Cinnamon-Swirl Cookies

We always made just a few of these with the leftover bits of pie dough after making a pie. It took us a while to realize we could make them in their own right. Buttery and crispy, they disappear quickly.

Pie Pastry
cinnamon-sugar

Prepare pie pastry. Split in 2 - 4 pieces, flatten each into a round, wrap in plastic, and chill for 30 minutes.

Roll each out thinly and sprinkle generously with cinnamon-sugar mixture.

Roll up tightly, then with a serrated knife, gently cut off cookies about 1/2-inch thick on the diagonal. Lay each spiral on a cookie sheet. Bake at 350 about a half hour until just beginning to become golden-- don't let them go too far or bottoms will be too dark.  

Two Raw Beet Salads

We eat beets at least once a week throughout summer and fall, and 99% of those times, we eat them roasted and served with blue cheese, oil, and vinegar. (I know everyone says that beets and goat cheese are a perfect combination, but we really love beets with creamy, strong blue cheese.) Below, however, are two other ways we have enjoyed beets that are quick and don't involve the oven.

  
First Beet Salad
adapted from epicurious.com

This wins the prize for appearance. Just look at the gorgeous beets alone. That's one argument for using beets raw; their color doesn't seem quite so brilliant after being roasted. My seldom-used mandoline came in handy for this. Also, I thought this salad was even a little better the next day.

assorted beets (up to 2 1/4 lbs.)
1/4 small onion
flat leaf parsley, torn if desired (up to 1 1/4 C)
optional: ricotta

Dressing:
1/4 C orange juice (I only had pineapple juice the day I made this and it worked fine)
1 T lemon juice
1/4 C e-v olive oil
1/2 t salt

1/2 t pepper

Slice beets paper-thin, then into matchsticks. Thinly slice onion. Toss beets, onion, and parsley with dressing and season with salt. Let stand about 30 minutes, tossing occasionally. Serve accompanied by a spoonful of ricotta on the side if desired.

Second Beet Salad
from Martha Stewart Living, December 2011 

We served this at a holiday party in December using winter farmers' market beets and carrots. It is bright and beautiful and cold and was a nice counterpoint to beef and roasted potatoes.

1 fennel bulb, trimmed (I tend to avoid fennel, so I left this part out)
5 medium carrots
2 large beets, trimmed and peeled

Dressing:
2 t fennel seeds (omitted)
1/4 C orange juice
2 T sherry vinegar
2 t lemon juice
1 shallot, halved and thinly sliced
coarse salt
1/4 C + 2 T e-v olive oil

Quarter fennel bulb lengthwise. Cut out core. Thinly slice lengthwise into strips. Grate carrots, then beets, on large holes of a box grater. 

Toast fennel seeds in skillet over medium-high, about 1 minute. In small bowl, whisk with other dressing ingredients. 

Toss dressing with fennel, beets, and carrots. 

Chicken Souvlaki (Greek Chicken Kebabs) with Tzatziki Sauce

These delicious kebabs are another summer grill favorite. (If you don't have a grill, we found that you can also cook the ingredients on a rimmed baking sheet under the broiler-- and can even skip the skewers if desired!) There is something special about a yummy grilled meal brought together with crunchy, tangy yogurt sauce. Serve this meal with rice, or pitas, or corn on the cob, or a green salad. Our family of four pretty pretty well finishes off a batch of this, so if serving more than two adults, I'd double the recipe.

(Kebab cheat in this and the next photo: sometimes I just thread the ingredients on their own kebabs rather than worrying about balancing each one.)

