My Favorite Chard

Ah, chard season again. We are frantically cooking up all the spinach, chard, and beet greens our garden is producing. The owl cats will eat spinach hidden in cheese-laden dishes, but they are suspicious of the rest--so this recipe is adult food, at least in our house.

This is an inexact recipe. Use what chard you have at your disposal--or substitute spinach. Just keep in mind that the greens cook down a lot.

Ingredients
A bunch of chard, washed, and chopped, but not dried
A glug of olive oil (maybe 2-3 teaspoons)
A clove or so of garlic, quartered
A handful of cranberries or raisins (golden are nice)
A handful of pinenuts, toasted if desired.
Salt to taste
Fresh lemon juice or balsamic vinegar, optional

Heat oil in skillet over medium heat and toss in garlic quarters. After they turn golden, remove them and discard. Throw in chard, and cover skillet. Cook until tender. Top with nuts and dried fruit. Optional: I love to drizzle a bit of lemon juice or balsamic vinegar over the top.

Potato Bread

One potato, two potato, three potato, four...

I am a sucker for farmers selling fresh produce, so when one pulled up to my house a couple of weeks ago selling his Idaho russets, I bought them. He promised they would last two months.

Hah.

They are sprouting.

We are eating potatoes at least twice a day. This has been the best use so far, potato bread from Beth at A Year in Bread. That is a pretty awesome bread blog.

My alterations: I followed her recipe, but halved the salt since my mashed potatoes were salted (since they were leftovers). I also threw in 1/4 cup sugar.

What we thought: We ate three loaves in three days.

When toasted, it tastes like dessert--especially if you top it with Nutella or plum jam.

Quick Vegetable Lasagna

The ethical issue with this recipe is, do you tell your children that they are devouring mushrooms and zucchini and begging for more? Or do you keep that little secret to yourself?

This isn't an issue for my sister L.W. who gave me this recipe since her children (enviably) beg for zucchini as such.

Vegetable Lasagna

With practice you can put this together in less than 30 minutes--now that is quick for lasagna--unless you really want to put that stuff from the frozen aisle into your body. Do remember to let the lasagna sit 15 minutes after baking so that you are not slurping lasagna soup.

1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 cup chopped onion
3 cloves minced garlic
3 cups sliced zucchini (about 2 medium)
2 cups sliced mushrooms (about 8 oz.)
1 28-oz jar spaghetti sauce (or homemade, but then how quick would it be?)
1 teaspoon oregano
2 teaspoons basil
1 16-oz container ricotta or cottage cheese
1 cup Parmesan cheese
1 egg, optional
8 oz. lasagna noodles
2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
chopped parsley

0. Heat oven to 350 degrees.
1. Heat oil in skillet. Add onion. When tender, add garlic, just letting it hit the pan and sizzle for maybe 10 seconds. Add zucchini and mushrooms and saute until tender. Add spaghetti sauce, basil, and oregano. Simmer 15 minutes.
2. In a separate bowl mix ricotta or cottage cheese, egg (if using), and Parmesan cheese. (I quite like the texture of mixing them in my food processor.)
3. In a 9 x 13 pan layer 1/3 sauce, 1/2 noodles, 1/2 cheese mixture, and 1/2 mozzarella cheese. Repeat, ending with sauce. Sprinkle parsley on top. Alternatively, you can cover the top with mozzarella if hiding the vegetables will make them more likely to be eaten.
4. Cover tightly with aluminum foil. Bake covered 45 minutes. Remove foil and bake 15 minutes longer. Let stand 15 minutes before serving.

Note: Can also be made day before and refrigerated until baking. It usually takes 10-15 extra minutes of cooking time.

Easter Egg Radishes

I pulled out the last of my radishes last week. Isn't this variety gorgeous?

Some favorite uses for radishes:

• green salads, especially with a rice vinegar dressing
• tacos
• dipped in mayonnaise and salt
• radish sandwiches

That's right. Radish sandwiches. The last two uses are from my mother, who had me eating radishes (often the more mild white icicle radishes) as a toddler with mayonnaise.

Best Chocolate Cake for High Altitudes Yet

This year I decided to perfect the high-altitude from-scratch cake. Owl was very supportive of this New Year's Resolution. (He likes baking goals better than my occasional threat to ban sugar.)

