Salads on a Plane!

I'm on a plane right now. It's a bit bumpy. It's hard to tell if it's bumpy because of turbulence or if it's because the guy in the aisle seat of my row has an aggressive leg shake. Actually, not a single leg shake. He alternates legs.

There's also a cat on the plane, two rows behind me. The cat is not very happy about flying.

This is an understatement.

In fact, said cat might be the least happy about flying of all the sentient beings onboard, except for all the people on the plane who have to listen to the cat screech and whine. 

Cat's got some pipes, man.

Anyhow,  I brought my lunch with me on the plane today because on Sunday I had the foresight to pull together this summery salad which I am having a minor love affair with this month.

Please note the gigantic bottle of water. I get two of these now before every flight. You really don't realize how dehydrating planes are until you start to fly so often that it practically hurts to blink.

This is barely a recipe. But here are the component parts.
Quantities are approximate (at best).

Kate's Summer Travel Salad

Serves 4 as a side or 2 for full meals

Ingredients

Half a sack of roasted baby potatoes. I think that's about 3 cups. I'm talking about the ones the size of large marbles because I love miniature food but of course you could just chop up and roast a regular Yukon Gold or two. (Toss with olive oil and salt and roast for 20-30 mins at 425 degrees until they are a bit browned in spots.)

A pint of slow-roasted cherry tomatoes. (Cut in half and toss with olive oil and kosher salt; roast at 325 for 40 minutes to an hour, until they get caramel-y. Yes, that's a word.)

2 large handfuls of steamed green beans, trimmed, and cut into 1- to 2-inch pieces

Sauteed chunks of summer squash, from about 2 squashes, any shape. I like mine sauteed to the point of being practically charred. It tastes delicious like that. 

One-third of a bunch or so of flat-leaf parsley. Pick the leaves off the stems but leave the leaves whole. Or just very coarsely chop the parsley if you are lazy or pressed for time, or both.

1/2 of a preserved lemon rind. This is the magic ingredient. Chop up the rind (after removing the pulp and rinsing) into 1/4-inch bits. 

Pitted, oil cured black olives, halved. If you don't like oil-cured olives, used pitted green olives that aren't too briny. Do not use Kalamata, they are far too briny and puckery and will make the whole salad taste sour.

Extra virgin olive oil, kosher or sea salt, and freshly ground pepper


Directions
Combine all the vegetables and lemon in a bowl and toss until everything is well-distributed.

Drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper, toss, and taste. 

Add more salt and pepper as needed. 

Look at that nice fat square of preserved lemon on top, mugging for the camera.

This recipe is hard to screw up so feel free to play around with it. Basil would be a great addition. So would corn.

I like adding a poached egg or two to turn this into "dinner," when not on a plane. Some grilled chicken would be great, too, and travel-hardy.

This salad is awesome because it can sit in your bag unrefrigerated for a few hours during the whole TSA-frisking-through-harrowing-boarding-process, through takeoff, and even several hours into your flight and stay perfectly fresh. There's no lettuce to wilt - the parsley stays really perky. You can also make this the night before or even two days in advance with no compromise to taste or texture. (I think the flavor actually improves when it's been mixed at least a day ahead of eating.)

Bon Voyage and Bon Appetit!

Since Last Year: A Summary

This morning I am going to WOW you with my breakfast.

Boom.

Your jaw dropped, right? Almond butter and homemade blackberry jam AND peaches on a RICE CAKE?! STOP IT! KATE, YOU HAVE GONE TOO FAR.

Ok, let's get real for a second. I've been away for awhile.  Babies have been conceived and born in the time I’ve been away from this blog.

Just to be clear: Exactly NONE of these babies were mine.

Everybody got that?

It’s not that I haven’t been making things. I have been. I just haven’t been writing about them. For some reason life just felt too busy.

And then, just like that, it didn’t.

Now here I am with three posts on three consecutive days like I've never even been gone. I don’t know what happened. Maybe it’s summer daylight lasting until 9pm.
Maybe it’s something else.

