Braciole for the New Year: Fancy Peasant Food

 My favorite Christmas gift this year was the book Frankies Spuntino: Kitchen Companion & Cooking Manual, a cookbook that is more a "how to make your own fine Italian restaurant" by Peter Meehan and the two Frankies (Frank Falcinelli and Frank Castronovo) behind Frankies Spuntino restaurants in New York. It was a gift from Steve's daughter Catherine and her boyfriend Homer, who enjoy my cooking and garden. Homer's mother, a native New Yorker now living in Brooklyn, is famous for her Saturday market routine, which involves rising very early to get to the farmers' market by 6 a.m. and then traveling all over the city for various goods. I'm not an early riser, but I'd like to think that the next time I'm in New York, if things align, I could accompany her.

My own two years in Brooklyn (1989-91) were very important to me in terms of my food experience. I was in my mid-twenties, in graduate school, living in Park Slope above a video store on 7th Avenue. I'd walk to 4th Avenue to the first real fish market I ever encountered (as a Midwesterner, not surprising). It had a screen door that slammed shut behind customers with a slap like a summer cabin in the Catskil
ls.

I tried to recreate dishes I had at the local restaurants, including the pasta primavera with seafood at an Italian restaurant down the street. My friends Frances Storey and Jim Mindnich introduced me to more good food and some tucked away places that were cheap, ethnic and delicious. They lived in Carroll Gardens, and I could ride my bike to their loft, where we often had Sunday dinner and a movie. I particularly loved riding my bike home afterward through the quiet but still active neighborhood streets.

Shortly after I began reading the book, I became fixated on one particular dish: the braciole (pronounced bra-JOEL, with joel pronounced like a French name with a soft 'j'). It's peasant food, a cheap cut of pork tenderly prepared and cooked in simmering tomato sauce for three hours. It's the Italian brisket, that other great peasant food, that makes a masterpiece out of a fatty piece of gristly meat. I couldn't wait to try it, and set my sights on New Year's Eve.

I loved everything about making this meal, including gathering the ingredients. I went to our local fine grocery, Byerly's, for the white pepper and the Italian tomatoes. I used two cans of LaValle tomatoes, which at $2.59 a can were a luxury-- and were the most luxurious, sensuous canned tomatoes I've ever had the pleasure of crushing between my fingers. I added two jars of my own canned tomatoes, draining off a bit of the water. The tomato sauce consists of olive oil, 18 cloves of garlic (13 but I used 5 more), salt and the tomatoes. I started it cooking at 2:30, thinking I needed four hours, but really I should have started even earlier. As soon as I finished the chocolate tart at noon I should have started it simmering, but I'll know better next time.

I bought the pork roast, a boneless butt, a while ago from Newmans farm, a couple who sell their meat at our farmer's market. Not sure it was the same as "boneless pork shoulder," I stopped by the meat market and asked for just that. They said, "Oh, you'd want a boneless butt roast," looking kind of dubious about it. I told them that I had one of those, bought some local Gruyere (the recipe called for aged provolone, but I just love this Gruyere, and it is locally made), and left. I realized the butcher's puzzled look when I cut into the roast. It's a cheap cut of meat, quite fatty. The Newmans sold it to me along with a finer cut of pork, suggesting I roast them together. The fat from one would help keep them both moist. I'm glad I found a better method of cooking it than throwing it in a pot with some liquid and hoping for the best.

You cut the roast in 6 filets, butterfly them and stuff them with cheese, parsley, salt, pepper and garlic, then roll and tie them with kitchen twine. After the tomato sauce has simmered an hour or two (in my case, 45 minutes) you "tuck them into the sauce" and simmer for three more hours. You skim the grease off the top (a combination of pork fat and the olive oil) and let the meat sit a half hour before putting it over pasta, slathering it with sauce, and serving it.

The only question-- the big question-- is, will it be worth it? For me, it was a lovely afternoon. I proofed the galleys of the book while making trips to stir the sauce, breaks to prepare the shaved raw Brussels sprouts  and dressing, have a little wine, stir the sauce again, have a glass of Pellegrino, etc.

Tim and Annie came for dinner, and I have to say, yes, it was worth it. I will make this again, definitely. As peasant food goes, it's the fanciest, and it was tender, flavorful, and really not difficult at all. Fun, even. With some dinner rolls, the Brussels sprouts and chocolate tart, it was a wonderful meal, and we all left the table stuffed and satisfied. My brother had provided the wine from Portugal, a 2008 Quinta de Infantado, full-bodied and smooth.

For me, this meal was the perfect end to 2011. It captured so much of what I've tried to incorporate into my life this year: my garden tomatoes, organic Brussels sprouts from the Minnesota Market Co-op in St. Joseph, local meat and cheese from the meat market and farmers' market. It was slow-cooked with love and delight and served to family in my warm and festive kitchen, preceded by some homemade cheese and crackers.

My goal for 2012 is to visit the actual Frankies Spuntino in Carroll Gardens and check out the braciole in person. They say the biggest compliment they get from Italian Americans is "it tastes like mine," which means it is as good as mama made it back in the day. Perfection would be to have Frances and Jim come with me, but that is mostly a New Year's wish, with thoughts of old friends and good times in places far away. 

Happy New Year, everyone. May it be a good one for us all.

Chicken Thighs, Sausage, Kale and White Bean Stew

I've resisted putting this recipe up, mostly because it's just slightly adapted from where I found it, on the blog "My Communal Table." Here's the original post. It's a great blog, where the author not only has tons of great recipes, but she also gives you a monthly rundown on how much she spent on food that month and how many people she fed with the money.

I am not a slowcooker person, but I made this on the stovetop in November and immediately knew I wanted to make it for Christmas Eve. Our tradition is to have the folks who live on the farm over for Christmas Eve dinner, something hearty and warming. In the past Steve's made deep-dish pizza, lasagna and his amazing gumbo, but all of these take quite a bit of time to prepare. With this dish, all you need is some good bread and butter and you have a great meal. Add a salad, cheese before dinner and a big plate of Christmas cookies after, and you've got a real winner of a dinner party.

The other major change I made was to switch out the pasta for white beans. I also added mushrooms, just because I love mushrooms in stew. I also have not been able to find smoked turkey necks, and the mushrooms might add a bit of something to the broth. Mostly, though, the smoked hot Italian sausage is what rocks the broth.

