a bolt from the blue

blueberries are here! well, so they've actually been available at the sf farmers' market for the last few weeks, but i didn't pick any up for myself (or anyone else for that matter) until this past saturday.

last week's breakfast muffins worked out so well that i decided to make another batch for this week as well - but blueberry instead of carrot. there's a booth along the outside of the sf farmers' market called triple delight blueberries that i've seen for the last few weeks. i decided this was as good a place as any to buy the all-important ingredient to my precious blueberry muffins. i mean, really, how can you go wrong getting blueberries from a farm that feels it can name its prized crop "triple delight"? either they were delusional or spot on... and either situation would provide solid entertainment (although one in a sort of sad way).

i took them home and, er, conducted a couple quality-control tests. ok, maybe several tests... ok, ok, maybe it was so many "tests" that it was a good thing i bought an extra pack of them as insurance... against, ahem well, MYSELF. [*embarrassed pause*] anyway, it turns out that this particular farm's harvest lasts for only about a month and a half, so it's a good thing i stopped by this weekend to get my blueberries on. and actually, i haven't seen blueberries at other stands (raspberries and strawberries, yes. blueberries, no), so if you happen to know if there are any to be found elsewhere at the sf farmers' market on saturdays, let me know!

below is a blueberry muffin recipe i found on epicurious. i used dark brown sugar instead of the light brown in the recipe (and less than called for), which i think gave them a nice caramel-y / butterscotch-y taste - two of my favorite flavs - added some vanilla, and used a lot more blueberries.

these particular muffins were super easy to make - i think i mixed these up and had them in the oven in about 10 minutes. for reals! i wouldn't lie to you about that. they took a lot less time to bake up than the recipe would have you believe - yet another example for why you should always check on the progress of whatever you're baking. recipe reflects the changes i made and the time i ended up baking them. enjoy!

Blueberry Muffins

3/4 stick unsalted butter, melted and cooled (I prefer Straus Family Creamery)
3/4 cup packed dark brown sugar
1/2 cup whole milk
1 tsp vanilla
1 medium egg (I use pastured eggs from Marin Sun Farms)
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsps baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
10 oz blueberries

Preheat oven to 400°F. Place paper liners in a 12-cup muffin tin. In a small bowl, whisk first 5 ingredients until combined well. In a large bowl, whisk flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt in a large bowl. Add egg mixture to flour mixture and stir until just combined and then gently fold in blueberries.

Divide batter evenly among muffin cups; bake until golden brown and a wooden pick inserted into center of a muffin comes out clean, about 20 minutes. Cool muffins in tin for 5 minutes, then remove and cool completely on rack.

i say "tomato," you say "tomahto" (or maybe you also say "tomato"...)

the best time of the year in terms of vegetables and fruit is nigh upon us in northern california! well actually, it's not nigh - it's already here. unlike the east coast (where i grew up), the summer harvest starts in end of may / early june.

i wrote earlier this week how zucchini and stone fruits are in season. another vegetable (although i guess technically it's actually a fruit) that's started to crop up (hahahahaha - get it "CROP UP"? ...'cuz we're talking about harvests? get it? hahahahah-- *sigh* forget it.) are heirloom tomatoes.

heirloom tomatoes are loved at the house of freedmoon. our absolute favorite are green zebra tomatoes, which are a little bit more tart than most tomatoes. i haven't seen any yet at the farmers' market, but i'm sure they'll start appearing soon. at least...i sure hope they do. otherwise, i'm going to be a little bummed out; i love those little suckers.

besides savoring heirloom tomatoes in their purest form - in my world, this means simply sliced and layered with some fresh mozzarella and basil, and then drizzled with some really great olive oil on top - another great way to enjoy them is via gazpacho. what's gazpacho? well, as wikipedia explains it, it's a cold spanish soup that comes in many, er - well, flavors (including a warm stew variant, believe it or not).

permutations aside, i think it's safe to say that the typical american thinks gazpacho is a cold tomato soup. and by cold, i mean uncooked, since cooking would obviously change the taste of the tomato. the version i made this week also had some white peaches in it, which sweetly rounded out the savory tanginess of the tomatoes. i used a cherokee purple, an 1884, and a vintage wine, but you can obviously switch it up to whatever combination of tomatoes you like. enjoy!


