Well, I thought I’d start out with a shot of our raised bed SQFT garden. It’s been great this year. We have green ice lettuce, arugula, mesculin, spinach, and chard in the first box, four bell peppers (green, lemon (got one so far and 3 babies are growing), orange and tiny red), broccoli rabe, italian eggplant and a penthouse of nantes carrots in the second, lemon cukes (have two babies), burpless cukes (have 3 teenagers and 2 babies), bush beans, peas, acorn squash and zucchini (has female flowers just now) in the third bed, and the fourth bed is 12″ deep for the tomatoes…we have Brandywine (the Princess), Sweet 100, Green Zebra, Red Pear, Bush Goliath and Oregon Spring that has already produced a tom! I was replanting a Bush Goliath in May….I broke it in half. I stuck BOTH pieces in the bed and BOTH have flowers and seem to be very healthy. I hope the weather gets warm again. I’ve been sleeping under a sheet, blanket, bedspread and quilt the last few nights!

Here we go to the goodies. I made this chutney…just made it up with some help from my new favorite cookbook. I love Irish cooking and got this book on recommendation from another great cook, AND if you can find a 40% off coupon…it is well worth it. The onion jam recipe is a wonder. It reads like a novel, and if I ever get back to Ireland, I WILL go there.

CHERRY ONION SWEET AND SAVORY CHUTNEY

1 1/2 C fresh pitted dark, sweet cherries, quartered
1 1/2 C combination of chopped onion (I used red, white, yellow and walla walla)
2 T ghee
3 spicy garlic cloves, peeled and minced
1/4 – 1/2 tsp sea salt (to taste)
1/4 – 1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
2 tsp light brown sugar (you need to judge if you need more or less sugar according to the sweetness of the cherries and the onions)
1/4-1/2 tsp Chinese 5 spice seasoning (I make my own)
a good pinch of chili powder
1 – 2 T balsamic vinegar 1/2 dark and 1/2 white (to taste, I used 1 T total)

Makes about 1 1/2 C

Saute onion and garlic in ghee in a heavy skillet for about 15 minutes (you just want them translucent), add cherries and spices and vinegar and simmer uncovered for 10 minutes. Cover and turn down to low and cook for another 10 minutes. If the chutney is “tight” turn off, if not, let simmer uncovered for another few minutes until liquid is absorbed.
Put mixture hot into 1 C, sterile canning jars and screw the sterile lids on. Let sit until cool and keep in a cool pantry (60 degrees or less). You may want to refrigerate after opening. Especially if you live in a hot climate. Or you can just do a waterbath canning on this and keep it in your pantry. Let this mellow in your pantry for a few weeks. I made this the 5th and it tastes so much better today (the 19th).

Golden Beet Stir Fry

Serves 4-6

The Stir Fry:
3 golden beets, peeled and chopped
4-6 garlic scapes chopped in 1 1/2″ pieces or 3-4 cloves garlic diced (or a combination)
1 C chopped shallot or onion or a mixture of both
1/2 Korean squash, peeled and sliced and quartered (you could use another type of zucchini or bell pepper would work here, too)
1 C sliced mushrooms (use either white, crimini or some reconstituted dried like tree ear)
1 tsp grated fresh ginger (the best thing to use is a really good garlic press)
4 C washed and torn or cut beet leaves
2 C washed and torn or cut napa cabbage
1/4 C lemon grass cut into 1″ pieces
since I have it growing like a weed in my yard, 1/2 C arugula (or some other spicy green-you could use scallion tops-but this is optional)
1-2 T peanut oil

4 C cooked rice

The Sauce:
1/2 C “Better Than Bouillion Vegetarian Base” broth (made up 1/2 tsp base in 1/2 C hot water)
1 tsp soy sauce (I use Chay Vegetable Seasoning Sauce)
1 T corn starch
1/4 tsp ginger powder
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp Chinese 5 spice powder
1 T black bean sauce (I use a Korean brand)
1/2 tsp chili garlic sauce

Mix the sauce together with a whisk and let it sit for a while.

