And they are quite tasty too. I could eat a whole recipe by myself. But then there wouldn’t be any leftovers to used in the Bevy and Beans and Basil dish (recipe to come soon!). It’s such a quandary.

Not many of us have the luxury of using our overgrown squash to save our families. However, every summer, the frugal among us struggle to use up these garden mistakes. When my freezer is stocked full of grated zucchini, destined to become wintertime zucchini bread, I turn to this recipe to use my . . . uhhhh . . .  corpulent squash. This is a basic recipe that has many variations. It is well suited to using leftovers or other excess garden produce. Tailor it to fit what you have on hand.

Oh. My. Goodness.
Now I understand.
People always get this crazy glint in their eyes when they talk about squash blossoms. And then they shake their heads sadly at me when they realize I am one of the uninitiated squash blossom eaters. Feeling like I was either missing out on a great snack or a great opportunity to make fun of foodies crazier than myself, I fried up some squash blossoms last night. And . . .
Oh. My. Goodness. Gracious.

What, you mean you’ve never eaten squash blossoms before? (Eyes widen in surprise while shaking head.)

The blossoms themselves taste faintly herbal with a delicate sweetness that comes from the nectar hidden inside. The batter makes it crunchy while the sea salt gives just the right zing. The petals seem to melt right into the batter — a fact that I loved but Mr. Quotidian wrinkled his nose at.

The recipe is easy peasy. The only trouble might be procuring your blossoms. Unless you grow squash yourself or know a farmer, you’re going to have a hard time finding them. They must be picked in the morning and wilt quickly. Luckily for all my Columbia friends, you have the hook-up. City Roots is selling these little gems for $5 a bag, which is about 10 blossoms.

A word about the batter: a true tempura batter would use sparkling water, but I used beer cause that’s what I had. So, I imagine any fizzy liquid would work. Next time I make them (oh yes, there will definitely be a next time . . . soon) I want to try stuffing them with goat cheese or something.

]]> http://collectedquotidian.com/2010/08/25/the-squash-blossom-eaters/feed/ 0 http://collectedquotidian.com/2010/05/03/radish-curry/ http://collectedquotidian.com/2010/05/03/radish-curry/#comments Tue, 04 May 2010 02:58:10 +0000 Jana http://collectedquotidian.com/?p=914 I learned an important lesson about radishes in making this curry:  Radishes lose their zing when cooked.  I know, who’d've thought, right? After our stellar brunch date of simple Bread and Buttered Radishes, this dish tasted flat. Kind of like . . . say you watch this really weird French movie with the Someone From the Checkout Line. You see the artistic styling of the plot, the authentically lame characters, and the poignant theme all wrapped in a  beautifully rendered screen composition. This movie has explained a bit of yourself to you. Ready to have a deep meaningful conversation, you look over at the Someone . . . and he is texting. That’s what I mean by flat. I was expecting so much more, and there just wasn’t.

However, I don’t think it’s necessarily the radish’s fault. I believe this dish can be improved to have all the complexity a curry ought to have. It’s just a matter of understanding. Let’s go back to the problem of the Someone and the French movie. If you resist jumping to conclusions (You useless human being! You’re not good for anything but passing the time in the check out line!), you might find out that the Someone is nearsighted and couldn’t read any of the subtitles and therefore didn’t know what was going on since the first “bonjour.” So, take a minute to understand the radish instead of accusing it like I did (You useless vegetable! You’re not good for anything but bagged salad!). You see, what I didn’t realize was that radishes mellow out as they are cooked, taking on the flavor of whatever they are cooked in, much like tofu. Far from useless, this can be an appealing quality. Think of the possibilities. Radishes can now go in all kinds of things – from spaghetti sauce to jambalaya – without overpowering it. It just means you have to pay extra attention to the cooking medium, which I did not do for this dish.

What follows is the recipe I used for this dish. In italics are my suggestions for adding flavor to sauce and enhancing the curry overall.

