Sunday Shopping

There was a sprinkle of rain as we headed to the Hollywood Farmers Market this morning, enough to turn on the windshield wipers occasionally, but not enough for us to be concerned about our lack of raincoats.

However, a drizzle of rain is a hazardous thing in southern California, especially in the fall when the freeways have not been washed of the accumulated oil and fluids of the hundreds of thousands of vehicles that have driven on them since the last rain in the spring. The road surface quickly gets slick and dangerous, even in a light rainfall. Fortunately everyone around us slowed down, and we arrived safely at the market.

By the time we were heading home at 8:45 a.m., however, the accidents had started. We passed a fender-bender on the Hollywood freeway, and were glad it was already by the side of the road. We cruised up the curvy Pasadena freeway until a half mile before our exit when the traffic slowed to a crawl. Fifteen minutes and a quarter-mile later, we passed the six-car pile-up. No one seemed hurt, the Highway Patrol and a tow truck were on the scene but no fire engines or ambulances.

We're always happy when we return home safely from our weekly marketing, even if sometimes we are a little later and have a more stressful drive than we expected.

Here is a list of the excellent organic produce that made the drive home with us:
3 onions, 2 red peppers, 2 tomatoes, 2 white potatoes, 1 small acorn squash, 1 small butternut squash, 10 ears of corn from Tutti Frutti (it sounds like a lot, but I need 5 cups of kernels for corn chowder and these cobs were small and quite organically wormy), 4 small yogurts from St. Benoit, 3 mountain-grown peaches from Ha's Apple Farm (the only organic peaches that really taste like peaches this year), 4 poblano peppers (to roast and start my freezer stash), 3 cameo apples, 1 bunch lacinato kale, 1 ogen melon, 1 small spaghetti squash (very small, honest), 24 oranges (too many for our juice, but I got into a discussion with Jorge about whether I could plant my citrus trees in the clay soil at the bottom of our garden, and kept absentmindedly adding oranges to my bag - we'll keep some of them for next Sunday's juice), 2 grapefruit, 1 red sails lettuce, feta, baguette, cucumber, carrots, eggs and cherry tomatoes.

Awesome Eggplant

Many years ago, when if you had told me I'd marry an American and move to Los Angeles I would have scoffed, my mother and I made this eggplant dish for Canadian Thanksgiving.

It was just the two of us, and we thought eggplant was an excellent celebratory dish. Cooked this way, a recipe from Annie Somerville's book Fields of Greens, we were right.

The recipes in this book are a little more complicated than I usually make, but that adds to the layers of flavors that make these dishes extra special. It comes together in about an hour.

Roll forward many years, and my American husband Larry and I returned home to Los Angeles from our trip back East last week to find one of our pathetic eggplant plants actually had a large purple eggplant. This was cause for celebration, so I dug out this recipe. Awesome!

Awesome Eggplant
1 eggplant (3/4 lb)
1 tbsp olive oil
1 small clove garlic, minced
1/2 cup diced onion
1 tbsp olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 cups sliced mushrooms
2 tbsp white wine
2 sun-dried tomatoes, diced
1 tbsp almonds, slivered
3 tbsp parmesan

Preheat oven to 375°F. Cut eggplant in half lengthwise. Scoop out the center, leaving about 1/4 inch shell. If the flesh is very seedy, discard some of the seeds. Cut the flesh into dice.

Combine the tbsp olive oil and small clove of garlic. Brush the insides of the eggplant shells with this, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and put cut side down on a cookie sheet. Bake until tender, 10-15 minutes.

The bottom eggplant is the one we ate. The upper
one will be made into dinner later in the week.

Sauté onion in 1 tbsp oil with salt and pepper for about 5 minutes until tender. Add the diced eggplant and 1 minced clove of garlic. Sauté 5 minutes until the eggplant is tender. It will be dry and sticking a little to the pan, that's okay. Transfer to a bowl.

In the same skillet, heat 1 tbsp oil over high heat. Add the mushrooms, salt and pepper. Stir occasionally. When golden brown, about 5 minutes, add the remaining clove of garlic and cook another couple of minutes. Add the wine and simmer 1-2 minutes until the pan is almost dry.