Whatever it is, herewith, some things I did when I wasn’t here.*

*Not in chronological order.

I gold leafed a bunny.

Isn't he cute? Also, I learned that gold leaf is messy. It is definitely a cousin of glitter, "the herpes of craft supplies."

I had an Oscars party.

We had a red carpet, too. Natch. The tape adhering the red carpet stuck to my floor. Still can't really get it off. Yes, I've tried Goo-Gone and scraping. Good thing this is a rental.

I made some necklaces.

And some bacon candy.

I bought some art and hung it up.

I made brownie sundaes.

Make your own hot fudge sauce and brownies; buy the ice cream.

And stuffed escarole.

This looks like a mess, but it's incredibly delicious. Lidia Bastianach is a genius.

And gluten-free, grain-free meyer lemon mug cakes.

Just replaced the weird sweetener with 1T +1t of granulated sugar. These make an amazing breakfast treat, too.

 
Ok, I made those a couple of times.

I made some ridiculously tasty Banana Bread with Coconut and Rum. Oh, and browned butter. Thank you, Joy the Baker, for that one.

And thank you, Blake, for your hunting skills.

This went into a "Goose Bourguignon" recipe. Which turned out gamy, but edible. I count it as a win.

Turns out making a wild goose edible requires a LOT of ingredients.

Britta was an amazing co-chef on this one. Turns out butchering a goose is a fairly nasty process.

On the lighter side, I made some appetizers.

These are purple rice crackers with avocado, a little greek yogurt mixed with a little lime juice, and garnished with my new favorite seasoning, shichimi togarashi. Virtuous, yet delicious.

And roasted some rhubarb.

Delicious over vanilla ice cream although also pretty good on its own or with yogurt.

And then there was this ham. This eight pound, big ass country Easter ham.

Three pounds of which is hacked up into large chunks in my freezer.
Where it will probably stay for a year until I no longer feel guilty about composting it because what am I going to do with huge chunks of frozen ham?

Any suggestions?

MBAs cannot pass up low-hanging fruit. We just can't.

I recently came into possession of slightly more than a pound and a half of fresh, wild blackberries.

This is because I picked them. On, essentially, the side of the road in Sonoma County. With my friend C.C.

It was actually C.C.'s idea to pick the berries. She's the smart one. "Do you know how much these would be at Whole Foods?!"

Exactly, C.C.  Exactly.

We both came home with bags filled with hard-won blackberries. I say "hard-won" because have you ever picked blackberries? Those brambles are NOT a JOKE.

This is about what the two of us sounded like while picking berries:

"Ooh, these look great!"
"Nice!"
"OW! Motherf---!!"
"There are so many berries over here!"
"Damn it! OW!"
"My fingers are covered in prickly things."
"Can you imagine having this job? This job would really suck."
"Could you wear gloves?"
"I don't think so."
 "I am picking a lot of low-hanging fruit. Ahahahahaha."
 "AAAAAHHH Ouch."
"This. Berry. Is. SO. Sweet!"
"GODDAMN IT, BLACKBERRY BUSH! YOU HURT!"


Anyhow, then I got home and was like, "Hey, Kate, one and a half pounds of blackberries is kind of a lot to eat fresh. I mean, these aren't strawberries!"

So I got to cooking.

First I made Blackberry Jam.

I used a pretty basic jam starting point - fruit plus sugar and citrus peel/juice for pectin but I added a little of my own pizzazz. That means I put some Grand Marnier in it. When I add pizzazz, that's what I add. Now you know.

Actually, I didn't put "some" Grand Marnier in it. I put "a lot" of Grand Marnier in it because I tipped the bottle over a bit too far. No harm, no foul. I cooked the booze off a bit and you can't even really tell it's in there. I swear.


