Category Archives: Food

cooking, Food, Recipes

Wonderful, Versatile Fried Rice

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The greens have started slacking off, at least a little, and this week in Farmer Kev’s bin I received, among other things, broccoli, cucumbers, zuchinni, salad turnips, and summer squash. I was thrilled by this bounty as it will feed Clif and me for nearly a week. (Naturally, we’ll fill in with rice, pasta, wraps, and herbs from my little garden.)

The bounty from Farmer Kev
The bounty from Farmer Kev

The first meal I’ll be making from some of these vegetables is fried rice, a dish so open to improvisation that it’s something all home cooks should have in their repertoire. A recipe is hardly needed. Take whatever vegetables you have on hand, add either garlic or onion or both, combine with rice, add a couple of eggs, and finally season generously with soy sauce and sesame oil. Minced ginger root could also be used.

I’ve made fried rice with cabbage, endamame, peas, green beans, carrots, broccoli, and peppers. The pictures below were taken a couple of weeks ago when I got carrots and sugar snap peas in my Farmer Kev bin.

I usually make a vegetarian fried rice and add peanuts to give it a little zip. However, leftover meat could also be used.

A few tips: vegetables such as broccoli, sugar snap peas, endamame, and shelled peas should  be lightly cooked first. I blanch the sugar snaps and lightly steam the rest. Carrots and turnips can be stir fried raw, but they should be started first. Next would come peppers, if you are using them. Basically, save the vegetables that cook the quickest for last, with garlic being the absolute last thing added before the rice goes in. You do not want the garlic to burn.

The most invaluable tip: When adding beaten eggs, make a large well in the center of the rice and vegetables, and let the eggs cook long enough so that you can then scramble them into the rest of the mixture. Add a little soy sauce to the rice before adding the eggs, and add more soy sauce, along with sesame oil, to the mixture after the eggs have been scrambled in. How much soy sauce and sesame oil? In truth, I don’t know. I never measure. I just shake in the soy sauce and sesame oil and taste. However, I use more soy sauce than sesame oil.

Another important tip: Have everything mise en place, as the French would say. That is, ready in place.  Before starting, cook the rice and whatever vegetables that need to be steamed or blanched.  Make sure  all the vegetables are in little bowls by whatever skillet or wok you will be using. Have the rice handy as well as the beaten eggs, the peanuts, the soy sauce, and sesame oil. Once everything is chopped and ready, this dish goes together very fast, and you want to be able to move quickly.

Everything mise en place
Everything mise en place

 

Make a well for the eggs in the rice, which has been lightly sprinkled with soy sauce.
Make a well for the eggs in the rice, which has been lightly sprinkled with soy sauce

 

Add the beaten eggs, let cook and set, and then scramble it into the mixture
Add the beaten eggs, let cook and set, and then scramble it into the mixture

 

Ingredients

  • 1 cup of rice, cooked according to directions on the package. (You should have about 2 cups of cooked rice.)
  • 3 or 4 cloves of garlic, minced. (A small onion also could be used instead of or in addition to the garlic.)
  • 4 or 5 cups of mixed vegetables. (In the fried rice pictured, I also used garlic scapes.)
  • 2 eggs, beaten
  • Soy sauce and sesame oil, to taste
  • Vegetable oil for stir frying

Directions

  1. Cook the rice, mince and chop the vegetables, parboiling or steaming whatever needs to be cooked ahead of time. (Don’t overcook. They will cook more in the stir fry.)
  2. Have everything in place, including the peanuts, soy sauce, and sesame oil. (For those who like it hot, a hot oil could also be used.)
  3. In a large skillet or wok, heat 2 or 3 tablespoons of vegetable oil. When the oil is hot, start with whatever vegetables take the longest to cook, ending with the blanched or steamed vegetables, and finally the garlic. Pretty much stir the vegetables constantly so that every thing is moving around.
  4. When the vegetables are cooked, add the rice and shake in a small amount of soy sauce to give everything a little moisture. Stir again.
  5. Make a well in the center of the rice and pour in the beaten eggs.
  6. Let the eggs cook until they are set and scramble them in with the rest of the mixture.
  7. Add the peanuts, if using.
  8. Season to taste with soy sauce and sesame oil. Stir thoroughly.
  9. Serves four.
Food, People

Our Gathering on the Fourth

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In central Maine, the Fourth was not sunny. Instead, it was overcast, but it didn’t rain, and it wasn’t blindingly hot. Friends and family came over, and we were able to spend much of our time on the patio.

