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.

Sunday Shopping

Today we were on a mission at the Hollywood Farmers Market. This is Labor Day weekend - our traditional time to put up salsa. It is usually a very hot weekend, and we throw pounds of tomatoes into boiling water to peel, and then stir steaming pots of tomatoes and chilies in our non air-conditioned kitchen.

Traditions require a little work. You can read about our salsa-making weekend, and see the recipe for this famous (well, within the family) salsa here.

This year we have had air conditioning installed. However, maybe we won't turn it on. After all, working up a good sweat is part of the tradition.

The chiles will come from our garden - we have guayanan habaneros, serranos, jalapeños and fish peppers. However, we have to buy the tomatoes - our plants are woefully under-producing.

So our first stop this morning was at Finley Farms' stall, where we bought 10 lbs of San Marzano tomatoes. These are paste tomatoes - more flesh than juice - so they won't cook down too much and we'll get lots of salsa.

Larry took these back to the car, and then we proceeded with the rest of our shopping. (By the way, I mentioned last week that I had planned to make ratatouille but there was no eggplant. This week, the eggplants were back. I bought one to stuff.)

Here's what we brought home: 1 large and 4 small plain St. Benoit yogurts, 8 large shiitake mushrooms, 1 dozen eggs, 2 heads garlic, 2 red onions, 10 lbs san marzano tomatoes, 1 red butter lettuce, 2 tangelos, 4 limes, 1 cantaloupe, 3 red peppers, 1 eggplant, 1 head celery, 1 avocado, 5 tsugaru apples, 1 1/2 lbs small red potatoes, 2 beefsteak tomatoes, 2 heirloom tomatoes, 16 oranges

Creative Cooking

Someone asked me the other day why I used green cabbage instead of red in my spicy coleslaw.

Red cabbage is often considered healthier than green because of the additional protective phytonutrients in the red pigment. However, each variety of cabbage - red, green and Savoy - contains a different combination of health-promoting nutrients, so a variety of cabbages in the diet is a good thing. Diversity is the key to health.

That's the highfalutin' reason I made my coleslaw from green cabbage.

The real reason is that the farmer I bought my fresh organic cabbage from at the Hollywood Farmers Market only had green cabbage for sale. I choose to support local organic farmers, and that means eating what they grow, not necessarily what I planned to cook.

For example, last week I planned to make ratatouille. Sunday morning at the market I picked up organic red peppers and tomatoes, and went on the hunt for eggplants. There were none. For weeks I've been buying eggplants, but now they had disappeared.

I considered going to Whole Foods for an organic eggplant, but I prefer to put my grocery dollars in the hands of the people who grow my produce.

So I turned to Plan B. Instead of ratatouille this week, we're eating stir-fries with the red peppers. I'm making a chili sauce with the tomatoes. Last night I used the zucchini in this kamut pilaf.

And maybe next week the eggplant will have returned and I can make a ratatouille.

This kamut dish is an easy one to put together on a warm summer evening. Cook the kamut ahead and let it cool to room temperature. Then 20 minutes before you want to eat, finish the cooking quickly in a skillet. It has a slightly Asian flavor. Add more tamari if you are used to saltier food. Look for organic rice vinegar and toasted sesame oil at your local health food store. They're a great addition to the pantry.

Kamut with Zucchini
3/4 cup kamut
1 tbsp canola oil
1 tbsp minced ginger root
2 cloves garlic
1 1/4 lb zucchini
2 tbsp mirin (or dry sherry)
1 tbsp tamari (soy sauce)
2 tsp rice vinegar
1 tsp toasted sesame oil

Cook the kamut in plenty of boiling water until tender, 30-40 minutes. It's cooked when it's lost its crunch but still has texture - like al dente pasta. Drain and set aside.

Warm the canola oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add the ginger and garlic and cook a couple of minutes until fragrant.

Chop the zucchini in roughly 1/4 inch dice. Add to the skillet and cook about 5 minutes until it is tender.

Add the mirin, tamari and kamut and cook until warmed through. Stir in the rice vinegar and toasted sesame oil.

Serves 3-4

The Week's Granola

Last week I found 1/4 cup of amaranth in a jar in the pantry. I was not happy at this discovery. A quarter cup of this tiny grain is not enough to cook by itself, so I was tempted to feed it to the neighbor's chickens.