Chicken Souvlaki (Greek Chicken Kebabas) with Tzatziki Sauce

from Martha Stewart Living, September 2011

For chicken:
1 T + 1 1/2 t lemon juice (juice of half a lemon)
1 garlic clove, grated

1 T chopped fresh oregano (I love my inherited perennial herb garden at times like this)
1 T + 1 t e-v olive oil
1/2 t salt
1 lb. chicken breast in 2-inch cubes

For Tzatziki:
1 T + 1 1/2 t lemon juice (juice of the other half of a lemon)
1 garlic clove, grated
a couple cucumbers, chopped or 1/2 an English cucumber
1/2 C plain yogurt (original recipe calls for fat-free Greek; we use plain Stoneyfield)
1/4 t salt

For skewers along with chicken:
3 plum tomatoes quartered (or a pint or more of cherry tomatoes)
1/2 an onion, 3/4-inch-thick, separated into slices

Whisk together marinade ingredients. Add chicken, toss to coat, refrigerate.

Stir together tzatziki ingredients and refrigerate.

Thread chicken, tomatoes, and onion onto 4 skewers. Brush with a little oil, season with salt and pepper, and grill at medium-high, turning, until browned on all sides and cooked through, about 8 minutes. (Or place chicken, tomatoes, and onion on rimmed baking sheet and broil, stirring occasionally until browned and cooked through.)

Serve skewers with yogurt sauce garnished with fresh oregano, and if desired with pitas/rice and a green salad. 

Minestrone

from The Art of Simple Cooking, by Alice Waters

I have learned so much from this wonderful book, the technique for making this Italian soup being one of them. Minestrone means "big soup" in Italian. I am trying hard to know more in the kitchen, to know the techniques for doing something and not just blindly follow recipes one after another without knowing why or getting anywhere. It's more relaxing in the kitchen and also empowering to know by heart the technique (the sequence, key ingredients, and basic quantities or proportions) for how to roast vegetables, make risotto, or make minestrone, than to have to look up a recipe each time. So I love that Alice (I'm such a big fan, we're sort of on a first-name basis) writes an essay about each technique in her book first. For minestrone: "...First a tasty soffrito (a base of aromatic vegetables) is made, long-cooking vegetables are added and moistened with water or broth, and the soup is brought to a boil, at which point the more tender vegetables are added. Dried beans and pasta at cooked separately and added at the end." I almost feel from her teaching that I could be brave enough to walk into the kitchen and cook up some minestrone just from that paragraph. Of course, the recipe she obligingly includes after the essay is helpful as well. 

I can't talk about my relatively newfound love for minestrone-- and for making minestrone-- without mentioning another book I really like and refer back to periodically (with its foreword by Alice Waters), called An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace (does that not sound like how you want to be in the kitchen??-- more on that book another time). Tamar Adler writes: "Minestrone is a precisely seasonal soup: it should reflect the season inside and outside your kitchen at all times. The beans you have cooked will always be at its center, but the rest will change throughout the year." I love that, and I always remember the "precisely seasonal" piece when making this soup. You can make it a dozen different ways throughout the year and never have the same meal twice. Every combination of vegetables I have used that I have had from my garden, my CSA, my winter farmers' market, or my freezer or pantry has been completely and utterly satisfying and left me thinking, this is what soup is meant to be. Tamar Adler also helped me be comfortable with the very homey and satisfying "skill" of soaking and cooking and using dried beans.   

For beans: 

Soak 1 C dried cannellini or borlotti beans overnight or for the day. Cover well with water, cover pot, and set aside. I do this in my smaller, round Le Crueset pot. 

Drain the beans, add plenty of fresh water (you'll be adding a cup or more of this liquid to the finished soup). Bring to a boil. Then turn the heat down to just below a simmer and let it go for a good hour, until beans swell up, skins loosen, and as Adler writes, "they are velvety to their absolute middles. You should feel, as soon as you taste one, as though you want to eat another. The whole pot is only ready when five beans meet that description. If one doesn't, let the beans keep cooking." 

Turn off, and set aside whole pot with beans and liquid. This can be done ahead and refrigerated or frozen, keeping beans and liquid together.