Add peanut oil to a large skillet with a lid. Heat over medium heat for about 3 minutes or so until hot, add the beets, garlic, onions and squash. Toss and stir for 4-5 minutes until the onions are translucent and a bit soft. Add the mushrooms and ginger and stir for 2-4 minutes. Add the greens and lemon grass and toss well. Put the lid on and steam for about 3 minutes. Take the lid off and toss (you don’t want the greens to wilt too much yet). Add The Sauce and toss well and keep tossing until The Sauce thickens. Serve immediately over the hot rice.

This was an interesting experiment. AND MY VERSION! Naan and Pita are so close in the making and there are hundreds of ways and recipes for each! Naan (flatter) seems to be just thicker than pita (puffier). Naan may have some yoghurt or milk in it, pita will usually not. I use King Arthur Bread Flour which I really, really like. You can experiment with any flour you like, the thickness of the breads, spices and condiments, etc., etc. The directions for this recipe may sound complicated, but they are not. Just be sure to brush the bread with olive oil. It helps the softness and the toppings to stick. Once you make this a few times…it’s a snap!

Naan/Pita Bread

Makes 6-8 pieces

Preheat oven with pizza stone in it @ 400 degrees

3 C King Arthur Bread Flour
1 1/2 tsp fine sea salt
1 T sugar
1 T yeast
1/2 C warm water 110-120 degrees
2 T olive oil
1 C warm water
Toppings:
olive oil to brush the bread
kosher salt or a flavored coarse sea salt
garlic powder or finely minced fresh garlic
sesame seeds either toasted or untoasted, either white or a mix of white and black
freshly cracked black pepper
melted butter or warm olive oil

Mix the flour, sea salt and 1/2 T of sugar in a bowl. Add together the yeast and 1/2 T sugar in the 1/2 C warm water and stir. Let that sit for about 10-15 minutes until foamy. Make a well in the flour mixture and pour in the yeast mixture and 2 T olive oil. Stir together and start adding warm water until the mixture holds together. Bring out onto a counter, marble or board and knead until smooth and elastic. Oil a glass, pottery or plastic bowl and put dough in it seam side up. Turn over until all of the dough is slightly oiled. Cover bowl with clingwrap or foil and wrap in a heavy towel. Sit in a warm place for about 1-3 hours or until dough is doubled in bulk. Punch down and knead a little bit and divide in eight pieces. Roll each into an egg shape and put on a parchment lined cookie sheet and cover with a heavy towel and let sit for about 15 minutes. Roll or pat or stretch each piece out to the thickness you want. The thinner the puffier it gets when cooked. Brush with some olive oil on both sides and sprinkle with toppings on one side or leave it plain. Cook on pizza stone flipping when the underside is brown. Take out of the oven and brush with melted butter or olive oil. Serve warm and soft.

The poop is that soaking white meat in a mixture of salt or salt/sugar for awhile will make the meat tender and juicy. You can reference the link to Cook’s Illustrated to get the scientific lowdown, but I did a whole chicken and then grilled it.

1 whole chicken (about 3 1/2 – 4 lbs), clean the inside of parts and the outside of pins and feathers and rub the skin until smooth, rinse, pat dry and cut up one side of the backbone with kitchen scissors. This is so when you grill the chicken, you can flatten it out and the thick side cooks well.

The brining recipe:
2 quarts water
1/2 C table salt
1/2 C sugar

Swish together until dissolved in a large bowl and add chicken. Place a plate and a weight on top so that the chicken is submerged and let sit for at least 1 hour. Drain and pat dry. Take about 5 garlic cloves, halve them and stick under the chicken skin in different places (breast, thigh, leg, etc). Then baste with this:

1 tsp tamari sauce or Chay vegetarian seasoning sauce
1 tsp Keo’s sesame oil
1 tsp black vinegar
1 tsp rice wine vinegar (I use Trader Joe’s brand)
1/4 – 1/2 tsp hosin sauce

Mix and let sit for 15 minutes and baste the chicken. Grill to your liking*. Yum!**

*We usually grill a lot of stuff at once and then use it or freeze some of it. Sometimes, I grill the chicken to an underdone state, then let it sit off the grill. Cut it up and bag it and freeze. That way I can defrost and cook until warm and have the chicken still come out tender and juicy.