But that felt wasteful. Instead, I decided to add it to our weekly granola. Amaranth is high in protein so I knew it would make a nutritious addition to our breakfasts. The key would be to get it to stick to the oats and nuts, and not just fall to the bottom of the granola jar where it would remain uneaten.

Brown rice syrup and honey provided the stickiness, along with some dates, and Larry declared it the best granola I've made. Here's what I did.

Granola with Amaranth

4 cups rolled oats

1/4 cup amaranth

1 cup wheat bran

1/2 cup sunflower seeds

1/4 cup chopped walnuts

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 cup brown rice syrup

3 tbsp honey

3 tbsp canola oil

1 tbsp vanilla extract

2 cups chopped pitted dates

Preheat oven to 275°F.

In a large bowl, combine rolled oats, amaranth, bran, sunflower seeds and walnuts. Sprinkle in the cinnamon and stir well.

In a medium saucepan, warm brown rice syrup, honey and canola oil until boiling. Remove from heat and stir in the vanilla extract. Pour this over the rolled oats mixture and stir well. (This might be easier with two spoons or with your hands.)

Spread the mixture on a cookie sheet and bake until lightly golden, about 25-30 minutes. Stir occasionally while it cooks. It will feel soft when you take it from the oven, but it will crisp up as it cools. Transfer to a bowl and stir in the chopped dates. Let it cool completely and then store in a large glass jar.

It will probably last a few weeks in the cupboard, if you hide it from your family.

P.S. To make this truly vegan, substitute extra brown rice syrup for the honey.

Cookbook Bonanza

Yesterday was the annual used-cookbook sale at the Hollywood Farmers Market, benefiting the Los Angeles Public Library. I'm always thrilled to see it setting up in the center of the market. Larry starts counting up our cloth shopping bags to make sure we have enough for our groceries and the armload of books I am sure to find.

The last couple of years I found the titles were becoming a little boring, but this year there was a plethora of quirky books to choose from, and with prices from 25 cents to four dollars, it was hard to go wrong. Here's what I spent $10 on.

The Fresh Vegetable by Paul Mayer, published by nitty gritty productions in 1975, promises to have the best method ever for cooking fresh vegetables. How could I resist?

The Higher Taste: A Guide to Gourmet Vegetarian Cooking and a Karma-Free Diet includes over 60 Famous Hare Krishna Recipes. Originally published in 1983, this paperback surprised me by being re-published in 2001.

Cucina Fresca: Italian food, simply prepared and served cold or at room temperature by Viana La Place and Evan Kleiman (1985) is enticing because I know the September heat will wilt our appetites along with my desire to cook, so simply-prepared room-temperature food will fit the bill.

Leone's Italian Cookbook by Gene Leone (1967). Leone's Italian restaurant in New York City was quite the popular place in the '50s and '60s it seems, with great food based on his mother's recipes. At least, that's what Dwight D. Eisenhower says in his introduction to this book. I'm not sure I'll cook much from it but I'm enjoying the black and white photos.

Picnics: over 40 recipes for dining in the great outdoors, edited by Heidi Haughy Cusick (1994) - we picnic nightly on our patio in the summer, and more inspiration is always appreciated.

Ladle, Leaf, & Loaf: soup, salad and bread for every season by Lisa Cowden (2000). I love the idea of a meal of soup, salad and bread. Usually when we have soup, that is the meal - no fancy salads or breads - but I can continue to daydream.

Pilaf, Risotto, and Other Ways with Rice by Sada Fretz (1995).

Great Grains by Linda Drachman and Peter Wynne (1990)

Daniel Orr Real Food by Daniel Orr (1997). There's a hand-written note in the front of this book from someone who gave it as a Christmas present: "I found his cuisine fascinating - subtle. He's on to a new thing…I think for 2001 this book is the most exciting conceptual new approach to food."

The Best of Sunset: Recipes from the Magazine of Western Living (1987). I think of myself retiring to the frozen north and spending winters browsing California cookbooks and remembering when lemons came from the backyard tree and avocados were inexpensive staples at the farmers market.