Radish Tally: 21 down, 161 to go

Yes and . . . Yes! I decided to start simply on Sunday morning with buttered toast and radish slices. I’d heard of people making radish sandwiches before and thought it would be a good way to ease Mr. Quotidian, always the skeptical one, into the company of radishes. It worked. I was even surprised by how good they were. The creaminess of the butter mellowed the radish’s fieriness, much like a glass of wine could blunt a rapacious wit. And the toast, like an unobtrusive waiter, was the perfect delivery for the subtle flavors.

Because this dish is so simple, make sure you use good quality ingredients. Fresh radishes, not old wrinkly ones. Real butter, not margarine. And whatever kind of toast makes you happy. (Even though the day old Jimmy John’s bread is about as nutritionally vapid as the magazine covers in the check out line, it makes some killer toast.) I served this as part of our Sunday brunch, which also included Creamed Baby Beet Greens with Poached Eggs. (Recipe coming soon!)

Radish Tally: 4 Down, 177 to go

As other volunteers brought in crate after crate of radishes for me to arrange, I began to feel like I was working in a candy shop. Such vibrant lollipop-like colors are usually confined to the air conditioned candy aisle at the supermarket, not a hot field. For awhile, I felt more like an artist than a farmer, lining the pearly white with the lipstick red and hanging the amethyst purple next to the blushed pink. A lady at the farmer’s market said the next day that they are pretty enough to put in a bowl as a centerpiece, forget about eating them. But I have to disagree. Something so beautiful deserves to eaten, not roll around in bowl till they’re old and wrinkly.

All of my previous experience with radishes has been of the bagged salad variety. So, spurred on by the current beauty and abundance, I rubbed the dirt off of one and took my first bite of a real radish. True to their siren song of colors, my radish began as cool and enticingly crunchy as a cucumber. But then, once I’d committed and swallowed, it threatened to drown my adventure seeking taste buds in a fiery wasabi-like spiciness. I was hooked.

But what do you do with radishes? Especially 80 pounds worth? You can only slice so many radishes over a salad. As I’ve written about before, dilemmas like this are an unavoidable part of eating seasonally. Like the waves of lettuce that crash over market stalls in the spring, something must be done with this harvest. We don’t have the luxury of nibbling a little radish now and then, confident that they will still be lining grocery store shelves when we want them again. They are here now and, like a beautiful woman that passes quickly in the street, demand our attention.

So again, what do you do with radishes? That is what I intend to find out. After the market, I brought home a crate of radishes. To put my money where my locavorian mouth is, I entered myself in . . .

The Ravishing Radish Challenge
The Goal: To use up  9 lbs. 8oz. of radishes by creating dishes centered around the beguiling quality of the radish
The Contestants: Me and 181 radishes
The Rules:
1. All parts of the radish must be used. This includes the greens.
2. Only 10% of the total weight of radishes may be relegated to compost.
3. Each day must have unique recipes. No repeats of successful dishes.
4. Complete recipes must be posted daily.
5. The challenge must be completed within seven days.

Bring it on.

]]> http://collectedquotidian.com/2010/05/02/the-ravishing-radish-challenge/feed/ 1 http://collectedquotidian.com/2010/04/05/arugula-and-red-onion-soup/ http://collectedquotidian.com/2010/04/05/arugula-and-red-onion-soup/#comments Mon, 05 Apr 2010 17:05:39 +0000 Jana http://collectedquotidian.com/?p=791 One of the snags people often get caught in when eating a local diet is the ebb and flow of specific foods. First, most foods are not in season year round. They come and go like the tide. They might be obtainable, but you have to travel far to get them. Second, when they are available, they are available in the same way that a tidal wave is available.

