Same Blog, New Look

I work as an editor for a living, so it is in my nature to see things on this blog that I want to change. In fact, I have compulsively tinkered with the look of this blog several times since I started it two years ago. This time, I thought I'd point out some of the new features before I change it again.

- Banner with new photo. I'd like to change the banner seasonally to reflect the different produce that I get, and it's pear season now. These are dessert pears, "luscious and rare" according to Simply Wisconsin, my CSA. I would add "small and sweet." The other thing that I love about these pears is the imperfect look of their skin, because this is often what real food looks like when it comes out of the ground or picked off a tree. Grocery stores often feature the best looking produce but its not necessarily the best tasting. I intentionally positioned the pears on the right side of the screen so they will not compete with the photos that I put in blog posts. Finally this photo also captures a glimpse of my blog's namesake, the wooden table in my kitchen.

- New Wooden Table font. I love the cursive. Who writes in cursive any more? Let's bring cursive back. Who's with me?

- Tag cloud. This is a different way of featuring the tags. Instead of a long list, they appear more condensed and sized according to how often I use each label. I also edited the list to include only the items that came in one of my CSA boxes. You can find the tag cloud under the heading In the CSA Box in the right column under Blog Archive.

- Flickr feed. I fnally broke down and bought a new and better camera, so I really want to improve the photography on the blog. Right now, most of the photos on the feed already appear in the blog but I plan to add Flickr-exclusive images soon. The Flickr feed is under Inside the CSA Box in the right column.

Well, that's it. Take a look around. It might look different soon enough.

Smokin' Hot

Roasting has become a favorite way to cook vegetables like broccoli, potatoes, and cauliflower. Just toss with olive oil, salt, pepper, and garlic, bake on high heat and the veggies come out crisp with a smoky garlicky flavor. (Last week I squeezed lemon over the broccoli after it came out of the oven and grated Parmesan cheese at this suggestion - so good!)

That's why I was excited to find this recipe for roasted tomato and red bell pepper soup today. It's gotten much more fall-like in Chicago. Granted we've had a cooler summer than usual but suddenly the temps are more 40s and 50s than 60s and 70s. All I want to do is turn on the oven and eat hot food.

Fresh off Wednesday's colorful box of CSA produce, I wanted to use up the tomatoes and red bell peppers as soon as possible because of dinner plans tonight and tomorrow night. This easy recipe calls for roasting (yay!) those two ingredients plus several cloves of garlic and sliced onions.

Aside from my smoke detector going off mid-roast and having to haul out the ladder to unplug the battery (bad, I know, but I couldn't make it stop and worried that my neighbors would call the fire department) and having to open windows to let out some of the smokiness (also bad, now that the heat is on), the veggies charred beautifully.

They might have charred a little too much, actually, because when I pureed all of this in the blender, there were bits of what looked like huge black pepper flakes everywhere. If I was more concerned about the appearance of the soup, I might have strained those out. But to me, it didn't affect the flavor, which had a nice balance between the peppers and tomatoes.

That reminds me, I better go plug that battery back in.

Roasted Tomato and Red Bell Pepper Soup (adapted from Bon Appetit)

2 T olive oil

3 tomatoes, sliced in half lengthwise

2 red bell peppers, deseeded and sliced in wide strips

1 onion, sliced in thin wedges

5 cloves of garlic, peeled

salt

pepper

1/2 t dried thyme

2 cups water

1/4 c crumbled goat cheese

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Arrange tomatoes, peppers, onion, and garlic on baking sheet (even though this creates an extra dish to wash, I like to toss all the veggies with olive oil, salt, and pepper in a bowl before placing on the baking sheet, or you can sprinkle it on after they are arranged). Roast for 40 minutes. Afterwards, place roasted veggies in the blender with thyme and water and puree to your consistency of choice. This soup can be chilled for a few hours and served cold or hot with crumbled goat cheese and fresh sprigs of thyme.

Sweet

Friday night was the start of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. I celebrated by cooking dinner for my sister Angie and her family. I think it was Wednesday that I extended the invitation, thinking that I would throw something together from that night's CSA delivery and sort of forgetting that I had plans on Thursday night.