Today I hesitated as to whether I wanted to make a cake. He said, "I don't think you're all that serious about this food blog."

What?!?

Ah...then I realized he was playing with my mind. Well, it worked. He got his cake.

This is a very good chocolate cake for high altitudes--the best I've found yet. Those of you who bake way up here know that often (even with the best of intentions) you end up with frisbee cakes or sucken centers that require some serious frosting action in the middle to cover it up. Or if they don't fall, they can be dry.

Unless you use a cake mix. But I'll get to discussing that later.

Hershey's High Altitude Chocolate Cake

Hershey's has adjustments at the bottom of their recipe, which made me feel singled out as abnormal. High-altitude bakers can be very sensitive. If you are blessed to bake at sea level, see the recipe here.

1-3/4 cups sugar
1-3/4 cups plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
3/4 cup cocoa
1-1/4 teaspoons baking powder
1-1/4 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup boiling water

1. Heat oven to 375°F. (Vital temperature change.) Grease and flour two 9-inch round pans or one 13x9x2-inch baking pan.

2. Stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt in large bowl. Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla; beat on medium speed of electric mixer 2 minutes. Stir in boiling water (batter will be thin). Pour batter into prepared pans.

3. Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until wooden pick or handy-dandy cake thermometer inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes, then remove from pans to wire racks. Cool completely. (Cake may be left in rectangular pan, if desired.)

4. Frost if desired. I used this recipe, also from Hershey's, but for a different cake.

What we thought: This cake was very easy to make and required only the most basic ingredients, which is what I want for my go-to cake. It was very moist. It had the perfect domed top that did not fall. The chocolate flavor was very good. Owl did fault it that it wasn't as moist as carrot cake, but the man (or bird, I guess) could live on carrot cake. I mean, he faults my lasagna that it doesn't taste like carrot cake.

I have also tried Susan Purdy's recipe, a high altitude recipe from a state extension, and a Pillsbury recipe with adjustments. This was by far the best. Let me say, that this is, again, in competition with basic chocolate cakes.

And no, Hershey didn't give me the old payola here. They don't even know I exist.

Cool summer breakfast: Soaked raw buckwheat with fresh fruit

This is like raw granola, according to my friend L.N. She eats it with yogurt and fruit.

We tried out raw buckwheat last week when we went on a three-day vegan cleanse (more on that later, including why Owl would ever do such a thing). Thus, we omitted the yogurt. I tried it with rice milk, but it was better without.

Soaked Raw Buckwheat

Buy buckwheat groats at a natural foods store. I paid just over a dollar per pound.

1/3 cup buckwheat groats per serving
Fresh fruit
Tepid water to cover

1. 30-60 minutes before you want to eat breakfast, rinse the buckwheat in a fine strainer. Leave it in the strainer and place in a larger bowl. Cover with water.
2. Let soak for 30-60 minutes. (Just the right amount of time to fit in some exercise!)
3. Lift the strainer out of the water. The water will have turned a bit brownish and goopy. Do not be alarmed. This is supposed to happen.
4. Two options here, depending on your feeling about the matter, because I've read both are true:

• Rinse the goopy buckwheat, believing that this helps digestion.
• Don't rinse the goopy buckwheat, believing that this helps digestion.

5. Your buckwheat is softened and ready to eat.

What we thought: We would definitely eat this again. The buckwheat had a nice nutty flavor. Owl says he could have it every other week. I could eat it more often, especially in the summer. The kids wouldn't touch it, so we don't know if they would like it.

Variation: Another morning we tried the soaked buckwheat blended with dates, rice milk, and cinnamon, then topped with pumpkin seeds. It made for a more oatmeal-like consistency. I thought it was fine, but Owl had the good-willed grimace he sometimes has when something is off. It tasted more autumnal than I was feeling on a June morning, so I'll try it again then.

Buttermilk pancakes

Pancakes are simple. You need a cup of flour, a cup of milk, an egg, and some oil, leavening, and salt. The batter is just thick enough to hold the bubbles as you cook it over a hot griddle, but just thin enough that it cooks quickly.

