parsnips aplenty

Biscuits.

February 13, 2010 · 4 Comments

You can tell a foodie by how she packs for an extended trip abroad. When I moved to Bulgaria, I took black beans and quinoa, and I left a list of foods that my friends and family should feel free to send any time they had an urge to put a care package together. Sage! I said. Ranch dressing mix! Molasses! Marcy scours the Asian grocery before a trip to Europe. Nolan brings a jar of mole. When Krista went to Mexico, she made room in her suitcase for a 5-pound bag of White Lily flour. This is how I knew we’d be friends.

I have spent much of my brief life looking for good biscuits. Usually, I paid for them. (I think there’s a support group for that.) Outside the American south, amazing biscuits are hard to come by – most folks don’t understand that the point is to use just enough flour to hold all the fat together. What ends up happening without this rule is a lump of baked dough that tastes like toothpaste without the minty freshness, thanks to all the baking soda that gets thrown in.

I could always make decent biscuits, but I needed a gobstopper of a recipe to support the technique I understood. A few weeks ago, I found it. It’s in the Gourmet cookbook, and everyone who’s eaten these that I’ve made for them has said little more than “oh. Woah” before they vacuum them up off the plate. Then they look at me in adoration, a buttery gleam in their eyes, and say, “…could you, uh, make those again?”

You’d think that I would make enough of a recipe that people wouldn’t need to ask for a second batch. But when a stick of butter makes only four biscuits… Well, you’ve got to pace yourself.

When I made them this morning, I took a bite, held it for a second, and literally felt it melting in my mouth. I didn’t know that was possible with anything that wasn’t chocolate ganache. I see no other biscuit recipe but this one from now on.

Biscuits
adapted from The Gourmet Cookbook
makes 4 giant biscuits

2 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon coarse sea salt
1 stick butter, chilled and cut in tablespoons
3/4 cup well-shaken buttermilk (I like to use 1/4 cup almond milk and 1/2 cup yogurt)

Preheat to 425F. In a large bowl stir together flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Add butter and cut in with forks or a pastry cutter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Add buttermilk and stir just to combine.

Turn out onto a well-floured surface and knead 5-6 times, until the dough starts to come together. Pat into a small circle, about an inch and a half thick. Using a 2″ ring mold, punch straight down into the dough, no twisting. Reform dough and cut out three more biscuits. Bake 10-15 minutes, until golden brown and delicious. (You’ll hear them sizzle on the pan. It’ll be great.) Eat with apple butter and sweet tea.

→ 4 CommentsCategories: baked · breakfast · pantry-dependent · quickbreads · snacks

Pumpkin Mushroom Lasagna

January 31, 2010 · 2 Comments

Usually, I am responsible about not overscheduling myself. I know that I need plenty of time each week to do Nothing in Particular, by myself, on my own time. These past few weeks, though, have been full of activity, and while I love, absolutely love, spending time with so many friends, I’m near the point where I just want to sit and stare at the wall for an hour. All of this nonstop busyness will stop on Wednesday, though, when I plan on drawing a bath and turning my phone off.

What does this have to do with food? Well, I’m making this lasagna for a potluck today. And there will still be enough for me to have for dinner on Wednesday. Half an hour of cooking (and an hour in the oven) is going to set me up with wonderful leftovers for the next few days. This is by far my favorite nontraditional lasagna, easily adored with the matchup of sweet squash and hearty mushrooms, set off by the tang of ricotta salata. The next time you’re thinking about making a wintery baked dish that will last you for three days, I excitedly recommend this wonderful Moosewood recipe.

Pumpkin Mushroom Lasagna
very closely based on a recipe from the Moosewood Collective
makes a 9″x13″ pan

2 yellow onions, diced
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 lb sliced cremini or other mushrooms
1/4 cup chopped fresh sage leaves
1 tablespoon salt
1 cup sherry, vegetable stock, or a combination
2 eggs, lightly beaten
2 15-ounce cans pumpkin
3 cups ricotta
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon grated nutmeg
3/4 pound uncooked lasagna noodles
1 1/2 cups crumbled ricotta salata
1/2 cup grated romano or parmesan

In a large pot, saute onions in oil for 5 minutes. Add mushrooms and saute another 5 minutes, until mushrooms are somewhat wilted. Add sage, salt, and sherry or stock and simmer on low heat for 5 minutes. Set aside.