Toss the mushrooms with the eggplant mixture. Scrape the pan well so all the browned parts are added. Add the sun-dried tomatoes and almonds. Stir in all but 1 tbsp parmesan. Place the eggplant shells in a casserole dish and mound in the filling. Cover and bake 25-30 minutes. Sprinkle with the remaining parmesan and bake uncovered 5 minutes.

Serves 3-4 as a main course.

Warm leftovers in the oven - they are almost more delicious than the original.

Braised Carrots Provençale

I had long slender carrots in the fridge and decided they would look beautiful cut in slivers and cooked Provençale style with tomatoes and basil.

I rarely cut vegetables into julienne, but these carrots were so slender it was easy. I cut them in half lengthwise, then put the halves flat side down on the board and cut them into 3 or 4 long slender pieces each. Some of the carrots were so long that I cut them in half horizontally for ease of cooking.

(No self-respecting cook would call these juliennes because I cut the carrots much larger than matchsticks. Feel free to cut matchsticks if you prefer - the carrots will take less time to cook if you do this.)

You will notice the carrots are steamed in a little oil, no water. Hard to believe it will work, I know. But it does. And I feel that cooked this way, all the nutrients are preserved in the carrot.

I used a ripe red poblano pepper from our garden for color, but an ordinary red pepper would work just as well.

It made a colorful and tasty vegetable side. The main dish was an awesome homegrown eggplant - more on that later.

Braised Carrots Provençale
1 lb slender carrots
1 tbsp olive oil
1 large clove garlic, minced
1 red poblano or red pepper
1 large tomato
2 tbsp basil, chopped
lemon

Trim the carrots and peel them. (They look prettier peeled, but feel free to leave the peel on for the extra nutrition.) Cut them lengthwise in half, then put the cut side on the board and thinly slice them lengthwise.

Heat oil in a 10-inch skillet. Add the carrots, cover the pan, and cook over medium-low heat for 15 minutes. Add the garlic to the pan, stir, cover, and cook another 5 minutes until the carrots are flexible but not overcooked. Pour them out of the pan onto a plate.

Halve, seed and slice the pepper thinly. Core, halve and slice the tomato. Put the skillet over high heat, add the pepper and tomato with 2 tbsp water, cover, and cook until the water starts steaming (a glass-covered skillet makes this easy). Then cook 2-3 minutes until the pepper is tender.

Return the carrots to the pan, toss lightly, add the basil, toss again, and cook until warmed through. Squeeze some lemon juice over and serve.

Decorate with basil flowers if desired.

Serves 4

Sunday Shopping

We returned to the Hollywood Farmers Market this morning after a week away, and I could tell the seasons were changing.

At Jorge's stall I snagged the last pomelos and first pomegranates of the season. (He said he had pomegranates last week, but I was not there to appreciate them.)

Greens had all disappeared, probably because of the ridiculous heat last week. Pumpkins, winter squash, peppers and melons beckoned from every stall. Ha's apple farm continues to bring new varieties to the market as they ripen. We were freshly back from the East Coast so we reveled in the cool air and fall produce, but the farmers were still remembering last Sunday's market when the sun was blazing down on them by 8:30 a.m.

This is the organic produce we brought home with us:
5 beefsteak tomatoes, heirloom cherry tomatoes, red and green grapes, 1 portabello mushroom, 3/4 lb cremini mushrooms, 1 asian pear, 2 bartlett pears, 3 summerville apples, 3 gala apples, 4 peaches, 5 black kat plums, 3 small zucchini, 4 ears of corn, 1 red cabbage, 1 red sails lettuce, 1 red butter lettuce, 2 pomegranates, 4 yukon gold potatoes, 4 small plain yogurt from St. Benoit, 1 red onion, 3 pomelos, 1 cantaloupe, 1 charlynn melon.

Common Sense

We travelled last week through eastern Pennsylvania, Maryland and Delaware. (Californians will be surprised to hear we drove through three states on less than one tank of gas.)

Fall was in the air - pumpkins and chrysanthemums were in all the stores, and in Chesapeake City where we stayed, Halloween decorations were popping up.

While strolling through this picturesque canal-front town, Larry noticed this Maryland license plate. Not only is it pretty, but the slogan is right on:

Our Farms, Our Future.

Can't argue with that.

Grilled Onions

When I'm planning a meal that I fear will be a little boring, I grill a few onions on the side. Leftovers are great added to the next day's bean salad or the next evening's grain or bean dish.