Sunset Host & Hostess Book (1940). This goes in the category of entertaining reading.

The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook by Ina Garten with a foreword by Martha Stewart (1999). The photographs in this book are lovely - hopefully they will inspire Larry and me to elevate our game.

Sunday Shopping

As we passed the Flora Bella stand at the Hollywood Farmers Market today, I assured Larry that I was going to show great restraint and not buy one of their adorable spaghetti squashes. And I didn't. I did, however, bring home a small pumpkin. It feels early for these autumn fruits, but it was a cute one  that I couldn't resist. I hope it's cool enough this week to turn on the oven to bake it.

Here's what we came home with:
4 mountain-grown peaches, 1 small watermelon, 6 ears of corn, 1 red sails lettuce, 1 red butter lettuce, 3 small bartlett pears, 1 white patty pan squash, green grapes, 2 small romaine lettuces, 3 zucchinis, 8 shiitake mushrooms, 2 red peppers, 4 shallots, 4 lbs marzano and early girl tomatoes, 2 onions, 2 garlic, 1 small pumpkin, 4 honey crisp apples, pistachios in the shell, 1 dozen eggs, 3 yellow peaches

And an armload of second-hand cookbooks from the annual  sale benefitting the Los Angeles Library. All together a good shopping morning.

Spicy Coleslaw

Coleslaw is a great dish to have in the fridge. It pairs well with grains, beans, casseroles, marinated tofu - it even goes well on a green salad in a pinch.

And it's very healthy. Cabbage is one of the healthiest foods we can eat, especially for the colon. It's full of good kinds of fiber and anti-cancer nutrients.

The other day I made this creamy spicy coleslaw to liven up some leftover black beans and rice. We ate it the next day with leftover tofu, and I was impressed at how it had become even more spicy with rest.

You can vary the spiciness by using more or less chiles. I used fish peppers, which look like serranos and are also very hot. The plants were very popular at the farmers' market this year, and I can see why because they grow into a pretty variegated bush of green and cream leaves. They're heirloom peppers originally used in fish stews in the Philadelphia area, hence the name. If you don't have fish peppers, use serranos or jalapeños. If you don't like heat, use a couple of tablespoons of bell pepper.

I added raw corn to the slaw. This is a luxury only available in corn season, and I recommend you take advantage of it. Raw corn adds a crisp sweetness to whatever you sprinkle it on. I don't think I'd munch a whole cob of raw corn, but a few kernels in a dish are great.

The base of the dressing is mayonnaise. I used to use Hellman's (Best Foods in the west), but now I'm an organic obsessive so I use whatever organic mayonnaise I can find, usually made with a base of organic canola oil. It's not mayonnaise, but it is a fine creamy addition to this spicy slaw.

I rarely sweeten my food, but in this slaw I used a spoonful of brown rice syrup in the dressing. This is a complex sweetener found in health food stores. Feel free to leave it out, but you might need to add more mayonnaise to smooth out the flavors.

The leftover dressing is excellent on green salads. Or you can make some more coleslaw. You can't go wrong with cabbage.

Spicy Coleslaw
1 tsp cumin seed
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1 clove garlic, peeled
1/4 cup cilantro, coarsely chopped
juice of 1 lime
1 tbsp brown rice syrup
1 ear corn
4 cups shredded cabbage
1 red pepper
2 fish peppers
2 scallions

Toast the cumin seed in a small heavy skillet over medium heat until fragrant. Remove from the heat.

Combine the mayo, garlic, cilantro, cumin, lime and brown rice syrup in a blender. Purée until smooth.

Husk the corn and place the cob vertically on a chopping board. With a large knife, cut carefully down the ear, separating the kernels from the cob, but leaving all the tough pieces of cob behind.

Put the corn kernels in a bowl with the cabbage. Seed, quarter and slice the red pepper and fish peppers and add to the bowl. Chop the scallions and add them too.

Pour half the dressing over the salad and stir well to combine. Refrigerate until ready to serve. Refrigerate the remaining dressing separately.

Taste before serving and add salt, pepper and more lime juice to taste. Serve the extra dressing on the side.

Serves 4-6

Yummy Spaghetti Squash

I had some leftover whipping cream in the fridge from the peach ice cream I served to our guests recently.