In a large bowl stir together eggs, pumpkin, ricotta, pepper, and nutmeg. Set aside.

Preheat to 375F and lightly oil a 9″x13″ baking dish.

Dip out about 1/2 cup liquid from the sauteed mushrooms and pour into the prepared baking dish. Cover bottom with a layer of lasagna noodles arranged close together. Evenly spread on half of the pumpkin mixture. Spoon on about a third of the mushrooms and sprinkle with a third of the ricotta salata. Add a second layer of noodles followed by the remaining pumpkin mixture, another third of the sauteed mushrooms, and another third of the ricotta salata. Finish with a layer of noodles thoroughly moistened by the last third of the sauteed mushrooms. Evenly sprinkle on the last third of the ricotta salata and top with the grated romano.

Cover and bake 50 minutes. Uncover and bake for an additional 10 minutes, until lasagna is bubbly, noodles are tender, and the top is browned. Remove from oven and let stand 10 minutes before serving.

→ 2 CommentsCategories: autumn · baked · mains · one-dish meals · pasta · wintery

Seitan Pot Pie

January 17, 2010 · 4 Comments

I was back east last week. (“Back east”, to people on the left coast, means anything past the Rockies.) It was the longest time I’ve been out of Portland since I moved here, a year and a half ago. I went to visit the old homestead, in Asheville NC, and to remind myself that the America outside Portland is a very different America than the one I have grown into, here.

Did you know, for example, that people actually use their cars every day? And that styrofoam is still being manufactured? I had forgotten this. Fortunately, I slipped into a sweet-tea-induced haze of tranquility that kept me from being too snobby, and a drive through the mountains the day before I got back on the plane helped remind me of many fond memories I had growing up there. It was also wonderful to see so many family friends who blissfully call Asheville home.

I was homesick for Portland all week, though. I got back late last night, and when I woke up this morning, I walked down the street to my favorite breakfast spot, where I think I’m becoming a regular, and had my usual oatmeal, biscuit, and crossword puzzle. Then I strolled over to the co-op and got some veggies to make a pot pie. A red bell pepper and some maitake mushrooms were on the use-it-up-today shelf, so I threw those in the basket (never turn down a half-priced maitake, is my motto) with a bit of broccoli, an onion, some unfancy mushrooms, and a pack’o’seitan. A little fridge rummaging later, I had a wonderful dinner on its way.

Pot pie looks a little complicated to make, but that’s because this is an ideal way to use up little bits of leftovers. The veggies I used went really well together, but you don’t need to follow this recipe to the letter. What I do recommend heartily, though, is a splash of pear liqueur in the gravy. I had a bottle of some, made by Clear Creek Distillery, on the counter, and when I took a look at all the winter veggies I was pouring into this thing, tipping a few drops in was inevitable. White wine, sherry, or an apple brandy would be welcome, too. Or you could leave it without alcohol, and you’d do just fine. I’m going to categorize this as vegan, too, because it’s very easily made so – just use Earth Balance for the butter.

I started thinking about pot pie on the plane yesterday, as I was mentally waxing poetic about everything Portlandy I would be shortly returning to. I wanted some homey comfort food. Because this is home.