A toast with family before friends arrived
A toast with family before friends arrived

Alice brought two packages of her homemade sourdough bread, which Clif grilled. We fell upon that bread like hungry crows, and soon nothing was left. Jill brought a flag appetizer, and that, too, was promptly eaten. One thing is certain; we are all good eaters. (Jill, that semicolon is for you.)

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A sweet, patriotic appetizer

Unfortunately, as hostess, I did not have the chance to take as many pictures as I would have liked. However, I did get Alice’s salad in shells, and I am hoping a recipe will follow.

Alice's salad in shells
Alice’s salad in shells

Last but certainly not least, Diane brought lemon-curd tarts that were positively addictive. I couldn’t stop with just one.

We talked about many things—movies and the upcoming Maine International Film Festival was a big topic of discussion—but I am happy to report that we discussed the Declaration of Independence, the ratifying of the constitution, and George Washington’s reluctance to become president.

I was also able to tell a fun library story. The day before, on July 3, I was doing errands around town and listening to National Public Radio. On the way to the town’s transfer station, I heard an interview with Joseph Ellis who in his book The Quartet tells “the unexpected story of why the thirteen colonies, having just fought off the imposition of a distant centralized governing power, would decide to subordinate themselves anew. ” Ellis “argues the Constitutional Convention and creation of a viable nation-state was a top-down process, instigated and orchestrated by four prominent leaders.”

Sounded like an interesting book to me, and after going to the transfer station, I went to the library where—lo and behold—The Quartet was available.  I was very impressed that within a span of ten minutes, I had heard of this  book for the first time and then had it in my hot little hands. At our Fourth of July party, I was even able to share a George Washington quotation from the book: “I am so wedded to a state of retirement and find the occupations of a rural life so congenial with my feelings, that to be drawn in public life at this advanced age would be a sacrifice that could afford no compensation.” (It seems he was truly reluctant to become president.)

So there. Food, family, friends, and a bit of history about the founding of our country.

And, of course, beer, courtesy of my son-in-law Mike who works at Craft Beer Cellar in Portland.

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Between the beer and the Moscow and Maine mules, ’twas a very merry Fourth of July.

Food, People

A Rainy Sunday in which We Drink Margaritas, Eat Salad, and Marvel at a Grasshopper

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Yesterday, our friends Jim and Dawna came over for dinner. We had hoped the day would be fine so that we could eat on the patio and Clif could make his legendary grilled bread. Unfortunately, the weather gods had other ideas, and it rained, rained, rained. Not just a light soaking, but instead a downpour.

So in we stayed. Dawna brought margaritas and chips and a hot cheese appetizer. Very tasty! Even though it was more a soup day than a salad day, I stuck to my original plan of a salad meal. However, the grilled bread was out, and I made a pan of cornbread. For dessert we had homemade chocolate ice cream.

With Farmer Kev’s delectable red and green lettuce, I made a salade niçoise, sort of, using a recipe by the inimitable Mark Bittman as a guideline. My salad niçoise had, along with the lettuce, hard-boiled eggs, sliced radishes, sliced cooked potatoes, sliced tomatoes, and tuna. (Note: Tuna is overfished, and we only eat it once or twice a year on salade niçoise.) I made a homemade vinaigrette to go on the salad. Capers would have been a good addition as would have olives and green beans.

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I also made a Greek pasta salad to go with the salade niçoise. The Greek salad had mini penne, which are adorable, feta, tomatoes, Swiss chard, basil, mint, and several squeezes of lemon. It’s one of my favorite summer salads.

