Beet Greens and Pumpkin Seed Pesto

Now that fall is in full swing, ovens can turn on, vegetables can roast and we can all feel the warm comfort of starchy root vegetables. Beets are my daughter's favorite. And while I am fine cooking the beet green tops, I get tired of the same old thing. Today while staring at the beet greens I hoped for inspiration. I could not bring myself to compost them, but did not have any desire to eat sauteed greens either. So pesto it was. And since so many of us are carving pumpkins lately, you may have some freshly roasted pumpkin seeds to add to this vegan pesto. I did not add garlic because I find raw garlic a bit overwhelming. I did not add any cheese because I had none in the fridge! I put it on a cracker and handed it over to M to taste who was deeply involved in creating a polly pocket world on the dining room floor. It is a bit weird that my number one taste tester is a six year old, but hey, it works.
She thinks the pesto was "yummy" and the second time she said she likes it because it has a lot of "flavor".
Nice.
So along with our roasted vegetables for dinner (cauliflower, onions, carrots and beets coated in powdered coriander, lemon juice and salt) we are having been green and pumpkin seed pesto on sourdough for dinner. Feels like fall......and I am specially dedicating this post to all my friends who have been a more than amazing presence in my life these days. I absolutely love you all. Thank you. xo


Beet Greens and Pumpkin Seed Pesto
makes about 1 cup

1 cup blanched beet greens
1/4 heaping cup pumpkin seeds
zest of 1 lemon
1 tsp fresh lemon juice
3 sprigs fresh thyme, stems removed
1/4 tsp salt
1/8 cup olive oil

Blanch beet greens in boiling water for 5 seconds. Remove and run under cold water. Squeeze out water with your hand and add to food processor. I did not remove the stems, just add all of it.
Add other ingredients and blend until combined (about 10 seconds)

Carrot Fries

If you like french fries, raise your hand. My daughter might raise both hands.  I almost never make french fries at home. Too much effort!  I have on occasion made baked sweet potato fries. I find that sometimes sweet potato fries can be too rich, sweet and heavy. Yesterday I thought of making carrot fries. I wondered how they would be tender enough to be a "fry" yet tasty enough to be embraced by a six year old. Seriously, I thought it would be a failed experiment like my momofuku compost cookie redux a couple days back. These carrot fries rocked. Well, if you like nutritional yeast they rock. We are nutritional yeast lovers. Yes, it is a great source of B vitamins, but truly I like it for the taste. I imagined that yeast and baked carrots would combine perfectly, and they did.
The carrot fries were tender, with the perfect amount of salt.  A lighter, milder version of  sweet potato fries. M asked for seconds last night at dinner.  Here is the disclaimer though; they need to be eaten right away. They go soggy as leftovers. You could add fresh herbs to the yeast mixture and have flavored carrot fries. I though chopped rosemary... I have made these twice now. The first time I made them, I put a bit of olive oil on the cookie sheet then heated the pan in the oven before adding the fries. The second time I left the olive oil off of the baking sheet. I thought they both turned out well. I felt like the extra olive oil made the carrots just a little too heavy perhaps. Well, either way you make them, it was a snap to put together!

Carrot Fries

6 medium sized carrots
2 tbls. extra virgin olive oil
1/3 cup nutritional yeast
pinch salt

Cut carrots longways, then slice each half into long pieces about 1 inch thick
Put carrots into salted boiling water for 5 minutes. Remove from water and pat dry with towel. In a large bowl, toss carrots with 2 tbls. of olive oil. Then sprinkle yeast on top and use your fingers to gently toss the carrots in the yeast. Try to get them all evenly coated.
Heat cookie sheet in oven (add a thin coating of olive oil to pan if you would like)  and spread the carrots evenly on the hot cookie sheet so that they are not touching each other. Bake for 10 min. at 425 degrees. Take out of oven and turn them over and cook another 10 minutes. Serve right away!