Seitan Pot Pie
serves 6-8

1 1/4 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon kosher or sea salt
8 tablespoons cold butter, cut in pieces
1/4 cup cold water

2 fist-sized potatoes, scrubbed or peeled, diced
1/2 medium-sized carrot, scrubbed or peeled, diced (about 1 cup)
1 cup peeled and diced winter squash

2 tablespoons butter
1 smallish white onion, diced (about 1 cup)
1 teaspoon kosher or sea salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
leaves from 1 sprig rosemary
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 1/2 cups sliced mushrooms
2 tablespoons flour
2 cups warm vegetable broth
2 tablespoons pear liqueur (optional)

1 red bell pepper, seeded and diced
1 small head broccoli, roughly chopped
1 8-oz package seitan, drained and rinsed, diced

Make crust: in a bowl, combine flour and salt and cut in butter with a pastry cutter (or rub it in with your fingertips) until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Add water and mix until dough just comes together. Form into a disc, wrap, and put in the fridge while you make the filling. (If you’ve prepped the filling ingredients ahead of time, put it in for at least an hour.)

Preheat to 375F.

Cook veg: bring a few cups of water or vegetable broth to a boil. Add potatoes, carrot, and squash and let simmer until a little soft but not quite cooked through. Drain and set aside.

Make gravy: While the potatoes are simmering, melt butter in a frying pan over medium heat. Add onion, salt, pepper, and rosemary and cook, stirring occasionally, until onions are softened and browned, 10 minutes. (If they’re going too fast, turn the heat down. You want a nice caramelization.) Add garlic and cook until fragrant, 1-2 minutes. Add mushrooms and cook another 3-4 minutes. Sprinkle in flour, stirring constantly, and cook 1-2 minutes. Add vegetable broth, stir, and let it come to a boil. Add pear liqueur, if using, and simmer 5 minutes. Taste for seasoning. It’s okay to add enough salt that it tastes on the salty side, because you’ll be adding more vegetables later that will take that salt.

Combine drained potato mixture, mushroom gravy, bell pepper, broccoli, and seitan in a 4-quart baking dish. Stir so that gravy coats everything. Remove pastry dough from fridge, roll out, and lay on top of filling, pinching the edges against the edge of the baking dish so gravy doesn’t spill over the sides. Cut a couple of slits in the top to let steam escape so that the whole thing doesn’t blow up in your oven. Put it in the oven so it will cook and be delicious. This will take about 45 minutes. Take it out and let it sit for about 10 minutes so it won’t be too runny when you first cut into it. Eat it so you’ll be happy.

→ 4 CommentsCategories: baked · mains · one-dish meals · pies · vegan · wintery

Sweet Potato and Pear Hand Pies

October 21, 2009 · 4 Comments

Every few days since I wrote the last entry, I would say to myself, “I really should update the blog.” I’ve been cooking, and taking pictures, but when it comes to writing things down, I’ve just gotten lazy. Let’s blame it on… shorter days, less sunlight, hibernation-with-book tendencies, busyness at work, misaligned planets, rain on Tuesdays? Finally today, Nico said to me, “You know, you’ve been making Thai tea ice cream for ages.”

I made these a couple of weeks ago. On the phone with my dad one Saturday morning, I said, “What should I cook today?” and he relied, “Sweet potatoes and wine.” Very doable. I felt like some weekend baking, and I wanted something that I could eat casually but didn’t mind taking some time to work on. Stumbling across this recipe on Real Food Rehab, I cooed and headed straight into the kitchen.

This is a great pie crust recipe, using an egg to help it stand up to the little bit of mauling necessary to make the half-moon shapes. I’d never made little pastry pockets like this before, and as I pressed the ends of these together with a fork, I kept looking at them and going, “….aw.” When I ate them, though, cuteness turned into lustiness. Rich sweet potatoes spiked with wine and laced with 7-spice powder: how can you go wrong?

Lebanese 7-spice powder (in some cases it’s Syrian) is the ace up my spice rack’s sleeve. If you can find this in a Middle Eastern grocery, you’re in like Flynn. If you can’t, don’t despair – use a combination of allspice and black pepper. I made the filling vegan by using soy creamer and Earth Balance, but I’d be hard-pressed to let go of that egg in the crust.