Very Sketchy Blackberry Jam Recipe I Just Made Up 
That You Should Probably Not Ever Try To Make Yourself

I took the pound and a half of (cleaned) blackberries, combined them with a long strip of lemon peel, a teaspoon of lemon juice, a bay leaf (thanks, Martha Stewart, for the ingredient suggestion!), two cups of sugar, and a pinch of salt in a 4 quart pot. I cooked it for about 10-15 minutes, then added the pizzazz. Did the whole jam-freezer-plate test, and filled a pint jar. (No processing here, just keeping this stuff in the fridge.) My wooden spoon seems to have suffered permanent staining as a result of this endeavor.

That's what I did. What I should have done was mash and strain the seeds out of the berries first, before I started cooking. Instead I strained some of the seeds out partway through - about half of them. Half, it turns out, isn't enough. Trust me when I tell you there is a reason you can only buy seedless blackberry jam at the grocery store. Unless you really like to chew. If your jaw needs a workout, and you're tired of gum and Grape Nuts, by all means leave the seeds in.

It does look prettier with the seeds in, so there's that...

I let that cool and then made some blackberry cookie bars. After straining the seeds out of a large portion of the jam. Which took me half an hour. Because I am an idiot.

In case you're not paying attention, let me be clear: Strain first! Better yet, don't make blackberry jam without a food mill. Just buy a jar and save your jam efforts for wins like Tomato Jam.

After all that, I am not going to post the blackberry cookie bar recipe for you.

Mean, right? Not really. Actually, I am doing you a favor.

Here's why: They came out delicious but SUPER buttery. Too buttery, really. Eat-one-and-wonder-if-you're-going-to-be-ok-buttery. I would hate for you, dear reader, to make these and be all like: "Kate, if I wanted to lick a stick of butter, I would have just done that.  No need to gussy it up with your homemade jam."

Which is probably what my co-workers will say when I bring these cookies into work. 

Sorry in advance guys! Thanks for being my guinea pigs!
By the way, that milk isn't just food styling. You really will want some milk with these.
Consider yourselves warned.

Cooking For Yourself

Ages ago, I picked up a cookbook called "Cooking For Yourself." It was part of the Williams-Sonoma canon and I snagged it on deep discount while I was working there.

I wasn't feeling all militant and single or anything - it just had some good recipes. And some good thoughts on how to buy food without wasting it, and without eating the same thing for a week. Despite the whole foreword about how you shouldn't feel bad about yourself because you're cooking solo.

I kid. It doesn't really say that. Well, not in so many words.

Anyway, I latched onto one recipe in this thing right away, and it's still something I make, 10+ years later.

It is, in fact, ideal, when you are cooking for yourself. As I was, tonight.

Also, I was super hungry. And also, I'm eating lightly this week so I can wear this certain dress to Rayleen & James' wedding this weekend. A very pretty dress. A very unforgiving dress.

Eating lightly for me means fish and veggies. For some reason, that seems to work for me. So I went back to my old salmon-in-a-packet standby.

It's so easy. Even if you're not cooking for yourself, you should add this to your repertoire. Just multiply the ingredients and packets.

And if you are cooking for yourself, I have a bunch of tricks that make this super single-person friendly.

Here's how it goes:

Go to the store and get yourself a nice piece of wild, line caught, salmon. Then go to the salad bar. Get corn, red peppers, and jalapenos. You want about 1/2 cup of corn, 1/4 cup red peppers, and a couple of tablespoons of jalapenos. And cilantro, a few tablespoons of that. If you remember to get cilantro, which I did not. 

Chop up the peppers if you need to. Try to get the pieces roughly the same size. Perfection is not required here.

Salt and pepper the corn/jalapeno/pepper mix and put it on a piece of foil. Add a few dots of butter.
 

Put your piece of salmon on top of the pile.

Oh. Crap. Set your oven to 450! You should have done that before! Do it now!

Ok, and then take a wedge of lime and squeeze it over your salmon on the pile of veggies. Salt and pepper it, and place lime wedges on top and then dots of butter.

Pull up the long sides of the foil and fold over the top so it's sealed. Then roll up the ends.
 

Now bake it. For 15 minutes. Or 20 minutes if you have a super thick filet, but I suggest you cook it for 15.

Be super careful when you take it out as you don't want to burn yourself on the steam coming from the packet of delicious.

