan chunks, chicken style (try West Soy)

4 to 6 purple or red waxy potatoes, diced

1 bunch of kale (any variety), stem removed and chopped

2 tablespoons apple cider or juice.

Fresh lemon juice to taste

Sea salt to taste

1. Saute onion and garlic in 1 tablespoon oil until they soften.  Add mushrooms, peppers and seitan chunks.  Cover and cook on low or remove from heat until potatoes are nearly done.

2. Preheat oven to 375F.  Toss potatoes with remaining oil and place them in a single layer in a baking pan. Roast potatoes for 25 to 30 minutes.  When potatoes have about 10 minutes left, add kale to mushrooms and green garlic.  Add apple cider, cover and steam for about 5 minutes.  Stir.  When potatoes are done, add them to the mixture. 

3. Drizzle with lemon juice.  Add salt to taste.

Serve with a green salad and crusty artisan bread.