**Did you notice I didn’t use any salt or pepper? The brining takes care of the salt unless you are a saltaholic, and you can add pepper to your liking later when served.

Ingredients:
12 medium tomatillos, cut in half and cored
2 poblano peppers, cut in half
2 ancho peppers, cut in half
2 jalapeño or cayenne peppers, cut in half
2 fresh hatch chilis, cut in half, or 1 can (4 oz.) fire roasted hatch chilis
1 large yellow onion, coarsely chopped.
6 large cloves garlic, crushed and minced
6 tbs EVOO
1½ cups chicken broth
¼ C cilantro, coarsely chopped
1 tbs ground cumin
salt and cracked black pepper to taste

Putting it together:
In a large glass baking pan, place the tomatillos and peppers cut side down and drizzle with half of the EVOO. Place in a 350 deg oven and roast for 30 minutes or until the skin is releasing from the peppers. Remove from the oven and place the peppers in a paper bag to complete the releasing of the skin, then peel.
 
In a medium skillet, add the remainder of the EVOO and the onions and cook until translucent. Add the garlic and cook until soft.
 
Place the tomatillos, chilis (if you are using the canned Hatch chilis, add them now), onions, garlic, and cilantro, along with the liquid from the roasting pan, in a food processor with a steel knife. Pulse until the mixture is chunky.
 
Place the processed tomatillos and chilis, broth, and cumin in a large saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to a simmer and cover. Continue cooking for about 20 minutes. Adjust seasoning, and cool to room temperature.
 
Use the sauce warm, refrigerate for later (lasts about two weeks), or freeze.

In between the yearly influenza epidemic, springtime pollen and environmental allergies, here comes the swine flu!  What to do?  How can we carry on when faced with body aches, fever, sore throat, cough and the general miseries?  Few of us here have the luxure of cocooning into freshly washed linens, while Mommy rubs Vicks Vap-O-Rub onto our chests and brings us little trays with glasses of ginger ale and Ritz crackers to ease our tummy aches.    Some of us are the mommies whose little ones need coddling and cosseting.  Some of us just have to be grown-ups and take care of ourselves.  Let’s talk about sickroom recipes and home remedies. “Feed a cold and starve a fever”, “drink lots of liquids” – whatever the scientific validity of these gems, it doesn’t hurt to follow the advice of grandmothers and Aunt Gussie (who used to prescribe blackstrap molasses with a drop of kerosene to cure “wormy” children).  Here are some classic sickroom recipes to cure whatever ails us.

M.F.K. Fisher is one of my favorite cookery writers, and her recipe for milk toast is a classic.  I love the way she insists upon “a pretty bowl” to nourish the soul while the milk toast feeds the body!

1 pint milk, part cream if the person is not forbidden that.
4 slices good bread, preferably homemade.
Sweet butter, if butter is allowed.
Salt, pepper, if not a child or very ill.
Procedure:
Heat the milk to the simmering point. Meanwhile have ready 4 freshly toasted slices of bread. Butter them generously. Heat a pretty bowl, deeper than it is wide. Break the hot buttered toast into it, pour the steaming but not boiling milk over it, sprinkle a very little salt and pepper on the top, and serve at once.

