Watercress!

We went out this morning to a favorite quiet stream and gathered a bucket of our first watercress of the season. It's the earliest we've been out! A January thaw meant we could actually get over the roadside snowbanks to the stream. And a snowstorm predicted for tomorrow means this was the perfect opportunity to grab some greens.

All cleaned and pretty!

The stream is challenging in any month that has an "r" in it (the best time to gather watercress before it gets too buggy). It can be steep, mucky and mighty slippery. One has to keep their wits and wellies about them (once the mucky bottom of the stream sucked the boot right off me!). Today, other than an initial slip, it was easy gathering. Wading in, we quickly and carefully cut the top off the plant just under the surface of the water leaving plenty of leaves and roots on each plant.

With ice cream bucket filled - and mighty cold hands! - we headed home to rinse off sand and check for critters (they love watercress too!). Then into salads and sandwiches!

Standing Up for Brown Rice Risotto

Pixabay Image

I had to try a recent recipe from Food 52 that touted roasted cauliflower and a brown rice risotto. What's not to like?

Probably the part of the recipe that says you can incorporate 7.5 cups of liquid into brown rice in 25 minutes to produce a risotto.

I am here to stand up and testify that it takes 45 minutes of standing and stirring to get to the desired risotto result.

Lesson learned: risotto takes the same amount of time as simmering the rice would.  I'd still make it again!

Playing with Star Bread

The finished lamb, mint, rosemary bread

We ran across a fun, dressy bread over at Food 52 before the holidays this year. This Cheese and Herb Star Bread is pretty straightforward in terms of what's in it. A little fancy dancy twisting and its quite a beauty.

Lloyd, the baker of the family, was intrigued. So he made it. We loved the fancy style but the flavor reminded us on some kind of pizza bread - underwhelming. And the recipe itself seemed to be over the top with butter (anytime you take something out of the oven and butter drenches the pan in a pool, you know something is off). But man was it pretty.

The second time, we made a few key changes and liked the results more.

Egg wash finish

We left the dough as it was. For the filling.we skipped creating a herb butter (using 1/2 c. of butter). Instead, we melted a tablespoon or two of butter and simply brushed a layer on the dough and sprinkled the herbs and cheese on each layer. Worked swell. It was a croissant-y bun - fluffy and flavorful - although still reminding us of pizza.

Our newest idea was to incorporate meat and see if we could create a little sandwich bun feeling. We browned 6 oz of ground lamb and chopped it finely. We thought about herbs we love with lamb and used mint, rosemary and garlic powder. We again just brushed each layer with butter.  It was a bit more challenging to twist but the results were delicious.

A salad on the side and half the loaf made a tasty winter meal!

Celery Root Magic

Tasty soup from a celery root

We love cooking with the seasons. It lets us have a huge variety of food during the year and feel good about indulging ourselves intensely during brief veggie seasons (Ah those ramps! Ah those peas! Ah those tomatoes!).

In Wisconsin, the late fall and early winter vegetables last quite a bit longer. These are the keepers - the long storage vegetables that sustain us into January and, for a few, into February: cabbages, potatoes, carrots, parsnips, rutabagas, turnips, onions, beets, onions, garlic. The darkest days of winter are filled with these intensely earthy and intensely sustaining vegetables. I love them for their taste and I love them because they are so abundant locally.

The newest at our table, thanks to our CSA farmers, is celery root or celeriac. It is often a huge and ungainly looking beast of a root. But that flavor! It has a bright and spring-like celery taste that can substitute for celery in recipes or, better yet, shine out on its own. Peeling off the thick skin reveals a creamy, crunchy interior that begs you to make a soup or puree.

Here is one tasty way we have made this root.

Celery Root Soup
 - from Faye Levy's International Vegetable Cookbook (Warner Books, 1993)

This eastern European soup can be adjusted to reflect the weight of your celery root!