The Heymans family has gotten so large and multi-generational, that Christmas is becoming difficult. There were rumblings about not all getting together on Christmas Day this year, and it looks like those will continue. This dish would actually work even on Christmas Day, though I wouldn't want to make it for 30! Even for 10, I had a little "overflow" pan which has become the leftovers. You're going to want leftovers.

Chicken Thighs, Sausage, Kale and White Bean Stew

1 medium onion, diced
1 8 oz package mushrooms, sliced
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 package of chicken thighs
1 package smoked, hot Italian sausage links/brats
white wine
chicken broth
2 cans white beans (canneloni, great northern, etc)
2 bunches of kale
dash of red pepper
generous helping of rosemary
salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 275 degrees. Begin by browning the chicken thighs and brats and put them aside. In a small amount of the chicken/brat grease, saute the onion, garlic and mushrooms with red pepper and rosemary 8-10 minutes, until translucent and giving up their juices. Layer the chicken thighs, sausage and half the kale, add the white wine and chicken broth (to cover the chicken thighs or less if you want less broth) and bake in the oven for 2+ hours. I'm paranoid about chicken so end up turning the heat up at the end just to make sure. Add the beans and the rest of the kale in the last 15 minutes or so, salt and pepper and more rosemary to taste. The broth is so tasty, you'll want bread to sop it up.

Enjoy!

Thai Curry Butternut Squash Soup

I apologize for not having a photo of this one, as it was a beautiful soup, but my camera battery is dead!

I do want to make this soup again (Steve says is up there with gumbo and potato leek as the top three), so I'll get the recipe down even without a photo. Also, it is a unique soup. I couldn't find a recipe quite like it and ended up improvising a bit.

I'm not a fan of butternut squash, which I think is bland and takes way too much preparation work. However, they're REALLY easy to grow and I have a lot of them. In past years they've gone mouldy and soft in the basement, so this year I am determined to do a few things differently. First, I will cut up two at a time when using one and freeze the leftover squash for later recipes. Second, I resolved to find a butternut squash soup I liked.

I knew I wanted a curry soup, but couldn't find one with Indian curry powder that sounded very complex or interesting. The curry powder seemed like an afterthought, and the recipe couldn't help adding nutmeg as well. I know nutmeg is used in Indian food, but I really wanted to avoid the whole pumpkin pie squash thing. Having used the technique of throwing in curry powder to spice up a potato-cheese soup, I didn't want to go that route.

I did find an interesting curry squash soup recipe in Asparagus to Zucchini, a cookbook produced by the Madison, Wisconsin area CSAs. It was too complex, with kaffir limes, curry leaves and lemongrass, which I don't generally have, but it was a start. Here's what I made in the end, and it was really exceptional-- beautiful, tasty and not difficult once the squash was diced.

Thai Curry Butternut Squash Soup
1 Tbs vegetable oil
1 medium onion, diced
1 Tbs red curry paste
5 cups diced butternut squash
1 can chicken broth (or vegetable) plus 1/2 cup water (approx 3 cups)
1 cup coconut milk (my coconut milk was pretty separated... I used maybe 1/2 cup and then 1/2 cup regular milk)
1/2 cup fish sauce (Don't leave this out! I am squeamish about it, so gave a first good shot, then tasted and added another long squeeze of the bottle.)
salt to taste
cilantro (for garnish)

Saute the curry paste in the vegetable oil for 30 seconds in a soup pot and add diced onion. Saute until translucent, about 10 minutes. Meanwhile, in a large pot of boiling water, boil the diced squash for 8-10 minutes until soft. Drain. Add squash, broth and coconut milk to the pot. Simmer for 10-15 minutes, then puree with an immersion blender (or in batches in a regular blender) and add fish sauce. Simmer another five minutes and add salt to taste. I did also add a few shakes of a "Thai seasoning blend" I got on clearance when World Market went out of business in town. I believe it has ginger and red pepper mostly, maybe also some lemongrass powder. Lemon grass powder (or whole) and ginger would be good additions to this soup in small measure.

The color of the soup is light, creamy and golden, and it has just the right kick and just the right tang of Thai food. It's still somewhat delicate, so we took the opportunity to open a good Pinot Noir. With good bread, this could easily be a meal. (We had no bread, so I served it with rice, which we dipped in spoonfuls into the soup.)

The best thing is, I have 9 cups of cubed butternut squash in the freezer, so next time I will cut most of the prep!

Squash Stew with Cornbread Dumplings

At the dentist's office yesterday, I was looking at some Better Homes and Garden 30-minute recipes. The one that really got me was for butternut squash. The recipes promised to go from fridge to table in 30 minutes or less. The first instruction was: peel, seed and cube the butternut squash. Uh, 30 minutes are up!

It might not take that long, but at least 20 for a good-sized squash. I'll admit my squash came in at about 4 lbs each, but they're no more difficult to peel and dice than any other. Luckily, I thought ahead on this recipe, knowing I wanted to make it mid-week, and cut the squash up while watching the Minnesota Vikings collapse in the second half for a third straight week on Sunday. So I had a big bowl of cubed squash ready to go.

The recipe is from the book Sacred Food for Soulful Living compiled by the Reverend Ward Bauman. He's my new boss, the director of the Episcopal House of Prayer. If you order the book on the website, I'm the one who will process your order and send it to you!

Ward learned to cook from his mother in California, but he honed his skills and developed his culinary art while living in Iran for 4 1/2 years. He then got a job as the cook at a retreat center in California, where he got very good at cooking for large groups. Now he cooks for many of the retreats at our facility, tasty, vegetarian dishes that are complex and use a lot of cumin and cinnamon.

I have been looking for butternut squash recipes, and decided to try this one because it used so many ingredients I still have from the garden, including the last of the zucchini and poblano peppers. The only thing I didn't have was the basil, so I left it out. I love how the dumplings turned out, baking on top as the zucchini stews. I set the timer for 20 minutes and they were baked perfectly. I do think I should have let it cool a bit more before serving to avoid burning my tongue!

This could use a bit more heat, red pepper maybe, or just more of the spices it calls for. I did put extra cumin in it. It blends wonderfully with the cinnamon. The corn is great in the dumplings, and I might even add some to the stew as well next time. This one is good enough for company, but takes about an hour even with the squash already diced. Also, I didn't realize until just now it should have baked the last 20 minutes. I just left it on the stove with the lid on. However, it did burn a bit on the bottom, not really sticking or giving a bad taste. That wouldn't have happened if I'd baked it like I was supposed to! Also, we ate it with sour cream, which was excellent.