Sweet Potato and Pear Hand Pies
crust recipe from Kate Neumann, as printed by Dana Joy Altman
makes about 16

crust
3 2/3 cups all purpose flour
2 tbsp. sugar
1 tsp. salt
10.5 ounces (about 2.5 sticks) unsalted butter, very cold and cubed
2 eggs, cold & gently beaten
1/4 cup ice water

filling
1 medium-sized sweet potato, 1″ dice
sweet white wine
1 medium-sized pear, peeled and cut into 1/2″ dice
1 teaspoon Lebanese 7-spice powder
2 tablespoons cream
2 tablespoons butter
1/4 cup apple butter
1/4 cup brown sugar

Combine flour, sugar, salt and butter in a large mixing bowl. Using your hands or a pastry cutter, work the fat in until it’s broken down into pea-sized pieces. Add one of the eggs and mix with a wooden spoon. Then, pour ice water in tablespoon increments until dough looks “shaggy”, feels a bit wet, and holds together only if you smush a bit in your hands. Knead the dough together by hand, no more than a minute, and form into a round disc, cover with plastic wrap and let chill in fridge for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, make filling: Bring salted water to a boil in a 2-quart saucepan and add diced sweet potato, along with maybe half a cup of wine. Cook until sweet potato is very soft, then drain. Put sweet potato in a large mixing bowl along with remaining filling ingredients. Mash until… well, until it’s mashed. Add another glug of white wine and stir that in.

On a well-floured counter or pastry board, roll dough out to 3/16″ thickness and cut out 4″ rounds. (You can use the outline of the rim of a bowl and trace it out with a knife.) Place each cut round on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and a light dusting of flour. The scraps can be combined and rolled out again. Place a heaping tablespoon of filling in the center of each disc.

Whisk the egg. Brush a half circle of egg around the edge of exposed pastry to act as “glue.” Fold the circle in half and press down the edges with a fork to seal. Chill for at least one hour, and preheat the oven to 375F.

Before baking, brush surface of the crust with egg, cut three slits as vents and sprinkle with sugar. Bake for about 45 minutes until golden brown.

→ 4 CommentsCategories: autumn · baked · breakfast · fruity · middle eastern · pies · snacks

Thai Tea Ice Cream

September 15, 2009 · 8 Comments

All summer long, I’ve been thinking of ice cream. And sherbet, and sorbet. And all the wonderful things I could do if only I were to drop fifty bucks on a kitchen appliance instead of on a fancy dinner. (It’s really hard for me to not spend money on a fancy dinner, especially in Portland.) With every new frozen dessert recipe and idea I saw, I would say it louder: “I’m totally getting an ice cream maker next week.”

Before I knew it, September arrived, and the vapidity of my promises reared its head. I couldn’t let the summer close without that icy churn sitting on my countertop, and so, on Labor Day weekend, I made good. After an agonizing week’s wait, I greeted the UPS man on Friday with a cheer, and I immediately dissected the delivery. I’d already made a couple of bases to go in the bucket as soon as it froze – for grapefruit-fennel sorbet and Thai tea ice cream. I’d had the latter at Staccato Gelato earlier this year and quickly lost the ability to recall my life without it. Since the flavors at Staccato change all the time, I hadn’t had it since, and as soon as I entered my shipping details I knew that this was going to be in the first round.

Thai tea is a cantaloupe-colored drink, rich with sweetened condensed milk. I first heard mention of it from Aunt Carole, whom I always considered the family foodie, when I was a teenager. Her ability to get Thai food in Chicago, however, was much greater than mine in North Carolina. I finally tasted some in college and immediately understood what all the fuss was about. I don’t know what’s in it, and I’m not sure I want to know – I sacrifice some things for the sake of mystery. Its taste is almost rustic, but there’s enough exotic bliss to keep you going, and on a hot day it’s one of the few dairy-laden beverages that cool me off.

