I like custard, I like cake, I like clafoutis. But serve me toad-in-the-hole, sunny-side-up, even hard-boiled, and I can’t bring myself to swallow. I allow no runniness in my eggs. Give me migas, oh lord yes. Give me delicately scrambled sunshine, I gag. I will scramble an egg for myself, and I will let it sit in hot hot butter until it is browned. Only then has it coagulated enough that it becomes suitable for consumption. That’s why the photo below may sting a little bit if you are someone who likes to dip your toast in the yolk.

I love olives tossed in with scrambled eggs, and so when I saw an egg and tapenade sandwich on the menu at Lovejoy Bakers, I snapped to attention and devoured the plate of salty goodness presented to me. Then I sat with it for a moment and decided I needed another one. The server said, “Aren’t they delicious? It sounds a little weird to put those two things together, but it totally works.”

Not weird at all.

Allow one egg per sandwich. Scramble and cook in butter. (I will permit you to cook it less than I do.) Pile it onto a slice of buttered bread. Good butter. Good bread. Smear some olive tapenade on the other slice. Eat. Repeat as necessary.

This means that winter is shedding, and that my brain is waking up a little bit. This February I spent a great deal of time with lovely people whose company I enjoy and whose companionship is essential, but I overloaded my calendar and forgot how much time I need to myself. Last weekend I went to March Fourth’s bacchanalian anniversary show and danced until I dropped. The next morning I drove to Wheeler County, the least-populated county in Oregon, and left behind the urbanity and, uh, moisture of Portland. Dramatic, dry landscapes surrounded me and made me feel blessedly insignificant. I saw no one for miles.

Today is another day of catching up on self-connection. I slept for 11 hours, stayed in bed and read til noon, and then: I got up and scrubbed the bejeezus out of the stove. Months of cooking oil and blackened debris were no match for me and my steel wool. It didn’t clear my head as much as Wheeler County did, but it sure cleaned out a couple extra cobwebs. Elbow grease can be a powerful meditation, when the mood strikes.

Under my newly scrubbed cooktop I baked this quickbread. I’d been craving an olive oil cake for awhile and had everything I needed on hand. In my fridge-clearing theme of late I also found some ricotta cheese that hadn’t gone moldy – hooray! – and from it got a wonderfully tight texture that opened up with the flavors of olive oil, rose, and lemon. The walnuts on top toasted perfectly and gave a buttery richness in their crunch that complemented the silky crumb. Everything in here came straight out of my pantry. As long as you keep rose petals on hand, it can come out of yours too.

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
2 eggs, lightly beaten
3/4 cup ricotta
1/2 cup almond milk
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/2 teaspoon rosewater
1/4 cup lightly crushed dried rose petals
zest of 1 lemon
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup untoasted walnuts

Preheat to 350F. Butter and flour a loaf pan. In a large mixing bowl combine flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar. In a medium mixing bowl combine eggs, ricotta, milk, oil, rosewater, rose petals, and lemon zest. Add wet mixture to dry and mix until barely combined. Add raisins and give it another few stirs. This batter will be thick. Spoon into loaf pan, smooth the top, and sprinkle with walnuts. Bake 55 minutes or until a tester comes out clean. Let rest 5 minutes on the counter, then turn out onto a cooling rack.

“Oh!” I say. “Right. Isn’t it pretty?”

It’s wonderful what old baby food jars and your co-op’s bulk spice department can do.

When I started cooking with any intention, I rigorously measured my spices. I think that when you’re trying to get your feet under you in the kitchen, this is a good idea – follow the recipe to the letter the first time you make it, then open yourself up to variations. I remember the first time I made a curry without a recipe. It was lousy. The second time I made a curry without a recipe, it was better. The third time, I nailed it. Since then I pull out my teaspoon set only occasionally, just to check up on myself and my estimating eye.

Chili for me is a very loose recipe. There are a few important things: scallions, lots of garlic, beer, and cumin. After that, it can take a million directions. I’m going to point out what may be obvious and say that I didn’t actually measure the spices I put in here. If you want to, please do, but really, it’s a dash of this and a bit of that, plus a whole lot of cans from my pantry. Don’t have white beans? Use chickpeas. The only constant I’d keep from that list of legumes is the black beans. But I love black beans.

I’ve fancied it up by making polenta cakes. This is a fun way to impress people and takes only a little finesse. This chili will be delicious by itself in a bowl, but if you’ve got an extra minute, make it special with this fun touch. The cakes aren’t vegan, but the chili is – and it’s all gluten free.

