Mud soup

In honor of Carolyn Kizer, Dec. 10, 1924-October 9, 2014, an excerpt from her poem, Mud Soup, from Saturday's New York Times:

Sauté pork and add the veggies,
Add the garlic, cook ten minutes,
Add to lentils, add to ham bone;
Add the bay leaf, cloves in cheesecloth,
Add the cayenne! Got no cayenne!
Got paprika, salt, and pepper.
Bring to boil, reduce heat, simmer.
Did I say that this is summer?
Simmer, summer, summer, simmer.
Mop the floor and suck the finger.
Mop the brow with old potholder. ...
Tastes like mud, the finished product.
Looks like mud, the finished product.
Consistency of mud the dinner.
(Was it lentils, Claiborne, me?)
Flush the dinner down disposal,
Say to hell with ham bone, lentils,
New York Times recipe.
Purchase Campbell’s. Just add water.
Concentrate on poetry:
By the shores of Gitche Gumee
You can bet the banks were muddy,
Not like Isle of Innisfree.

To read the obituary, a subscription may be required.

The poet Carolyn Kizer in the library of her home in 1998. CreditPeter DaSilva for The New York Times

 
 
 
 
 

Halloween party appetizer

Love this idea for dressing up deviled eggs for Halloween. It's from the food blog, Delicious as It Looks, by Diane B., a woman with irritable bowel syndrome. Just as she was posting it last year, she discovered she was intolerant to eggs. Sad, indeed!

To do this, for each deviled egg half, take a black olive (not Kalmata), and cut it lengthwise in half. Put one half in the middle of the egg. Cut the remaining half into 8 slices. Put four slices on each side of the olive. Voila! Spiders.

Smoked trout salad with raspberries

What a great day: A friend's garden is in overdrive, so she shared the bounty with me.

Fresh, crisp red sail lettuces on the cusp of bolting.

Small, purple-perfect eggplants.

A cup of tiny raspberries.

Green pepper, large and small, sweet bell and a jalapeno-scotch bonnet mix.

And in the fridge from the City Market yesterday:

A local smoked trout, a cucumber, some shallots.

On hand: Always mustard. Always a lemon. Always extra-virgin olive oil. Always Celtic sea salt. Always pepper. And an open jar of tahini.

So I made a great salad with the lettuces, cucumber, raspberries and the trout, and dressed it with a vinaigrette of EVOO, mustard, balsamic vinegar, and shallots, then sprinkled it with the Celtic salt and freshly ground pepper.

With the eggplant, tahini and lemon juice, I made baba ghanoush.

Baba Ghanoush
adapted from "Jane Brody's Good Food Cookbook" (Norton, 1985, 728 pages)

Ingredients
1 large eggplant (about 2 pounds)
Salt
¼ cup tahini
¼ cup fresh lemon juice (about 1 lemon)
(if you want a more intensively lemon-flavored dip, add a slice of preserved lemon)
1 large clove garlic
¼ cup onion or shallots, chopped
Freshly ground pepper to taste
2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley

Instructions
Take the green top off the eggplant, cut it in half and slice it into 1-inch half rounds. Salt with kosher salt and let stand for 45 minutes to an hour. Wipe off the moisture and the salt. Place eggplant slices on oiled cookie sheet.
Heat oven to 350 degrees. Cook for 20 minutes, turning halfway.
When cooled, remove the flesh from the eggplant, discarding skin (and seeds, if you want it very smooth. I kind of like the seeds).
Blend ingredients 3-5 in a food processor. Add eggplant. Pulse until well-blended.
Transfer to a small bowl and garnish with parsley. Cover and chill. Serve with pita quarters, or as a dip with vegetables.

Trader Joe's doesn't know beans about lentils

Photograph ©2014, Lori Korleski Richardson

I was going to make a refreshing green lentil salad from Patricia Well's "The Provence Cookbook" last week. Jim said he would go to Trader Joe's and get what I needed. Well, he came back with a bag that said "Small Whole Green Lentils." They didn't look very green to me, but I thought maybe it was just a variation in color.

No. They are not little green lentils, as you can see by the photo above. They cooked up exactly like regular lentils, only smaller, too mushy for salad use.