Dawna, Jim, and Clif are all accomplished photographers, and whenever we get together, at some point the talk inevitable turns to photography. I am the novice of the group, and I always learn something from these discussions. Yesterday was no different, and the advice I got from Dawna was “watch where you stand,” which apparently comes from the Ansel Adams quotation: “A good photograph is knowing where to stand.” (In Adams’s case, he often stood on the roof of a vehicle to get his sweeping photos.) Yes, indeed. Some angles are better than others, and distance from the subject is also a concern.

I gave Dawna a few of my photo cards, including one of the grasshopper that stole the show on my most recent Wordless Wednesday post (6/24/15). We marveled at his eye, at his tiny wing, at his little black feet. “It looks like he’s wearing shoes,” Dawna said.

It’s not every friend who brings margaritas to your house and marvels over a photograph of a grasshopper. But Dawna is that kind of friend.

How lucky I am!

And for those who missed the photo, here is the grasshopper in all his (or her) glory.

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Food, People

A Frying Father’s Day

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I have a confession to make—Clif and I are crazy about fried food.  For several years, Clif has been longing for a fryer to make home frying a little easier. Yesterday, his wish was granted. Dee and Shannon bought him a fryer for Father’s Day.

Was Clif happy? You bet he was. He immediately put the fryer to work and made French fries and crunchy chicken for dinner. We were joined by Mike, Shannon, and the dogs. Dee, alas, lives too far away to come just for the weekend.

Clif at the fryer
Clif at the fryer

 

Crunchy chicken
Crunchy chicken

 

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French Fries

Although the fries look delectable, they were a little soggy. However, the fault was ours, not the machine’s. We hadn’t thoroughly read the instructions and didn’t understand all the settings. In short, the oil wasn’t hot enough. Next time, we will do a better job.

Still the food was pretty darned good, as Clif the Yankee observed, and by the end of the meal, both plates were empty.

Now, Clif and I certainly know that fried food qualifies as a treat and shouldn’t be eaten every day. We plan to use the fryer once a week, probably on a Saturday night. We’ll primarily make fries, but we will try other vegetables, too. Crunchy chicken will also be on the menu from time to time. Then there is fried dough and maybe even donuts, that quintessential New England treat.

I’ll keep you posted.

cooking, Food, People

Starting the Weekend with Cookies and Homemade Ice Cream

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Granola cookies
Granola cookies

Today begins what counts as a feverish swirl of activity at the little house in the big woods. It just so happens that for the next four days various groups of family and friends will be coming for a visit. This, of course, means there is a flurry of cooking and cleaning.

Today, three friends from the library are coming over for granola cookies and strawberry ice cream, both homemade. We will be celebrating several things—the library’s new addition, reaching the project’s million dollar mark, and “only” having $41,000 left to go on the project. The four of us will clink our iced tea glasses together to toast all who have given to our beautiful library and to toast all who have worked so hard—for years and years—to make this project a reality. I hope the weather will cooperate so that we can eat on the patio. Right now the sky is is cloudy with small patches of blue. If it doesn’t clear, then never mind. It will still be a clink, clink, clink, and hooray kind of afternoon.

Tomorrow, different friends will be coming over for movie night, where we’ll be watching Monk with a Camera, a documentary about Nicholas Vreeland, grandson of Diana Vreeland, and how he decided to become a photographer. And a Buddhist Monk.

Sunday is Father’s Day, and that can only mean one thing—cooking for Clif, the special man of the house. Shannon, Mike, and the dogs will be coming over to celebrate, and Shannon and I will make what Clif has requested—fried chicken and French Fries, both homemade and cooked fresh. For dessert—strawberry shortcake made with Maine strawberries. (At last they are here.)

On Monday, my friend Barbara will be coming over for French donuts—actually nutmeg muffins dipped in melted butter and rolled in sugar and cinnamon. Barbara and her husband spend the summer in Maine, and I always joke that until they come to Maine, summer can’t be begin. It’s always good to see her.