Over medium heat (in my large oval Le Crueset), cook for 15 minutes or until tender:

1/4 C olive oil (or as needed to keep the onions and carrots coated)

1 onion and 2 carrots, both peeled and finely chopped 

(This constitutes the soffrito, which is a word I enjoy saying almost as much as minestrone, perfetto!, and Montepulciano... Soffrito could also include celery.) See tasty soffrito on left and beans cooking on right.

Add and cook for 5 more minutes:

4 cloves garlic, coarsely chopped

5 thyme sprigs 

1 bay leaf

2 t salt

Add 3 C water and bring to a boil. 

When boiling, add long-cooking vegetables and cook 15 - 20 minutes. Book recipe calls for:

1 leek, diced

1/2 lb. green beans in 1-inch lengths

2 zucchini in small dice

2 tomatoes chopped

However, I am feeling so empowered in the kitchen these days that I keep this general quantity of veggies in mind and substitute freely with the best of the vegetables I have, keeping in mind a mix of colors for the final product. Last night we used at this step 3/4 lb.+ green beans in 1-inch lengths and 2 chopped tomatoes. Other variations could include combinations of: canned whole peeled tomatoes, chopped; chopped peeled butternut squash or sweet potatoes, frozen cut green beans, asparagus in 1/2-inch thick pieces on the diagonal, shelled or frozen peas, turnips, potatoes. 

Taste for salt. It will very likely need more. 

Add and cook 5 minutes:

cooked cannellini beans

1 C of the bean cooking liquid

tender vegetables. For this, book recipe calls for:

2 C spinach leaves, coarsely chopped (about 1 lb.)

Lots of times in fall and winter we did use spinach, and frozen chopped worked beautifully. Last night, instead of spinach, we separately cooked until tender (not long) in boiling salted water a 1/2 head of cabbage in bite-size pieces and added that, drained, at this stage. Its tenderness was just right, as even my two-year-old ate it happily, and I usually don't expect him to eat any "leaves."

If soup is too thick, add more bean liquid. Remove bay leaf. 

At the table, garnish bowls with grated Parmesan cheese and drizzles of olive oil. Perfetto! 

A past version:

Another winter version below. I think this was frozen chopped squash, frozen chopped spinach, and canned tomatoes. 

Steak Salad with Blue Cheese, Tomatoes, and Chives

This is a favorite summer dinner salad. Every time I make it I am surprised by how few things come together to make such a deeply satisfying meal. Once the steak is grilled, it's just a few ingredients to slice up and put out and you've got a meal. 

Peppery arugula is great if you have it, but this salad is delicious with any fresh greens you have on hand; we recently loved it with our lettuce mix straight out of the garden. When we have fancy blue cheese around, like Boucher Blue, instead of crumbling the cheese over the top of the salad, we serve a wedge of it on the side. If blue cheese feels a bit strong to you, as it often does me-- I would rarely choose it on a cheese board-- this salad may change your mind. The combination of the vinaigrette, the steak, the juicy tomatoes, and green onion or chive seems to perfectly balance out the pungent blue and be the perfect combination with bits of it. We really love this salad! 

Steak Salad with Blue Cheese, Tomatoes, and Chives

adapted from Smitten Kitchen

Salad Components:

• Skirt or flank steak, seasoned both sides with salt and pepper, grilled or broiled, allowed to rest at least 5 minutes, then thinly sliced across the grain
• Cherry tomatoes, halved
• Blue cheese, crumbled
• Arugula or other greens (the peppery-ness of the arugula is great if you have it)
• Snipped chives or thinly sliced scallions

Vinaigrette:
1 T Dijon mustard
2 T red wine vinegar
1/4 t Worcestershire sauce 
1/2 t honey
1/3 C olive oil

Assemble on plates greens, then steak, tomatoes, blue cheese, and chives. Or put dishes of each out for everyone to assemble their own. Drizzle with vinaigrette to taste. Enjoy with an earthy Pinot Noir or other red...