Pumpkin Seed Zucchini Fritters with Roasted Tomato Sauce

I know zucchini season is starting to die down. Tomato season is still in full swing though, and I am about to order 50 pounds of roma tomatoes to oven roast and then freeze for the winter. I have sauteed the heck out of all my squash this summer and today I tried something new. Fritters. Who doesn't like a good fritter? I roasted some slicer tomatoes last night with olive oil and garlic and knew a zucchini fritter on top would be a lovely lunch. But it had to be light and easy. I used low fat greek yogurt to bind everything together. I decided to add saffron to the yogurt which I thought would match well with the roasted tomatoes. Let it sit for about 30 minutes and then added it to grated zucchini and chopped pumpkin seeds. Eggs and milk seem to be the binders I see over and over again in fritter recipes. Why not buck the system? And pumpkin seeds? Well, that was a risky move which turned out great! It gave it a fun crunch and mellow flavor.  I sauteed the fritters in olive oil for about 4 minutes on each side.
You can use any kind of tomato sauce you have on hand, or make your own. I will be making these again on friday night when we have guests coming over. Kids will love these too!


Fritters
makes around 10 fritters

1 1/2 cups shredded zucchini
1/4 cup chopped roasted pumpkin seeds
1/3 cup low-fat greek yogurt
1 small pinch saffron
1/2 tsp vinegar
1/2 cup cornmeal
2 tbls. finely chopped onions
2 tbls olive oil 
a big pinch of salt
1 1/2 cups tomato sauce

Put yogurt in a bowl and add saffron. Let sit for 30-40 min. and come to room temperature. Mix well.

Squeeze any juice out of grated zucchini with you hands and add to a bowl. Add pumpkin seeds, olive oil, onion and cornmeal.  Add yogurt mixture, salt and pepper and mix well.

In a cast iron skillet, add a couple tablespoons of olive oil. When pan and oil are very hot (but not smoking because that is too hot) add a heaping tablespoon of fritter mix. Cook about 4 min. on each side. Remove from heat and transfer to a plate to cool.

Making Roasted Tomato Sauce
makes around 3 cups of sauce

slice three pounds of roma tomatoes in half. Spread evenly on a cookie sheet. Sprinkle with sea salt and lightly pour olive oil over tomatoes to coat (about 1/2 cup olive oil for three pounds). Crush 4-5 cloves of garlic and lay on top of tomatoes. Roast in oven for about 90 minutes at 350 degrees. After cooking use a food mill to remove skins. Let cool before freezing.

Sprouted Rice Flour Peach Scones

I joined a grain CSA this year. My first pickup was two weeks ago. Everything came in recycled old shirts fashioned into groovy grain sacks. Pickup is once a month until next spring! There were lots of goodies in my share like jam, whole grain bread, pumpkin seeds, dried beans and their famous breakfast cereal. Everything is grown at their their biodynamic farm just a short distance from my town. I have been a bit obsessed about the breakfast cereal though. Amaranth, corn, millet, barley all mixed together that cooks into an outstanding bowl of whole grains to start the day. I have been putting a bit of cardamom ghee and maple syrup on mine. Today I fashioned scones around fresh peaches, sprouted rice flour and this wonderful cereal. I think the lack of gluten in the rice flour kept the scones soft and fluffy. The cereal gave crunch and texture and I added powdered ginger for spice.

To substitute the breakfast cereal, you can mix equal parts oats, millet and cornmeal. If you have amaranth or poppy seeds add a small bit to your mix too. You will need a total of 1/2 cup of your homemade mixture, so I bet if you go hunting in your pantry right now you will come up with something that works! I am planning on using these for breakfast for next couple of days. My little girl is now six, and she is working her way through trying on 4-5 outfits every morning before school. I tried to have her pick out her outfit the night before, but that is not helping. So, by the time it we should be leaving for school, we are rushing out the door, eggs and toast cold. I am looking forward to not cooking a hot breakfast tomorrow while we feast on peach scones!


Sprouted Rice Flour Peach Scones
makes 8 scones

1 1/2 cups sprouted rice flour
1/2 cup whole grain mixture of your choosing (see above)
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/3 cup apple sauce
2 Tbls. raw almond butter
1/2 tsp. salt
5 tbls. cold butter chopped into pieces
1 cup fresh chopped peaches
1 tsp. lemon zest
1 tsp. ginger powder
3/4 tsp. baking powder

In a bowl mix salt, grains, flour, baking soda and ginger powder. Add butter and work in with your fingers until the mixture looks a bit like wet sand. Add baking powder, lemon zest, apple sauce, almond butter, maple syrup and stir together carefully by hand. Lastly add peaches and mix lightly. Scoop batter with a spoon onto silpat or parchment paper on a cookie sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for 25-30 min. or until edges are brown.

