The Dinner Files

We had our first asparagus of the year last night. It arrived in the farm box, as promised in last week’s farm box newsletter (the farmer keeps us updated on all manner of things happening at the farm and in the world of California agriculture, which really is part of the fun of the farm box). As much of it as we eat every spring, we hadn’t had it in so long that Ernest had forgotten all about it. I took great pleasure in watching him discover its clean grassy taste all over again. As the season wears on I’ll start making soups and custards and salads and such. But for now I’m keeping it even more simple: I heated the oven to 400, trimmed the asparagus, laid it in a gratin dish (although any old baking dish or even a sheet pan or large piece of foil would do), drizzled a bit of olive oil on top as well as sprinkled on some kosher salt, and roasted them for about 15 minutes. The high heat intensifies the flavors and, like all cooking, tenderizes the vegetable. Once out of the oven I grated a bit of meyer lemon zest over the top (although any old lemon zest or even a squirt of juice would be tasty). We ate them with our fingers while the gnocchi with ricotta and greens (made with a bunch of red chard and a bunch of golden beet greens) baked.

Speaking of which… a friend told me she thought that recipe needed some “melty cheese.” I thought she was nuts. Cheesier? I thought, why that would make it too cheesey. Then I made it with the regular supermarket brand part skin ricotta, which was all they carried at the little market I stopped at, instead of whole milk ricotta…. Oh my. Yes. If you make it with part skim it definitely needs a little something something to keep the cheesey part from baking into crumbly dry bits. Um, some cream? Kind of defeats the “part skim” aspect of things, doesn’t it? I’m thinking that instead of parmesan you would need to use something softer, less aged, more melty. Fontina or a young pecorino. As for me and my future with this dish (and Ernest luvs it as much as I do, so it’s sticking around because while my dashing husband does not luv it he happily tolerates it even though it comes dangerously close to his much hated “casserole” – I know, I know, but please don’t tell him that it is, in fact, a casserole), I’ll be making the extra effort to buy the whole milk ricotta.

p.s. Remember that creamy spicy tomato sauce from the other night? It ends up that if you let it cool down to room temperature it makes a delicious dip. Dee-li-cious. My dashing husband and I stood around dipping cauliflower florets into it and trying to figure out if it was weird or if you could actually just serve it as a dip. We decided you woudl never guess it wasn’t a dip. Go forth! Dip!

Pressing deadlines and a fridge full o’veggies meant we had this very odd vegetable stew for dinner last night. I made the mistake of referring to it, briefly, during the cooking process as “couscous” (cuckoo!), because I used the spice mix I made to make a most delectable dish inspired by Algerian restaurants in Paris and published in a formal way in Sunset magazine, so Ernie cried when I served it to him and it had, alas, no couscous. There was too much of this… stew that needed to be eaten (oh, that’s always a lovely way to think of dinner) to fill up on couscous (wow, I was fun last night, wasn’t I?). Plus, I had no time to be making couscous. Oh. That’s just sad. That means I didn’t have five minutes to pull together.

If for some reason you want to make a sumer veggie stew, make the ras el hanout in the Sunset recipe. Sautée 3 small summer onions, chopped, in olive oil with plenty of salt. Add 5 cloves minced garlic and an inch of freshly shredded ginger. Add more salt. Add 2 dried chiles (arbol!) and 1/2 tsp.saffron (I’m still working on the collection from when two of my dearest friends were Spanish historians and made regular pilgrimmages to Iberia and returned with scads of cheap saffron; now they’re both married with two boys apiece, so no more free saffron for me!). Sprinkle in 2 tsp. of the ras el hanout, sautée a bit more. Add bout 4 cups chicken or veggie broth (an aside: anyone have a good recipe for vegetarian broth?). Bring to boil. Add a mess of chopped green beans and zucchini. Bring to a boil again. Add chick peas, some leftover cooked potatoes, and kernels from 2 ears of corn. Again, boil. Stir in 5 chopped dry-farmed heirloom tomatoes. Add more salt. Serve topped with harissa and preserved Meyer lemons from the tree in your backyard, or, you know, whatever you find in the back of your fridge.