Eggs with Cherry Tomatoes and Cheese

Fried Eggs with Cherry Tomatoes and Cheese
from Martha Stewart Living, June 2011

butter
eggs (2 per person)
cherry/grape tomatoes, sliced
cheddar, grated
toast to serve with

Melt butter in a non-stick skillet. Crack desired number of eggs into it-- about 2 per person. Cook over medium-high until whites are almost set, about 1 1/2 minutes.

Season eggs with salt and pepper. Top with lots of beautiful mixed sliced cherry tomatoes and grated cheddar cheese.

Put skillet in oven and broil, or just cover skillet on stovetop, and continue cooking until whites are set and cheese is melted. Serve with buttered toast. Mmm...

Blueberry (Glace) Tart

from kingarthurflour.com

This recipe is great as is, but most recently I have made it with both raspberries and blueberries because I was able to score both from the farmstand, and I skipped the glaze because the berries all by themselves were too beautiful to cover up. I love the creamy filling with the summer berries and the nutty crust.

Willem, naturally, was a very big fan, calling it "hart" instead of tart.

Crust:
1 C flour
2 T confectioner's sugar
1/2 C pecans, chopped fine
1/2 C unsalted butter 

Filling: 
8 oz. cream cheese
2 T sugar
1/4 C heavy cream or milk

Topping (just cover filling with berries of choice and skip topping if desired):
1 1/2 quarts (6 C) blueberries
1/2 C water
1 C sugar
3 T cornstarch

For crust: Combine flour, sugar, and pecans. Cut in butter until mixture is crumbly. Pat onto bottom and up sides of 9 1/2-inch removable-bottom tart pan (I used 9-inch square). Bake at 325 for 15 minutes, or until browned. Remove from oven and cool.

For filling: Cream ingredients until smooth. Spread onto cooled crust.

For topping: Mix sugar and cornstarch in a saucepan. Add water slowly, stirring to keep mixture smooth. Add 1 cup mashed berries and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Reduce heat to medium and simmer, stirring constantly, until thick-- 1 to 2 minutes. Remove from heat and cool to lukewarm.

Arrange remaining blueberries on top of cream cheese layer in tart. Spoon thickened glaze over berries. Refrigerate at least 1 hour, preferably 3 hours, before serving. Remove tart from pan by holding bottom in the center and letting sides fall down. Slice tart on pan's removable bottom.

Kale and Potato Soup

from Chez Panisse Vegetables, Alice Waters

A friend gave me Chez Panisse Vegetables and The Art of Simple Cooking, both by Alice Waters, as gifts years ago. Both are now such important parts of my cookbook collection. Chez Panisse Vegetables, like the similarly titled Chez Panisse Fruit, is organized alphabetically by plant so you can look up, say, brussels sprouts when they are in season and learn the best way to prepare them and some simple recipes that include them. This is one of our favorite ways to use kale in the summer and fall. Waters says that this is a Portugese recipe called caldo verde, and that in Portugal cabbage is often substituted for kale. We used part kale and part cabbage this time, having some of each. 

1 bunch kale (about 1 lb.)
2 lbs. potatoes
2 quarts water
1 t salt
optional: 1 garlic sausage, or sweet or hot italian sausage, cooked separately
e-v olive oil

Remove stems from kale, cut leaves into a chiffonade, and wash them.

Peel potatoes and chop them up very fine. Bring the water and salt to a boil. Add chopped potatoes, return to a boil, and cook for 2 minutes, covered. Add the kale and cook 2 minutes more. Taste for seasoning. If desired, serve with sliced garlic sausage heated briefly in the soup and a splash of olive oil.

