I’ve been a bit over scheduled these past few months. And it isn’t like I haven’t been thinking about food and eating food and making food. I just haven’t been writing about it. I would like to discuss ramps and the local mushrooms I’ve been cooking with–I’d like to talk about the thin quiche I made in a tart pan and also the variety of banana breads I’ve baked. I would like to write about my love for kale and the fact that my peas are planted and sprouting.

That is the future. The present is grilled cheese.

The end of my over scheduled schedule came to a halt at 10 pm on Sunday night as I sent off my last obligation–a gigantic freelance project. I needed to celebrate deeply these weeks and weeks leading up to Sunday night at 10pm. So, I made a grilled cheese sandwich. I sauteed some local sweet onions and spinach together with fresh tarragon. Sliced up some sharp cheddar. Used one of my favorite local breads a sunflower multi-grain and added some nice grainy mustard.

I also added a nice glass of Petit Syrah (Bogle) one of my favorites.

And I welcomed freedom.

Some people see a bobbing Robin hop across their lawn and think Spring. For me, it’s the first spiky head of chives poking up on the edge of the herb garden. The level of green emanating from this plant makes me stop and take deep hopeful breaths. Spring. Is. Here.

Of course my first instinct is to snip the chives and while I’m at it, clip a couple sage leaves that have overwintered. My second instinct is to chop them up and sprinkle them on my grilled cheese sandwich.

I used a local cheese: Minerva’s sharp cheddar and some grainy brown mustard. Lunch. Spring. Birdsong. Sunshine. It’s here.

Beets bobbed like roiling hearts in the pan of boiling water. I measured the flour and baking soda into a big green bowl. Turned up the radio as a Felice Brothers song came on. Added salt. When I grabbed the pepper grinder and then the cayenne, I knew I’d tugged my recipe into uncharted waters.

I’ve warmed lately to the idea of improvisation with my baking—adding savory ingredients to sweet. Trying to predetermine and create a kind of taste that’s new to me–fresh to my palate. I think I’m trying to surprise myself.

I used to do this more frequently, and I also steadily messed up perfectly fine recipes. But these days after logging so many hours in the kitchen, I can sight-read a recipe; taste it just by running my finger down the list of ingredients. I’ve started dabbling in flourishes.

The smell of the beets boiling helped me reach for the pepper. Adding the pepper to the flour mixture helped me think about adding a little zing. In went the cayenne.

The beets needed to cook for quite some time before their skins slipped off in one swift thumbing. In the meantime, I melted the unsweetened chocolate and olive oil together in my double-boiler. That strange smell—what should have been sweet but instead was olivey-chocolate led me to the bowl of pears on the counter. Beautiful red Bartletts. I cut thin quarter moon slices.

Once the beets were pureed and the sugar creamed with more olive oil. Once the egg and vanilla and chocolate mixture were added and the flour stirred in, I had an intense maroon batter: beautiful.

I layered the pear slices midway in the pan so they would be a sweet surprise once the cake was cut. In fact, they magically melted into the cake–what was left was the idea of pear in each bite.

Just as carrots give moisture to a carrot cake, beets add moisture and depth to this chocolate cake. It doesn’t, however, taste beety. It’s more of an earthy chocolate once it’s in your mouth—not too sweet, but rich and surprising. And nutritious too.

Recipe

(I worked from the Chocolate Beet Cake recipe on p. 62 of Farmer John’s Cookbook.)

4 oz. Unsweetened chocolate

1/4 c. + 3/4 c.  Olive oil

3 Eggs

1 1/4 c. Sugar (I used beet sugar)

2 c. Pureed, cooked beets (3 medium beets)

1 Tbls. Vanilla

1 1/2 c. All-purpose flour

1/2 c. Whole wheat pastry flour

2 tsp. Baking soda

1/4 tsp. Sea salt

1/4 tsp. Black pepper, freshly ground

Pinch Cayenne

1 Pear, cored and thinly sliced

Powdered sugar

Boil or bake beets until fork tender and their skins slip off (20-30 minutes depending upon the size of your beets). Puree them in a food processor until silky smooth and gorgeous. Butter and flour a standard bundt pan. Set aside. Preheat oven to 375.

Melt the chocolate and 1/4 c. of the olive oil in a doubleboiler. Remove from heat, stir until well combined.