Heirloom Tomato and White Peach Gazpacho

1 1/2 lb heirloom tomatoes, coarsely chopped
1 lb white peaches, pitted and coarsely chopped
1 small shallot, coarsely chopped
2 tbsps good-quality extra virgin olive oil (I like Stonehouse)
6 tsps white-wine vinegar
4 tsps chopped fresh tarragon
salt and freshly ground rainbow peppercorns to taste

Combine 1/4 of tomatoes and peaches with 1 tbsp olive oil, 2 tsps vinegar, 1 tsp tarragon, and salt and pepper to taste. Set aside.

Purée rest of tomatoes and peaches with remaining ingredients in a blender until smooth. Force through a medium-mesh sieve, discarding solids. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Refrigerate for an hour, or until chilled.

Divide gazpacho into 4 soup bowls and top with tomato-peach salsa. Serve with grilled burrata sandwiches. Serves 4.

stratospheric strata

one of the nice things about going every saturday to the sf farmers' market is i get the opportunity to learn what fruits and vegetables are in season. before february, i had pretty much zero clue what was in season locally, b/c at supermarkets, nothing is ever NOT in season.

on the fruit side, i guess now it's peaches / plums / nectarines (hrmmm, maybe it's just generally harvest time for stone fruits...hmmm...yet it isn't summer yet...) because they're EVERYWHERE. i think some kind of peach dessert post is in order sometime soon.

on the vegetable side, i've noticed some of the most beautiful red onions i've ever seen and also summer squash. which, to be frank, has sort of confused me, because, well, it's not quite SUMMER yet, is it? IS it?

seasonal confusion aside, for the last couple weeks i've accepted the availability of summer fruits and vegetables in late spring, 'cuz that's how i roll. (you know me: easygoing, laid back... hahahahahahahahahaha - sorry, sorry, i'm going to need a moment to collect myself. hahahahahahaha. whoooooooo, that was a good one. *hiccup*) and let's be honest, i'm not complaining. i've been too busy enjoying my donut peaches (mmmmm, donut peach, mmmmm) and nectarines from balakian farms to have time to whine and feel confused. this past saturday, they had plums, too, so i bought a few of those as well. but the real reason i made sure to make my way over this past saturday was to scoop up a few of their summer squash (after paying for them, of course): a couple each of green and yellow zucchini.

we ate them tonight for dinner in a summer vegetable strata. if you're wondering what a strata is, it's basically a fancy name for a savory bread pudding. kevin and i actually made this dinner together - he made the herbed egg batter while i got the rest of the ingredients ready. overall, prep to serve for this dish is about 1 1/2 hours, so don't do as we did and start making it at 8pm...that is, unless you don't mind eating after 9pm. ;)

other than that, we both really enjoyed this dinner; kevin was in fact surprised with how much he liked it, b/c he was pretty sure he was a big two-thumbs down on zucchini. then again, if you made sure to put enough goat cheese on an old shoe, he'd eat the whole thing like it was going out of style and rave about how tasty said old shoe and beloved goat cheese were together.

not that zucchini tastes anything like an old shoe. i love zucchini. and guess what: kevin thinks he does now too. ;) i'm just going to take that ball and run with it, 'cuz zucchini are going to be around for a while. after all, it's a SUMMER SQUASH and it's only the first week of june!


Zucchini Strata

2 tbsps olive oil
1 medium green zucchini, sliced thinly
1 small yellow zucchini, sliced thinly
1 medium onion, sliced thinly
2 garlic cloves, minced
6 eggs
1 cup whole milk (I like either Straus Family Creamery or Claravale Milk)
1/3 cup finely chopped fresh basil
1/4 cup chopped fresh oregano
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
4 slices brioche bread
8 oz chevre, crumbled (I love Laura Chenel)
1/4 cup chopped green olives
Grated Parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter an 8" square baking dish. Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat, then add zucchini, onions, and garlic and saute until onions turn translucent and zucchini softens.

Whisk eggs, milk, herbs, salt and pepper until well incorporated. Slowly whisk in flour, making sure there are no lumps. Place two slices of bread in pan and then top with half of zucchini-onion-garlic mixture, goat cheese, and olives; repeat layers once more. Pour egg mixture evenly over layers and then sprinkle top liberally with Parmesan cheese.