Summer time, busy time, but good times. We always enjoy having guests come to our house, but we especially like to do so in the summer when everything is lush and green, and time can be spent outside.

Food, Recipes

So It Begins: Farmer Kev’s Summer CSA and a Nifty Way to Eat Radishes

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On Tuesday, I received my first box of vegetables from Farmer Kev’s Community Supported Agriculture program—henceforth referred to as CSA. I’ve written about Farmer Kev many times in this blog. For new readers: He’s young, he’s energetic, he doesn’t come from a farming family, and he’s been farming on leased land since he graduated from high school. Go, Farmer Kev!

Our own Farmer Kev
Our own Farmer Kev, from a photo taken last year

This year will be especially exciting for me and, I hope, for Farmer Kev. He’s become a sponsor, of sorts, of this blog. In exchange for writing about his vegetables and ways to use them, I get a free CSA share. (I will write for food, as long as it comes from a source I approve of, and I most definitely approve of Farmer Kev.)

For the next month, I will, of course, be focusing on greens because let’s face it—when those greens get going they come in an avalanche that can be downright alarming. What to do with all those greens?

I have some ideas, and I am lucky to have a good friend who is also a good cook. Her name is Alice Johnson, and when she heard about how I would be writing regularly about Farmer Kev and his vegetables, she jumped right into the fray and has been sending me wonderful recipes that will make short work of those daunting greens. (Farmer Kev, you are in effect get two heads for the price of one.)

But for this week, which is just the start of the greens avalanche and should thus be manageable, I am going to focus on the humble radish. Yes, yes, they are good in salads, and I’m sure everyone knows this. But they are also good on buttered toast, which is a relatively new trick for this Yankee cook.

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I got this idea from JoEllen Cottrell, who is director of the Winthrop Food Pantry. A while back, she told me about toast and radishes and said this is something that is eaten in Germany. (She has a German daughter-in-law.)

Really, toast and radishes couldn’t be easier. Make a toast—the better the bread, the better the toast—and butter it. Top the toast with thinly sliced radishes and sprinkle with a little salt, if you like.

The butter and the toasted bread go very well with the crunchy, tangy radishes. I had this for lunch yesterday, and I had it again today. It’s strangely good.

Starting next week, I’ll begin posting recipes that use spinach, Swiss chard, and Kale. I even have an idea or two for salads. With the help of my friend Alice, we’ll show those greens a thing or two.

Happy eating!

 

cooking, Food

A Cool Soup Day in June

Daisies on a grey day
Daisies on a grey day

It’s mid-June in Maine, and after a hard, hard winter, we have had a pretty good spring. May was sunny and warm. The black flies were brutal, but mercifully their time here was short—two weeks at their swarming, biting peak. June has been somewhat rainy and cool, but there have been enough nice days so that humans don’t feel too damp and soggy. Best of all, the potted flowers outside look very perky—not a given in June. Sometimes it rains so much that the pots become waterlogged, and the plants never really recover. Who knows? If the good weather continues, then I might even get a decent bunch of basil.

However, today is a cool day, a soup day. (As I’ve mentioned before, it’s a good thing Clif and I like soup because in Maine you can eat soup nine months of the year.) I still have frozen vegetables from Farmer Kev’s winter CSA, and I have decided to make a Mediterranean soup with green beans and summer squash. I splurged on fresh rosemary along with Italian-spiced  chicken sausage. We’ll add cooked pasta to the bottom of the soup bowl before ladling soup on top.

Biscuit muffins—one of Clif’s favorites—will round out the soup. Somehow warm biscuits, muffins, or bread round out most any meal.

The rest of the week is supposed to be sunny, and I am especially hoping it will be nice on Friday, when friends will be coming over for homemade strawberry ice cream and cookies. If the weather is rainy, then we will of course eat in the dining room.

But how much nicer to be on the patio, next to the Irises, which are still in bloom. To have the birds fluttering above and around us in the trees. To be held by the green hand of the forest.  And high above, framed by leaves, a blue circle of sky.