1 cup coarse-ground cornmeal
4 cups water
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
3 oz grated sharp cheddar
1 tablespoon butter

3 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1/8 teaspoon ground cayenne or to taste
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 1/2 teaspoons sea salt
1 small onion, diced (about 1 1/2 cups)
5-6 scallions, white and green parts, sliced
at least 3 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
1 chipotle, roughly chopped
1/2 teaspoon unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 cup beer
1 15-oz can diced tomatoes
1 15-oz can black beans
1 15-oz can kidney beans, drained
1 15-oz can white beans, drained
1 15-oz can corn kernels, drained
1 small can diced green chilies
1 12-oz package Mexican-spiced soy crumbles

Grits first. Put cornmeal, water, olive oil, salt and pepper in a medium saucepan over high heat. Bring water to a boil, then turn down to simmer, whisking often, until liquid is fully absorbed, about 15 minutes. (The thing with polenta is that it looks like it’s taken up all the water quite quickly, but keep cooking and stirring it for awhile longer and you’ll be rewarded with a much silkier texture.) Stir in cheese and butter; taste for seasoning. Spoon polenta out onto a plate and spread it about 1/2″ thick. Refrigerate while you start your chili.

In your favorite soup pot heat olive oil, cumin, coriander, cayenne, cinnamon, and pepper. When spices are fragrant, add salt, onion, scallion, garlic, chipotle, oregano, and cocoa powder. Cook on low heat, stirring occasionally, 5 minutes or until onions are softened and just barely starting to leave brown bits in the bottom of the pan. Turn up the heat and as soon as things start to sizzle but not burn, add beer and scrape up all those lovely brown bits. Cook until you no longer get a big whiff of alcohol when you stick your nose in the steam, then add remaining ingredients. Bring to a boil, then lower heat and simmer at least 30 minutes.

About ten minutes before you’re ready to serve, take the grits out of the fridge. Turn out onto a board and cut into desired shapes. The key here is to use a metal spatula, not plastic or silicone – you’ll need something a bit sharper to really dig under your grits cake, otherwise you’ll get reheated mush instead of nicely browned cakes. (I learned this the hard way.) Heat a good layer of olive oil – better too much oil than too little, in this case – in a skillet over medium-high heat until it’s almost smoking. Gently lay 2-3 cakes in the pan and fry 2-3 minutes, then decisively get your (metal!) spatula under and flip. 2-3 minutes more on the other side, then pull them out to rest on a roasting rack set over a plate. This is better than setting them on paper towels, because air will be circulating all the way around them.

Plate it up! Garnish with cilantro and some diced avocado. Queso fresco? Yum.

“I have cauliflower, tomatoes, and three dried figs. What should I cook?”

I enjoy these challenges. It’s not dissimilar to my job, where I find ways to use up 10 extra pounds of flank steak or a case of eggplant. At home I like shopping my pantry to see what I can pull together, and that gets more fun the barer the shelves become. Every once in awhile, though, I’ll get an idea that burrows itself into my head, and when it comes out again, the results are spot-on.

I kept thinking about quinces and sheep’s-milk cheese. I wanted to involve the two in a dessert, but manchego wasn’t going to work. I wondered if I could find a fresh sheep cheese, so I e-mailed some of the cheese shops in town, and some wrote back (way to go, Foster & Dobbs!) and some didn’t (what’s up, Cheese Bar?), but the gist was that spring is the time to get such happiness, not January. Not having that much patience, I settled on some goat fromage frais from New Seasons. It would be a tart: shortbread crust with crushed walnuts in it, a layer of cheese, a layer of quince jam, and sage to top it off.

I don’t make shortbread crusts that often, so I turned to my cookbooks to find what I was looking for. Lynne Rossetto Kasper and Sally Swift had a shortbread and jam tart. Perfect! I thought. It even had almond meal in it. So I substituted walnut meal and put everything in the food processor and prebaked and came up with… a useless, airy crumble of butter.

I remembered making an orange and date tart from Milk and Cookies a couple of years ago to end a fabulous Middle Eastern meal, and the crust was just what I’d had in mind. So I added lemon zest, substituted 200g flour and 50g crushed walnuts, and tossed that lot in the food processor again. Much better results.

What really pulls this whole thing together is the sage. I might even put some in the crust next time. It perfectly balances the sweet jam and tangy cheese. Without it, the dish is almost candy-like, but the sage really brings it back down to earth and gives all the other ingredients a reason for being included.

Make your own quince jam for this. You’ll feel even more accomplished.

Quince Tart with Walnuts and Sage
makes an 8″ tart

crust
200g all purpose flour
50g toasted ground walnuts
110g confectioners’ sugar
zest of 1 lemon
110g unsalted butter, chilled
1 egg

Place flour, walnuts, and confectioners’ sugar in a food processor and process to combine. Add butter and zest and process until mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Add egg and process until a smooth ball. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes. Preheat oven to 400F.

Roll out pastry on a floured surface and use to line an 8″ tart pan with removable base. Line pastry with parchment paper and fill with rice or pastry weights. Bake for 10 minutes, then remove paper and weights and return to oven for 10 minutes until crisp and golden.

(Thanks, Milk and Cookies!)

filling
500g fresh sheep or goat cheese, softened
500g quince jam, heated with 1-2 tablespoons water to soften
whole sage leaves

When tart shell has cooled enough that it won’t fall apart when handled, carefully spread the cheese. Cover with jam and return to the oven for 15 minutes, just to get the components to melt together a bit. Remove from oven and serve with sage leaves.