Rustic Lasagne

With fresh grape or cherry tomatoes (especially with both yellow and red together) and basil from the garden, this is one of our absolute favorite pastas/summer meals. The original recipe that inspired this came from Martha Stewart Living where it was called "No-Bake Lasagna with Ricotta and Tomatoes." I've renamed it with this more romantic and, I think, more apt, title. :) 

Over time I've adapted the recipe. The original calls for lasagne noodles, broken up. I like that fine, but make it more often with other medium sized pastas that are ready to use out of the box and stir together more easily (and are less messy to eat). Also, the original calls for a half a pound of pasta; my family has grown to the point that the four of us can't really make a meal out of less than a whole box of pasta. So I now make this with twice the pasta, and twice the amount of chicken broth than the original calls for. There are plenty of tomatoes and garlic in here already so no other amounts needed to change. This pasta may seem awfully simple and not too saucy when you get it stirred all together, but the sliced up garlic (not minced) and partially cooked sweet tomatoes give it so much flavor and it really all comes together when you serve it at the table-- each person gets dollops of ricotta, big shavings of Parmesan (use a vegetable peeler for large pieces rather than a traditional cheese grater), a drizzle of oil, and some extra salt and pepper. Just try to resist seconds (thirds, fourths...).

 

Rustic Lasagne

adapted from Martha Stewart Living, May 2011

1 T + e-v olive oil
7 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
2 pints red and/or yellow cherry or grape tomatoes, halved
s & p
1 1/3 C chicken stock
1 lb. lasagne noodles, broken up, or any pasta
2/3 C small basil leaves, sliced a bit

For the table:

Olive oil to drizzle
ricotta cheese 
Parmesan cheese, to shave
s & p 

Heat 1 T oil in high-sided skillet over medium heat. Cook garlic until pale golden, about three minutes. 

Add half the tomatoes and 1/2 t salt. Cook until soft, about 7 minutes. 

Add stock. Simmer until sauce-like, a few minutes. (Stop here if prepping this dish early. Continue with next step about 2 minutes before you are ready to serve.) 

Add remaining tomatoes. Cook until warm, 1 to 2 minutes.

Meanwhile, cook pasta until al dente. Drain. Toss pasta in skillet to coat. Stir in basil.

Serve pasta onto plates/pasta bowls. Dot with ricotta (about 2 T per person), drizzle with oil, top with shaved cheese, and season with salt and pepper. 

Basic Egg Noodle Pasta

from the Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer Attachments booklet

The Kitchen Aid stand mixer has a simple small pasta attachment you can buy to go with it with various plates to be used for different pasta shapes. The booklet says that pasta dough or fresh noodles can be frozen up to one month. I would love to make a couple of batches for the freezer sometime so that homemade pasta was ready to go at a moment's notice. This is a great-tasting, simple pasta for any use.

3 large eggs
2 3/4 C all-purpose flour

Break eggs into glass measuring cup. Add water carefully as needed to reach 3/4 C total liquid.

Pour flour in mixer bowl. With flat beater, turn to speed 2 and gradually add eggs/water. Mix for 30 seconds. Stop mixer and switch to dough hook. Turn to speed 2 and knead for 2 minutes.

Remove dough from bowl and hand knead 30 seconds to 1 minute. Let dough rest 15 minutes before extruding.

Attach food grinder and pasta maker attachment with plate for desired pasta shape (here I used the lasagne plate).

Cut dough into walnut-sized pieces. 

Turn mixer to speed 10. Slowly begin to feed pieces of dough into the hopper; dough should self-feed. The grind worm should be visible before adding the next piece of dough. Use food pusher as needed if dough becomes caught and no longer self feeds. 

When pasta is extruded to desired length, stop mixer and gently pull or cut away from plate with knife (here I cut it off every 2 or 3 inches because I wanted broken-up/shorter lasagne pieces for the dish I was making rather than full-length noodles).

Partially dry on a towel in a single layer for no more than 1 hour. Cook immediately or refrigerate or freeze. To cook: add pasta to boiling water. It floats as it cooks. It cooks much faster than dried pasta, just a couple minutes. Strain and enjoy with sauce, etc.