Cream the eggs and sugar in a mixer on medium-high speed until a pretty, fluffy yellow. Slowly beat in the remaining 3/4 c. olive oil, the chocolate mixture, pureed beets, and vanilla.

Combine the flours, baking soda, salt, pepper, and cayenne in a large bowl. Stir the flour mixture into the wet ingredients until just combined. Pour half the batter into the prepared pan; gently layer the pear slices on top, and then pour the rest of the batter on top.

Bake until a knife or toothpick comes out clean when inserted into the cake–about 45 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven and cool on a wire rack for 30 minutes before de-panning. Let the cake cool completely on the rack. Dust with powdered sugar.

Eat with cognac or coffee or vanilla ice cream. Enjoy.

Lately, I’ve been considering food events with two of my food friends Christina Worsing and Leslie Fleisher. The kind of occasions we’ve been discussing involve both creatively swapping food and forming different kinds of community. The three of us have cooked many, many meals together.

As we tapped away at our email discussion (Leslie and me in Pittsburgh, Christina recently moved to San Francisco), an MFA student from Chatham University where I teach emailed to ask if I could contribute to a bake sale.

The words “bake sale” immediately escorted nostalgia into the room. I remembered church bake sales from my youth. I remembered high school sports team bake sales, and I remembered—of course—my various stops at bake sales set up on sidewalks and in halls over the years. The picking up of a bundle of snickerdoodle cookies or those wonderful omnipresent sheet pan brownies with the thick chocolate frosting on top? Yum.

What is it about this simple concept that melts our frozen hearts? I think it connects to the honest labor of a person baking in his or her kitchen and then sharing this kind of private domesticity with the greater world. A bake sale is like sharing a whole bunch of tasty secrets. Plus, the act of buying the item(s) carries on good intentions for a cause the organization (and you—by extension) believes in.

For Chatham’s bake sale I made Chocolate Chip Cookies with thyme, molasses, and sea salt–a perfect excuse to pull out the sheet pans and mixer. I worked from this recipe posted at Desserts for Breakfast. The fresh thyme is a subtle accent here–not overpowering–and mixes well with the chocolate and molasses.

This sale’s proceeds benefited Le LyHayslip’s Global Village Foundation. The graduate students are trying to provide two mobile libraries in rural Vietnam. (Chatham MFA students will be traveling to Vietnam this April and May as part of their annual field study.)

Through donations, “the whole thing raised $647!” poet and bake sale organizer, Jessica Server, said. “All in all, I’m thrilled we did so well. I can’t wait to see the final product when we travel in April.”

For me, baking the cookies wasn’t the end of my contribution. I felt a need for packaging. I like to think about presentation with my food, and so I used wax sandwich bags and garden twine to wrap the cookies in bundles of three. I then made bright green handwritten tags for them.

I know Christina and Leslie also think about food and food presentation. How we communicate via the food we eat and share. Christina has recently attended some food swaps in San Francisco. Here’s a photo of her offering and what she scored at an event.

“Since landing in the San Francisco area, I’ve been overwhelmed by the brush fire of collaboration spreading around food,” Christina said. “What makes it so compelling is that resource sharing, whether formal or informal, is making its way into every facet of food production, consumption, and distribution.”

As I baked my cookies, computer propped on my kitchen table, I continued this larger food conversation with my friends. Christina wants to put together a food event when she visits Pittsburgh in April. Leslie and I are going to help. As Leslie noted, “Pittsburgh is such a community-minded city that new ideas for creating connections always seem to be so well received. And, personally, I am always excited for any opportunity to geek out over good food with anyone who enjoys it as much as I do!” Me too.

Below is a meal that we cooked together at Christina’s house.

Ironically, as I put this blog post together, an email landed in my inbox from another mutual Pittsburgh food friend (it’s a small, big city), Becky Utech Gaugler. Becky helps run Pittsburgh’s Soup N’At. At this event eaters raise funds for local art events via home-cooked meals of soup and bread. Great idea? Yes!

In this email she forwarded the site eatfeastly my way and suggested that someone (she was thinking, maybe, me) should start this kind of event here where specialty homemade meals are cooked up and served in a variety of cook’s homes. Members of the group show up to eat together, but they don’t necessarily previously know each other.

Food is in the air is what I’m saying. The idea of how to make it from scratch, how to find it, and how to have a real experience while eating it. How many ways can we shake this up and still end up with the cozy feeling the words bake sale provide?