I found this recipe from Mac & Cheese, a Philadelphia vegetarian blog. Since most of my extended family is in Philly, and I went to high school there, I’m all about supporting the Delaware Valley foodies. (Tell Grandmom I said hi.) I adore this not only because it tastes great but because it’s got 3 ingredients. Can’t get much more simple than that.

thai tea ice cream

Thai Tea Ice Cream
from Taylor at Mac & Cheese
makes about a quart

1/3 cup loose leaf Thai tea
2 1/2 cups boiling water
1 cup sweetened condensed milk
1 cup half and half

Steep tea in water 20 minutes, then strain and let cool to room temperature. Mix 1 1/2 cups brewed tea with sweetened condensed milk and half and half. Freeze mixture in your ice cream maker, according to manufacturer’s directions.

→ 8 CommentsCategories: autumn · breakfast · desserts · pantry-dependent · summer · under 5 ingredients

Blueberry Cheddar Bites with Purslane

August 29, 2009 · Leave a Comment

My house runneth over with produce. This seems to be a not-uncommon problem for foodies in Portland in the summer – a combination of farmers’ markets within walking distance and more CSAs than we can shake a stick at means that our fridges and fruit baskets are positively stuffed. Does this stop me from buying more, though? Of course not. It just provides more excuses for me to have friends over for dinner. Tonight Riko’s coming – it’s falafel and mezze night here on Montgomery Street, and that fridge of mine had better be half empty by the time I load him up with leftovers to take home.

I have been giving myself a basket-slimming assignment every week at the farmers’ market, though: only buy produce I don’t know much about or haven’t used before. Heirloom varieties of “common” produce welcome, of course. A couple of weeks ago this got me a beautiful little orange melon, lemon cucumbers, and pumpkin greens (by far my favorite discovery for a stir-fry). Last week I picked up some purslane, which got a big snort out of my mother – “You paid $2 for a bunch of weeds!” This is what I deserve, I tell myself, for not getting off my ass and going to forage for this bright, earthy… weed.

I haven’t been very successful with it, overall. I did some research on the Interwebs and didn’t find anything that made me run into the kitchen, so I just started adding it in odd places – in a salad with orange slices and shaved elephant garlic was rather satisfying. I do love what it’s done with a Triscuit, though. (Someday I will write 500 words about my love of Triscuits.) I stuck a stem of it in some homemade blueberry jam that I accented with red onion, a nice slice of good white Cheddar, and some black pepper. This is much better than whatever Kraft-product-intensive recipes they put on the back of the box – citrusy greens go so well with sweet blueberries and rich, softly-biting cheese.

→ Leave a CommentCategories: Uncategorized

Review: Biwa

August 11, 2009 · 1 Comment

My father does not like strawberries or Japanese food, both for the same reason – his eyes are excited but then his tongue is disappointed. He likes strawberry jam and he likes tempura, sweet and rich and salty enough for his hearty palate.

His love, too, of wild strawberries made me wonder if he just hasn’t had good strawberries in a long time, or if he’s ever had good Japanese food. As soon as strawberry season rolled in in Oregon, I knew that the former had to be true (I don’t think I ever want to live somewhere without berries this good), and after dragging him out to Biwa when he came to visit, the latter idea started to sparkle. Biwa is my favorite Japanese restaurant so far in Portland, an izakaya tucked away on 9th and Ankeny, just south of Farm.

Well-coated concrete floors and unfinished ceilings give Biwa a very haute appeal, but the warm lighting and recycled Douglas fir woodwork make it accessible and welcoming. There is a note at the bottom of the menu that lists all of its staff by name, and every one of these hardworking izakaya gurus has been knowledgeable and caring about everything that they have made and served us, without an ounce of pretention. This is the soul of foodie Portland – a love of eating, an appetite for daring, a balance of realism.

Food: every time I’ve come here we’ve chosen off the menu with no sense of individual ownership – share everything, because everything is worth sharing. The last time I went, with Farzad, we started off with the seaweed and lotus root salad.

This is a far cry from the seaweed salad you get at the megamart sushi cooler; after the first bite, I knew I could never go back to that gelatinous pile of greens again. This tastes like the ocean. A boldly romantic statement, I know. It deserves it. Aqueous, ethereal, with a light touch of vinegar to help things along. You don’t just eat this salad, you breathe it in.