Squash Stew with Cornmeal Dumplings

2 Tbs vegetable oil
5 large cloves of garlic, minced
1 large onion, chopped
2 large poblano peppers, seeded and diced
2 1/2 lbs Roma tomatoes, chopped (I used one quart jar of canned tomatoes)
3 lbs butternut squash, peeled and cut into 1-inch dice
1 1/2 cups vegetable stock
1 Tbs ground cumin
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp oregano
1 1/2 lbs zucchini and summer squash, thickly sliced
1/2 cup basil, chopped
1/2 cup parsley, chopped

Dumplings
1 1/2 cups yellow cornmeal
1/2 cup flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 Tbs sugar
1 tsp salt
1 large egg
3/4 cup milk
3 Tbs butter, melted
1 cup corn kernels, fresh or frozen (thawed)

Saute the onion and garlic in oil until translucent and beginning to brown. Add the chiles, tomatoes, butternut squash, cumin, cinnamon, oregano and stock. Bring to a simmer, cover and cook until squash is tender, about 30 minutes. (Cut up the summer squash and make the dumplings while waiting.) Add the zucchini and summer squash, basil and parsley. Add salt and pepper to taste. Bring to a simmer again.

Spoon the dumplings over the hot vegetables in 8 mounds. Cover tightly, tenting if using foil, avoid touching the dumplings, and bake at 400 degrees until dumplings are firm and dry, about 20 minutes. Do not over-bake or the dumplings will be dry.

Dumplings: Mix together the dry ingredients. Mix together the egg, milk and butter. Mix the two mixtures together well. Stir in the corn kernels. Let stand until the batter is thick enough to hold its shape, about 5 minutes. Drop onto stew as directed.

Serves 12 (I'd make this for 6-8 as a good one-dish meal. As you can see above, we polished off about 1/3 of it easily.)

Zucchini Rice Mexican Style

I get weary of eating zucchini just about the time it starts getting desperate to leave offspring and putting out tons of fruit. But last week I figured out something great to do with it that is easy, delicious and also makes use of the season's peppers and tomatoes. I made it the first time because I had an avocado and leftover green rice, but I've since made it with regular rice.

Zucchini and Rice, Mexican Style

1-2 zucchini grated

1-2 cups cooked rice (Green rice is best, but any rice will do.)

sunflower oil

1 Tbs cilantro or cilantro chutney

1 small hot pepper, seeded and diced (jalapeno or serrano)

1 sliced avocado

2 tomatoes cut into chunks

sour cream

In a skillet, sautee the zucchini in sunflower oil or other vegetable oil (you could also add onion and garlic, of course) until soft and some liquid has evaporated, about 8 minutes. Add rice and diced pepper and heat through. Stir in cilantro chutney. Serve in a bowl topped with avocado, tomatoes and a dollop of sour cream.

Can Do!

I've been off the blog for a week, but I haven't been slacking! In that time I finished up my job at the monastery and have had two days of training and some other work for the book on The Saint John's Bible. But most of all, I've been trying to preserve as much of the harvest as possible!

A friend said she remembered rushes on canning jars in Decatur, Illinois, when she was younger. I thought in this age of big box shopping that wouldn't be possible-- Fleet Farm has jars stacked a mile high and a mile wide. But last night I went to exchange the jelly jars my husband brought home for pint jars I actually needed, and lo and behold, the only ones left had wide-mouth lids. I then passed a woman in the store guarding her cart. It was not a shopping cart but a hand cart they use in Home Depot for heavy supplies. She had it loaded up with more than 12 dozen pint jars. She's cleaned them out and then some!I thought of begging her to trade me one dozen for the wide-mouth jars, but recovered my dignity and moved on. I had already gone out in my rush to get there before the store closed in my Bret Favre Vikings t-shirt I wear when gardening and was feeling vulnerable.

The photo above was taken on Tuesday of the canning I did over the weekend. It includes tomatoes, red salsa, yellow salsa, tomatillo sauce (an experiment), frozen corn (thanks Deb for the sealing system), peach preserves and sweet relish. I'm especially excited about the sweet relish, although it was the most labor intensive.  Since this shot was taken, I've done more salsa, trying to keep up with the cherry tomatoes. I have a whole counter of tomatoes that (Inshallah) will get canned tomorrow, and way too many cucumbers that will hopefully make for a simpler relish and maybe some hamburger/sliced dills (they're too big for straight up dills). For relish, I'm thinking of making sweet pickles and then when it's time just pulsing them in the food processor to make relish. We do eat much more relish (in egg salad, tuna salad, etc) than pickles.

 

Only got about 4 purple cherokee tomatoes, but look at 'em!



Colorado peaches being prepared for peach preserves








peach preserves in the steam canner-- LOVE the steam canner



Summer Harvest

My grocery list these days looks something like this:

red wine vinegar
olive oil
parmesan cheese
pine nuts
sour cream
yogurt
white onions (alas, onions)
jug of vinegar
lemons
limes
avocado

rice

Of course, it also includes cases of PowerAid, chips, lunchmeat and bread for Steve's landscaping lunches, but mostly what I'm buying are things to dress and preserve vegetables. And what a lovely bunch of vegetables they are!

The big season has finally arrived, and I'm harvesting in a bucket instead of a little plastic ice cream pail. Today I went out for cherry tomatoes and came back with a bucket full of cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, 2 zucchini, a ripe, red pepper, and yes, even a handful of beans! And when I went back to get the ancho/poblano peppers for dinner, I found two more good-sized cukes that needed to be picked and could have filled the bucket again with tomatoes, yellow and red and cherry... Tomorrow at the Farmer's Market I'll be buying corn to freeze and hopefully tomatilloes so I can turn these yellow tomatoes into salsa.

Oh, I'm feeling like a gardener now! Tonight, I found two beautiful avocadoes at the market (on special for members, yea!) and was completely inspired. Last night I had made green rice and wanted to do something with shrimp and avocadoes. I searched epicurious.com for "poblanos and shrimp and avocado." I found some suggestions that I expanded on and laid out an amazing table. What you see is green rice (made with poblanos, garlic and garden onion); cherry tomato/chipotle salsa and chips; shrimp marinated in poblano chili sauce of my own adaptation/invention; grilled zucchini and tomatoes; avocado; yellow and red tomatoes dressed with lime juice, olive oil and oregano; sour cream and tortillas. It made very scrumptuous wraps.