Drinking lots of liquids is very important when we are ill.  Our bodies need water to help dissipate the heat of a fever, and the body loses lots of free water in respiratory secretions.  But plain water is boring to the peckish sick child, so making the best lemonade will encourage adequate fluid intake.
1 tbsp. fresh grated lemon peel
1 1/2 c. sugar
1/2 c. boiling water
1 1/2 c. fresh squeezed lemon juice
In a covered jar, combine lemon peel, sugar and boiling water. Cover and shake until sugar dissolves. Add lemon juice. Store tightly covered in refrigerator until ready to serve. Makes 2 2/3 cups syrup base. Use 1/4 – 1/3 cup syrup for a glass of lemonade (12 oz.). For a pitcher, mix full recipe with 5 cups cold water. Makes 1 3/4 quarts.

So, bubbaleh, you have a cold?  You need something warm, something nourishing, something that Cousin Moishe (he’s a doctor!) would prescribe to anyone, Jew or Gentile.  You need Jewish penicillin, that cure-all, that wonderful concoction some would call chicken soup!

JEWISH PENICILLIN (CHICKEN SOUP)
Fresh chicken wings, backs and necks
6 c. water (enough to cover chicken)
1/8 c. parsley
2 chicken bouillon cubes
Celery, sliced, cut up into bite-size pieces
Onions, sliced, cut up into bite-size pieces
Carrots, sliced, cut into bite-size pieces
Pinch of saffron (optional)
Salt and pepper to taste
In large pot, put chicken pieces and water. Bring to boil. Skim off brown foam and large yellow patches. Lower flame, add rest of ingredients. Cover and simmer 1 hour.

Remove the chicken and allow to cool enough to pull the meat off the bones.   Put the chicken back into the pot, and now add the onions, celery and carrots.  Cook over medium heat until the carrots are just cooked through.  Season with salt and pepper to taste, and serve with Ritz crackers.

Now that we have gotten down some basic nutrition and lots of liquids, we still must replenish our stores of carbohydrates and fat – and we cannot forget that some sickroom foods taste divine even for the worried well and the disgustingly healthy folks who never get sick!  There are some very delicious foods that are as tempting in the sickroom as they are fondly anticipated on a rainy day.  Grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup fill the bill.

Grilled Cheese Sandwiches
4 slices white bread
3 tablespoons butter, divided
2 slices Cheddar cheese

Preheat skillet over medium heat. Generously butter one side of a slice of bread. Place bread butter-side-down onto skillet bottom and add 1 slice of cheese. Butter a second slice of bread on one side and place butter-side-up on top of sandwich. Grill until lightly browned and flip over; continue grilling until cheese is melted. Repeat with remaining 2 slices of bread, butter and slice of cheese.

Tomato Soup

5 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup chopped onion
4 tablespoons flour
4 cups milk
1/2 bay leaf
1 1/2 teaspoons sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3 cups tomatoes, chopped (fresh or canned)

Melt the butter in a soup pot. Add the onion and cook over medium heat, stirring, until the onion is softened but not browned. Sprinkle the flour over the butter mixture and continue to stir and cook for 1 to 2 minutes. Slowly add the milk, bay leaf, sugar, and salt and continue to cook and stir until slightly thickened. Stir the baking soda into the tomatoes. Add the tomatoes to the milk, and bring just to a simmer. Remove from the heat and put through a strainer. Taste and correct seasonings. Reheat before serving.

Mommies who are taking care of sick children need to take care of themselves as well.  Truly, the fabric of the family would fall apart should Mommy have to take to her bed with exhaustion!  But the worry and stress of being the caregiver can make it difficult to wind down and relax, and besides, there is not much in the pantry or the kitchen to throw together something that would be good for that – but fear not!  What is soothing and relaxing for the ailing offspring or spouse is good medicine as well for the Mommy.  Who would argue that a good hot toddy would not be just what the doctor ordered?

lemon juice
boiling water
Rye Whiskey
Honey

Put water on to boil. In a large beer mug, put in a big spoonful of honey, 2 good shots of Rye and about 2 heaping tbsp of lemon juice. Pour boiling water over mixture to fill mug about half. Stir until everything is mixed and honey is dissolved. Add more boiling water to fill the mug. Drink it as hot as you can handle it. (If it gets luke warm, it’s not so good) If you have two of these, you should be out for the night! Works for me! Serving Suggestions Whenever you feel a cold coming on or sniffles. Or if you are just feeling chilled this will warm your inside up.