3/4# celery root, peeled, quartered and sliced 1/8" thick
3/4# boiling potatoes, peeled, quartered and sliced  14" thick
1 T oil or butter
1 medium onion chopped
2 c. chicken stock or 2 cups water w/ veggie bouillon
Salt and pepper to taste
1.5 c. milk (whole or 2%)

Saute the onion in fat over medium low heat until soft.  Add liquid and celery root, bring to a boil, cover and cook five minutes. Add potatoes and seasoning to taste. Cover and cook 25 minutes or until veggies are soft. Puree with an immersion blender. Add the milk off the heat. To reheat, microwave. Serve with crusty warm bread or a lefse round or two.

Makes 4 cups of soup.

P.S. If you want to add some additional substance, add some cooked wild rice and sauteed leeks to the soup. Heavenly!

Solstice Lefse Madness

Holiday baking and cooking traditions are often ones that are specific to cultures and ethnic groups. Growing up in Green Bay, we had alot of Belgian, German, Polish foods that showed up around the Christmas holidays that we learned to make. When I joined my husband's family, Swiss delicacies were introduced. Other traditions have been shared by and learned from friends.

The equipment - borrowed from Lloyd's mom

Our newest foray into foods from another tradition is lefse. I am a huge potato fan and so lefse has long called my name. This Norwegian flatbread is most easily made with specialized equipment (a grooved rolling pin, flat griddle and turning stick) - none of which we actually owned. Although we had made this delicacy once or twice with Lloyd's family, it has been decades since we did this. We often promised ourselves we would give it a try.

the results

A local community education class this fall got us going. Two Norwegian-American sisters took 17 of us eager lefse-makers-to-be under their wing. The sisters had peeled, boiled, riced and incorporated cream and butter into the potatoes the night before. We added flour by the cupful and used our hands to fold it in until we achieved a firm, non-sticky consistency. During the rest of the class, we all had plenty of opportunities to hone our rolling and griddling skills. And each of us proudly took home the results - twelve soft, goldeny rounds that last a week in the fridge or can be frozen. They are eaten plain, with butter, with sugar and in place of tortillas. Oh and the family recipe. I mean, really, what's not to love?

Madison lefse crew

When my friend Lynne saw our Facebooked class excitement, she extended an invite to join a band of friends and family who have long gathered (decades!) annually in Madison to crank out a leviathan's share of lefse. 40# of potatoes, four griddles, three rolling stations, one lesfe-ball-maker and seven makers worked five hours to crank out 194 lefse rounds.

Lynne mixing the lefse dough

It was mad fun! Flour everywhere, who could roll the thinnest round, disasters at the rolling station (if there isn't enough flour, that dough loves to stick and rip as you lift it off;  a cloth up in flames but quickly doused), strategizing how to improve the process next year (another annual tradition) and stowing lefse rounds under card table-sized cloths after baking to keep them soft. Much laughter and talk. Oh and moo shu pork lefses for lunch!

Working with this crew helped me feel confident about our own solstice lefse making planned the next day with Lloyd and me. We made 5# of potatoes and got about 50 smallish rounds. Enough to share with our families and set a few aside for our own lefse love. We think next year we should use two griddles.

I think we have another annual holiday tradition!

How I Run My Kitchen Good

Well, not really *my* kitchen.

This lifehacker post does have great tips (and links) to techniques that help you make the most of your time in the kitchen.

If you, like me, have learned a ton by watching cooking shows or internet videos but want more, more, more, stop by the post and get chef-y!

Michael Pollan on PBS

I have been influenced by many writers on food, Michael Pollan among them. His thoughtful research, writing and consideration of food has been both enlightening and somehow reassuring (or alarming depending on your eating habits). His oft-quoted mantra,  "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." encapsulates much of what he is getting at in his writing.

Food52 blog just posted about an upcoming movie Pollan is doing: In Defense of Food. It will be shown on PBS on Wednesday Dec 30 at 9:00 pm (check local listings for your local time).

It should be thought-provoking!