So tonight, soup and biscuits with the hope the weather will be clear on Friday for friends and homemade ice cream.

 

Food

Desperate for Donuts

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Frosty's donuts
Frosty’s donuts

Every day, it seems, is national something or other day, but June 5 just happens to be National Donut Day. I am a donut lover from way, way back, when I worked at Dunkin’ Donuts during those halcyon times when each store had honest-to-God bakers who made donuts fresh every six hours. I ate more donuts than I care to admit, but because I was biking to work—ten miles round trip—I was fit and lean.

In 2008, I wrote a longish essay called “Desperate for Donuts.” In honor of National Donut Day, here are some excerpts, slightly edited,  from that piece:

The Good and the Bad

Ironically, they are the perfect shape—a circle, round like a mandala, the symbol of eternity—and this should make them the perfect food. But fried in oil, perhaps drenched in glaze, covered with sugar, frosted, or even plain, they are not good for you. Not even a little bit.

Then there is their status. Jill Lightner, a West Coast writer, has called them the “dumb blonde of the pastry world. ” Patric Kuh, another West Coast writer, described them as a “street thug…strutting past Madeleine and Éclair.” There are also all the donut/cop jokes that have become so ubiquitous they are now clichés.

But…there is something about fried dough that transcends its lowly status, that crosses class lines, that worms its way into people’s appetites, even though they might not like to admit it. Simply put, fried dough is delicious, and donuts are the epitome of fried dough. There is nothing more sublime, say, than a raised donut, newly fried, dipped in glaze, and eaten just as soon as that glaze has dried.

A Brief History of Donuts

“When it comes to donuts New England is a place apart.” —John T. Edge, Donuts, An American Passion

New England can reasonably claim to be the epicenter of the American donut world, and its donut tradition stretches all the way back to the Pilgrims, who, after staying in Holland, brought fried dough, which the Dutch called olykoeks (oily cakes), to the New World. These ur-donuts had no holes, were yeasted, and had raisins, apples, and almonds in them. John T. Edge…has described them as “deep fried fruitcake.” A daunting thought, but I would certainly give them a try if the opportunity presented itself. Naturally, as the Dutch settled New York, they brought their olykoeks to this region as well, and fried dough had a firm foothold in what would become the thirteen colonies.

According to legend, Sea Captain Hanson Crockett Gregory, from Rockport, Maine, invented the hole in the donut sometime in the mid-1800s. Out at sea, with a holeless, olykoek-type donut in one hand and the ship’s wheel in the other, he supposedly stuck the donut on the spoke of the wheel, thus inventing the donut hole. Is this true? Only Captain Gregory knew for sure, but he somehow managed to convince the Boston Post his story was true and was duly accorded fame for his “invention.”

From there, donuts, complete with holes, went international, and they did so in a most unusual way—they went to France during World War I with the Salvation Army. Here again, we have the stuff of legend. In 1917, four Lassies (as the women in the Salvation Army were called) traveled to the camp of the 1st Ammunition Train in France. The soldiers wanted pie, but there were no bake ovens for the Lassies to use. However, they did have a kettle, oil, and the ingredients for donuts. From that first day, when two of the Lassies fried 150 donuts, word spread, and other Lassies soon began making donuts for the troops. Eventually, Lassies, often only two of them, would go on to make as many as 2,500 in one day for the grateful soldiers. Hence, the term “doughboy” was born. You might die miserably in the trench or be poisoned by mustard gas, but at least there were donuts to be had before the horrors of battle. It wasn’t much, but it was something.

A Donut Tour

“We devalue the things that give us pleasure.” —John T. Edge

I have a dream, a fantasy of sorts, that John T. Edge, a food writer who hails from the South, would come as far north as central Maine and that we would go on a donut tour together. We would start in Augusta, at Bolley’s Famous Franks, early in the morning when their donuts…are still warm. Taking time to savor Bolley’s tender, old-fashioned cinnamon donuts, we would then hurry to Frosty’s in Gardiner…marveling at the oh-so-fresh honey-dipped donuts.