It's a simple thing to do in my grill pan on the stove. I heat the pan, brush the sliced onions with oil, and put them in to sear gently while I'm making the rest of dinner. The key is to let them cook until they smell really good, then flip them. Too much flipping makes them fall apart, and messes up the pretty grill lines.

Warning: the smell of them cooking will attract people to the kitchen.

Chickpea Eggplant Salad

In the fall the market is full of purple eggplants and red peppers. And, here in Southern California, it is hot. Too hot to feel like doing much cooking or eating.

So the other day I made this salad for dinner - the eggplant was spicy enough to tempt the appetite, the chickpeas added protein, and the crisp lettuce and fresh mint lightened it up. I adapted the recipe from Sunset's Edible Garden Cookbook, which always inspires me to plant more vegetables, even if I know they will be dug up by raccoons in August.

Chickpea Eggplant Salad
1/3 cup chickpeas (or 14 oz can)
1 red pepper
1 orange pepper
1 tbsp white wine vinegar
3 tsp dijon mustard
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
2 tsp hot sauce (sriracha)
3 tbsp olive oil
1 medium eggplant
2 tbsp olive oil
butter lettuce
12 mint leaves, slivered
1/3 cup diced red onion, rinsed and drained

Cook the chickpeas in plenty of boiling water until tender, about 2 hours. Drain and set aside. (Or drain the canned chickpeas and rinse well.)

Roast the peppers over a gas flame or under the broiler until blackened all over. Put in a covered pot to steam and cool. When cool enough to handle, scrape off the skins with a small sharp knife, cut off the stems, and take out the seeds. Cut the peppers in 1/2 inch dice.

Whisk together a salad dressing of the vinegar, mustard, salt, pepper, hot sauce and 3 tbsp olive oil.

Wash the eggplant, cut off the stalk end, and dice it in 1/2 inch cubes. Warm the remaining 2 tbsp olive oil over medium heat. Cook the eggplant until it begins to color, 10-12 minutes. It will stick a bit to the pan. That's okay, it adds extra flavor. Add the chickpeas, a couple of tablespoons of water, and salt and pepper. Cook, stirring, 2-3 minutes to blend the flavors.

Stir in the peppers and remove the pan from the heat. Toss the vegetables with half the dressing.

Line a plate with lettuce. Sprinkle it with the mint and red onion. Pile on the chickpea eggplant stew. Serve the extra dressing on the side.

Serves 4

Leftover chickpea eggplant stew is great cold for lunch the next day.

Yummy Potato Casserole

I maintain that if you want someone to eat something weird, make it smell like pizza.

This casserole of eggplant, potato and tomato smells like pizza, and it tastes really good. The vegetables are layered in a dish, sprinkled with a little parmesan, and baked for a couple of hours. They soften and meld together like the best ratatouille but with very little oil and no stove-top cooking.

You will read this recipe and think it can never work: not enough liquid, everything will be dry. But the long cooking allows the vegetables to release their juices, and the flavor is unbelievable. I think it's similar to the long slow cooking of meat, but of course this is way better.

I prepped it Sunday afternoon, let it sit for a while before putting it in the oven, and then let it cook gently until we were ready to eat dinner. Wow. It should feed 6, but 4 will fight over it.

I feel this recipe is a throwback to when we cooked in clay dishes in the ashes of our fires. It is too hot to have a fire, but you'll get the same flavor in pyrex in the toaster oven. I cannot recommend this dish more highly.

Potato Tomato Eggplant Casserole
3 large tomatoes
3 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp tomato paste
2 cloves garlic
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
6 potatoes (18 oz)
1 large onion (8 oz)
1 medium eggplant (1 lb)
1/2 cup parmesan
fresh basil to garnish (optional)

Start by making the tomato sauce. Cut the tomatoes on the equator and scoop out the seeds with a small spoon or your finger. Core and chop the tomatoes into small dice. Stir together with the olive oil and tomato paste. Peel the garlic, chop it and mash it with the 1/2 tsp salt. Add to the tomatoes along with the red pepper flakes.

Peel the potatoes and slice thin. Peel and halve the onion and slice thin. Take the top and bottom off the eggplant. Slice the rest thin.