Here are the recipes for the green rice and my poblano chili sauce:


Susan's Poblano Chili Sauce

3-4 medium poblano chilis, roasted on the grill until the skins blister, seeded and roughly chopped
1 tsp adobo sauce from a can of chipotle chilis (or more if you want it hot)
3 Tbs lime juice
1 Tbs brown sugar
1 Tbs oregano
1 t rosemary
1 Tbs cumin
2 Tbs olive oil
2 cloves of garlic

Put it all in a food process and puree. It probably made a little over a cup. I used half to marinate shrimp before putting it on the grill and served the other half with the food. It was delicious plain and I wish I had made more!


The green rice recipe made with poblano peppers by Rick Bayless can be found here: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Green-Poblano-Rice-Arroz-Verde-al-Poblano-15367

It is delicious with anything, but I've eaten it a few times with grilled zucchini.




I will also be canning most of these suckers... We eat the round ones and save the long ones!

A Nice Nicoise

I've been whining so heartily about the garden recently that I'm embarrassed when we sit down to a lovely and delicious meal from its harvest each night. As a reality check, here is a photo of the Salade Nicoise we had on Thursday night.

According to epicurious.com, Nicoise refers to cooking "in the style of Nice," and includes as key ingredients olives, garlic, tomatoes and anchovies. A Salad Nicoise, they inform us, also includes hard-boiled eggs, tuna, green beans, onions and herbs. Patricia Wells, in her great cookbook Salad as a Meal, lists as her key ingredients: fresh tuna, green beans, steamed potatoes, tomatoes, greens and "a soft touch of anchovy." She also dresses it with a light dressing of lemon juice, olive oil, salt and chives.

I had been looking for something to make with the can of smoked salmon I brought back from our vacation in Seattle. Also, I wanted a way to unveil the fingerling potatoes I just dug up. So I decided to put the salmon with the other fresh, farm veggies in a version of this salad. Above is a view of a perfect summer dinner: steamed potatoes, green beans from the Farmer's Market, cherry tomatoes, canned smoked salmon, a little steamed chard (no salad greens at this time of year), fresh eggs from our farm, dressed in lemon juice and olive oil with fresh thyme and chives.

The potatoes are one of the great triumphs of this summer, along with beets and radishes. While my traditional crops are refusing to yield, the first-time crops did great. I was a little chagrined about how much money I spent on the seed potatoes from Seed Savers for these fingerlings-- $14.00 plus s/h for potatoes?? But who could resist the description on the card for "La Ratte" potatoes. A beautiful, firm-fleshed fingerling sought after by chefs and prized for their flavor.  I planted two rows, one in the ground and one in a raised bed, and sprayed them only twice to get rid of the Colorado Potato Beetle. I've now dug up the first half of the crop, and they are as promised, delicious and beautiful. And Steve is happy you don't have to peel them!

Havest Mistake

Two weeks ago, I made a significant harvest mistake. I haven't wanted to admit it on the blog, but hey, I am a new gardener. As Steve said, "You won't do this next year!" I just can't understand why I did it. It's because I'm still kind of removed from my food.

I harvested most of my onions and then sat on the stoop and cut off the greens. I rinsed them and clipped the shaggy bottoms, so they looked like beautiful, well-rounded yellow onions. I proudly dropped them in three small paper bags. But about 2/3 of the way through, it occurred to me that I was doing the absolute wrong thing. When you get onions from the grocery store, they are covered in brown, papery skins, like the ones I was washing and rubbing off, and they have dried, curled tops that probably used to be greens. Mine basically now had open wounds on the top.

I immediately started obsessing about the recent advice I read or heard that you should never store cut onions in your fridge, because they absorb bacteria. I could feel my onions rotting in their bags already. I felt sick.

I mostly felt miserable because I planted these dang things months ago! I was so excited to have so many, and only lamented that I hadn't had enough garden space for more! How could I get through the winter with only 70 onions? But now I'd have only 20-25. Good thing I don't have to depend on what I grow for what I eat.

I put them in the fridge and told myself that the thing about cut onions was a crock. (I don't believe it, actually, as I've eaten cut onions for years, though I do often cut off the outer exposed layer because it seems to dry out.) I started putting onions in everything.

Then Deborah Madison's Local Flavors also helped me out! This surprised me, as the book, which I love the look of, has been so far not so helpful with recipes, since it seems to depend on access to a well-stocked Farmer's Market in California. But on page 74, it offered "Sweet and Sour Onions with Dried Pluots and Rosemary." I ddin't have dried pluots, of course, but apricots could be substituted, and I have lots of rosemary. The other ingredients are olive oil, butter, red wine vinegar (I used half white and half balsamic) and honey. So I set to work on a pan full of lovely yellow onions. I served it over the very last bed of kale to be had with rice and some rotisserie chicken on the side. (It just didn't seem right to serve my husband a whole plate of onions without a little meat.)

It is delicious, and we will be having it again soon!

One Night of Cauliflower

Remember when I bought four cauliflower plants back in May, thinking they were cabbage? Well, I can't remember a single time I have cooked cauliflower before tonight. I pulled out two of the four plants to make room for the cabbage seedlings I went back and bought, but tonight I harvested the compact but reasonably-sized cauliflower heads on the other two plants.

I turned to Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone for some advice, and found just what I was looking for-- an Indian dish that would also use the fresh cilantro that is ready (and when it's ready, you just have to go ahead and eat it) and the arugula greens. (This is why I bought this cookbook to begin with, because I am challenged when thinking up vegetarian dishes.)

Her recipe title is, like almost all of them in the book, purely descriptive: Cauliflower, Spinach, and Potato Stir-Fry with Coconut Milk.

OK!

I had picked up a jar of something called Coriander Chutney made by SWAD the last time I was at the Asian market, a wonderful mix of cilantro, serrano pepper, ginger, garlic (and other ingredients you don't want to know about). I also had some green curry paste in the freezer.

Of course, when finished this dish that was not just delicious but also the most nuclear color green imaginable. I'm choosing to believe it was the combination of cilantro and turmeric and not the FD&C Blue #1 and Yellow #5 in the chutney. I do indeed love India and Indian food!

And that's it. Cauliflower season, c'est finis!