The grilled fava beans were almost there, but didn’t quite hit the mark. Farzad, who grew up in Iran and has spent time in many fava-intensive households, said they were just undercooked. I imagine this is a result of being grilled over crazy-high heat to make them pretty but just a little too toothsome. A big chunk of the menu here is devoted to foods grilled so simply, though, and I am eager to explore it.

It’s difficult to take a good picture of deep-fried foods, especially when you want nothing more than to be eating them. Such is the case with the deep-friend kimchee. This stuff is crack. The first time I came here, I was with Zeke, and he ordered this and I tasted it and I was so overwhelmed with this new flavor sensation that I didn’t know what to make of it, couldn’t be sure if I liked it. I kept thinking about it, though, through the udon, through the grilled rice ball, through the tea-and-rice porridge, and I was still mulling it over as my head hit the pillow that night. When I woke up the next day, all I wanted was deep-friend kimchee. I went back that night. The server understood.

Finally, the udon. It’s a mainstay of my visits here, handmade noodles in a deep, rich broth, with veggies on top. Slurpable and filling. I, like many vegetarians, am always so happy when the soup at a place is one that I can eat because it’s not made with animal stock, and I’m even happier when said soup is actually delicious and not just made with water. (Water as a base for udon, though, would just be sacrilege.) Biwa makes a vegan udon and an omnivorous udon, as they do with many of their menu items. It’s so nice being able to say, “I’d like all of these made vegan please…” before I begin my order, and not get an eye roll from the server.

I could gush about Biwa all night, but in the end, I will say simply that I think my father no longer crosses Japanese food off his list of theoretical dinner ventures. Next year, I’ll make sure he’s here for strawberry season.

Biwa
215 SE 9th Ave
(503) 239-8830
open daily 5 to midnight

→ 1 CommentCategories: Uncategorized

Jicama-Peach Salad

July 12, 2009 · 4 Comments

I know of at least five friends from college who have ended up in Portland. One of them grew up here and found her way back home, but the rest of us have come out one by one, for jobs or family or simply a good soft place to land. I often think about the “always wear sunscreen” speech when I think about how quickly I am coming to feel at home on the west coast – “live in San Francisco, but leave before it makes you too soft.” I’m already too soft, and it hasn’t even been a year. I was in Idaho a week ago and there were no vegetarian restaurants! What? It’s not easy to find tofu in Boise? I’m crawling back under my hippie rock. (The co-op in Boise, it’s worth saying, is awesome.)

Anyway. I went to dinner at a college friend’s house a few weeks ago, and I was listening to a podcast of The Splendid Table on the train out there. A recipe that Lynne tossed out, almost as an afterthought, to a listener calling in about jicama, piqued my interest as I rolled into the Hillsboro station, and when ET came to pick me up, I said, “We’re stopping at the grocery store so I can make you this salad to go with our dinner.” This is not a salad I would have come up with on my own – jicama is not something that I think about on a regular basis, to say the least – so I’m tremendously grateful that someone else thought of it and passed it on.

I’ve given up on trying to think of salads in terms of measured recipes. Toss together, all thinly sliced, jicama, red onion, peach (not too ripe – you don’t want it to feel mushy in comparison with the jicama), and fresh mint. Salt and pepper, olive oil, red wine vinegar. Yum.

→ 4 CommentsCategories: fruity · no recipes · salads · summer · vegan

Review: Screen Door (brunch)

June 20, 2009 · 4 Comments

We displaced Southerners are picky when it comes to restaurants claiming to serve down home food. We have grown to expect tasteless grits, chewy biscuits, and unsweetened iced tea when we leave the red clay states, and we groan at the very mention of “nouvelle Southern” in association with a dining establishment. I have found only two good biscuits since I’ve been in Oregon, and I had high hopes for Screen Door, at 24th and Burnside. Run by a couple from Louisiana, with a kitchen headed up by a chef who has worked at two solidly rockstar Portland restaurants, they focus on Southern food made as much as possible with local organic ingredients. This is a good start.