“Food swapping could be a real opportunity to put very different people in the same room with one another and get a true taste of the values and personalities that lace their way through our communities,” Christina said. “In the longer run, I think the value of a food swap lays in creating public events where we bring very different people together to introduce and expose ourselves to unexpected, invisible or forgotten ways of approaching food.”

Further resources:

FoodHub
Slow Food
Forage SF
SF FoodSwappers
Three Stone Hearth
La Cocina
Culture Kitchen

Sneezing. Coughing. Slumping. Napping. Groggy-headed thinking. That has been my winter. Because of this day-to-day reality, my blog writing has suffered. I apologize.

I’m back now–cautiously healthy and cooking/baking up a storm. I thought I’d share with you some of the foods I ate while sick that made me feel so much better.

Spicy Hot Cold Soup

This Mother Jones recipe was forwarded to me by the wonderful Alice Julier who directs the Food Studies program at Chatham University. It is spicy and comforting and a forgiving recipe that you can make even while you’re sick—with success.

Ginger-Honey Tea

My writer friend Josh Barkan recommended this one. (People can be so nice when you’re sick. I had food suggestions coming in left and right.) Fill a pan with water, add a chunk of fresh ginger. Bring to a boil and then simmer until the water gets a little cloudy. Add honey to taste. Add a slice of lemon if you have one on hand. Drink. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

Take-Out Indian Food from India Garden, Atwood Street, Pittsburgh, Pa.

Because I couldn’t keep up my usual cooking tendencies and Rick has been too busy to cook, he would call mid-day to see if I was still sniffing and hacking, and then ask what kind of take-out would make me feel better. I found eating spicy Palak Paneer a somewhat miraculous experience for the congested. Right now, I feel India Garden in Pittsburgh’s Oakland neighborhood has the best version of this dish. Creamy and spicy and super-intensely spinachy with chunks of homemade cheese, Rick swears it IS what sent me down the road to recovery. We added garlic nan to the order.

Coconut Chowder with butternut squash and pear

The creaminess comes from coconut milk, so this soup doesn’t clog up a barely operational sinus system. I found this recipe by following the Vegetarian Times on Pinterest. It is thin and beautiful and helps to give the sick both nutrients and hope for the future.

Flowers

True, these are not food. But the emotional up from the fresh-cut flowers that Rick toted in is worth noting. Glancing up from the crumple I was on the couch to see yellow tea roses or gleeful sunflowers let me know the world was still a stable and optimistic place. I recommend the flowers. I do.

I pulled a container of homemade sauerkraut from the sack, then I pulled out a hunk of local cheese. I had already made fresh rye bread, and thus the sauerkraut-cheddar-rye grilled cheese was born.

It’s true. I’m a little obsessed with the winter CSA we’ve signed up for from Kretschmann’s Farms this year. I like the food challenge of pulling together meals from the surprises in the box.

Our latest CSA led right to today’s improvisation. I added a smear of grainy mustard before grilling and wound up with the perfect winter sandwich.

The fire roars in the wood-burning stove as the first real snowstorm of 2012 begins. I’m settled into my chair, thinking about parsnips. I’m thinking (in all honesty) about how I don’t like them.

I eat most things non-meat, it’s true. But each year I manage to carefully avoid a few root vegetables. As I unpacked this past week’s CSA box and nestled its contents into the fridge, I knew I had some cooking thinking to do.

I’ve been reading through Didi Emmons’ new book Wild Flavors, and I’ve trusted her recipes for quite some time from Entertaining for a Veggie Planet. I figured if anyone could get me to like the parsnip, it was her. And there it was on p. 24:  Vegan Parsnip and Wild Mushroom Pie. Here, parsnips are combined with (and slightly diluted by) potatoes in a garlicky mash, nestled above some nicely sautéed mushrooms and topped with a good amount of tangy caramelized onions—all with the crunch of 100% whole wheat crust. (A little time consuming to make, but worth it.)

A parsnip win. Textured and tasty, the pie kept well for easily transportable leftovers. Parsnips down. Turnips and cabbage to go.

I faced the three white turnips head-on with Puree of Turnip soup. Drizzled with a little rosemary-arugula oil that I had leftover from a successful Brussels Sprouts experiment, the soup looked elegant but packed a nice hardiness. The turnips are sauteed in butter with a white wine reduction and then spiced simply with freshly ground white peppercorns and sea salt.

