parsnips aplenty

Sweet Potato and Pear Hand Pies

October 21, 2009 · 2 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 Flint. 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.

→ 2 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

Peanut-Ginger-Sesame Cookies

May 31, 2009 · 3 Comments

I have an announcement. Are you sitting down?

The sun has been shining in Portland for 10 straight days.

It’s been amazing.

I was lolling on the grass one sunny day in college, Back East, and my friend Natalie, who grew up here in Portland, turned to me and said, “I’m from Oregon. We don’t really trust the sun.”

“Well, I sure as shit ain’t moving there,” I said to myself.

But 8 years later, here I am, and after my first northwest winter, I’ve joined the club. I get out of the house the moment the clouds thin, because I know that blue skies won’t be the case for long. When the sun can’t decide whether or not to come out during the day, however, and we get clouds-sun-clouds-sun, I think, “Oh, just let it be cloudy and let’s be done with it.”

Last weekend, though, I dug out spaghetti straps, linen dresses, and tube tops from the back of my closet. After a week and a half of this weather, I think it’s going to hang around for a little while. My pasty winter skin has gone away and I feel like a normal human being again! It’s been picnics aplenty here in Stumptown and today was no exception. Sesame cookies and seitan bánh mì with a rockstar dipping sauce from Veganomicon were in hand as Ravi and I walked to the park; we munched away on our tasty sandwiches and sugar while feeling summer coming on stronger by the minute. Let’s just hope the sun sticks around for awhile.

The bánh mì didn’t last long enough to get a decent picture, so I’ll focus on the cookies. The hardest part of vegan baked goods is getting the texture right for those of us who grew up on egg-leavened treats. These cookies nail it. And they do it without flaxseed, a hippie-food favorite that my body just doesn’t tolerate. Brown rice syrup, peanut butter, and equal amounts of baking powder and baking soda pull together the right mouthfeel; the spices and wandering hint of almond extract makes a wonderful balance. Plus, pretty!

Peanut-Ginger-Sesame Cookies
from Veganomicon by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero
makes 42 cookies

2 1/4 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 cup nonhydrogenated vegan shortening, softened
1/2 cup chunky peanut butter
1/4 cup brown rice syrup
1 1/4 cups sugar, plus additional sugar for rolling
1/2 cup soy milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
5 ounces candied ginger, diced finely
1/3 cup each white and black sesame seeds, or 2/3 cup of just one kind

Preheat to 350F and lightly grease two cookie sheets.

Sift together flour, baking powder, soda, salt, ground ginger, and cinnamon, and set aside.

In a large bowl use electric beaters to cream the shortening until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the peanut butter, rice syrup, sugar, soy milk, and extracts, and continue to beat until creamy, 4-5 minutes. Using a rubber spatula or wooden spoon, stir in the flour mixture, then add chopped candied ginger and stir until a very firm dough forms. You can use your hands towards the end to mix the dough.

Roll scant tablespoons of the dough into walnut-sized balls. Roll each ball in sesame seeds, then roll in a little sugar and place on a prepared cookie sheet, leaving about 1 1/2″ of space between each cookie. Flatten the balls just slightly and bake for 10-11 minutes for chewy cookies, up to 14 minutes for firmer, crunchier cookies. Remove from oven and allow cookies to remain on baking sheets for a few minutes before transferring to wire racks to cool.

→ 3 CommentsCategories: baked · cookies · desserts · middle eastern · pantry-dependent · snacks · spring · summer · vegan

Picnic. With basil.

May 23, 2009 · 4 Comments

It’s 7:00 on a Saturday evening. I had plans – I was going to go contra dancing, twirling and stomping and grinning for three hours. But they have been thwarted by sunshine.

I was worried that this would happen when I decided that I would spend the afternoon lazing about on a grassy knoll. A few hours of soaking up the Vitamin D really takes it out of you. We walked back in the house, plopped down on the couch, and I asked myself, “Do I really, really feel like dancing?” And I’m still on the couch, two hours later, having not even gotten up to wash the sunscreen off my face. The dance is starting now. I think I might make it to the laundry room, but no farther.

This morning, Zeke came over and we walked over to the farmers’ market to stand in a 3-mile long line for biscuits. I understand that you’re not supposed to be able to find good biscuits north of the Mason-Dixon Line – or west of Tennessee, for that matter – but Pine State Biscuits knows what they’re doing. My friend Luke, who moved to Oregon from North Carolina a few months after I did, went behind the counter to hug all the cooks after ordering the Reggie last weekend. (Also, they have Cheerwine, which I miss, but not enough to pay $2 a bottle.)

So after some sweet biscuit love, Zeke headed to French class and I headed into the kitchen to make some picnic preparations. There was a feeding frenzy at the strawberry stand over at the market, so I grabbed a pint, and I also picked up the last bunch of basil from a neighboring vendor. This and a little drizzle of real balsamic gave me basil-wrapped strawberries. Three ingredients. Welcome to summer.