Bake in oven for 50 minutes, or until knife inserted into center comes out clean. Cool on rack for 5 minutes, then cut into quarters and serve. Serve 4.

do you know the muffin, man?

i don't know about any of you, but breakfast is always a meal i have a difficult time figuring out what to do. mostly because what i would *really* like to eat every day are eggs and sausage / bacon on a buttery biscuit. (mmmmm, breakfast biscuits, mmmmm) but since we've already established that i have a tendency towards the spherical, i don't in fact eat like this [*sigh*], and instead, struggle to come up with acceptable alternatives.

ok ok, so i'll be honest. even if my metabolism COULD handle eating breakfast sandwiches every day, the reality is that i wouldn't, because, well... i like to sleep! sleeping is one of my most favorite activities, and i like to do as much of it as possible every morning (mostly to make up for not having done enough of it the night before ;). so, my typical day involves waking up with about 15 minutes to spare for getting ready for work, which is about enough time to brush teeth and hair, wash face, put in contacts, and get dressed. hot tasty home cooked breakfast? yeah right, you can just forget about it (fuhgeddaboudit?).

anyway, i go through cycles where i eat the same (easy, mindless to prepare) thing every day until i get sick of it, and then i get on the struggle bus for a week or two before i'm able to figure out what next to eat. lately, i've been eating cinnamon raisin toast with peanut butter. and by "lately" i mean like the last 2 months or so, which i'm pretty sure is a new mooner record. the upshot is that i've been sick to death of cinnamon raisin toast but unable to figure out what the fudge to eat next.

i ate sconehenge scones for a couple weeks (sooooo good), but they're not filling enough, which meant i had to eat something else on top of the scones (well, not LITERALLY on top of); basically, way too much breakfast planning for my taste (get it: "taste"? hahahahahah--- ok, never mind). anyway, there've been a few times over the last couple weeks that i've way shorted myself on breakfast and ended up scrounging around like a rat in my snack pile for things to nibble on until lunch.

not good. (not a very appetizing visual, either, right? :)

it dawned on me this weekend i could make my own muffins - meaning, make them in a way to make sure they were filling enough for breakfast. (i can be pretty slow sometimes. ok, fine fine, i can be pretty slow often.) carrots are all over the place at the sf farmers' market, so i figured this would be a great place to start. (i like to buy my carrots from star route farms and chue's farm.)

i used my favorite carrot cake recipe (i've had it for about 15 years), added some currants and pecans (feel free to leave them out if you're a carrot purist), and just baked up the batter in a muffin tin instead of a cake pan. i ate one the second it cooled enough (hello, i made them, and SOMEBODY has to conduct quality control. sheesh.) - moist, well spiced, just sweet enough, and chock full o' tasty goodness. i'm looking forward to having them for breakfast this week!

if you like the recipe and want to make it as a cake, double the recipe, use 2 buttered 9" round cake pans, and increase the baking time to about 35 minutes.



Caroline's Carrot Muffins

1 1/2 cups organic unbleached flour
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup dried currants
3/4 cup chopped toasted pecans
2 medium pastured eggs, room temperature
1 1/2 cups grated carrots
8 oz canned crushed pineapple with syrup
2/3 cup salad oil (I use Stonehouse olive oil)
1 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 350°F. Sift first 9 ingredients together into a large mixing bowl; stir in currants and pecans. Add rest of ingredients and then beat for 2 minutes at medium speed, just until everything is incorporated.

Line a 12-cup muffin tin with paper liners. Fill cups almost to top. Bake for about 20 minutes, or until tester inserted into center of a muffin comes out clean. Cool muffins in tin for 5 minutes, then remove and cool completely on rack.

duck, duck, mmmmmmmmmm

although i don't eat it that often, i really love duck. like fish, the biggest problem has been where to get humanely- and sustainably-raised duck. well, every now and then, marin sun farms has some at the saturday sf farmers' market - they work in partnership with a duck farm - and so last saturday, i secured enough to make dinner for two.

it's a good thing i didn't really ask kevin what he thought about having it for dinner, cuz he would have said, "yuck, no thanks, ma'am." it turns out, except for peking duck (which, btw, is my absolute FAVORITE duck dish. [*mouth-watering, sigh*]), he was under the impression that he doesn't really like duck. well, he was wronnnnnnng! he actually really liked it and ate everything on his plate. (hrm, hrm, evidence i should keep ignoring him (just for dinner planning, of course)? heehee)

below is the recipe. i served it with creamy mashed potatoes and roasted baby carrots. the skin was perfectly crispy, the duck was a beautiful medium rare, and the sauce was delicately sweet and savory at the same time. this particular dinner takes about 45 minutes from prep to serve. enjoy!


Duck with Earl-Grey Tea Sauce

1 1/2 lbs boneless Muscovy duck breast
1 cup finely chopped shallots
2 cups chicken stock
1 1/2 cups freshly squeezed orange juice
4 tsps Earl Grey tea leaves
1 tbsp honey
3 tbsps butter, cut into small pieces
salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 450°F. Pierce duck breast skin all over with fork and then sprinkle both sides with salt and pepper.