Peach & Fig Tart with Fennel Honey

This tart was brilliantly simple. I really wanted to make a rustic tart with minimal effort and no refined sugar. I also wanted a crust that was nutty and easy. I have been using local whole wheat flour on the rare occasions I have baked lately. A friend of our family has started his own grain CSA and the local coop sells his flour! The difference in taste between fresh flour and traditional store bought flour is almost startling. Freshly milled wheat has a toasty, almost nutty flavor; a pleasant surprise. I decided to mix wheat flour with almond flour and add some almonds to give it texture. I added butter to my crust, but thought about using coconut oil at first. I am sure that would work as a stand-in quite well.

The fennel honey I had been thinking about this past week. Fennel seems provoke a love/hate relationship for a lot of folks. I really like fennel in all its forms. I wondered if fennel infused in honey would pair well with figs. My infused honey was quite mild and it added a wonderful herbal note that brought out the muskiness of the figs and the perfume of the peaches. And, it was easy to make. I used a mortar and pestle to grind my fennel seeds. A coffee grinder would work well also. I can imagine that this honey would be great for little belly aches or to add to warm tea on cold winter days.
After mixing the ground fennel into the honey, I let it sit for about 3 hours to infuse. Then I heated it up on the stove so it would be easier to strain out the fennel. I used a metal tea strainer from a japanese tea pot,  and poured the warm honey into a bowl. It worked really well and the tea strainer removed all the little bits of fennel better than a coarser metal kitchen strainer.
I did not bake the crust first, and I did not let the crust rest or chill before baking. I simply cut the fruit, arranged it in the tart pan and drizzled it with honey. Told you it was easy and rustic! I had two six year olds making manzanita berry tea and mud pies while I was trying to create this, so I took shortcuts to save time and it turned out working well.
One note: The crust recipe makes a bit more filling than my 9 inch tart pan could hold. I used that to make little free form tarts for the kids to snack on. They were very happy about that!
Last week I make some homemade peach ice cream that I wanted to serve with this tart.  My ice cream maker broke last year, so I tried making it by hand in the freezer. David Lebovitz has a great article about how to do this...It went very well with the tart!

Peach & Fig Tart with Fennel Honey

6 fresh figs cut into 8 pieces each
4 med. peaches cut into 1 inch long slices (about 8-10 slices per peach)
1/2 lemon zest
1/3 + 1/8 cup  honey (you will have some left over)
1 heaping tbls. fennel seeds roughly ground

Fennel Honey
Using a spice grinder or mortar and pestle roughly grind the fennel seeds and add to honey. Mix every 30 min. or so and let sit on counter for 2-3 hours. Pour into a saucepan and heat gently until the honey is warm. Pour through a tea steeper/strainer into a bowl and use a spoon to work any remaining honey out of the strainer and into the bowl. Set aside until you are ready to use.

Crust
1/2 cup skinned almonds (I used slivered and blanched)
1/2 cup almond flour
1 1/4 cup whole wheat flour
1 tbls maple syrup
7 tbls. cold butter
1/2 tsp. sea salt

To make crust, add all the ingredients in a food processor with pastry attachment and blend until it resembles wet sand. Add a little more maple syrup if it seems too dry. Press into tart pan about 1 inch thick. Arrange figs and peaches and zest the lemon over the tart. Drizzle about 1/3 cup of honey with a spoon over the tart. Bake at 350 degrees for about 35 min.

Tomato Bruschetta

Hot, dry wind is blowing around my house right now. A red flag fire danger day today. My house is closed up tight to keep the cool air inside.  I am having tomato bruschetta for lunch along with cleaning, laundry and talking to you. You know how when you had the stomach flu when you were a kid and the food you threw up  created a lifelong aversion? (mine is soggy iceberg lettuce, my twin sister's is Mexican corn) I actually have thoughts that if I were to ever have to cross tomatoes off my food list due to some unfortunate turn of stomach events, I would revolt. It would be unacceptable. But this summer has been a sick free one, and a cooler than usual one. Lucky us!