It'll look like this:

If you, like me, had a piece of salmon with the skin on it, remove the salmon with a spatula to a cutting board. Flip it over and peel off the skin.

Tasty! (And healthy!)

The juices are delicious, by the way. You may want to consider serving this in a bowl so you can drink the juices at the end. Luckily, you're dining alone so such behavior is totally ok.

Rosemary, Sweet and Savory

Apropos of nothing, the first figs of the season arrived last weekend.

In case I haven't made it clear before or before how much I love figs, this little pint basket cost me $7.

Yes. I seven dollars love them.

No foreign figs for me! Steven Colbert would be proud.

And here comes the segue into what this blog post is really about.

Speaking of things I love, I really love the herbal scent of rosemary. (See what I did there?) I might like it better than any other herb. Well, not better than lavender. I love lavender.

I should probably just move to Provence, already.

Anyhow, after plying my coworkers with a variety of flourless baked goods in the past few months, a friend at work, Rachel, let me borrow her awesome cookbook, Good to the Grain. This cookbook in particular covers recipes featuring a wide variety of "alternative" grains. This is the kind of thing I get excited about.

One of the recipes I copied from Rachel's book (figuring if I brought the whole book home, she'd never see it again, or I'd do something horrible like spill a whole bottle of red wine on it) was for Olive Oil Cake.

It, like Jerry Maguire, had me at hello. Spelt flour (my favorite of the alterna-grains), rosemary, olive oil, and bittersweet chocolate. Yes, rosemary and chocolate. Read it again if you must.

There is something about the addition of traditionally savory ingredients to desserts that I am drawn to, fundamentally and physically, as if there were some sort of savory-sweet gravitational pull on my heart. See also: basil chocolate chip cookies.  

But when would I make this cake? I had no occasions for cake making. Back of hand to forehead. Despair! (Ok, not really. I'm totally being dramatic here. Just play along.)

Have you ever noticed how sometimes the timing of life is just really spot on and perfect? You know, in a way that makes you think that perhaps there really is a God, orchestrating this chaos? Like, maybe God is just really, really busy all the time and is juggling SO many plates that it's hard not to drop one now and then (oops, was that a tsunami?) but when all the plates are spinning simultaneously, you practically get knocked over by the serendipity of it all.

As it so happened, the day after I discovered and photocopied this Olive Oil Cake recipe, my friends Sneaks and Juju invited us all to their place to celebrate their engagement and cook us a boatload of amazing Italian food inspired by their recent trip to Italy, where they got engaged. I volunteered to bring dessert, and cooked up this cake along with some of the most beautiful strawberries I've ever seen, and a little mascarpone cream (with crushed amaretti on the side).

Gorgeous, no?

 
I'll be honest here, the strawberries/mascarpone cream/amaretti were totally an insurance policy against this cake. I was nervous about the cake. In case you weren't paying attention before, let me repeat myself: Rosemary. Bittersweet Chocolate. A LOT of olive oil.

I love savory in my sweets, but this felt like a bit of a different ballgame. This was no bit-of-basil in a cookie.

Here's my adaptation of the recipe.

Olive Oil Cake, adapted from Kim Boyce's Good to the Grain

Ingredients
2 1/4 cups white spelt flour
3/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
3 eggs
1 cup good extra virgin olive oil (the best you are willing to part with a cup of!)
3/4 cup whole milk
1 1/2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh rosemary leaves (from about 4 stalks)
3.5 ounces 70% bittersweet chocolate, chopped into 1/2-inch-ish pieces (I highly recommend Perugina if you're doing the Italian thing full-on. You can get Perugina chocolate at World Market.)


Directions
1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Rub a 9 1/2 inch fluted tart pan with olive oil. Place the tart pan on a flat baking sheet.


2. Sift the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt into a large mixing bowl. Set aside. 


3. Whisk the eggs in a medium mixing bowl. Add the olive oil, milk, and rosemary and whisk to combine. 

Let the folding begin.