After that I threw some Puy lentils together with olive oil, the same real balsamic, salt and pepper, red scallions, plenty more basil, herbs de provence, a big pinch of lavender, and a couple of splashes of lemon juice.

Next was a simple, no-frills pasta salad: broccoli, parmesan, basil (what? It was a big bunch), olive oil, red wine vinegar, salt and pepper, and roasted garlic.

Finally, I melted a little Earth Balance in a pan and chopped up about 5 stalks of rhubarb. Cooked it down with more brown sugar than my teeth will forgive me for, a handful of raisins, some cinnamon, allspice, and cloves, and poured some Cointreau over it for good measure. When it got all mushy, I had rhubarb compote. Plus bread and goat cheese? You’ve got yourself a picnic.

We packed it all up, along with some Thai iced tea and blood orange soda, into sexy sexy Tupperware and went up to Washington Park, finding the perfect spot of grass in Hoyt Arboretum. We munched on our riches while watching sun-ecstatic Portlanders engage in such stimulating activities as playing hackey sack and rolling down a giant hill. Urban hikers walked past; children scuttled about, parents in tow; couples meandered by; amateur botanists pontificated within earshot. Zeke and I, meanwhile, raised forks to mouths and chewed in harmony with birdsong. Then we sat, in the sun, and did absolutely nothing. And it was wonderful.

→ 4 CommentsCategories: appetizers · desserts · fruity · major food porn · no recipes · pasta · salads · sides · snacks · spring · summer · under 5 ingredients · vegan

Fiddlehead Quiche

May 13, 2009 · 2 Comments

I have decided that in order to appreciate spring, you’ve got to live someplace with a real winter. I remember reading food magazines in Marches and Aprils years ago and wondering if the only vegetarian recipes they’d ever offer in springtime would be baby vegetable sautés. Tiny carrots, radishes, new potatoes – get over it! Spring foods tasted pale, to me. I wanted to jump right into heady peaches and bursting-ripe tomatoes, dripping with that sweet anise tang of billowing basil leaves. The area I grew up in got its fair share of snow dumps in the colder months, but I didn’t truly understand total winter hibernation until I spent it in Bulgaria.

As soon as it got warm enough to leave the house without seven layers on, I spent as much time outside as possible. And I started foraging. Wild garlic, nettles, lemon balm, dandelions – spring gave way to a whole new taste, for me. Instead of underdeveloped flavors, I now associate spring with bright yet pungent, earthy greens. (And they go so well with new potatoes!) I’ll never regret the onset of summer fruit season, but a little part of me now sighs when I see the asparagus at the market start to get thicker, the green garlic reedier. Ah well, next spring will come with just as much relief.

Today I met up with a friend that I came to know when I visited Portland years ago. We ran into each other in January or so but haven’t seen much of each other, and our schedules finally collided today, to allow us a few minutes’ wander over to the farmers’ market for lunch. We got some dead-ripe strawberries, $3.50 a pint, and I squealed with delight when I saw… fiddleheads! A recently yuppified foraging treat, $12 a pound but I didn’t care, because I knew that their season is so short and I’ve been wanting to try them for so long. I snapped up a handful of them, along with a recipe for quiche that the vendors had printed out from the Interwebs.

I’ve been easing up on the dairy, lately, and it was a bit of a deep breath to use so much of it for one recipe, but… quiche. And fiddleheads! A couple of adjustments from the original recipe – I used half and half instead of milk (if I’m going to use that much dairy, I’m not going to screw around about it), I threw in the last couple of tablespoons of parmesan I had lying around, and although I used the cheddar that the recipe calls for, I suggest substituting half of that with something a little milder, such as Gruyère. Havarti? Yum. I also threw in some chives. Because a quiche needs chives.

This is also the first blog picture I’m posting with my new camera! I’m leaving it totally unedited, because it’s pretty darn good just the way it is. Also, it’s a wet spring day in Oregon and I’m going to go sit by the fire and eat some eggy fiddlehead pie. Spring has arrived in Portland, and it’s rainy, but golly gee whiz, look at those ferns.

015

Fiddlehead Quiche
adapted from a recipe from recipeland.com
serves 6-8

2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons sliced leeks
1 cup chopped fiddleheads
pinch salt
4 large eggs
1 cup half and half
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons grated parmesan
1 cup mild cheddar cheese (see notes above)
1 tablespoon chives
1 tablespoon chopped parsley
1 9″ pie crust, par-baked

Preheat to 350F. Heat olive oil in a pan over medium high heat and add leeks, fiddleheads, and a pinch of salt. Cook until softened and fragrant, 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, whisk together eggs and half and half. Add salt, cheeses, chives, and parsley. Remove fiddlehead mixture from the heat and add to egg mixture. Give it a stir and pour the whole shebang into the pie crust. Bake 40 minutes or until barely set in the center. Let rest at least 15 minutes before cutting and serving.

→ 2 CommentsCategories: baked · breakfast · mains · pies · spring · wild