Guest Post: Schmancy Summer Crisp

I'm in a terrible hurry to finish packing, so Maggie is taking the reins today with another (!!) enticing dessert. See you on the other side, pals!


Ladies and Gentlemen, summer fruit season is at its peak. Plums, nectarines, blueberries, blackberries, peaches, sweet cherries, nomnomnom.


This crisp is awesome with any two-fruit combo. Last week I made it with blackberries and nectarines, this week yellow sweet cherries and plums. It takes about 3 ½ minutes to throw together and friends will be impressed when you tell them there’s thyme in the topping. The challenging part is not eating the whole thing right away.

Schmancy Summer Crisp

Crisp topping adapted from this.

• 4 plums
• 1 ½ lbs yellow sweet cherries
• ½ cup whole wheat flour
• 4 tablespoons butter, cold and cut into little pieces
• 1/3 cup brown sugar
• 5 or 6 large leaves fresh thyme, ripped into little bits
• ½ cup chopped walnuts

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Cut up the fruit (cherries in halves, plums in 1-inch cubes…or however you prefer them) and throw it into a deep baking dish (mine was about 2 inches deep, 12 inches in diameter). In a separate bowl, mix the whole wheat flour, butter, brown sugar, thyme, and walnuts. Mix together, and don’t worry if the butter remains in little pieces so long as it’s evenly distributed otherwise. Pour the crisp mix atop the fruit.

Bake for 20 minutes or so, until the topping is golden brown. For best results, serve warm out of the oven.

Cooking for Two

With the move coming up in only a few days, I've been cooking nearly nothing but fried egg sandwiches. Not really the kind of thing I can post here, again and again. But, also thanks to the move, I uncovered this gem of a cookbook, copyright 1968, this edition printed 1980:


As a new occasional feature, I'm going to post pages of Cooking for Two right here, for you and a lucky partner. I'm sure you'll find it useful, because, as the cover indicates, it has something for every occasion.

Like ham rolls. Or, at least we think they are ham rolls:

"What are those? Hot dogs... or ham? Ham rolls?"

"I think they're ham rolled around broccoli."

"But, there's got to be something else in the middle. The broccoli's probably just stuck in the end for decoration."

So yeah. Ham rolls. With cheese. And cherries. And daisy petals. And fruit freaking cocktail. Every occasion!

Occasions such as your husband's promotion, or a crushing case of empty nest syndrome.



Cornish game hens for all. I mean two. Cornish game hens for two.

Blueberry Corn Salsa

I made this salsa for a party last weekend, after my mom told me about a recipe she'd read for a blueberry & corn salad. The combination seemed genius to me because right now Michigan's corn and blueberry seasons are colliding. And raining down delicious.

I used frozen corn for this, because I need to clean out my freezer, but you could use fresh corn and it would be even better.

1/2 hungarian hot wax pepper ( or jalapeño or other pepper of your choosing)
1 clove garlic
1/2 medium onion
1/4 cup cilantro
1 cup blueberries
2 cups corn, blanched in boiling water for one-two minutes
juice of 1/2 a lime, or to taste
salt to taste

Combine the pepper, garlic, onion, cilantro, and blueberries in a food processor and process until finely chopped. Combine with the blanched corn. Stir in lime juice and salt to taste.

That's it!

Serve with tortilla chips, in tacos, whatever.

Mexican Breakfast Bowl

In Chicago, versions of a Mexican breakfast are super popular. There are restaurants that specialize in this, but you can find some Mexican-inspired morning meal at practically every brunch place. There's a good reason for this: it tastes good. But also: as opposed to eggs, toast, & potatoes, Mexican breakfast has actual vegetables. Sometimes, you need these.

Here's a version I made, inspired by the Flying Saucer's Flying Breakfast Bowl, modified by what I had on hand. Contained herein:

rice
beans
lettuce
pico de gallo
fried eggs
sour cream

To make the beans as I did here, heat some olive oil in a medium pot over medium heat. Add half a chopped onion, one clove chopped garlic, red pepper flakes to taste, and a 1/2 teaspoon each ground cumin and coriander. Add 1/3 to 1/2 of a red pepper, chopped, if you wish. When these things cook down a bit, add a (14 ounce) can of beans with its liquid. Continue cooking until the beans are warmed through and most of the liquid has evaporated. Season to taste with salt.

To make the pico de gallo as I did here, combine 1/2 chopped onion, two chopped and seeded tomatoes, 1/2 chopped red pepper, 1 clove garlic, chopped, 1/4 cup chopped cilantro, red pepper flakes to taste (and/or a spicy pepper, chopped, if you have it; I did not), and the juice of one-two limes. Season to taste with salt.