Lettuce is one of those foods.  Somewhere along the line, it acquired the status of poster child for healthy eating. People on diets opt for the salad bar instead of fried chicken. Health nuts get bragging rights based on how many salads they eat. Prewashed, mixed, and bagged lettuce is a staple of busy moms trying to feed their family more vegetables. And then there’s me. I think I eat fairly healthfully. And yet, for most of the year, salads (at least those made from lettuce) are conspicuously absent from my table. In the south, where I live, the lettuce season is very short- from about March to mid April, and then again in September. Lettuces thrive in cooler spring and fall temperatures. The intense heat that other sun bathing vegetables like tomatoes adore, exhausts lettuces. But in the spring, before the days get too hot, lettuce comes rolling in from the garden and crashes in waves over farmer’s market stands. It is vibrant green (or red, or purple), succulent, tender, and without a trace of bitterness.

Faced with such beauty, it is all too easy for a girl like me to pick up my chef’s knife like a surf board and attempt to ride the waves of lettuce. Inevitably, I wipe out – salad spinner tumbling across the floor and lettuce wilting in my bottom drawer. When this happens, I am indebted to Kimi, of The Nourishing Gourmet, for her Tangy Herbed Lettuce Soup recipe. It’s basic formula of lettuce leaves wilted in hot broth with some vinegar and herbs, has saved many heads of lettuce from an early composting. This recipe works with all kinds of lettuce and other leafy greens. I’ve made heirloom lettuce soups that have specks of red and purple floating in them like confetti. If you live in Columbia, this is a great way to use the full pound bags of sunflower sprouts from City Roots. As long as you don’t simmer the soup too long, the soup should stay a vibrant green , so it’s hard to make an ugly soup. As far as flavor goes, however, the combination of spicy arugula and red onion is my favorite.

While simply reheating that leftover enchilada or half serving of peas is certainly an option, I prefer to disguise my leftovers as soup. Depending on your perspective, this is either a creative and frugal way to reuse ingredients or a shady practice that comes dangerously close to being dishonest. I am loyal to the first camp, but must admit that some of my leftover soups have made me feel mildly criminal, as they tasted like I just dumped all my disparate leftovers into a pot of broth and called it soup.

To avoid such a dinner, I have been collecting tips, tricks, hints, clues, pointers and words to the wise concerning making leftovers into a successful soup. Some of them I have learned the hard way while others I was lucky enough to learn from someone else’s mistakes.

1. Choose a theme for your soup. No, not Batman or a masquerade ball. A food related theme. Choosing a theme gives you a foundation to build on. It adds cohesiveness to your soup, even if the specific ingredients don’t really match. There are many options for food themes, from historical periods to foreign holiday foods. However, I find geographical regions to be most helpful. Choose a region of the world and create your soup using spices and flavors connected with that region. For example, make a Southwestern style soup using cayenne pepper, cumin, and coriander. Or make an Asian soup using soy sauce, five spice powder, and cilantro. Or an Italian soup with basil, olive oil, and oregano. This step might take some research, but to me that’s part of the fun. Once you’ve covered the basics (like Asian and Italian) you could move on to specific countries. Like, what makes Argentine food different from Colombian food?  This is a great excuse to check out ethnic cookbooks from the library.
2. Always start with a fresh base. In all my leftover soups, I try to have some kind of fresh mirepoix (pronounced “mirror-pwa”), the traditional trinity of carrots, celery, and onions. Sometimes this means just a palmful of chopped onions sautéed in butter. Maybe a little garlic. But always start with something fresh. You’d be surprised at how that freshness gets breathed into the rest of the soup.
3. Be mindful of how long different ingredients need to cook. Overcooking and undercooking are both enemies of the successful leftover soup. There is nothing worse than greens that have been cooked so long they’ve turned bitter, unless of course it’s biting into a chunk of potato that’s still cold in the middle. This seems like a basic law of cooking, but one that I often forget when using leftovers. Add the things that need to cook longer first, like potatoes. Add the things that cook quickly near the end, like spinach.
4. Vary the texture of your soups. While brothy soups with bits of vegetable and meat floating around are good, they can get boring. Try pureeing your soup either with a bar blender or a hand held immersion blender. (Be sure to do it in batches with a towel over the lid if you use a bar blender.) While the ingredients might be pretty similar, blending a soup can add just the right amount of psychological difference to ease the ennui that leftover soup can cause. Blended soups are also a great way to use up stale bread. What looks unsightly in a brothy soup makes an excellent thickener for a blender soup. So do mashed potatoes, by the way.
5. Serve your leftover soup with a garnish. This can be as simple or as complicated as you’d like. It’s amazing how much better a soup looks and tastes with just a little something on top. Think of the garnish as a preview for the soup. Use the same ingredients. For example, save some of your chopped carrots to sprinkle on top. Or roughly chop your celery leaves. Or a fresh sprinkle of the herbs and spices you put in the soup.  This is another great way to use your theme. Garnish your Mexican soup with some pepitas (hulled pumpkin seeds) or fried tortilla strips. Pureed soups look great with a drizzle of olive oil or soy sauce. Most of my soups get a last minute dollop of yogurt or sour cream. Maybe a sprinkle of an herb. Just that little effort can improve the aesthetics of your soup, which should not be belittled because, as we all know, we eat with our eyes first. There’s also nothing else quite like a dollop of sour cream and sprinkle of herbs to make you feel very accomplished and successful at finally making that problem child behave.