You can do better than the simple recipe if you give the pancakes just enough gluten to stay together but not so much that it gets tough and chewy. Most cookbooks will tell you to mix the dry ingredients separately from the wet, and to leave the batter lightly lumpy. This is because stirring works on the gluten, and too much stirring toughens the pancakes up. (You want that in bread, so you knead it. What’s good for the bread is bad for the pancake.) But if you leave the gluten out entirely, you’ll have pancakes that don’t want to stay together when you flip them.

So I make my pancakes with some oats (which have a soft and subtle flavor) and low-gluten “soft” wheat. I also use a thick milk—cultured buttermilk—so I can cut back on the flour. (Yogurt can also work, but I haven’t had as much success with it.) This works out to be an optimal balance for me. If I don’t have low-gluten flour, I use a little cornstarch in place of some of the flour (the long starch molecules can help bind the pancakes together). Because buttermilk is acidic, I use baking soda to leaven it. Baking powder doesn’t do much with an acidic batter.

I cook them on a cast iron, which gives the outside an almost pastry-like crust. Cat and I have a ceramic cooktop, and we feel we’re tempting fate every time we put the cast iron on it. I don’t turn it up quite as high as I’d like, but it still beats—by far—any electric griddle I’ve used. (It also mottles the pancake’s face more than a non-stick surface. Compare the picture above with almost every pancake glamor shot.) I also use a glass bowl to stir it. That way I can see if there are any hidden clumps of flour, and stir the batter very little and very gently.

Some people separate the eggs. I haven’t seen the benefit. If you do, go ahead. Before I could afford buttermilk, I mixed acid (lemon juice or vinegar) into the milk to make substitute buttermilk. I really don’t think that’s worth it, nor do I see the benefit of adding vanilla. Sourdough pancakes are too chewy for me, and yeast pancakes are too, well, yeasty. Both leavening techniques are better for waffles. When my pancakes come out just right, I wonder why I bother eating anything else. Grandpa used to mix licorice flavor into the batter. I recommend that only to the nostalgic.

This, then, is the recipe I follow, the one that works for me. Experiment, and let me know what works for you.

Buttermilk Pancakes
Why eat anything else?
Prep time: about 15 minutes. You get faster if you make them every day.
Dry stuff:
½ cup rolled oats
1¼ cup soft wheat flour
½ tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt

I mix this up with an immersion blender, which partially grinds the oats. When I don’t have soft wheat I use hard wheat, and use corn starch for the last ¼ cup flour. You could try other grains in place of the oats. I’m not very exact on the salt (I use the ½ tsp measure to save on dishes, filling it about half full), and I may well use less.

Wet stuff:
2 cups cultured buttermilk
2 eggs
1 glug oil (probably somewhere between ⅛ and ¼ cup)—or, better, melted butter

Mix this up.

Pour the wet stuff into the dry stuff. Fold until there are no more pockets of flour.

Put it on a hot griddle, medium to medium-high heat. I use the ½ cup measure, since that’s what I’ve dirtied. It makes pancakes bigger than most people are used to.
Eat them hot, just as they come off. Do not wait until they're all done to start eating. I love them with salted butter and grade B maple syrup, or with full-fat plain yogurt and fresh berries or peaches. The owlcats love them with applesauce.

The Marshmallow Experiment

Our two young offspring (hereafter called owl-cats) really like watching this experiment. (Poor dears, we have tried all sorts of child development experiments on them, including this one. Owl even stuck his tongue out at his newborn to see if he would mimic his face.)

We were excited to hear that a longitudinal study on the kids in the original Stanford experiment showed that in adulthood the children who could wait for the marshmallows were happier--and healthier. We explained this to the owl-cats, and the oldest asked,

"But why were they healthier? They ate more marshmallows!"

Good question.

What to do with chive blossoms: Chive vinegar

Flavored vinegars perk up all sorts of dishes, and this one is so very easy.

All you do is pack a jar with the blossoms (pinch them off the stalk) and pour vinegar over. I used plain white vinegar because it is oh so cheap, but if you have it around, white wine vinegar would be oh so nice. I've left mine in the kitchen window, and even after a few hours, the vinegar has turned a beautiful dark pink. After a couple of weeks I will drain the blossoms out and leave it in the dark pantry for a bit.

A note about jars: A quart canning jar is going to be easiest, but not the prettiest. Once you drain the blossoms, you could put it in a fancier jar, but whatever you do, don't hide this pretty-in-pink vinegar in a dark jar.