After I picked up the CSA produce, I stopped by the Andersonville Farmer's Market. I figured that at least one farm would have apples for sale, and if I was lucky, some bottles of honey (yes, we finally finished those 3 bottles of honey in our pantry).

I arrived around 7pm, an hour before closing time. It was a good thing that I didn't show up 10 minutes later because some of the vendors were already packing up. Luckily I saw baskets of apples on one of the tables manned by a woman who seemed in no hurry, so I rushed over and learned that the market now closes at 7pm instead of 8pm because of the darkness.

That's right, the darkness.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with Chicago winters, the darkness starts creeping in around late September until suddenly, you wake up and it is dark. You go to work, and it is dark. You come home from work, and it is dark. The darkness cannibalizes the day, like a ravenous beast. The snow, cold, and wind, I can handle. It's the darkness is the hardest part about surviving a Chicago winter.

But some time around March or April, mercifully, the light returns. With it comes a more even ratio of day to night. The darkness recedes not in defeat, but in hibernation for the next winter. But I digress.

Back to the farmer's market...I picked up some honey crisp apples and honey and decided to do menu research on Thursday. By the time Friday rolled around, I had a few different ideas but nothing was set.

There was this chicken with lemon and pepper recipe that seemed easy and safe. Then there was the dish that I wanted to make but was a little afraid because I had never made it before. As I learned early on in my blogging experience, it is very important to test a recipe.

But this dish that I wanted to make was so tempting. Somehow Moroccan Chicken with Tomatoes and Honey seemed more appropriate for Rosh Hashanah, which is all about wishing each other a sweet new year.

I also learned that my nephew had an aversion to lemons. So that was that. I decided to go for it. Angie would bring noodle kugel. Someday I will make it and post this recipe, which is rich and sweet beyond belief and quickly becomes a pile of crumbs that get picked up by sticky fingers. I would also make one of my favorite fall salads - greens with sliced pear, toasted walnuts, and dried cranberries mixed with balsamic vinaigrette. We'd finish with a dessert of sliced apples dipped in honey. Simple and sweet.

I already had tomatoes, onions, and lettuce from my CSA, the apples and honey from the farmer's market, and all the spices in my pantry except ginger, which we had run out of a few weeks earlier.

I 1 1/2'd the recipe to accommodate the 6 of us, and let me say that my gamble paid off. The recipe calls for the chicken to be sauteed and then slow cooked in a mixture of onions, turmeric, ginger, cinnamon, and honey for about 50 minutes, which infused the meat and the juice with so much flavor that Angie declared it the best chicken she had ever tasted! (I didn't serve over couscous like the original recipe called for because I thought the kugel would suffice.) The nephews chowed down too. They ate at least half of their pieces of chicken, which is always the highest compliment.

It was a sweet new year indeed.

Moroccan Chicken with Tomatoes and Honey (adapted from Jessica Denise Steinmetz, bellaonline.com)

1/2 tsp. ground turmeric
4 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
1 1/2 large onion, finely chopped
6 medium skinless chicken breasts
4 ripe plum tomatoes, chopped
1 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp. ground ginger
6 Tbsp. honey
Salt to taste

Heat oil in large Dutch oven and deep pan over medium-high heat. Saute onion until golden, about 6 minutes. Remove with slotted spoon and transfer to plate. Add chicken and saute, turning frequently until browned on all sides, about 8 minutes (depending on the size of the boob!). Since I was crunched for time, I sauteed 3 pieces of chicken in a Dutch oven and a saute pan at the same time. Remove chicken from pan.

Add 1/2 cup water to Dutch oven, scraping bottom with a wooden spoon to loosen all browned bits. Add tomatoes and cook for about 8 minutes, until soft. Add turmeric, cinnamon, ginger, honey, and salt. Return chicken and onion to pot. Cover and simmer for 50 minutes, until chicken is tender.

Makes 6 servings.

Mess

My kitchen is a mess. Dishes, pots, and the food processor are coated with an oil slick of mushed up basil, garlic, pine nuts, and parmesan cheese. 