Luckily, the ones I ordered through Relay Foods were the correct ingredient, and that salad was excellent.

I sent in a product feedback form to Trader Joe's. We'll see if anything is done about this misrepresentation.

Odd fruits and vegetables get new life

If France can do this, why can't we? It certainly would go a long way in providing food security for everyone.

Just peachy salad

Inspired by a macerated peach dessert prepared recently at the Charlottesville Cooking School, this salad is a delightfully fresh way to welcome summer.

It is at once tangy and a little sweet, but not enough to overwhelm the lettuce and other vegetables.

The avocado also gives it a rich mouth feel.

Just Peachy Salad
Serves 2

Ingredients
1 very ripe peach (skin should peel off easily)
6 basil leaves, chiffonaded
1 tablespoons nectarine vinegar
½ teaspoon raw sugar
½ avocado, diced
1 small seedless cucumber, sliced
½ head romaine heart. torn into bite-size pieces
2 mini red bell peppers, sliced into rings
Handful of microgreens such as mache or tatsoi, or sprouts
Fleur de sel or other tasty salt
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

Instructions
Peel and de-stone peach; chop roughly. Add basil, vinegar and sugar and marinade for about 15 minutes in the salad bowl while you chop the rest of the vegetables. Add the avocado to the peaches and mix well. Then add the other vegetables, salt to taste, then pour on the oil. Toss until well coated, then serve.

Savory tart centerpiece of vegetarian meal

Photographs ©2014,  Lori Korleski Richardson

Now that we're back from vacation, it's time to get back to the gym and start eating better.

One way to make sure we get the variety of vegetables that are the key to good health is to have at least one vegetarian meal a week.

Tonight's was a savory chard and onion tart, with a side of carrot salad on a bed of arugula.

I made the tart in a 10-inch spring-form pan for easier serving (it also looks good enough to serve to company that way, especially decorated with nasturtiums from your herbicide-free garden. The cheery salad is a simple and delicious Alice Waters creation that depends in large part on the freshness of the carrots, parsley and lemon, and the quality of the olive oil.

Savory chard and onion tart

Ingredients for crust
1 ¾ cups flour
pinch kosher salt
1 stick (4 ounces) frozen unsalted butter, grated into small curls
Ice water

Instructions for crust
Combine flour and salt in a medium mixing bowl and grate in the frozen butter; mix with two knives or a pastry blender until texture resembles stone-ground cornmeal. Add 4 tablespoons ice water, mixing with a fork, until the dough comes together. You may need to add another tablespoon or two. Handle dough as little as possible, form into a ball, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes. Roll out the dough and place in a 10-inch spring-form pan or 9-inch tart pan. The dough sides need to be at least an inch deep. Refrigerate until the filling is ready.

Ingredients for filling
4 tablespoons olive oil
1 large finely chopped onion
1 pound chard, stems removed, chopped
1 teaspoon dried oregano
Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
4 large eggs, lightly beaten
6 ounces chèvre or ricotta
¼ cup evaporated milk or cream
½ cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
½ teaspoon of freshly grated nutmeg (or to taste)
Dash cayenne pepper
3 tablespoons blanched, slivered almonds, lightly toasted

Instructions for filling and assembly
Warm the olive oil in a skillet over medium-low heat, then add the onion and cook until it is soft and golden, add the chard, oregano, salt and pepper, and cook 3 to 4 minutes. Allow the mixture to cool as you preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Combine the eggs, cheeses, milk or cream and nutmeg, then add the cooled chard-onion mixture. Pour into the crust, sprinkle with the nuts and bake 45 minutes. Serves 4 as an entree, 8 as a side dish and 16 as an appetizer.

Alice Water's Spring Salad
Serves 2

Ingredients
1/2 pound of carrots, peeled and shredded
1 clove of garlic
1 teaspoon white sea salt or kosher salt
Juice of one lemon
¼ teaspoon cayenne or paprika
¾ cup good quality olive oil
¼ cup chopped parsley

Instructions
Put the carrots in a mixing bowl. Mash the garlic and the salt into a paste. Mix it with the lemon juice and any spices you are using. Toss with olive oil; add parsley at end. Chill.