4. Using a spatula, fold the egg mixture into the dry ingredients. When just combined, dump in the chocolate bits and fold those in as well. 


5. Pour-slash-scrape the batter into the tart pan and spread it evenly. Slide the tart pan / baking sheet combo into the oven. 

6. Bake for 35-40 minutes, until the top is domed and the edges are a bit darker than the middle. (You can do the toothpick test to confirm doneness. I think I overbaked mine a few minutes, so I'd start checking this thing at around 33 minutes.) Slide the tart pan from the baking sheet onto a cooling rack and let cool completely in the pan. 

Everyone at dinner gobbled up the cake to fairly rave reviews (I actually thought it was a little dry due to my overbaking it, but no one seemed to mind. Probably because most of us were a bottle of wine (each) into the proceedings. That is my number one tip for getting people to like what you cook for them. Get them drunk first.)

All in all, a success and I look forward to trying this again and pulling it from the oven a bit earlier.

There is one problem with this recipe, though, and that is this: at the end of it, you are left with a bunch of rosemary.

Well, that's not a problem. As we say at work, that is an opportunity.

Now you've got the goods to make a delicious dinner.

If you like cedar-planked salmon, you'll like this. It's very similar, except there's no tree-killing or grilling involved. 

Kate's Impromptu Rosemary Salmon in a Packet
Serves 1 (but you can make multiple packets to serve more people)

Ingredients
1 lovely piece of center cut salmon, skin on (mine was 6 oz.), rinsed and patted dry on paper towels.
2 stalks of rosemary (you will see that I used more than that but you should not unless you REALLY love rosemary.)
1 small onion, any kind, sliced
1 small lemon, sliced
olive oil for drizzling
salt and pepper

Directions
Preheat your oven to 450 degrees. Tear off a piece of aluminum foil approximately 15" long.  

Season the salmon on both sides with salt and pepper. Put one stalk of rosemary in the middle of the foil. (I used twice as much rosemary as my recipe above calls for. You might not want to do that. Just saying. You have to really like rosemary for that. Want-to-stick-it-UP-your-nose-like it.)

 Scatter half the sliced onion over it. Then layer half the lemon slices over the onion. Place the salmon skin-side down on top. 

Reverse the layering order: add the lemon, then the onion, then the remaining rosemary stalk. Drizzle olive oil over the top of the stack. 

Bring two of the foil edges (I suggest the short ones) together and fold over twice to seal. Roll the side edges in so they meet the top edge and make sure that the packet is well sealed all around. Place the packet in a pie plate or other rimmed oven-safe dish.

Bake for 15 minutes (for a 6 oz. piece).  Be careful when opening the packet not to burn yourself on the escaping steam.

Serve.

Yup, that's haricot verts and figs on the side.

Try not to eat the entire piece of salmon in five minutes like I did. Yum.

This salmon could not be more perfectly cooked. I love it when that happens.

Ok, Ok. I'll Do It Already.

Do you freeze leftover chicken/beef/vegetable broth or stock in ice cube trays? This is one of those tips that I feel like I've read about thousands of time. Literally, thousands. Usually in magazines like Real Simple. Is anyone's life "real simple"? Mine's not and I don't even have kids...this is why I no longer subscribe. At least Martha doesn't pretend her stuff is "real simple." I appreciate her candor. 

But I digress. I actually did a quick Google search on "freezing broth in ice cube trays" and do you know how many results pop up?

810,000.

Read that again. Eight hundred and ten THOUSAND. That's enough for results for every person living in San Francisco to have a link about freezing broth in ice cube trays.

In other words, lots.

Well, I am proud to report that I finally did this myself.

And do you know what? I use the cubes! All the time! It has improved my daily cooking immeasurably. Of course, I'm largely the only one who notices, but still. Let's not go qualifying our improvements. Let's just be happy we have some.

Do this. Do it this weekend. Maybe freeze up some beef broth, too. I did.

You won't regret it.

Getting Over It

Hi Readers!

