CSA Plug

This is what happens when you join a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture). You leave the house in the morning with an empty refrigerator. $35 later, a box containing this (and more) appears at your doorstep. 

Puff the Magic Pastry

Puff Pastry is one of those magical ingredients that levels the playing field, presenting everyone with an equal opportunity to be master chef. Pull out a package from the freezer, roll it out a couple of times, slap on a baking sheet and prick with a fork all over, and in 20-30 minutes you get buttery sheets of crispy paper-thin dough. It's that simple. 

Available at any grocery store for just a few bucks, puff pastry can take up residence in the freezer for 6 months. And the list of possibilities is overwhelming. With puff pastry, you can make fruit tarts, savory pies and pizzas, cheese straws, apple turnovers, palmiers, strudels, and mini quiches. 

Pictured here is an improvised provençal pizza called pissaladière. If you're like me, one of those weirdos who can't get enough anchovies, this dish offers delicious contrasts: juicy, sugary-sweet caramelized onions, briny fish, salty olives, and bright notes of fresh thyme. Recipe follows.

Nachos Libres! Free at Last from Fake Cheese Sauce

In the thick of MLB playoffs, football weekends, and World Cup qualifiers (right...who is watching those) excuses abound to consume gastric-distress inducing foods. Nachos are the ultimate treat, designed to be shared among spectators and fellow travelers. (Or with racoons.) Most ballpark nachos feature soggy piles of those strange overly salted round chips and rubbery globs of fake cheese sauce. Check out the Franken-gredients in one version of velveeta-based stadium goo: MILK, WATER, MILKFAT, WHEY, WHEY PROTEIN CONCENTRATE, SODIUM PHOSPHATE, MILK PROTEIN CONCENTRATE, ALGINATE, SODIUM CITRATE, APOCAROTENAL (COLOR), ANNATTO (COLOR), ENZYMES, CHEESE CULTURE MILK PROTEIN CONCENTRATE, ALGINATE, SODIUM CITRATE, APOCAROTENAL (COLOR), ANNATTO (COLOR), ENZYMES, CHEESE CULTURE, MILK, WATER, MILKFAT, WHEY, WHEY PROTEIN CONCENTRATE, SODIUM PHOSPHATE ANNATTO (COLOR), ENZYMES, CHEESE CULTURE, MILK, WATER, MILKFAT, WHEY, WHEY.

The travesty here is that nachos are easy to make, highly customizable, and not so junky or processed when prepared at home with real cheese and vegetables. Sure, tortilla chips are not exactly a health food. But in your own kitchen, you determine the chip to sauce ratio and whether to use blue corn chips, which which are purported to have a lower glycemic index than chips derived from yellow or white corn. 

Here's how to do it right. Recipe feeds 4-6 people and is easily doubled for a larger crowd. Go giants!
Ingredients

• 2 Tbs. canola oil
• 1 red onion, chopped 
• 2 jalapeños (use one for less heat), finely chopped
• 1/2 tsp. ground cumin
• 1/2 tsp. chili powder
• 1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper 
• 2 Tbs. + 2 tsp. all-purpose flour
• 1 cup half and half (milk also works)
• 1 12-ounce bottle of beer (a lager is best here) 
• 2 cups grated cheddar cheese (an 8-ounce bag)
• 2 cups grated monterey jack cheese (an 8-ounce bag)
• 2 small tomatoes, chopped
• sliced black olives
• coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper
• tortilla chips 

*Ideas for additional toppings: 1/2 can black beans; a sliced avocado; pico de gallo; halved cherry tomatoes; cilantro; sliced radishes

Bar Tartine's Fabulous New Sandwich Shop

Clearly the people at Tartine (Elisabeth Prueitt and Chad Robertson) know what they're doing. The buttery confections at San Francisco's Guerrero and 18th streets keep hungry visitors waiting in long lines all morning. Now the pastry chef and master baker have opened up a lunchtime locale inside their Valencia St. restaurant Bar Tartine. If you're like me, the many attractive offerings will send you spiraling into a crisis of what to order. Multiple visits will be necessary. See here the $15 Danish-inspired smorrebord, or open-faced sandwiches, topped with hen of the woods mushrooms and kale (L), smoked salmon, horseradish cream, and dill (C), and beef tartare and quail egg (R). Other sandwiches arrive like flatbread pizzas on crispy potato bread. Unusual drink options include fig leaf kefir and fermented sodas. Call me a heretic but I love this place even more than Tartine.