Here it is, with my adaptations:

Cilantro, Cauliflower and Greens, Indian Style

1 small cauliflower, cut into florets
1/2 lb of red potatoes, sliced 1/3 inch thick
Salt
1 bunch scallions (or spring onions) with some greens
1/2 cup chopped cilantro (or 1/3 cup SWAD coriander chutney)
1/2 tsp turmeric
2 serrano chilis, minced (or 1 Tbs green chili paste)
4 Tbs vegetable oil
1 large bunch greens, such as spinach
1 15-oz can coconut milk

Boil the cauliflower and potatoes in water until tender, then drain.
Puree half the onions and most of the cilantro, turmeric, chiles and 1 Tbs oil-- if you have coriander chutney and chili paste, skip this step.

Heat a wok, add 2 tsp oil and, when hot, add the onions and stir fry for 1 minute. Add the greens and stir-fry until wilted and tender. Set aside.

Add another 2 tsp oil and fry the chili paste and chutney until fragrant. Add the cauliflower and potatoes, season with 1/2 tsp salt, and cook until heated through.

Pour in the coconut milk and add the spinach. Bring to a boil and simmer for 2 minutes. Garnish with cilantro and scallions and serve over brown basmati or jasmine rice. Serve to happy, freshly-showered with no 7 p.m. bid to run off to landscaping husband.

Locavore

It's easy to be a locavore come July in Minnesota. Between the garden, the St. Joseph Farmer's Market and our new Minnesota Street Market Co-op that carries Forest mushrooms grown right up the road and local, organic milk, I'm even making local pizzas! Friday night's was made with homemade mozzarella that was so buttery yellow and had such a real mozzarella texture, it was a revelation. It was topped with Forest criminis sauteed with garden spinach and farmer's market onions. The dough was made with the whey from the cheese and local flour from Freeport, Minnesota. I did use garlic that was no doubt imported from China, but hey, it's small! (wait until next year...) And, since I'm confessing, Trader Joe's pizza sauce.

I also made a batch of what's called in Ricki "the Cheese Queen" Carroll's Home Cheese Making book, lactic cheese. It's a pretty bad name for a really excellent soft cheese that you can make in 24 hours if you have rennet, thermophilic starter and salt. I've been making it all year, and nothing is better on a Triscuit than this cheese with some herbs de Provence mixed in. Except, perhaps, the "rosey dill radish dip" I made this weekend.

The last of the garden radishes and first of the garden dill were amazing in this dip, which calls for cream cheese, but I would imagine that cream cheese is too sweet and thus not as good as with lactic cheese. Again, it uses an exotic garlic clove and lemon, but there's no need to go crazy with this locavore stuff. After all, we Minnesotans are a practical people. And the food system has not yet collapsed.

Here's the recipe, which comes from the Common Ground Garden CSA web site.

Rosey-dilled Radish Dip



8 oz. lactic or cream cheese, at room temperature (so you can mix it)
1 Tbs lemon juice
1 Tbs fresh chopped dill 
1 clove garlic, minced
1 cup finely chopped radishes


Combine all the ingredients well. Refrigerate at least 1 hour to incorporate the flavors before serving. Serve with crackers, chips or vegetable strips.

Fruit

In Barbara Kingsolver's book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, when the family contemplates what they will miss most during their year of eating locally and seasonally, her older daughter laments the loss of fresh fruit. With good planning, after a year one could have plenty of dried fruit and jam, but raisins and fruit leather is not really the same as a bowl of cherries.

I'm living in greater awareness of where my food comes from, but could not resist a carton of peaches from Trader Joe's last weekend. I also bought bananas yesterday, something we don't usually eat in the summer, because they were at the new food co-op in town (so many, so yellow, we'd better buy them and eat them!)

Then, yesterday, I also went strawberry picking at the Willenbring's Produce Acres in Cold Spring. Last year, when I went on my birthday on June 25, the berries were already past their prime. This year the berries were smaller and dark red, due to the cool, wet spring, not enough sun to plump them up. Still, they are very sweet, and quickly filled the kitchen with the smell of strawberries. They made beautiful, dark red strawberry-rhubarb jam. And the whole time I was making the jam, I was thinking of the popovers of winter, when the jam will be most welcome.

And now, suddenly, with peaches, bananas, strawberries and blueberries in the house, it is time for fruit salad! This holiday weekend, we will enjoy the real bounty of summer in its freshest, juiciest form!

Strawberry-Rhubarb Jam

makes 8 8-oz jars

(adapted from the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving)

3 cups chopped rhubarb

4+ cups hulled, crushed strawberries (I leave some smaller ones whole)

5 Tbsp lemon juice

2-3 Tbs regular powdered fruit pectin (or one package-- I've upped the fruit but it would still work)
4-5 cups sugar

1. In a deep pot, combine the berries, lemon juice and pectin, stirring until the pectin is dissolved. Bring to a boil, stirring frequently. Add sugar all at once and return to full rolling boil, stirring constantly. Boil hard, stirring, for 1 minute. Remove from heat. (Skim off foam if present, but I haven't had much foam with this fruit.)
2. Ladle hot jam into hot jars, leaving 1/4 inch headspace. Wipe rim and center lid on jar. Screw band down until resistance is met, then increase to fingertip-tight.
3. Place jars in boiling water canner, ensuring they are completely covered with water. Bring to a boil and process for 10 minutes. Let them sit in canner 5 minutes, then remove to counter to cool completely. Make sure the seals are firm before storing.

If, while making the jam, you have filled jars in the canner simmering, when you empty them you will have plenty of hot water for processing. It also keeps things moving along, while sterilizing the jars. I made two batches from start to finish in 2 1/2 hours.

Blues Salad

With good weather, the mind as well as the body does seem to come alive. I could probably be writing three blog entries a day with all that's going on in my head. I hope to get at least a few thoughts down.

But let's stick to the subject of salads for the moment. Last year when I was editing the weekly newsletter for Common Ground Garden, the monastery's CSA garden, a recipe caught my eye for "Blues Salad." It's a salad served at The Local Blend, the coffee shop in town. I had never thought of making and had never been served a blueberry salad dressing before.

Finally, today, I made it, and it is well worth sharing. I made some changes to the original recipe. The dressing called for 4 tsp of sugar and I also didn't have craisins. I think with those two, you might be approaching Fruit Loops level of sweetness. Really, it's about the feta, walnuts and blueberries: Feel free to add more sugar to the dressing if it doesn't work for you.


Blues Salad

   courtesy of The Local Blend, St. Joseph, Minnesota
1 serving mixed greens
2 Tbsp chopped walnuts or slivered almonds
2 Tbsp craisins (I didn't have craisins and didn't miss them)
1-2 Tbsp crumbled feta cheese
blueberries (Instead of craisins, it works well to sprinkle a few blueberries on if they're fresh.)