It's all the basil's fault. I got a bag of the leafy green herb in my CSA this week and knew I had to make pesto. 

I have never made pesto before but was first introduced to how delicious it could be in a pizza that I ate in Riomaggiore, the smallest of the five villages in Cinque Terre in Italy's Liguria region. 

That was over 10 years ago and it took me until now to make it. Actually we've been getting bags of different herbs in almost each delivery and most of them have gone to the composting worms or in the trash after not using them in time. 

So I made fresh basil pesto over pasta and served with a CSA salad of lettuce, cucumbers, and pine nuts (not from the CSA) tossed with a homemade dressing of olive oil, red wine vinegar, salt, pepper, and a clove of minced garlic.

I can't say that what I made tasted as good as it did in Italy, but it came close. 

Basil, I forgive you.

Fresh Basil Pesto (adapted from Simply Recipes, another useful and wonderfully written food blog that I follow)

2 cups basil

1/2 cup grated parmesan or romano cheese

1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

1/3 cup pine nuts or walnuts

3 cloves garlic (I love garlic and added 4 cloves, and the garlic flavor really popped)

salt and pepper to taste

Put basil and pine nuts in a food processor and pulse a few times (note: I pulsed quite a bit because it took awhile for the basil to start mixing up). Add garlic and pulse some more. Drizzle olive oil and pulse, stopping frequently to scrape mixture off the sides. Toss in the cheese and pulse a few more times until blended. I added a tiny bit of salt but didn't think it needed much salt and pepper at all. Serve over pasta.

Simplicity

Food blogging has received a lot of attention lately thanks to the movie Julie & Julia.

While I liked the film and even read some of the book (honestly, I couldn't get through it), there is another food blogger who has had me continually checking back for updates. 

I started reading Orangette a few months ago, although she is a longtime blogger who has won awards and accolades.  She recently published a memoir called The Homemade Life, which includes meaningful recipes that help tell her personal story of family, love, and food. 

Maybe a little over a week ago, she opened a pizza restaurant in Seattle with her husband. It happened to be right around the time that the fennel in my refrigerator was starting to develop brown spots on the outer layers of the bulb.

Fennel was a mystery to me. I don't remember getting any last summer in my CSA and if I did, it probably went bad because I had no idea what to do with it. My limited experience with fennel had come in the form of seeds in a little spice jar in the pantry.

In honor of Orangette's big night, I made her recipe for fennel salad with Asian pear and parmesan. In the book, she prefaces the recipe by stating how much she and her husband love to eat salad and describes how the idea for a fennel salad came from one of his ex-girlfriends but originated with Julia Child. 

It always seems to go back to Julia Child.

But what I loved about the recipe was its simplicity. That's part of what draws me back to Orangette's blog. Simple recipes paired with revealing updates about her life. 

Because let's be honest, and I think Julie Powell would agree. The secret ingredient to a good food blog is not always in good writing and photography or in featuring delicious recipes, but in how much of a peek the writer offers into her life. 

Fennel Salad with Asian Pear and Parmesan (adapted from Molly Wizenberg's book The Homemade Life)

1 medium fennel bulb

1 Asian pear

olive oil

lemon (I used a lime since that's what I had)

salt

wedge of Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese (I used grated parmesan from the fridge)

black pepper

Cut off the stalk and trim the fennel bulb; slice thinly (1/8 to 1/4 inch thick). Slice the pear in thin slices similar to the fennel. Spread the fennel slices on a plate. Drizzle with olive oil. Place slices of pear on top of the fennel. Drizzle with lemon juice (in my case, lime) and salt. Shave ribbons of cheese on top (I sprinkled grated parm). Then repeat all of the layers. 

A Cool Breeze

Usually by this point in the summer, I ache for the cool days of fall. I've had enough heat and stickiness to last me through another Chicago winter.

Not this summer. In July we had an average of 69.7 degrees here in Chicago, and I can't say that I have minded not having to haul out the air conditioner.