The space is made to look as though it is effortlessly, breezily decorated, but designer elements creep in. Artfully arranged Mason jars full of pickles and preserves, a tidy paint job, slightly scruffy chairs that all match. It’s comfortable, though, while avoiding pitfalls of being gimmicky (our tea didn’t come served in those Mason jars, thank god) and the two bottles of hot sauce on each table remind us that we are in the territory of Louisianans. My two friends and I poured over the menu, unable to decide on only one dish per person. So we gave in.

Zeke ordered the strawberry blintzes. He called them watery; I called them not-overly-rich. The cheese was lightly sweetened, the texture of the crepe gave in to everything else on the plate, and the strawberries were held gently in a simple syrup.

Sarah got the veggie hash – potatoes, peppers, asparagus, onions, Parmesan. She loved the asparagus and I thought the Parmesan pulled everything together very well. In the end, though, we agreed that a hash is a hash, and she wished she’d gotten the grits.

I did get the grits. These were the highlight of brunch. I’ve heard way too many people say, “Ugh. Grits,” and every time I hear such malice towards cornmeal I want to carry around a little container of good grits, made with sufficient salt, butter, and cheese or brown sugar, not only to prove these people wrong but to show them that there’s a reason we Southerners have formed a minor religion surrounding corn mush. If you learn anything from this blog, let it be this: grits are more than cornmeal and water. Those at Screen Door understand this – what arrived was a plate of silky, cheddar-laced buttery grits, topped with grilled tomatoes, spinach, fantastic caramelized onions, and Provolone. And it was two meals in a plate – I just ate the rest of it for dinner.

Their yeasted waffle is better than good, but it’s not mind-blowing – the yeast is a little overpowering, but the texture is fantastic, rich enough to make butter unnecessary and maple syrup a nice complement. It’s garnished simply with powdered sugar and an orange slice that is a pleasant finisher.

The biscuits. Man. I wanted them to be so much better, especially after grits and sweet tea that pass my stringent tests, but they were a little dry at the beginning, gummy in the mouth, and they had a baking powder aftertaste. What does win, though, is the veggie gravy. I know, it looks unappetizing to say the least, but it is wonderfully dense with black pepper and mushrooms, TVP providing an unnecessary but not unwelcome texture.

This was my second visit to Screen Door – Zeke and Sarah’s first – and I know I’ll be back, as will many Portlanders. It’s been at least a 20-minute wait each time, which is not uncommon for Portland breakfast spots, but I include this in my list of Portland breakfast spots that are worth the wait. It’s a big step above “dependable” and while I’ll always miss places like Sunny Point and Tupelo Honey in Asheville, this is still very worthy Southern food.

Screen Door
2337 E Burnside
(503)542-0880
dinner during the week, breakfast Sat-Sun 9-2:30

→ 4 CommentsCategories: breakfast · major food porn · no recipes · review

Coconut Lime Shortbread

June 15, 2009 · 1 Comment

Shortbread, short entry.

This is an infinitely adaptable basic recipe: one part sugar, two parts butter, three parts flour (by weight). Because it’s so simple, you should bring out the good butter for this. Or the good… coconut oil?

Coconut Lime Shortbread
makes about 20 cookies

2 cups all purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (one stick) butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup coconut oil, at room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
zest of 1 lime
unsweetened dried coconut

Combine all ingredients except dried coconut and rub together with your hands until a dough forms – it will barely hold together. Pat into a circle and wrap in plastic; stow it in the fridge for at least an hour. (I left mine in there for a week. Oops.)

Preheat to 350F. Remove dough from fridge and let warm enough to roll into a circle 1/2″ thick. Pat dried coconut into the dough and cut into any shapes you like. (Unicorns!) Bake 15 minutes and allow to cool on baking sheet 5 minutes before removing to a rack to cool completely.

I brought these to Zeke’s birthday party. Here is a picture of Zeke eating his giant birthday cupcake.

Hooray for sugar!

→ 1 CommentCategories: baked · cookies · desserts · fruity · pantry-dependent · snacks · summer