Everyone has their own sickroom concoctions, from mustard plasters to gargling with aspirin water for a sore throat.  Please share your own home remedy or recipe to cure what ails you!

Picking oysters in the early morning is sublime. Cool, salty water splashes your face, but the mounds of Sound oysters are lovely. Then come the hard parts. Cleaning, shucking and cooking.

There’s this stuff called panko that is a sort of Japanese breadcrumb/not really breadcrumb that is good to bread oysters in for pan frying. It’s basically white bread without crusts dried and crushed not too finely. I buy mine at an oyster place in Westport. I like my oysters pan fried in butter and olive oil, it is a much nicer way to cook them tenderly.
I had BBQ oysters for the first time. You place a closed oyster on the grill rounded side down on a medium to slow fire and wait for it to pop open. Slather with hot sauce and enjoy!

Here’s Cha Cha Cha’s Buttermilk Fried Oysters

3 eggs
2 C buttermilk
12 oysters, shucked (more are better)
1 C flour
1 C cornmeal
1/4 C olive oil
Beat eggs and buttermilk. Dredge oysters in flour, buttermilk mixture, then cornmeal. Heat oil and fry oysters on each side until golden brown. Drain on paper towels.

I like to make the egg-buttermilk mixture and then dip the oysters in it and roll in Panko (or Panko/white cornmeal mixture) and sautee in a olive oil butter-at-the-last-minute mixture and sautee on both sides in a medium hot pan until golden brown. Drain on paper towels. Either recipe calls for salt and freshly ground black pepper and hot sauce on the table. Add a green salad, a lemon cucumber salad and some pickled red onions and you have an excellent meal!

Cebollas Encurtidas or Pickled Red Onions Ecuadorian Style

2 small red onions
juice of three limes (6 TBS)
1 Tbs neutral oil or olive oil if you want
1 TBS + to taste sea salt

Peel and cut onions in half and then thinly slice. Sprinkle with 1 TBS of sea salt and 1 TBS of lime juice and toss. Let rest for 10 minutes. Cover onions with lukewarm water and let rest for 10 minutes. Drain and rinse several times in a colander. Place onions in a bowl and add the rest of the lime juice (about 5 TBS) and oil, toss and refridgerate for three hours. Add salt if needed.
The longer it’s kept, the pinker it gets. It’s all good!

Spicy Cabbage Salad

Serves 4-6

2 C jalapeno flavored vingegar
1/4 C white sugar
1 T habanero or Tabasco sauce
Sea salt to taste
1 C fresh lemon juice
2 1/2 T toasted sesame oil
1 red cabbage, cored and shredded
1 green cabbage, cored and shredded
4 carrots, peeled and shredded
1 bunch fresh cilantro, stemmed and minced

Combine the dressing and whisk, add the veggies and toss. Let sit for about an hour and serve or put covered in fridge to get cold.

2 T peanut oil
1 T butter
1 C onion, chopped
Saute until onions are translucent.
Add:
2 T tomato paste and stir
Add:
1-2 C strained stewed tomatoes (you can use the juice for part of the 4 C of chicken broth if you like the flavor)
2/3-1 C peanut butter (prefer chunky)
4 C chicken broth (prefer homemade)
cayenne pepper to taste (prefer smoked or roasted peppers)
Simmer slowly for at least 1 1/2 hours. Add salt and/or pepper or more hot peppers to taste.

I’ve also added ginger root grated, carrot diced, sweet potato chopped at times. I’ve also slightly smoked/browned cayenne powder in a skillet before adding when I didn’t have other peppers.

Garnish with sliced scallions, hot sauce, roasted unsalted peanuts.