Blueberry Dressing
1/2 cup fresh or frozen blueberries, thawed
2 tsp sugar
1 Tbs olive oil
1/2 tsp fresh lemon rind (I didn't bother with this)
1/4 cup lemon juice
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp fresh ground black pepper

Make the dressing in a food processor until smooth. If you like it less thick, add some water. I used sunflower oil and probably more like 2 Tbs.

Serve over fresh salads, steamed asparagus, fresh fruit salads, or grilled or poached chicken.

The Salad Days

tomato plants at Heritage Farm, Decorah, Iowa

I officially began eating garden salads on June 1, and that has been my dinner mainstay every day since. (I admit, I was gone three days to Iowa.) I find that not only does food taste better from the garden, but you're much more willing to put in the time washing and preparing it! I now get home just as tired as I always am, but for some reason what I most want to do is go out and pick lettuce, spinach, arugula and the occasional beet green and come in and wash and dry the stuff.

Looking for a way to supplement the lettuces, I cooked up a pot of lentils one day and made a jar of something called John's Oil and Vinegar Dressing (and which I am calling and labeling "Tahini Dressing" from the great cookbook From Asparagus to Zucchini: A Guide to Cooking Farm-Fresh Seasonal Produce put together by the Madison Area Community Supported Agriculture Coalition. I picked up the book on my trip to Heritage Farm/Seed Savers in Decorah, Iowa, last weekend. This cookbook has absolutely the best collection of simple, few-ingredient preparations for vegetables that grow in Midwestern gardens.

I've had salads topped with salmon with a sweet chili sauce dressing and with potatoes, lentils, artichoke hearts and the tahhini dressing. Radishes, of course. But by far the best meal was the first homemade pizza of the season. It only took slightly over an hour from start to finish and in that time I made the mozzarella, made the dough with the whey, picked and cleaned the spinach, sauteed the spinach, onion and a few leftover mushrooms, put the pizza together and baked it for 18 minutes. It made me very, very happy.

This week we had a 101 degree day (Tuesday) and today was in the low 60s. And the wind has been fierce, continuing to batter my peppers and tomatoes. I brought back two roma plants and an heirloom to replace some of my more wind-battered plants last week, only to submit them to this week's onslaught.

The real bad news in the garden this week is that both pear trees have died and tent worms/army worms have infested the apple trees. I killed them off yesterday, and bought a bottle of spinosad-- just in time because today, I can't believe it, but I discovered Colorado beetles on my potato plants! How can that be? I expected them to maybe show up late in the season, but no! I crushed every bug-- they're insanely defenseless because when you get close they just roll up and play dead. Tomorrow, everything will get a good spraying.

Tomorrow is the Farmer's Market, and I'm hoping there is still asparagus. I'll also pick up some green onions. Even without asparagus, I've got another week's worth of greens-- plus 2-3 meals of kale-- and then hopefully the snow peas that are blossoming now will be kicking in. I'm thrilled to see if I can keep this going...

John's Oil and Vinegar Dressing (a.k.a. Tahini Dressing)

1 cup red wine vinegar (I used white and a little balsamic to deepend the flavor)
1 cup olive or canola oil (I used local sunflower oil)
1 Tbs horseradish mustard
5 Tbs tahini
1 Tbs honey
1 pinch salt
1 pinch pepper

Mix ingredients in a container (I used an empty maple syrup bottle with a good pouring lid) and pour on greens. Also good on lentils and potatoes, beans, etc.

Good Food

It's Memorial Day weekend, and the season of several (video) movies a week is officially over and the season of cooking has begun. Also, feel free to wear white pants and shoes after Monday.

After working today on The Art of The Saint John's Bible, volume 3, getting some kind of take on what Chronicles, Esther and 1 and 2 Maccabees are all about, I found myself thinking, now what?

I got out the hammock, which was dirty and needed its annual bleach treatment, and then was too wet to lie in and read. So the answer was obvious: COOK!

Tomorrow we have a birthday party to attend, and the instructions on the invitation were to bring an hoers d'oeuvre. For me, that meant making cheese, and I'm thinking Triscuits with homemade spreadable cheese and radishes from the garden.

Also, I hadn't yet made rhubarb bars, so I got going on a pan of those. The rhubarb had lots of really red stalks, which is unusual, and the bars turned out particularly pretty.

Then I turned my attention to dinner. I do understand why people love Deborah Madison. In my book-buying frenzy I picked up Local Flavors, her book that follows farmers' markets and offers recipes for the seasonal produce found there. Someone had left a bag of collard greens on my counter last week (I'm thinking it was my sister-in-law Annie, so I paid her back by planting 3 of my pepper plants in her garden this morning). I picked the leaves from the kale in my window box and had a good amount of greens. Deborah Madison suggests cooking them with bacon, garlic, diced potatoes, onion and red pepper flakes. That's it. Salt and pepper. No other spices, no red wine vinegar, nothing to add flavor. And they were phenomenally good. We ate them with some grilled pork with barbecue sauce and there are no leftovers. A little half-price Chianti from the wine sale and we figure the whole dinner for two was about $14.00.  (And really, it should have served four.)

One of my favorite dishes is from Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone. It doesn't have a fancy name, and is basically garbanzo beans, potatoes, onions and tomatoes. Again, a little red pepper. It is incredibly flavorful and feels good to eat. After I brought it to a pot luck, one woman went out and bought the book.

All in all, it was a great day. And there's still time for a movie. We have Blue Valentine from Netflix.

American Cress

When I was living and working on the campus of Saint John's University/Abbey, I was the recipient of regular spring gifts of watercress. The watercress was established by Fr. Godfrey Diekmann, a monk of St. John's Abbey who was quite involved in the translation of the post-Vatican II lectionary in English. He is a bit of a legend at Saint John's, for his liturgical work and also for his mushroom collecting and other culinary adventures-- of which I count the watercress as a small piece of his legacy. Brother Walter, who also heads up the maple syrup operation each year as "chief tree tapper" and other functions, would bring me plastic bread bags full of the stuff. I went with him once when he collected it, in his waders going out into a shallow spring that fed Lake Watab, down below the Johanna Kiln. There was still snow on the ground, but this area of watercress was a bright green spot on the landscape. Walter managed to keep his balance and cut huge swaths of the stuff and there we had it-- the first greens of the season.