My cousin and her lovely companion came to dinner last night. Our household is filled with fans of both of them. Jointly I would say they have only one fault: one of them (I’m not saying who) is a vegan.

We had some grilled eggplant salad, red pepper salad, and dolmas from a Turkish resturant I went to for lunch. Then I grilled some vegetables and made a lemon-herb-pistachio orzo salad. It was hot and sunny in San Francisco. We were in sandals and shorts and summer dresses. We sipped white wine and Ernie ran around in the garden and it felt like summer. Summer doesn’t happen frequently or predictably around here. We have to grab it when we see it.

Lemon Herb Orzo Salad: Boil a 1 lb. box of orzo in plenty of very salty water (if vegans aren’t involved, use chicken broth for extra yumminess). While pasta cooks, zest 2 lemons and juice 4. Combine zest and juice with 2 cloves minced garlic in a large bowl. Add drained, hot orzo and toss to combine thoroughly. Let sit, tossing occasionally, until cool. When ready to serve, taste orzo and add more lemon juice if it doesn’t taste really lemony. Toss in 1/2 cup finely chopped mint, 1/4 cup finely chopped cilantro and dill (why mint, cilantro, and dill? because that’s what I had in the fridge–try whatever herbs you have in the house), a handful or two of chopped pistachios (why pistachios? same reason as the herbs–almonds or pine nuts would have been good too), and enough oil to coat the whole thing. (I used some fabulous pine nut oil someone gave me and it was delicate and flavorful and I highly recommend it. I’m sure your favorite olive oil will be great too.) The non-vegans at the table topped their servings with some crumbled feta cheese, but honestly, the orzo really didn’t need it.

Food writer tired. Food writer drank too. much. wine. Food writer had fun.

Two happy occurrences converged last night. First, the “farm box,” as my son calls it, arrived full of just the best produce I’ve ever eaten. I don’t know what they’re doing out there in Winters, CA but it’s working. In it were “farm carrots,” “farm cabbage,” and many other fruits and vegetables now saddled with “farm” as an adjective in our house. Why do we speak this way? Because Ernie will eat anything that’s “farm.” He is all about the farm and the farm box and the big bowl of farm kiwis sitting on the counter.

Speaking of, that bowl of kiwis is part of what I’m absolutely loving about the whole CSA thing. I never buy kiwis. They’re often not so good and, to be honest, even when they’re good they’re just okay in my opinion. That promising emerald green hue never really pays off with an equally “wow” flavor, am I wrong? But a big batch of them arrived in the farm box and Ernie downed two as a pre-dinner snack. He loves kiwis. Correction: he loves farm kiwis.

But I digress. The second happy occurrence was a visit from a friend’s cousin who, through regular visits to San Francisco over the years, has herself become a friend. She visits from Providence, RI (where she “teaches business majors enough philosophy to be able to chat at cocktail parties”) and finds the Bay Area to be a sort of paradise. Especially in March. The comparison, I’m led to believe, having never been to Providence, is quite striking.

So she loves this city and she also loves to eat. She finds food and meals a source of great pleasure and satisfaction, and so she is a delight to cook for. We put out some Carmondy cheese from Bellwether Farms, farm cauliflower (so sweet you just want to eat it plain–and by “you” I mean “I”), and peeled stems from the farm broccoli drizzled with tamari to nibble while I cooked. We sat down to a gratin of farm yellow finn potatoes with Italian fontina and a bit of prosciutto, the tiniest florettes of farm broccoli sautéed with garlic, and a salad of farm spinach and farm radicchio with backyard Meyer lemon dressing (made with juice from a lemon Ernie picked for me on command and the last bit of chopped preserved lemon I made from last year’s crop–this year’s batch is curing on the counter). We finished up with a dessert made of sliced oranges drizzled with a syrup made from their own zest, a bit of prosecco poured on top, and garnished with chopped bits of said semi-candied zest.

Could the dinner have used a steak? Yes and no. Yes, it would have been good. But no, we were pretty happy with the farm and agreed we didn’t miss the steak at all. Well, husband and guest agreed. Me, I would have liked just a bite or two of rib-eye. It might have off-set the wine a bit.