I'll assume you know how to make rice and cook an egg.

Toss everything together in a bowl and eat it!

Eating in Germany

So, pals. I'm back in the USA. Slightly less travel-delirious, grateful for coffee's adenosine receptor binding powers, and ready to tell you about some of the things I ate in Germany. We were there for just over a week, in Berlin and Bremen, for tourism and family (in-law) reunioning. I admit that we didn't try to eat with "authenticity" in mind--as if that's an easily locatable position in this modernity anyway. We tried to eat delicious foods, and to check out what vegetarianism looked like in Germany. Below are photos. I didn't manage to snap one of all the delicious things we ate. There were many, many. Overall, I was very impressed by the food we ate in Germany. The quality, in general, was high. Even the fast-food type places we grabbed a criossant from on the way to the train station were, on the whole, of better quality than analogous places in the US. The breadth of vegetarianism there, however, seemed a bit narrower than here though there was a vegetarian option (or several) on every menu we saw and they were always good. We saw some trends: potatoes appeared frequently. Chanterelles appeared several times. Burgers seemed popular in vegetarian and non-vegetarian eating alike. And at non-vegetarian restaurants, the vegetarian option was often Italianly rooted. Onward with some specifics:

Hans Wurst Vegan Cafe


This is a photo of the table at the first dinner we ate. Unfortunately, I was so starving and flight-weary when I got to the restaurant that it did not occur to me to photograph our food until I'd eaten it. But it was great, as was the place which was relaxed and welcoming, in a terrific neighborhood with lots of restaurants and a park which I think was the park I had previously spent one of the best days of my life in, the last time I was in Berlin when I was 20. For dinner, we ordered the tofu veggie burger and seitan steaks (not the ones currently on their online menu) that came with new potatoes and a tangy red currant sauce that I want to eat on everything, forever.

Sarah Wiener


The Sarah Wiener cafe is located in the Hamburger Bahnhof Museum in Berlin and is responsible for Monday's dream-town beet pasta. With that pasta, we ate this salad. Just a simple salad, but done perfectly. Lightly and wonderfully dressed. And in addition to the delicate strands of carrots and fresh greens you see, the salad contained pine nuts, sunflower seeds, and pumpkin seeds! (An aside -- I recently had dinner with a friend who happens to be German and she dressed a salad with pumpkin seed oil, something I'd never had before. It was fantastic and surprising. Apparently it's quite popular in Germany, but can be found now in the US. The kind she had was made by the same people who make this grapeseed oil.) We went to this restaurant on the recommendation of a friend who's been living in Berlin, on and off, for about a year now. He suggested both the Hamburger Bahnhof and its restaurant and we loved them both. I always enjoy an art museum restaurant but this one took the cake (sorry Wolfgang). I mean, look at that pink sea salt, those multi-colored peppercorns, and that crusty bread. And look again at Monday's pasta. Yeah.

Manna Restaurant

Unfortunately, I didn't get a photo of Manna Restaurant, but it was great. We had a kind and friendly waiter, a few good pilseners. (Another aside: apparently Germany had a long-standing beer purity law which said only 3 ingredients could be used to make beer. Possibly as a result of this, the beers we tried were all rather straightforward and not terribly varied. Weiss beer was of course popular, but unfortunately I'm not a huge fan. I find it too sweet.) And we ate a potato stew that my husband said tasted just like (a non-vegetarian) one his mother used to make for him as a child. Along with that, we had a really great veggie burger on a sesame seed bun that was both soft enough to work with the burger and crusty enough to be wildly satisfying. The restaurant was located in Prenzlauer Berg, a neighborhood that I get the feeling might be the Park Slope of Berlin. Another friend, who's also been living in Berlin for about a year, mentioned people were moving out of Prenzlauer Berg, fleeing its "birthing hips."

Cake


I have no specific restaurant associated with this cake heading because we ate fantastic cake everywhere we went. This particular piece was served in the home of one of my husband's relatives. And much of the cake we ate looked like this: fruit centered, gorgeous. And delicious, obviously. The cake was angel food or white, from what I tried, often with a custard or creamy layer, and/or a crisp sugary glaze on top. I don't know if this is true of all Germans, but my in-laws tend to eat cake with coffee around three or four in the afternoon. Can I incorporate this tradition? Begin now and eat perfect cakes every afternoon? Cake break, please.