I could have made more ice cream, but that's not really healthy.

So instead I combined the cream with one of my favorite foods - spaghetti squash - to make this decadent yet vaguely healthy side dish. The crisp spaghetti squash strands in the creamy spicy sauce make a great combination.

It's the second spaghetti squash recipe (out of many) I've made that Larry enjoyed. Take this as a strong recommendation, and make it yourself when you see a nice little spaghetti squash at the market.

Yummy Spaghetti Squash
1 small spaghetti squash
3/4 - 1 cup whipping cream
2 fresh hot peppers
2 tbsp monterey jack cheese

Wash the spaghetti squash with a little earth-friendly coconut-based dishwashing liquid like Planet. Bake in a 350°F oven about 30-45 minutes until it feels soft when you squeeze it.

Let the squash cool enough to touch. Meanwhile, put the cream in a heavy pot over medium-low heat. Add the sliced peppers (I used fish peppers, but serranos or jalapeños would be fine too) and let simmer until the volume is reduced in half. The cream boils over easily, so keep an eye on it. Boiling won't hurt the cream, but if it bubbles too much the burner and stove will be a mess.

When the cream is reduced, turn off the heat and let it sit until you're ready to prepare the meal.

Cut the ends off the squash and discard. Cut the squash in half lengthwise, scoop out the seeds and goop, and discard. Scoop the thick strands, which still should be tender-crisp, out of the shell and into a bowl. Separate the strands with two forks.

Pour the cream (and peppers) over the squash and stir to combine. Transfer to a small casserole dish. Sprinkle the cheese over the top, cover, and bake at 350°F for 15 minutes until it's hot and bubbly and the cheese is browned.

Serves 2-4 depending on the size of the squash.

Isn't it beautiful?

Sunday Shopping

It was a sunny morning at the Hollywood Farmers Market. The produce looked beautiful in the slanting August light. Maybe that's why I had to tuck so much into our shopping bags. Here's what we'll be eating this week:

radishes, cilantro, parsley, tomatoes, carrots, green onions, spaghetti squash, black beans, avocado, eggs, yellow onions, red onion, cantaloupes, pomelo, plain yogurt from grass-fed Jersey cows, 'sugar and gold' corn on the cob, eggplant, arugula, red butter lettuce, green cabbage, red peppers, orange pepper, cherry tomatoes, oranges (well, we already ate these juiced for brunch), jack cheese, mountain peaches, Santa Rosa plums, gala apples, limes

And Russ sharpened two knives while we shopped.

The Joy of Leftovers

One of the great things about cooking a big meal is having leftovers.

And a great leftover to have is grilled eggplant slices. We had some left over from Saturday night dinner, so on Sunday I stirred them up into a tomato sauce that we ate on penne. That was a great break from healthy eating. The next night we were back to beans and greens.

If you don't have leftover grilled eggplant, then start by slicing an eggplant and grilling or frying it. I recommend using a grill pan because the eggplant can't absorb as much oil as it can in a fry pan.

This recipe is based on one in Anna Thomas' classic 1972 book The Vegetarian Epicure. This was one of my first vegetarian cookbooks, and I still turn to it regularly for basics like this sauce. Although, 40 years on, I find I automatically reduce the amount of oil and dairy products in the recipes. I'm sure she does now too.

Eggplant Pasta Sauce
2 tbsp olive oil
2 cloves garlic
1/4 - 1/2 lb grilled eggplant slices
1 green pepper
28 oz can whole tomatoes
2 tbsp sliced black olives
1 tbsp capers
2 tbsp dried basil
6 oz tomato paste
1 cup dry white wine

Heat the olive oil in a large skillet. Add the garlic and let it warm.

Chop the eggplant slices in chunks. Seed and dice the green pepper. Drain the tomatoes and chop them coarsely. Add all to the pan along with the olives and capers. Stir well, coating all the vegetables in oil. Add the basil, tomato paste and wine, stir again, and cover the skillet. Let simmer gently over low heat for about 1 hour until it is rich and dark. Stir occasionally to keep it from sticking, and add extra wine or water if it gets too thick.

Makes about 1 quart of sauce, enough for pasta for 4-6 people. It freezes well too.