This post is part of Pennywise Platter Thursday at The Nourishing Gourmet.

In the most recent Slow Kitchen meeting, we did a blind tasting between stock from a box and homemade stock. Homemade stock had a “spicier” aroma and “more flavors” than the “bland” and “thin” stock from a box. Homemade stock is rich experience all around, from the deep golden color to the unctuous complex flavor. Can you guess which is which?

Besides being a tasty base for soups, sauces, and gravies, stock is full of vitamins, minerals, and other healthy things like gelatin. Many others have written about the health benefits of a well prepared stock, including Sally Fallon, the author of Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats, so I won’t rewrite the wheel. Let’s just say there’s a reason chicken stock was called the “Jewish penicillin.”

I wanted to make stock for long time before I had the courage to do it. All the recipes I read sounded so intimidating. For one thing, they are always very long.  And full of terms that not only was I unfamiliar with but seemed a little indecent for a respectable cookbook. All a recipe had to do was mention the word “carcass” and I was lost. What is a carcass? Is it the same as a whole chicken? Should there be any meat left on it? Does it matter what size?  At that point in my culinary self-education, I was still very tied to recipes, so I was never sure when the recipe called for 3 to 8 pounds of chicken parts if the 2 1/2 pounds I had would still work. And honestly, does anyone actually know what “scum” is anyway? I never could seem to find a straight answer to that one. All of that, coupled with a fierce desire to become something of a domestic goddess, meant that I approached my first stock pot with the trepidation of a girl on her wedding night. That something wonderful was supposed to happen, I knew. But exactly how, well, I had no earthly idea.

Some time has passed since then. Like an old married woman, I now discuss the squimish topics of carcasses and scum with nary a blush. However, I realize there are still those stock virgins out there who need someone wise in the ways of stock making to frankly talk them through what’s going to happen.

What follows is my everyday recipe for chicken stock. Please don’t be intimidated by the length. I’ve tried to be as clear and detailed as I can. Making stock is as simple or as complicated as you want it to be. In the recipe, I give you both the “proper” technique and then what I actually do. At it’s most basic, think of it as similar to brewing tea. Tea leaves are placed in boiling water that, through the process of diffusion, extracts the goodness (flavor, aroma, caffeine, ect) trapped inside the leaves. To make stock, simply replace the tea leaves with chicken bones. So don’t be scared. It’ll all be okay. And at the end of it, you’ll have made something beautiful, perfect, and worth more than gold in kitchen currency.

(If you would like to make beef stock, put all your bones in a roasting pan and roast in an 350° oven until they are uniformly browned, about 90 minutes, stirring occasionaly. Then proceed with step one.  Roasting the bones first sets in motion the Maillard reaction which produces deeper, more complex, umami flavors.)