Falafel


This falafel was from a little doner kebab place in Bremen. Very few things were open the Sunday we walked around the town, but this was. And I am so glad. This was the best falafel I've ever eaten, edging out the chickpea in my heart the city of Granada formerly held. It was made in a large, thin pita, and if I'm remembering correctly, contained the following: falafel, a salad mix, three kinds of pickled cabbage (!!!), tahini, yogurt sauce, and hot sauce.


Well, that's all the gastro-reminiscing I have for you now. We're moving in two weeks, so posting may be a bit spotty. But hang in there! I'll have lots of eating adventures to share once we get to Pennsylvania. I can't wait to begin our new CSA. Did I tell you a friend gave us a gift membership to this CSA as a going away gift? Best gift ever.

Beet Spaghetti with Chanterelles/Travel Update

So sorry, pals, to have taken Friday unexpectedly off. I was traveling and lacked internet access. I'll be back in action on Wednesday with a full report of my most delicious recent adventures, but for now, I hope you'll accept this photo of possibly the best meal I ever ate. Beet spaghetti with chanterelles in a frothy cream sauce.

Barbecue Temeph Wrap with Ginger Carrot Slaw

I've basically made this before. But I forgive myself for the double-up because this a pure-gold medley of crunch-tang-delicious. Plus, I got the most amazing carrots at the grocery store last week. They were dark reddish orange on the outside and bright orange or yellow on the inside. They tasted like the earth. Someone asked me if that meant they tasted like dirt, and the answer is, yes, it kind of does mean that. It's a gritty, mineral-y taste. Sweet and dirtlike.

1 1/2 to 2 cups matchstick-cut carrots
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
1/2 teaspoon fresh chopped ginger
2 teaspoons sesame seeds
2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar
1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil
1/2 teaspoon dijon mustard

8 ounces tempeh, cut into 18 strips
barbecue sauce

2 large tortillas (make your own!)

Toss together all the slaw ingredients and let sit for at least an hour. Overnight would be better.

Meanwhile, place the tempeh on a non-stick baking sheet, slather with your favorite barbecue sauce, and bake for about 20 minutes at 357° F.

Wrap some tempeh with a bit more barbecue sauce and some slaw in a larger tortilla.

Serves 2-3.

Egg + Vegan Sausage and Jam + Ricotta Crepes

My friend Ingrid--responsible for bringing into my life those amazing preserved lemons, and more recently, the best cheese I ever ate--gave me some Wisconsin-made strawberry rhubarb jam. Because we're moving, but mostly because it is so delicious, I've been eating it like crazy. Here, with ricotta in a crepe, it is forefronted and just fantastic.

Oh, and I filled the other crepes with over-easy eggs and vegan sausage. But the jam. The jam. As my pal Gina would say, it's the jam.

Crepes:
3/4 cup all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 eggs, beaten
2/3 cups milk
1/3 cup water

Sift together the flour, salt, and baking powder. Beat together the eggs, milk, and water. Whisk together the dry and wet ingredients. Get out the major lumps, but don't stress over them too much. Let the batter rest for at least an hour, up to six.

Heat a round, nonstick skillet over a medium flame. For each crepe, brush a few drops of grapeseed oil around the pan. Ladle some batter onto the pan, then lift and tilt it, allowing the batter to spread out into a thin disk. When the crepe starts to bubble and the edges begin to peel away from the pan, flip it. Cook for another 15 seconds or so, then remove it. Stack crepes on a plate as you go, covered with a clean towel to keep them warm.

[Recipe adapted from Joy of Cooking]

Blueberry Pie

I made this pie (and an apple tart) for the fourth of July. I was photographing it at the top of the stairs just outside of the kitchen--a simple cement background--when my dad came out and suggested "greenery." Put it down in the greenery. Photograph it against the greenery. So, here, greeneryly, is the blueberry pie. But even against a white wall, it would still taste good.

2 sticks cold unsalted butter
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon coarse salt
2 teaspoons sugar
about 8 tablespoons ice water

3 cups blueberries
sugar to taste
zest of one lemon
1 tablespoon cornstarch

Pulse together the flour, butter, salt, and sugar in a food processor until most of mixture resembles coarse meal, with rest in small (pea-sized) lumps. Add ice water as you continue to pulse, until the dough begins to come together but it still a bit crumbly. The dough should hold together if you squeeze it in your hand. It should not be gummy.

Turn the mixture out onto two sheets of plastic wrap. Quickly form each into a disk, wrap tightly with the plastic, and refrigerate for one hour.

Preheat your oven to 375° F.

Combine the blueberries, sugar, lemon zest, and cornstarch in a mixing bowl. Set aside.