Butter a 6-cup casserole. Put 3/4 cup of the tomatoes in the bottom, spread thin. On top, put 1/2 the potato slices and season with a little alt and pepper. On top, put half the onion slices and season again Pour another 1/2 cup tomato sauce over top, then half the eggplant slices and more salt and pepper. Next put 1/2 cup tomato sauce and 1/4 cup parmesan. Then the remaining potato slices, salt and pepper, the onions, more salt and pepper. Finally, the last of the eggplant, more seasoning, and the last of the tomato sauce.

The vegetables will rise up above your casserole. That's okay. Squash a lid on them. Press it down while you preheat the toaster oven to 350°F.

Bake the casserole, covered, for 1 hour. Use a spatula to press the vegetables down (and peel them off the lid if necessary). Put the cover back on and continue to bake for another hour. Press the vegetables down again. Sprinkle them with the remaining 1/4 cup parmesan and bake, uncovered, for 10 minutes or so until the cheese is bubbly.

Let the casserole sit at room temperature at least 10 minutes before serving. Sprinkle with the fresh basil (I usually forget to do this).

 It's also good at room temperature and as leftovers reheated the next day.

Serves 4-6

I pressed the vegetables down with a jar of kamut while the
toaster oven was warming up. By the end of cooking, they
had shrunk down to below the side of the casserole dish.

Sunday Shopping

The energy was weird at the Hollywood Farmers Market this morning. Farmers were still setting up their stalls when we showed up a little later than usual; more people with annoying carts were pushing their way through. I was happy to shop quickly and escape.

Here's what we came home with: 6 ears of organic corn from Tutti Frutti; 1 dozen eggs, 2 mountain peaches, 4 honey crisp apples and 3 tsugaru apples from Ha's Apple Farm; 6 potatoes, 1 zucchini and spring onions from Jared's stall; 3 small yogurts from St. Benoit Creamery; 1 celery, 1 red butter lettuce and 3 tomatoes from Finley Farms; 1 eggplant from Rocky Canyon; 1 lb almonds from Yemetz; 3 grapefruit and 4 limes from Jorge.

Hold Onto Your Cheese

Cheese in Paris - how many of these would the FDA let me eat?

The Los Angeles Times reported today that the FDA is doing another crackdown on raw milk cheese.

The FDA is unreasonably obsessed with the bacteria in raw milk. There is a bacteria called nontoxigenic E. coli that lives in every human gut. In fact, without it, we cannot digest our food properly. Too many antibiotics wipe it out. But the FDA has decided that nontoxigenic E.coli is a marker for sanitation: too much of this bacteria we all have means dirty food. So they arbitrarily lowered their standards for non-toxigenic E.coli in cheese from 100 MPN (most probably number)  to 10 MPN.

Goodbye French cheese. And goodbye a lot of excellent made-in-America cheese.

Of course this is the same FDA that found that pink slime (ground up parts of meat you don't want to think about) has too much bacteria, but that if it's treated with ammonia it is safe for human consumption.

Somehow cheese made in a many hundred-year-old tradition is not safe. (Did you see that the bacteria they are talking about is nontoxigenic?)

I wish they would spend their time regulating new-fangled "foods" like gmos and artificial flavorings and colorings, instead of harassing makers of real old food.

When we were in Dublin a few years ago, I talked to a cheesemonger (from Waterford) who cut me some pieces of Irish cheese to take home, and then shared with me tastes of "illicit" cheeses - those made from raw milk that customs would not allow me to bring back to the US. They were all raw milk cheese, and they were delicious. I was obviously not the first American he had shared this craziness with.

Barbecued Mushrooms

We had our Labor Day weekend barbecue on Sunday. Larry cooked a hamburger for himself, using grass-fed organic beef from Rocky Canyon Farms, and some shiitake mushrooms for me.

I selected large mushrooms at the market, removed the stems, and cut shallow slits in the side with gills. I mashed 3 cloves of garlic with the leaves from a dozen sprigs of thyme - it turned out to be equal quantities of garlic and thyme. I pushed this into the slits and filled the caps with the remainder. I brushed the mushrooms with olive oil, and then Larry grilled them for about 5 minutes until they were soft.

This simple recipe was delicious. The mushrooms were fragrant and earthy, altogether a great dish to celebrate the start of autumn.