1. Put a chicken in a stock pot. The chicken can be a whole raw chicken, a whole carcass left over from a roast , or bones you’ve saved from other meals like fried chicken. Also, if you happen to have chicken feet, necks, gizzards, ect, throw those in too. They add more flavor and nutrition to your stock. The feet are special because they have a high gelatin content, which means there will be more gelatin in your stock. Once you get used to having quality stock around, you’ll probably intentionally buy these things. When I make a roast chicken, I’ll generally save the carcass in the freezer until I’m ready to make stock.
2. Add a few tbs of vinegar. This helps extract the minerals, like calcium, from the bones. Then add water to cover the bones by several inches.
3. Let sit for 30 minutes
4. Bring water to a boil and skim off any foam that rises. Scum is . . .  impurities. That’s the best I’ve been able to figure out. If you’d like, you can be a perfectionist about it and stand over your stock for 45 minutes skimming off every little bit of scum as it rises. Or, you can be lazy like me and wait till your pot looks like a dirty bubble bath, skim that off and call it good. You will want to skim at least the majority of the scum off as it can give your finished stock an off flavor. If you are using a whole chicken, you will have more scum than if you are just using a carcass.
5. Add any veggies you want- I keep my vegetable scraps (carrot and onion tops, ect) in a bag in the freezer and add those plus an onion cut in half, maybe some celery, and another carrot broken in half. Please don’t spend time chopping them. It’s a waste of time. The only reasons to nicely chop vegetables are for aesthetics and even cooking times. These vegetables are going to be strained out at the end, so no one will see them but you. And the stock simmers for so long that everything will be thoroughly cooked, believe me. So put your knife away and just throw those celery sticks in the pot.
6. Bring stock back to almost a boil and reduce heat to a bare simmer.
7. If you are using a whole chicken, remove it after about an hour and remove the meat. Then put the carcass (bones, skin, everything else) back in the pot. You can then use the meat for chicken salads, chicken soup, enchiladas, tacos, ect. Removing it now, instead of at the end, keeps it from getting overcooked and rubbery.
8. Simmer, covered, for at least 8 hours. 12 is better. 24 is sublime. It takes time to extract everything from the bones. While some recipes say its fine to simmer for only 3-5 hours, I think the resulting stock is not worth the effort. There are chefs that keep barrels of stock simmering for up to two weeks, so don’t be afraid of overcooking your stock. Do keep an eye on it, and stir occasionally. Add more water if it drops below the level of the bones. You can consider your stock done when the water is a deep golden color and you can crush a leg bone between your fingers. If you’re nervous about leaving the stove on over night, turn the burner off about an hour before you go to bed to let the stock cool. Then, right before bed, put it in the fridge. Then just start it again the next morning. If you have a large enough crock pot, you could also pour the stock into that once you’ve brought it to a simmer on the stove. I’ve also put my stock pot in a 200° oven and let it simmer away in there, leaving my stove top free for other cooking.
9. When you’re done simmering,  turn off the heat and dunk in a bunch of fresh parsley. The residual heat will be enough to extract the flavor from the parsley, but still leave a fresh flavor. Let the stock cool a little. Then use a large slotted spoon and strain out the big pieces of vegetable and bone. Then use a colander to strain the rest of the solids out. If you want a really clear stock (with no celery leaves or such), strain it again through a colander lined with cheese cloth or a tea towel (NOT terry cloth). I rarely do this. The little bits of leaves that remain in the stock don’t bother me. Store your stock in the fridge overnight. A good stock will gel solid, like Jello. Mine doesn’t always gel though. I don’t know why it’s not consistent. I’m experimenting with techniques, and when I get some conclusive evidence, I’ll let you know. For now, don’t worry. Your stock will still taste great and be nutritious even if it doesn’t gel solid.
10. Take the stock out and skim off the solidified fat. This step is actually optional. Some people think it’s gross, but the fat is part of what contributes the rich flavor to stock. However, you don’t want it to be greasy. So normally, I’ll skim off most of it but not worry about the little shards that break off. I keep the skimmed fat in a jar in my fridge. You can use it to cook with or feed it to your cats. Just remember that it’s not as “pure” of a fat as butter, meaning there’s little bits of vegetable floating in it. Therefore, it won’t last as long as other fats. I’ve actually had it mold on me. So, use it within a couple of days.
11. Now, you have several options for storage. You can use it right away for soup or some such thing. Or, you can store it in the fridge for about a week. (If you are going to do this, it’s best to not skim the fat, as this forms a barrier that will stop bacteria from getting in.) If you choose to refrigerate your stock, make sure you bring it back to a good rolling boil before using it, to kill anything that might be growing in there. Or, you can freeze it. If you have ample freezer space, store it however you store other liquids (tupperware, plastic bags, mason jars…) If you have limited space (like me), then you can put the skimmed stock back in the pot and reduce it to whatever volume you desire. You can reduce  a whole batch of stock to fit in an ice cube tray and store it that way. I usually reduce it by about half.
12. The last step is yours to decide. Spend your liquid gold in whatever way you choose. Make a delicious soup, a gravy for your mashed potatoes, or a sauce to put over your carrots. You can cook your rice or beans in it. Or even just drink a mug of it. Sound excessive? Believe me, it won’t once you’ve made your own stock. You’ll want to.