I thought not to share this recipe at first. A part of me thinks "oh geesh, tomato bruschetta is so over done, so 1995"....Seems like everyone has their own special way of preparing this dish, but I am giving you mine in case you want to try a new way. I promise it is good. It is a highly requested dish my friends ask me to make. This dish relies heavily on very good quality olive oil and very vine ripe tomatoes. I also use sourdough baguette (are you gasping?). I just like the tang of sourdough over french baguette. I also think a skinny baguette poses a big risk of being too crispy..so look for a soft, fatter baguette. Also very important to my recipe is using garlic on the bread and not putting it in the tomato mixture. Lets the taste of garlic shine through, but not overpower the dish.
This week I topped my bruschetta with fresh burrata cheese which was just food craziness. If you eat cheese and have a place to buy burrata,  it will make this dish simply divine. And creamy. And gooey. And wonderful.
So go for it. It only took 10 min. to make this.

Tomato Bruschetta
(makes 4 servings)

1 soft sourdough baguette cut into 1 inch slices
3 cloves garlic sliced into three pieces each
1 cup of extra virgin olive oil (ok, you might not need this much!)
sea salt (I use Himalayan Pink Sea Salt)
3 medium ripe tomatoes

Lightly toast baguette slices.  Take a piece of garlic and wipe each piece of baguette with a garlic slice.

Slice tomatoes in half. Gently squeeze the seeds and juice out. Discard. (or save and use for sauces) Slice tomatoes and then dice. Add to a bowl and add 1 tablespoon of olive oil for each tomato in the bowl. Add one or two pinches of salt. Taste for salt.

Put a spoonful of tomato mixture onto each baguette slice and arrange on a plate. Spoon a drizzle of olive oil on each baguette and then serve immediately.

Dining in the Field....

Whew. Life has been busy. School started last week. Little M is starting her second year of Waldorf kindergarten. I have been working my way through summer eating heirloom tomatoes on sourdough toast drizzled with olive oil. For breakfast I have topped it with a fried pasture egg. What is your favorite way to eat heirloom tomatoes? My friends mother makes a sweet tomato conserve with her summer tomatoes. Tomatoes, sugar, vinegar and salt stewed until it is a compote and then canned. Her son Cedar and his wife Ruby have been serving this delicious jam at their glorious Off Grid Dining meets Farm to Table Movement dining event all the weekends in August at their farm. A spectacular feat they are pulling off. Ruby is a master gardener, CSA owner and local seed cooperative organizer. The food is showcasing her beautiful farm bounty and local butchers and cheese makers. Cedar is a traditional Japanese carpenter craftsman and musician. He and Ruby built their house. Themselves. Yep. The kind of thing you just want to be a part of. Of course word has spread like wildfire and their dining event has sold out every weekend. Another reason to absolutely love where I live; things like this happen. And better yet, I get to be a part of it.
Locally raised chickens, beef, chevre and honey have all been served. Tamales (Ruby's hand ground cornmeal of course!) topped with chevre made from goats that live just down the hill. Ruby's "hippie" bread made with barley, local soft white wheat and corn. (I could have eaten a whole loaf of that bread by the way...) House cured olives, pickled green beans, handmade white peach sorbet. That is just a sampling what is coming out of their kitchen.
I became involved because they know I love all things food and asked me. I debated over cooking or serving for them. I decided to be one of their servers to make sure every person dining in my presence would have an experience they would not soon forget.  I have had years in my early 20's waitressing in various fine dining establishments and that my friends is a skill I still use every day. Well, mostly on a six year old, but I think it has helped her love food even more. I had a great time talking about the grapefruit driven sauvignon blanc going well with the garden zucchini fritters. It was a bit like being on vacation watching 20 or so people a night throughly enjoy themselves at Ruby and Cedar's farm. What a wonderful community event. Friends coming together to eat food they have grown. Passion for all things local. Loving where I live. A special place.

Ruby and Cedar...

My Brother-in-law Ralph the chef helping out!

Entrance to the garden

Ruby making white peach chutney

Local Celebrities...

Dear, dear friends came up all the way from town!