I hate to admit that much of what he gave me over the past several years went to waste. It is strong stuff, so a little goes a long way, and also it has lots of stems. Trying to prepare it for a salad was labor intensive. Still, I wanted some on our property, and took around various rooted bits to the wetlands and laid them in the edges of the ponds. However, that doesn't work. I knew from the reading I'd done that it probably wouldn't because you need running water, a spring is ideal, to grow watercress. 

This year, next to where I've planted the raspberry bushes my friend Deb gave me, Steve and I noticed a beautiful patch of yellow weeds/wildflowers that he couldn't identify. This past week when his friend came out who knows basically every plant in this region, Steve learned that what we had was a stand of American cress, also called land cress or bank cress. It is a perennial, but only does well in really wet springs, which is what we're having in spades. It grows near water, like this stand near our pond, but not in water (thus "bank").

According to Wikipedia, it's been cultivated as a leafy vegetable in England since the 17th century. So now I have plans, of course, for cress soup and salads. In another week I'll have baby spinach and lettuces, and the radishes are peeking up their red heads from the ground. So here we are, with cress! and I will probably avoid eating dandelion greens this year.

First Harvest

The rhubarb has been, like everything, slow in coming in, but I did manage to get four cups of rhubarb picked on Friday for the first dish from the garden. With some remaining frozen strawberries and help from epicurious.com, I made strawberry-rhubarb compote with shortcakes. I didn't really like the orange rind in the biscuits, but I subsituted orange marmalade for some of the jam in the compote recipe and that was delicious.

Last night, which was the first night of eating dinner on the screen porch, I "harvested" the baby arugula from a window box I started back in March when I was planting seedlings, and it was enough for two small bowls of salad-- a squeeze of lemon, champagne vinegar and olive oil and they were good to go. I took photos to mark the occasion, but the CF card wasn't in the camera!

Last night's dinner was a great homemade chicken korma and I did have a few sprigs of cilantro I grew from seed to garnish that as well. It's the time of year I look with interest at the dandelion greens, but I haven't gone there yet. It seems like it would be too close to eating grass! And mostly, I think indoor planting doesn't result in much in the way of food. I have some lovely looking, but quite sparse, kale plants. I put a few seedlings out and instead of "taking off," they got windblown and shriveled. The basil and some other herbs I planted indoors also look weak and I'd diagnose them with "failure to thrive."

Starting peppers and tomatoes makes sense, but I don't see getting a good planter of lettuce going with my current set-up. Some things just need to start in the ground and tough it out.

And so those two meager bowls kind of depleted my indoor veggies. Other than rhubarb, I now will have nothing to eat (a sprig of cilantro and basil here and there) from the garden for probably three weeks. But there is promise out there, including little fields of lettuce and spinach dotting the landscape. There are tiny beet seedlings and snow peas almost ready to reach the first rung of the fence. Most exciting of all, most of the asparagus plants have little stems poking up through the bottom layer of dirt. I can't eat from those plants for three years, but they are alive!

Strawberry Rhubarb Shortcakes

4 cups 3/4-inch-thick slices fresh rhubarb
3/4 cup sugar
2 T water
2 T strawberry preserves
1 tsp minced orange peel (note: I used 1T raspberry preserves and 1 T orange marmalade, which complemented the allspice and gave it a more sharp flavor)

1/4  tsp ground allspice
1 quart strawberries, hulled and thickly sliced

Biscuits
2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
6 T sugar
4.5 tsp baking powder
1.5 T minced orange peel (I would skip this in the future, and maybe use another T sugar)
1/4 tsp salt
9 T chilled butter, cut into pieces
3/4 c plus 3 T whipping cream (or half and half)

whipped cream or ice cream

For compote:
Combine first 5 ingredients in heavy large saucepan. Bring to boil over medium heat, stirring until sugar dissolves. Reduce heat to medium-low, cover and simmer until rhubarb is tender but some pieces remain intact, about 7 minutes. Remove from heat and add allspice. Cool completely. Stir in strawberries. Cover and refrigerate until well chilled (3 hrs or overnight). This last seems optional to me!

For biscuits:
Set oven to 400 degrees. Combine first 5 ingredients in medium bowl. Add ubber and cut in using pastry blender or rub with fingertips until mixture resembles coarse meal. (In the future I will use my food processor for this step. It's the only way I know to quickly make good "coarse meal" of dough.) Add 3 T cream and stir until dough comes together. (Again, the food processor is good for this, since you can add a little more at a time to make it come together.)

Turn out dough onto lightly floured work surface and knead until smooth, about 6 turns. Flatten dough to 3/4 inch thick round. Cut out biscuits using a cookie cutter. Bake on an ungreased cookie sheet about 20-23 minutes. Transfer to rack and cool slightly. If making ahead, can reward them in 350 degree oven for five minutes before serving.

Cut biscuits in half, load on the compote and top with ice cream. (Garnish with mint, optional.)

Best Ham Ever

It's been almost a week since Easter, but I'm still thinking about the ham. I was determined this year not just to stick a grocery store ham with some kind of glaze on it in the oven and hope for the best. I went to the cookbooks, and what I found there surprised me.

First, Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything. He recommended a laborious process: soak the ham in cold water for 24 hours, then boil it for 4 hours and let it sit in the hot water another 4 hours. Then bake it at 400 degrees for 30 minutes. That sounded completely crazy to me, so I took out the Dean and Deluca Cookbook, which I like to consult about meat. It took a simpler route, but the "secret" was still the same. Boil the ham for 1 1/2 hours and let it sit another hour, then glaze it (with some kind of coffee mixture) and bake at 400 degrees for 30 minutes.

They couldn't BOTH be wrong!  So on Easter morning, I stuck the free ham that we got for pooling four households' grocery receipts for a month in a big pot of boiling water. It was about as ordinary looking a ham as they come. The house smelled awful, basically like boiling ham. But after the time boiling and then about an equal time sitting in the hot water, I took it out and it looked unlike any ham I've ever seen. It looked like meat! Not compacted, cured meat that is one step away from a deli counter, but like a hunk of actual meat that might have come from an animal. The rind was loosened and you could see fat beneath it. I trimmed off a fair amount of the rind, exposing the fatty layer, into which I stuck a lot of cloves. On top I spread about a half jar of orange marmalade that I'd heated in a saucepan with 1 Tbs of mustard (per Bittman). Then in the oven for 30 minutes.