Over high heat, heat large skillet then add duck breasts, skin side down. Sear until skin is browned, about 5 minutes. Turn duck over and cook 2 more minutes. Remove pan from heat, set aside. On a roasting pan with a rack, transfer duck breasts and roast in oven for about 15 minutes. Remove from heat and let rest for 10 minutes.

While duck is roasting, heat skillet (with pan drippings) over medium heat. Add shallots and sauté until softened and beginning to brown, about 5 minutes, making sure to scrape up and stir in any browned bits stuck to pan. Drain off all duck grease from pan, then add stock, orange juice ,and tea leaves. Boil until mixture is reduced by half, about 20 minutes. Strain sauce into a bowl and discard solids. Return sauce to skillet; add honey and bring to simmer. Whisk in butter, then season sauce to taste with salt and pepper.

Slice duck breasts thinly across grain. Divide equally into 4 servings and plate by overlapping slices slightly, then spoon sauce onto duck. Serves 4.

marlene's marinade

so remember how i was saying during a few posts that i didn't get what people meant when they said grass-raised beef had to be cooked differently? well i finally figured it out a couple weeks ago: it matters for really lean cuts of beef, like most steaks.

turns out you can't grill them up with just the usual salt and pepper (and maybe a little olive oil) rubbed in. well, i guess you CAN grill them up if you insist, but you'll wish you had just listened to me instead. ;) but seriously, grass-fed steaks are so lean, they really benefit from hanging out in a marinade, preferably for overnight.

one marinade i really like is a recipe from kevin's mom, marlene. it's especially great on beef tenderloin (which is what the marinade is actually for), but it works really well for any cut of beef. tonight we used it on a rib-eye steak. so, ok, rib-eye isn't all that lean, but it was pretty awesome anyway. recipe below.


Marlene's Marinade

1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce
1/2 cup Dijon mustard
1/2 cup Teriyaki sauce
1 tsp coarsely ground black pepper
2 garlic cloves, crushed

2-lbs beef of your choice (e.g., beef tenderloin or steaks)

Mix all ingredients into a Ziploc bag. Add beef to marinade. Marinate overnight. Roast or grill as usual. Reserve marinade; place in small saucepan and bring to a boil. Simmer sauce until reduced by about half; keep warm.

If you're cooking with grass-raised beef, meat will cook more quickly than conventionally-raised (grain-fed) beef. Serves 4, with sauce on side. There should be enough leftovers for tasty things like sandwiches!

make me some pie!

well so it looks as though cherry season is in full swing in northern california. it's also already almost over - i started seeing cherries a couple weeks ago at the sf farmers' market, and this saturday, the farmer i buy my cherries from - twin girls farm - told me that they expected to have them only for a couple more weeks. *sniffles*

having heard this, i figured it was now or never to get my cherry pie on. we were going to a memorial day bbq on sunday; when i had asked what i could bring, i was told dessert or wine would be great. well, imo, bringing wine to a party is BORING, so i decided to make pie. the week before i had acquired my first-ever cherry / olive pitter that i was pretty enthralled with, so as i made my weekly farmers' market grocery list, i made sure to write down the ingredients i didn't already have on hand: namely, a pound or so of cherries and a 1/2 cup of lard from humanely-raised pork at prather ranch.

WHAAAAAAT - LARD?!??! you exclaim? yes, that's right. i use lard in my pie crusts. do you want to know why? because vegetable shortening is FAKE. it's WEIRD. it's NOT NATURAL. take a look at the ingredients in crisco: soybean oil (probably from a genetically-modified organism - "GMO"), sunflower oil (also probably from a GMO), fully-hydrogenated palm oil (sounds so natural - NOT), mono- and diglycerides (...), TBHQ (what the *fudge* is THAT?), and citric acid (noted in the ingredient label as an "antioxident"... whuh?!).