Working quickly to keep everything cold, roll the doughs out until about 2 inches (diametrically) larger than your pie plate. Line the bottom of the pan with one dough, dock (poke) the bottom all over with a fork, then fill with the blueberry mixture. Cut the second dough into long strips and weave these for a lattice crust.

Bake for about 40 minutes, until the crust is golden brown.

Garlic-Fried Spaghetti with Arugula and Marinara Sauce

This meal really isn't anything special--just spaghetti with a marinara sauce and some arugula--except that it is special. After I cooked the pasta, I tossed it into some garlic-cooking olive oil and fried it up for a minute or so. I learned this trick from the wonderful woman I lived with in Spain some 8 years ago.

At least from what I tasted, Spain's version of prepared marinara sauce was a little nearer to ketchup than what you can buy in the jar here. But I loved to eat my señora's pasta because she always fried it in a little garlicky olive oil before serving. This was no surprise. Everything in Spain is fried in garlicky olive oil. But it was so delightfully tasty. Try it next time you pull a bag of old marinara sauce out of your freezer and gaze upon it with ennui. This is a meal of leftovers that tastes bright and new. Add the arugula, or some spinach, and you can even call it "fresh."

Caprese Frittata with Roasted Tomatoes and Onion

Last week was my last in Art History. Super sad to say goodbye to all my great pals there. I loved-loved working with those people.

But as a result of quitting my job, I have no job (for now)! So I guess that means I can make daily elaborate breakfasts. This one, a fourth of July brunch with my family at the cabin in the woods. It was kind of awesome.

two medium-large tomatoes, cut into 1/8s or so
1/2 medium onion, chopped similarly
salt and pepper
olive oil
8 eggs
1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
1/4 cup fresh basil, cut into ribbons
1/4 cup roughly chopped or torn fresh mozzarella

Drizzle the tomatoes and onion with a bit of olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Roast them in a 425°F oven until they've released their moisture and begun to brown.

When the tomatoes/onions are done roasting, turn the oven down to 375° and preheat a 10-12 inch cast iron skillet over medium heat on the stove top.

Whisk together the eggs, parmesan, and basil and season with some salt and pepper. Coat the hot skillet liberally with olive oil, then pour in the egg mixture. Stir constantly for about 30 seconds, then leave it still. Top with the roasted tomatoes and onion, and the mozzarella.

Cook on the stovetop until the sides are set, then finish in the oven until the top is puffy. You can run it under the broiler for a minute or two if you want some additional browning.

Apple Cinnamon Hand Pies

In addition to today being a holiday weekend Friday, which means you're leaving early from work today, right?, today is my dad's birthday. Happy birthday Dad!

My dad loves apple pie, so I try to make him one for all holidays and special occasions. I made these hand pies for father's day and am planning a pie for later today too. You really can't go wrong with apple pie. It's universally loved. And these hand pies are crispy, buttery, appley, yet so easy to eat. Perfect for a fourth of July picnic. Hand pies. Or as my sister Lauren said "soon to be mouth pies."

1 stick cold unsalted butter
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon coarse salt
1 teaspoon sugar
about 4 tablespoons ice water

2 pink lady apples, peeled and cored
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
a couple tablespoons water

Pulse together the flour, butter, salt, and sugar in a food processor until most of mixture resembles coarse meal, with rest in small (pea-sized) lumps. Add ice water as you continue to pulse, until the dough begins to come together but it still a bit crumbly. The dough should hold together if you squeeze it in your hand. It should not be gummy.

Turn the mixture out onto a sheet of plastic wrap. Quickly form it into a disk, wrap tightly with the plastic, and refrigerate for one hour. If you're short of time, you can freeze this for half an hour, but I find that it's more difficult to work with when I take that route.

Preheat your oven to 375° F.

Cut the apples into relative small pieces. Sprinkle with cinnamon and toss them into a medium saucepan with a little bit of water. Bring to a simmer and cook until the apples are softening, but not mush.

Allow the apple mixture to cool. Meanwhile, unwrap the rested dough on a clean, floured counter. Sprinkle the top of the dough and your rolling pin with flour. Quickly, but carefully, roll out the dough. Give it a quarter turn after each roll. If the dough starts to stick, carefully pick it up (a bench scraper is a great tool for this) and sprinkle more flour beneath it.

When the dough is about 12-14 inches in diameter, cut five, (four-or-)five-inch rounds. Spoon a bit of the cooled filling onto one half of each round, then fold it over to create a half-moon. Seal with the tines of a fork. Bake on an ungreased baking sheet for 20-25 minutes until golden brown.