I want to begin this by thanking each and everyone of you who actually read this blog. It might sound silly, but I can't tell you how much it means to me to have "readers." I never ceased to be amazed that, according to Google analytics, you actually exist. I don't know who all of you are but I love you.

Please, please know that I appreciate every single one of you and the time you take from your busy lives reading about my homemade adventures and (often only semi-coherent) ramblings and reminiscences. You all are awesome. And I am truly humbled by your existence. I mean it.

Alright, so onto this post. It has been really hard for me to accept that I can't just eat whatever I want. I don't just mean in terms of quantity although THANK YOU, 30-something metabolism, for letting me learn that one the hard way.

What I'm talking about this time is more in terms of ingredients. Specifically, being challenged to create a delicious dietary life without all-purpose flour and its many relatives...bulgur, wheat berries, and many packaged things. (Pasta, I'm talking to you. And you, crackers. And you, Acme Bread. And croissants. UGH. I looooove croissants.)

But maybe I was meant to be this way. To paraphrase Lady Gaga, maybe I was "born this way". I'm a purist. Always have been. Since birth, I've loved and prioritized the freshest, most whole ingredients, almost instinctively. I'm not a picky eater in the classic sense...I've always been adventurous in the food department. It's not the food itself, but the freshness and the quality of the ingredients that have forever mattered to me. Always. Maybe GMO wheat and I were never meant to get along. Philosophically, we're just not on the same page.

Nevertheless, it is somewhat difficult for me to admit to you, aloud (or whatever the "aloud" equivalent of typing is), that I used a mix in making these cookies. To be fair, it was a gluten-free flour blend. But still. I do NOT bake from a box. I never have. That Cake Doctor lady has her niche and that's just fine, but that's not me. Not who I am. I've got "from scratch" written all over me.

All of that said, I'm excited about these cookies. Really and truly excited. Not just because they are gluten-free but also because I fed them to a bunch of people (science-experiment-style), who, in my view, can eat whatever they want and you know what? They loved them, too. And I think you will as well.


Kate's (Gluten-Free!) Salted Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies
Adapted from this recipe


Makes up to 4 dozen, depending on how much raw cookie dough you pilfer in the process.

Prepping ingredients. By the way, I have been using my own homemade vanilla extract and so far, so good! Here's the recipe.

Ingredients
3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened

1 cup packed light brown sugar

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1 1/4 cups gluten-free flour blend (I used Better Batter for this particular endeavor but you can sub an equal amount of regular all-purpose flour

1/2 cup oat flour
 (for info on how to make this, see here)
2 cups rolled organic (gluten-free) oats

1/2 cup dark chocolate chips
 (I used Ghirardelli bittersweet chips and chopped them up since they are huge)
Maldon sea salt or kosher salt

Chopped gigantic bittersweet chocolate chips

Directions
1. In a stand mixer (or using a hand-mixer), cream the butter. 
Add the brown sugar, white sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and cinnamon. 

Creamed butter, adding sugars, baking powder, cinnamon.

Combine at a medium speed until the mixture has a crumbly texture. Add the eggs and vanilla and mix again until combined.

 2. Fold in the all-purpose flour and oat flour until just combined, being sure not to over-work the dough. Gently fold in the oats and chocolate chips. 

Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and transfer to the refrigerator to chill the dough for an hour. NOTE: This is important. If you do not do this, your cookies will spread all over the cookies sheet and you will be sad. 



3. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. When the oven is hot, drop the cold cookie dough, using a tablespoon or cookie dough scooper, onto a parchment lined baking sheet.

Sprinkle the tops of the dough with sea salt or kosher salt. Do not skimp on this front. There's no salt in the dough, so you really need to be pretty liberal here.

Bake for 13-15 minutes until the edges are golden brown but the center is still kind of soft. The cookie should still be soft to the touch so carefully transfer them to a cooling rack. (If you bake on parchment, as I do, you can just slide the whole sheet off the pan onto the rack, which is a method I highly recommend.)

Serve to people without dietary restrictions and don't be amazed at their responses! These cookies are delicious!

Cookies as seen at our Point Bonita picnic.