From there it would be off to Willow Bake Shoppe in Rockport, whose cake donuts are impossibly tender and whose chocolate donuts are satisfyingly rich. I would perhaps introduce “wicked good” into Edge’s vocabulary.  After all these donuts we would need a bit of a break, and Camden, on a sparkling day, would be the perfect place to rest. Finding a bench in the park overlooking the shimmering harbor, we would discuss the various donuts we had eaten, and I expect Edge would want to compare them to donuts he has eaten in other parts of the country. But in the end, Edge would return to a line from his own Donuts: An American Passion. That is, when it comes to donuts, New England is a place apart.

 

Food, Home, Nature

That Exuberant Burst of Green

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Despite the scourge of blackflies, this is the time of year when I can hardly stand to stay inside to do household chores. I want to be outside, where even hanging the laundry is a pleasure. I force myself to dust, vacuum, and clean the bathrooms, all the while looking outside at the deep blue sky and the tender yet exuberant  burst of green that surrounds the little house in the big woods.

My gardens come into their own in June and July, and right now there is not much in bloom. But never mind! There’s more than enough going on with the trees and the yard to keep this amateur photographer happy.

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And because we live on the edge of the big woods, there are spring wild flowers to admire.

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Even the dandelions.  I like their sunny heads, and when it comes to the lawn,  my philosophy is that if it’s green, then it’s good. No herbicides allowed in our yard! However, should dandelions stray into the flower beds, I must admit that I dig them out.

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Then there are the ferns. I admire their green grace, and I have encouraged them to take root all around our house. Ferns do well in deep shade, which this yard has in abundance.

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With so much time spent outside, taking pictures and working in the yard. there hasn’t been much time for cooking, and our meals have been very, very simple—baked, breaded chicken, wraps, scrambled eggs and toast. Last night I soaked some black beans, and I cooked them this morning. Tonight we’ll have black bean burgers—from a Mark Bittman recipe—with oven fries.

I’ll make the burgers this afternoon and put them in the refrigerator to chill. Then, after a satisfying day of taking pictures and yard work and household chores, I’ll have those burgers ready to pan fry.

Ah, spring.

Animals - especially dogs, cooking, Food, People

Mother’s Day Brunch

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IMG_8630Over the years, we have realized that our favorite way of celebrating special days and holidays is to cook together as a family. (The family that cooks together stays together?) Birthdays, anniversaries, Valentine’s Day, and, of course, Mother’s Day all bring about a flurry of mixing and cooking.

Yesterday, Shannon and the dogs came to the little house in the big woods to celebrate Mother’s Day. With Clif, we were a small but mighty team of three humans—Mike had to work, and Dee lives too far away—and three dogs. (Both Clif’s mother and my mother have died. How we miss them!)

This lucky mother got the best pancakes in Maine, if not the United States; fruit salad; home fries; and delectable flourless, chocolate cupcakes, which I request every year for Mother’s Day. Clif made the pancakes—his truly are the best—and Shannon made the rest.

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For the most part, Clif and Shannon wouldn’t let me help, but I did manage to sneak in a couple of things such as wiping the tables, inside and out.

“You’re not supposed to be helping,” Shannon said. “You’re supposed to be taking it easy.”

“Well, whose daughter is she?” Clif asked.

Shannon and I laughed. My mother couldn’t stand not helping, and it was a real effort to get her to relax. Well, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, as the saying goes, and it I will admit it makes me a little fidgety to sit while others bustle to prepare a meal. However, for the most part, I complied with their wishes and stayed out of the kitchen.

After brunch, we headed out to the patio so that the dogs could roam and sniff and we could enjoy being in the backyard. We were able to spend quite a bit of time outside before the black flies drove us in.

Even though it made me a little antsy not to pitch in and help, it was a treat to have someone else do the cooking and clean-up. We seldom eat out, which means I make most of the meals we eat. I am happy to do this, but it is nice to eat food that somebody else has prepared.

Somehow, it always tastes better.

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