YUCK! seriously. "TBHQ?!?" apparently this is an ingredient that crisco thinks it can abbreviate and yet i (a decently aware consumer) have no idea what it is. you don't either, do you? frankly, i don't want to know, but since i'm not going to be eating it, i don't need to know. after all, why would i want to consume something that's been pumped full of hydrogen and is more likely than not made out of GMOs? no thanks. this doesn't pass muster with mwah and i certainly hope this doesn't pass any smell test for you, either. oh, but wait... crisco is odorless. so you wouldn't be able to smell it anyway. food for thought: when was the last time you encountered real food that had NO ODOR?! that's right! NEVER! (although i'm sure if you try crisco's "butter flavor" shortening, there might be some kind of smell. ahem.)

besides, using vegetable shortening, at least to me, is like using margarine when you could be using tasty delicious butter. i'd rather have nothing than eat margarine. margarine tastes gross - it tries so hard to be butter, but let's face it, it's just "chemicalicated" vegetable oil. yu-uck. you want to know *why* you can't believe it's not butter? BECAUSE IT'S NOT BUTTER! (garlinghouse, are you reading this?)

so why do i use lard in my pie crusts? well, the biggest reason is taste and texture. i think it makes pie crusts very flavorful and flaky. but it turns out from a "health standpoint" (hahahaha, i mean, we're talking about DESSERT. health! hahahahaha) lard has less saturated fat, more unsaturated fat, and less cholesterol than butter; lard also has no trans fat. i get lard from prather ranch, which subscribes to the ethos of humanely- and sustainably-raised meat. (yay!) plus, the people who work at the store in the sf ferry bldg are SOOOOO nice and friendly, too. [they also happen to have some pretty tasty beef hot dogs (no mystery meat!) that you can munch on (snarf, in my case) as you do your shopping.]

anyway, i majorly digressed. i was supposed to be writing about delicious, yummy cherry pie. below is a new recipe i tried out, and if i do say so myself (and i will:), it came out beautifully. i also really liked the crust - so much so that this might be my new standby recipe. don't be afraid of making a lattice top, either. it looks spectacular (and thus, many assume this = hard), but if you could weave a potholder in elementary school, you can weave a pie crust. for reals.

i finished baking the pie only a couple hours before going to the bbq on sunday, so it was still a little warm when people started to dig in. vadim - although he denies it - had at least 2 pieces, and he's pretty into food, so i'll take it as a sign that the pie was as tasty to everyone else (or at least just to vadim) as i thought it was. this one is a keeper. and, although we didn't have any, i bet either a little almond ice cream (yes, almond!) or whipped cream would be deeelish with this. enjoy!


Cherry Pie

Pie Crust
2 1/2 cups unbleached all purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup chilled unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
1/2 cup chilled lard, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
7-10 tbsps ice water

Filling
1 24-oz jar sour cherries in light syrup
1 15-oz can tart cherries, drained
1 lb fresh Bing cherries, pitted
6 tsps arrowroot
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 whole nutmeg, cracked in half
1 whole star anise
1/3 cup sugar

1/4 cup whipping cream


Pie Crust
Place flour, sugar, and salt in food processor. Add butter and lard and pulse until mixture resembles coarse meal. Transfer to medium bowl. Add ice water 2 tbsps at a time and mix with fork until dough begins to clump together. Gather dough together, divide in half and flatten each into disk. Wrap both well in plastic wrap and refrigerate for an 1 hour. (DO NOT skip this step, otherwise, your pastry will be a mess.)

Filling
Strain syrup from sour cherries into large saucepan, reserving 1/4 cup. In a medium bowl, whisk reserved 1/4 cup syrup and arrowroot until blended and no lumps remain; add sour cherries and toss gently to combine. Set aside.

In the large saucepan with syrup, add cinnamon, nutmeg, and star anise, bring to a boil, then simmer over medium heat for 10 minutes. Add tart cherries and simmer until liquid reduces to about 3/4 cup, about 10 more minutes. Discard nutmeg and star anise, then add sugar and fresh Bing cherries. Simmer on medium heat until fresh cherries are tender, about 3-5 minutes. Stir in sour cherry mixture to saucepan and continue to simmer, stirring occasionally until mixture thickens, about 2 minutes. (Don't turn your back on it, it thickens pretty quickly.) Immediately remove from heat and transfer to medium bowl to COOL COMPLETELY.

Assembling Pie
Place rack in bottom third of oven; preheat to 400°F. Roll out first dough disk on floured surface to 13" round. Transfer to 9" glass pie dish. Trim dough to 1" overhang. Spoon cooled filling into crust.

Roll out second dough disk to another 13" round. Cut dough into 3/4"-wide strips. Evenly space 5 dough strips across pie in 1 direction and weave in 5 strips spaced evenly in opposite direction, forming lattice. Trim strips evenly with bottom crust overhang. Turn dough edges under, pinching to seal, and crimping edges decoratively. Brush edges and lattice lightly with whipping cream. Place pie on foil-covered rimmed baking sheet and bake until crust is golden brown and filling bubbles thickly, about 50 minutes. Cool pie on rack. Serve either lukewarm or room temperature. Serves 8-10.