Yesterday I saw a statistic, very possibly made up, that the average cookbook user makes only 4-5 recipes out of each book. Honestly, my number is probably even lower than that. Cookbooks are bedtime reading and inspiration for me, and I have many cookbooks that have taught me much but that I’ve never cooked directly from.

One of these is Mark Bittman’s How To Cook Everything Vegetarian. (He also has great videos on the New York Times website.) It’s a fantastic resource, with plenty of tables that help explain how one dish can quickly become another. This, to me, is the best kind of general cookbook, because it provides hundreds of recipes but that number leaps to thousands by the guidance and improvisation provided by the author. I recommended it to Ethan recently before I realized that I’d never actually used it.

Well, enough of that nonsense. This morning I opened the book and this recipe immediately made itself known with all the subtlety of a neon sign. This stew is nothing short of a party in my mouth. Port pulls out amazing flavors in the ginger and prunes, the limas are lush and just barely toothsome, and the cayenne brings a brilliant finish. It shows heat but doesn’t interfere with any other flavors. Dried fruit in stew, man. Wow. I need to make more cookbook recipes.

I’m tagging this vegan, because it’s so easily made so. (I used butter but didn’t add the cream.)

Dried Fruit and Lima Stew
from How to Cook Everything Vegetarian by Mark Bittman
serves 4

8 ounces dried lima beans or 1 pound fresh or frozen
2 tablespoons butter or neutral oil, like grapeseed or corn
2 large onions, sliced
1 tablespoon peeled and minced fresh ginger
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1 cup marsala, not-too-dry red wine, or water
1 cup chopped tomato (canned are fine; don’t bother to drain)
12 dried plums (prunes)
12 dried apricots
salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon cayenne, or to taste (I used 1/4 teaspoon)
1/2 cup cream (optional)

If you’re using dried limas, cook them, a day or two in advance if you like. If they’re fresh or frozen, proceed to the next step.

Put the butter or oil in a casserole, Dutch oven, or similar pan over medium heat. When the butter is melted or the oil is hot, add the onions and cook, stirring occasionally, until very soft, at least 15 minutes. Add the ginger and garlic and cook 30 seconds. Add the port, raise the heat a bit, and cook for a minute, until some of the liquid bubbles away. Add the tomato, dried fruit, salt, pepper, sugar, cayenne, and drained limas.

Bring to a boil, lower the heat, cover, and simmer, stirring occasionally, until the fruit is tender, the tomato saucy, and all the flavors combined, about 15 minutes. Raise the heat and boil off any excess liquid (you want stew, not soup); taste and adjust the seasoning. (You can make the stew in advance to this point, then reheat and proceed.) Stir in the cream if you’re using it. Cook for another 30 seconds and serve.

When I first moved to Portland I was living downtown – no yard sales there, either. But last winter I moved over to the east side, and when we emerged from our damp caves at the beginning of summer to take our more regular perambulations allowed by beautiful northwest summers, I started to see them, tacked on community bulletin boards, lampposts, fences: yard sale signs. I began to wander past a few, and as the season wore on, I started paying attention during the week to sales that would be happening that weekend. Always something new-to-me and unusual to be picked up, almost always for the equivalent of change I can dig out of the couch cushions. I’ve bought a Victrola cupboard, a botanical lithograph, a 50-year-old jewelry box. I went really nuts at one yard sale and spent a whole $19. (I may never move back to the country again.)

I’m always keeping an eye out for sturdy kitchen equipment. Buy what you can afford, when it comes to cooking, but on my salary, I can afford aluminum baking dishes from Safeway. So yard sales are it, for me. A few weeks ago I spied two super high quality muffin tins. Sweet! I said. I need muffin tins! $5 each! For two… muffins-the-size-of-your-head muffin tins.

I figured oversized muffins were better than no muffins. So I stuffed them in the messenger bag, along with a bedskirt (I’d been looking for one of those forever! They’re either expensive or heinous. Sometimes both!), and I pedaled back home. And then I made myself some of Deborah Madison’s quinoa muffins. Some credit goes to my roommate: I stole her quinoa to make these. She didn’t mind. Why? Because they’re tasty, that’s why.

This recipe is made for regular sized muffins, not the behemoths I made, for which I just doubled the recipe and thus put twice as much batter in each muffin cup.

Quinoa Muffins
from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison

1 cup cooked or 1/2 cup raw quinoa
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1 cup quinoa flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1 egg
1/4 c butter, melted, or vegetable oil
1 1/4 cups buttermilk or yogurt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat to 375F. Spray or oil muffin tins.

If cooking quinoa, rinse it well, put it in a small saucepan with 1 cup water, and bring to a boil. Simmer, covered, until the water is absorbed, about 15 minutes, then drain.

Meanwhile, combine flours, salt, soda, and sugar in a mixing bowl. Beat the egg with the oil, buttermilk, and vanilla. Stir wet ingredients into dry, add the quinoa, and mix with a spatula, scraping up from the bottom so that the flour is mixed in thoroughly. Scoop the batter into the muffin cups and bake until firm and light brown on top, 25-30 minutes.

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.

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
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.

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!

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.