It was the best ham I have ever had. I wish I'd made two! I am not sure I can wait until next Easter, but now that I've discovered what ham can be, I might even opt for it again at Christmas. I should have taken a photo, but we had 33 people at our house for the feast. I did get some photos of people in the new kitchen, however! It was a fantastic day. Adorable children, too!

Mark Bittman-- feh

I am now the owner of the complete cookbook collection by Mark Bittman. I have How to Cook Everything (HTCE), which is where I started, and to which I added How to Cook Everything Vegetarian. Given my new interest in healthy eating and gardening, I just acquired The Food Matters Cookbook, his contribution to the "eat real food" movement (and a response to his heart attack years back).

Now let me start by saying that some of the best food ideas I've ever received has come from Mark Bittman's work in the New York Times. He had an article about five years ago that listed 101 easy summer dinners. It was truly inspired, and I still turn to my printed out copy for an injection of some ideas of things to make fast in the summer. None of them require a recipe. They are just things to do with food. Also, Mark Bittman's column once featured a meatball recipe that is to die for. It is still the only way I make meatballs.

But when it comes to these cookbooks, which occupy an enormous amount of shelf space-- like eight inches or more combined-- I'm not impressed. I expected more. Or different. I think what I wanted was my favorite cookbook, Moosewood Cooks at Home but lots more of it, and especially with meat. I wanted 15 ways to make chicken breasts palatable, each with variations.

What I want from a vegetable cookbook and have yet to find, is a cookbook with recipes for the vegetables I actually grow in my garden. That means, ten recipes for green beans, not ten recipes for asparagus that also require leeks (which are harvested at a totally different time of year) and escarole and artichoke hearts and Brussels sprouts and broccoli. (I wish I could grow broccoli, but I really have not had any luck at all in that area. Brussels sprouts are also hard to grow and suck up a lot of nutrients from the soil.) What I really need is a big book of salads and spinach and peas and beans and zucchini and carrots.

I was first put off by the new cookbook when I realized his main purpose is to make people eat brown rice and whole wheat pasta. Hmmm. Then the very large appetizer section that included at least five kinds of tea sandwiches. (There was a radish idea or two in there, I admit, but I think they paired the radishes with three kinds of produce I'd have to buy.)

The good news is that there are lots of recipes that use tomatoes, both ripe and canned. The other surprising thing is that there seem to be a lot of recipes for meat dishes, more than HTCE, that also make use of vegetables. The bad news is, there are a LOT of recipes that use leeks, though I think sometimes onions can be substituted (I know, it's not the same). The other good news is that there are scattered throughout the book recipes that say "and vegetables" or "lots of vegetables." But again, these more or less just give you permission to use vegetables with common dishes, like a frittata, or a stir fry, or a stew. Perhaps the best thing is his advice on how to make chips of all kinds (beets, sweet potatoes, turnips, etc.) in the oven. Again, it's more "how to" than recipe.

Which is where I come down on the Mark Bittman issue. He is fantastic at just pointing you forward, giving you ideas, like 101 easy summer dinners. He helps you remember to do things with food. But then, really, you can just go ahead and do it without the recipe.

Baked Ziti

There was a time when I made baked ziti for special occasions, but I think the last time I made it was for the disastrous final Christmas of my first marriage. We were in Cleveland, and I can't go into details about the complete disarray of the lives of those assembled, but part of what was going on was that I insisted on making Christmas Eve dinner for the first time. The previous year we were served literally no food. Well, I think there were cheese and crackers. We picked up sub sandwiches on the way home after opening presents at my sister-in-law's house.

In that marriage, I had entered a family freshly grieving the loss of the matriarch, and my husband's father, not known for his active engagement before the death of his wife, was more or less sleepwalking through the holidays. As my sister-in-law's life spiralled downward, Christmas became ever more depressing. That last Christmas before my own marriage imploded was a doozy, but at least we had a good meal.

One thing I remember strongly about that Christmas Eve was taking down and washing his mother's china. It was beautiful, simple stuff, unpretentious and classic, something I myself would choose, and coated in several years' worth of grime. I had never participated in such a simple act of domestic restoration before-- cleaning china and glassware, unwrapping and cleaning the serving plates, polishing silver. It was a real pleasure to be engaged in such a meditative, productive task in an atmosphere that was mostly marked by avoidance and shocking revelations. I also felt connected to this strong, modest, intelligent woman I had never met.

I made two types of baked ziti: one with mushrooms and poblano chilis for the vegetarians and one with a mix of ground pork and beef for the meat-eaters. The meal was beautiful and delicious. Just to give you a sense of the ambiance, though, let me describe my brother-in-law's appearance that evening. He sat next to me, having arrived from his shift as a meat cutter at the local grocery meat department. He had an absessed tooth which had caused his mouth to swell up horribly on one side, and which also made it impossible for him to wear his prosthetic front teeth. He was trying to get in my good graces over another family issue, so I just remember him lispingly making his case to me while we ate.

I'm not sure what made me want to make baked ziti this year. Maybe it is the stark difference in my life circumstances between then and now. Probably it was the fact that I wanted to make another dish with the ground venison and remembered how good this one was. In any event, it turned out wonderfully, and we ate it last night in the good company of my new sister- and brother-in-law Kevin and Amy Kluesner, who walked through a very blizzardy night with salad and wine, and with whom we shared many a fine toast and hope for the New Year. The Kluesners have a grandchild on the way. Steve just wrote out the final tuition check to put the last of his three daughters through college. The log cabin is complete. There will be an even bigger garden next year, and good work for us all.

I served the baked ziti on my own china, with a bottle of chianti my brother gave me. Afterward we walked to the third house on the farm, where we celebrated Sophia's 21st birthday with champagne and cake and a great game.

Baked Ziti

1 lb dry ziti pasta
1 medium onion, diced
1 lb ground mixed venison and pork (I've also done a veggie option with sauteed poblano peppers, mushrooms and spinach)
1 jar spaghetti sauce
6 oz provolone or smoked gouda cheese
dollops of sour cream
6 oz shredded mozzarella cheese
grated parmesan
herbs: oregano, thyme, salt, pepper and fennel

Cook the ziti until al dente per package instructions. In a skillet, sautee the onion until translucent, add ground meat and fennel and brown over medium heat. Add spaghetti sauce and other spices and simmer 5-10 minutes. Layer as follows in a buttered 9 x 13 baking pan: ziti, gouda, sour cream, 1/2 sauce mixture, remaining ziti, mozzarella and sauce. Top with grated parmesan cheese. Bake for 30 minutes or until cheeses are melted and bubbling.