With a hunk of whole-grain bread, the soup made an excellent lunch, and then with a lightly dressed arugula salad—a great dinner.

With the big head of cabbage, my husband Rick chipped in and made a slow-cooker cabbage soup with cannellini beans and lots of oily onions. Once again, the contrasting textures really interested me.

But Rick’s soup didn’t do-in the full head of cabbage, and so I decided to try a recipe recommendation from my old housemate, Christopher–cabbage juice. Specifically, cabbage (4 c.), avocado, parsley (handful), and a granny smith apple juice.

A juice revelation. Refreshing with a creamy, interesting sweetness and a truly lovely shade of green that helped to combat Pittsburgh’s winter gray skies.

The Winter CSA not only keeps me in touch with what is local right now in Western Pennsylvania, but also creates a kind of kitchen improvisation every other week where I’m given mystery vegetables that I both love and don’t—and then forced to marry them in recipes. A really great challenge for a seasoned cook and baker or anyone interested in learning more about food, one box at a time.

Recipe

Puree of Turnip Soup

1 lb white turnips, cut into 1/2 in. chunks

1 medium onion, chopped

2 garlic cloves, smashed

2 Tbls Sweet butter

Dash of olive oil

1 Medium potato, cut into 1/4 in. chunks

1/2 c. Dry white wine

3-4 c. Vegetable stock

White peppercorns, freshly ground

Sea salt

Melt the butter and dash of olive oil in a big soup pot over medium heat. Add the onions and turnips and saute for 5 minutes or until the onions are translucent. Add the white wine, bring to a boil, and then simmer until half-reduced, about 3 minutes. Add the stock and the potatoes, bring to a boil and simmer 15-2o minutes until the potato is not crunchy, but not mushy.

Remove from heat and puree in a blender or food processor. Return to pot, season, and simmer for 5 more minutes–adding more stock or water to reach the consistency you’d like.

The drizzle:

1/2 c. Extra virgin olive oil

3 Tbls. fresh rosemary, roughly chopped

Handful Arugula, roughly chopped

1/4 c. Fresh parsley, chopped

1 Garlic clove, smashed

1/4 + tsp salt

Freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Combine everything in a food processor until the mix leans toward a vibrant shade of green. (This drizzle is great as salad dressing or on anything, really.)

My recent exceptional improvisational lunch was due, in part, to our new Winter CSA from Kretschmann Organic Farms, located in Rochester, Pa.

The thing about a CSA is that it encourages you to eat vegetables in different quantities than you might choose otherwise. This is how I came to have an extraordinary amount of roasted beets in my refrigerator. Beets are great. They’re pretty and nutritious and tasty. And so this afternoon I thought: Hmmm… Grilled cheese?

Over the holidays my husband Rick had purchased a variety of cheeses at our beloved cheese counter, Pennsylvania Macaroni in Pittsburgh’s Strip District–one being the amazing Cambozola Bleu. This isn’t an in-your-face stinky bleu, but more of a tap you on the shoulder and nudge you a little so you move over in your seat kind of cheese. It’s good, I mean. Especially good…that’s right…with beets.

I sliced up some ciabatta bread, added thinly sliced bleu topped with a layer of thinly sliced beets. Colorful and crunchy with a tiny attitude.

Once a month I get together with friends to eat and play music. We call it Hoot Night. Johnny Cash, Hank Williams, Gillian Welch–I’m learning to play the ukelele. This month we decided to make our get-together a hoot-potluck-cookie exchange.

The cookie exchange concept is really efficient. Everyone makes one batch of cookies (about 3-4 dozen), brings them to the party, and then they’re divvied up into appealing sampler plates. Each person heads home with a nice variety of treats. It’s a great way to taste new recipes and get baking ideas from your friends.

I decided to bake one of my go-to recipes: Cashew Shortbread from Mollie Katzen’s The Enchanted Broccoli Forest. It’s easy. The cookies are delicious and shapely and buttery, like you dream about.

In all, we had some beautiful Mandelbrodt, peanut butter cookies, savory Stilton-Walnut crackers, and Stollen. We learned how to play “Jinglebell Rock,” “Blue Christmas,” and “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus.” We ate butternut squash soup, bread, and salad along with a fine pitcher of celebratory Manhattans.

Ho, ho, ho.