This is a chicken foot. Yes, it looks like a foot. Get over it. It is also your secret weapon of stock making, producing a a rich golden stock full of gelatin.

More chicken feet. Can you tell I’m trying to desensitize you so you won’t be afraid to go buy them?

This is what your stock should look like after a few hours. Pale chicken parts and flaccid celery not quite your style? Don’t worry. The liquid is what you’re after. It will turn a deep golden color before it’s done. Can you believe most recipes have you stop here?

This is what your bones should look like when you’re done. Full of little holes, like those pictures of osteoporosis patients’ bones. All of the things that make bones strong have been leached out into your stock. Even major bones, like this leg bone, should crumble easily between your fingers.

]]> http://collectedquotidian.com/2010/03/29/liquid-gold/feed/ 3 http://collectedquotidian.com/2010/03/04/lemony-shrimp-soup/ http://collectedquotidian.com/2010/03/04/lemony-shrimp-soup/#comments Thu, 04 Mar 2010 12:23:36 +0000 Jana http://collectedquotidian.com/?p=697 I felt like Snow White while making this soup. While I hummed about the kitchen, ingredients seemed to wing out of the fridge and into the soup as if little adorable doe eyed woodland creatures were helping them along. Before I knew it, I had a beautiful soup that seemed to have created itself.

I love those days.

I’d puttered about with a shrimp soup idea for awhile, but without any concrete ideas. I just knew I was tired of shrimp scampi. And my spicy Asian stir-fried shrimp. I was in a shrimp rut. (A shrut?) So when I began making the soup, I was determined not to use any of my normal shrimpy ingredients. No parsley, no red pepper flakes, no soy sauce.

The part that gives an extra pinch of fairy dust to this recipe is that everything (apart from the shrimp) was just lying around my fridge. The lemon had been lying naked in a drawer since I zested it last week. The onion and leek were left over from the cooking class I taught on Sunday. I always have quarts of whey sitting around as I make my own mozzarella cheese every week. And the collards were leftovers from last night’s dinner. Whenever I’ve attempted such “leftover soups” before, the individual ingredients, like ugly step sisters, have never played well together. But in this soup, they all seemed to grow up and realize each other weren’t so bad.

This soup even got it’s own “happily ever after” ending at dinner. Mr. Quotidian, the ever skeptical prince, pronounced throughout all the kingdom that this was a “soup-er soup.”

A note about the whey: This is actual, real, living, whey. It was drained off of cheese, not mixed from a powder. They are two completely different products and should not be substituted for one another. However, if you are not like me and do not have excess quarts of whey sitting in your fridge, a good chicken stock (or shrimp/fish stock- even better!) would substitute quite nicely.

This post is part of Pennywise Platter Thursday at the Nourishing Gourmet.

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