But earlier this week temps crept up past normal, and my kitchen felt thick with humidity. I had cucumbers and onions to use and decided that this was the perfect time to make gazpacho, especially since I had gotten a recipe from a wonderful home cook who, fortunately for me, doesn't believe in keeping her recipes a secret.

With her blessing I am posting this recipe. It's so simple to make and includes watermelon, an unexpected ingredient that adds a hint of sweetness and feels like a cool breeze sliding down my throat.

Gazpacho (by Amy Currie, author of Memoirs of a Home Cook)

2 cups tomato juice

2 tomatoes, cored and chopped

1 seedless cucumber, peeled and chopped

1 red pepper, cored and chopped

1 medium red onion, chopped

1 cup seedless watermelon, cubed

1/4 cup red wine vinegar

2 tablespoons olive oil

salt and pepper

Pulse tomato juice, tomatoes, cucumber, red pepper, red onion, and watermelon in a food processor. Add vinegar and oil. Season to taste w/salt and pepper. Serves 6-8.

Carbo Loading

Almost 10 years ago I ran the New York City Marathon. It started out as the most exhilarating experience. As I pounded through the boroughs, thousands cheered when I ran by. That's because I kept pace with four 50-something Brits dressed like the Teletubbies, and yes they carried purses.

Thankfully, the screams weren't all for Tinky Winky. I had a lot of supportive family and friends who followed me along the route and kept my spirits up. I had trained for five months and felt great. But in the Bronx, my legs began to feel numb, my mind clouded over, and my stride went from confident to baby steps. My body was so fatigued, I couldn't imagine running eight more miles.

I had hit the wall. Big time.

Hitting the wall is the term for what happens when the body loses too much glycogen. It's a common occurance during a marathon and can be alleviated by consuming more carbohydrates before and during the run.

To this day, I don't know how I made it through the final hills of Central Park to the finish line. With a quarter mile to go, I even got my legs back and sprinted to the end, where my family was like, "We were worried, the Teletubbies finished 40 minutes ago."

But when I look back on the experience now, I don't think about how a bunch of men twice my age, wearing pastel-colored fur from head to toe, smoked me. No I don't think about that at all. Really, I don't.

What I realize is that I was not eating nearly enough leading up to and during the race. I trained during a hot and sticky summer while living in an apartment with no a/c. While I stuck to the training schedule - and I credit this for the mental fortitude to push through my pain - it kind of killed my appetite. I lost a lot of weight. I can't say that I minded being able to fit into my skinny jeans, but in hindsight this was a big red flag that I was burning way more calories than I was consuming.

Plus I was eating a lot of processed crap, like Rice-a-Roni (a food staple in my 20s), and I made little effort to eat the right mix of protein and carbs, which is essential if you want to perform well in a marathon or other endurance activity. It's not that I didn't know what to eat, it was more that I thought my body could handle it. I was wrong.

I am proud of finishing the marathon, but I don't plan to run another one. I don't think my body is cut out to run 26.2 miles. Nothing should be that painful. Maybe it would have been different if I had eaten better. I think so, but I'll never know. In the meantime, I have run some halfs, 10-milers, and my favorite distance - the 10K, which is 6.2 miles.

In fact I have a 10K coming up in about nine hours. That's what inspired me to make this dish tonight. I clipped it from the August 2009 issue of Real Simple magazine, with a few substitutions.

Linguine with Squash and Chickpeas (the magazine calls for zucchini, I used yellow squash)

3/4 bag of linguine

2T olive oil

2 squash (the mag calls for 3 small zucchini), cut into thin half moons

Salt

1 15-ounce can of chickpeas, rinsed

2 cloves garlic, sliced
1/2 t crushed red pepper

grated asiago cheese (the mag calls for parmesan)

Cook the pasta; reserve 1/2 cup of the pasta water; drain; return pasta to pot. While you're cooking the pasta, heat the olive oil in a skllet, add the squash and salt. Cook until tender, about 4-5 minutes. Add the chickpeas, garlic, and red pepper, and cook for 2-3 mintes. Toss the pasta with the reserved water and mix with the vegetables. Add grated cheese.