Recipe:

Cashew Shortbread

• 1 c. Unsalted butter
• 1/2 c. Brown sugar, packed
• 1 c. Cashews, finely chopped in a food processor
• 2 c. Flour
• 1/4 tsp. Sea salt
• 1/2 tsp. Baking powder

Preheat the oven to 350. Cream together the butter and sugar on med-high mixer speed until fluffy. Add the cashews. Mix well. Next, combine the dry ingredients in a separate bowl. Add to the creamed mixture on low until just mixed. The dough will be a little crumbly. Don’t refrigerate–just dig right in. Knead the dough a few times to get it smooth, and then carefully roll out until it’s about 1/4 inch thick (sprinkling flour on your surface and on the rolling pin to prevent sticking). Cut into fun shapes with a cookie cutter or a drinking glass. Place on an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake between 7-10 minutes, until the edges are just browning. Let sit on the cookie sheet for a few minutes before moving to cooling racks. (I find they tend to break if I move them right out of the oven.) Makes about 4 dozen delicious cookies.

In the colder months I bake bread once a week. Since I work from home most of the time, it’s pretty easy to incorporate the mixing, kneading, rising, and baking into my schedule. (The whole process takes about 3 hours.) Plus, when it’s really cold I get to turn on the oven for bonus heat in the kitchen! For those of you with a 9-5:00 schedule, winter weekend mornings are a great time to let the bread dough lead the way.

Each December I bake something delicious to give to friends and family for holiday presents. Some years it’s cookies (See last week’s Chocolate Ginger Snap post); some years it’s traditional Christmas stollen, while others I get into the whole rhythmic process of making a bunch of yeasted breads.

When this urge hits me, I turn to the recipe for “Sesame-Oat Cinnamon Swirl Bread” from Beatrice Ojakangas Great Whole Grain Breads Cookbook (p. 127). The bread itself has a fantastic texture—the oats combined with the toasted sesame seeds and wheat flour. Sprinkling the cinnamon and rolling it up adds a festive, fun touch to the process.

If that’s not enough: it smells DELICIOUS as it’s baking. I advise my giftees to toast slices to recreate the great smell. Instant nostalgia. Nice.

I like this cinnamon loaf compared to other recipes because it isn’t sweet—and this quality only serves to highlight the excellent cinnamony nature of the bread.

Give it a try.

Recipe:

(I’ve adapted this slightly from Ojakangas’ original)

• 1 ½ c. Boiling water
• 1 c. Oats (quick or old-fashioned)
• ½ c. Sesame seeds
• ¼ c. Unsalted butter, cold
• 1 Tbls (one package) Active dry yeast
• ½ c. Warm water
• ½ c. Brown sugar, packed
• 2 tsp. Sea salt
• 1 c. Whole wheat flour
• 3 c. Unbleached white flour
• 1 Tbls. Ground cinnamon

Combine the boiling water and the oats in a big mixing bowl. Set aside. In the meantime, toast the sesame seeds in a small frying pan, about 3-5 minutes (until the seeds begin to pop). Stir the seeds into the warm oat mixture. Add the cold butter to the mixture. It will melt and cool the mixture at the same time.

In a separate small bowl dissolve the yeast in the warm tap water. Add the brown sugar. Let stand for 5 minutes until the yeast turns frothy on top. Add the salt and the cooled oat mixture.

Add the whole wheat flour and (by hand) beat in the white flour until you have a stiff dough. (You may need to add up to an additional 1/2 c. of white flour if your dough seems wet.) Let rest for 15 minutes.

Turn the rested dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead for 10 minutes, until smooth and satiny. Kneading is fun, and it’s great exercise for your forearms!

Wash your big bowl, add a drop or two of oil (I use olive oil), add dough to bowl, turn over to grease top. Cover and let rise for about an hour—until it’s doubled in size.

Punch the dough down and divide in half. Roll each half out to make a rectangle (about 8×12 in.). Sprinkle each half with half of the cinnamon.

Roll up tightly. Seal the seams and ends.

Grease two loaf pans. (I use canola oil). Place the loaves into the pans. Let rise until doubled, about another hour.

Heat oven to 375. Bake until the loaves are golden and sound hollow when tapped on their bottoms. About 30-35 minutes. You don’t want to under-bake these loaves or they will deflate and crinkle on top.

Remove from pans and cool on wire racks. Yum. This recipe makes two standard loaves, but it’s easily doubled.