Bar Tartine Sandwich Shop: 561 Valencia St., San Francisco, 94110
Open: Wednesday through Sunday, 11am - 3pm

Delicious Biscotti that Won't Break Your Teeth

You should make Smitten Kitchen's almond biscotti. One recipe yields three dozen so bring some over to your friend's place and you'll still have leftovers to enjoy with coffee in the morning. A pet peeve of mine is biting into a twice-baked Italian cookie and wondering whether you cracked a tooth. That will not happen here. Deb's version, a riff on an old Bon Appetit recipe, is slightly chewy, crumbly, and wonderfully almond-y. 

Smitten Kitchen's Almond Biscotti

You will need to own or buy: 

• 3 1/4 c all purpose flour (406 g)
• 1 Tbs. baking powder (Use aluminum-free baking powder for better flavor.)
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1 1/2 c sugar (375 g)
• 10 Tbs. butter, melted (This is 1 1/4 sticks, or 142 g.)
• 3 large eggs, plus 1 egg white for egg wash
• 1 Tbs. vanilla extract*
• 1 Tbs. orange liqueur (I used Cointreau, which comes in little bottles.)
• Zest of one orange
• 1 c sliced or chopped almonds, lightly toasted

Bucatini alla Lipari (Bucatini with Raw Nut Pesto)

Some like it spicy. This modified version of a Mark Bittman recipe that appeared in the pages of The New York Times years ago is easy to prepare with a food processor or blender. This dish from Lipari, the largest island in the archipelago just north of Sicily, has the spice factor that distinguishes southern Italian food from the grub farther north. 

While most versions call for canned whole tomatoes, this lighter recipe makes use of the current glut of cherry tomatoes. "Bucatini" comes from "buco," i.e. hole, as in the needle-thin hole that runs through the center of this noodle. Created in central Italy and popularized in Rome, bucatini has enough bite to stand up to thick sauces and bold flavors. (Pasta shapes should not be arbitrarily selected. It's all about finding the perfect balance of pasta and sauce in each bite.) See this Pasta Dictionary for a rundown of shapes and sauces. 

Bucatini alla Lipari

You will need to own or buy: 

• 1/4 cup and 6 Tbsp. olive oil
• 1 medium yellow onion, chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 1 pint cherry tomatoes (one green basket), sliced in half
• salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 2 cups mixed whole nuts (I used 1 cup pistachios, 1 cup walnuts but pine nuts, hazelnuts, and almonds work as well)
• 2 tsp. hot red pepper flakes
• 4-5 fresh mint leaves, plus more for garnish
• 1 lb. bucatini
• freshly grated parmesan

White Whole Wheat Flour

Have you ever heard of white whole wheat flour? What? I thought this was a typo until about a week ago. Turns out, white whole wheat flour comes from naturally occurring albino wheat, hence the name and lighter color. Sweeter than the usual whole wheat variety, this flour is whole grain (containing all the fiber and nutrition) but the taste is far superior to the dense and slightly bitter flavor of whole wheat. Ever more popular as bakers embrace whole grain alternatives to all purpose white, this flour is now widely available, even at Trader Joe's. Following a trial run with pumpkin-banana-walnut bread, I will now be using this flour that offers the best of both worlds: it is white and whole.

Whole Grain Pumpkin Banana Nut Bread

slightly adapted from King Arthur

1/4 c canola oil

1/4 c plain yogurt (you can use Greek yogurt too)

2/3 c brown sugar, packed

2 Tbsp. honey

2 large eggs

1 c canned pumpkin (be sure you have pure pureed pumpkin and not pumpkin pie mix)

1 c mashed banana (about 2 small bananas)

2 Tbsp. orange juice

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1 c white whole wheat flour

1/2 c all purpose flour

3 Tbsp. almond flour (also called almond meal)

1/2 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 c chopped walnuts

raw sugar and zest of one orange for sprinkling

1. Preheat oven to 350. Spray standard loaf pan with cooking spray and set aside.
2. Place canned pumpkin (1 cup) in a strainer to get rid of excess liquid.
3. In a medium bowl, use whisk to combine canola oil, yogurt, brown sugar, honey, eggs, banana, orange juice, vanilla extract, and pumpkin. 
4. In a large bowl, combine flours, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon. Sprinkle walnuts on top. (I prefer to sift dry ingredients to make lighter; but by no means necessary)
5. Add pumpkin-banana mixture to dry ingredients. Using a wooden spoon, stir no more than 15 times to combine ingredients. Batter should be barely incorporated. 
6. In a small bowl, mix 2 tsp. sugar and zest of one orange. Sprinkle on top of batter to create a thin crunchy crust.
7. Bake loaf 55-65 minutes, until toothpick inserted in center comes out cleanly and loaf is golden brown.