Mushroom Sauce
from Simply in Season by Mary Beth Lind and Cathleen Hockman-Wert (This is a great cookbook. Thank you, Christine!)

:: 3 T butter
:: 2 ½ c chopped mushrooms*
:: 1 c minced onion
:: 1 t salt
:: 7 T sherry or broth (use sherry!)
:: 2 T flour
:: 1 large garlic clove, minced
:: pepper to taste
:: 2/3 c water or broth**
:: 1 c sour cream or plain yogurt (room temperature)

Melt butter in a skillet over medium heat. Add mushrooms, onion and salt. Cook uncovered for 10 minutes. Stir in sherry, then turn heat to low and slowly sprinkle in flour. Keep stirring for a minute or two after all the flour is in. Add garlic and pepper to cook and stir over low heat 5-10 minutes. Stir broth and yogurt into sauce, mixing well until it is completely incorporated and heated throughout. Serve over hot cooked pasta and top with freshly grated cheese. Fall variation: Serve over sweet potatoes or on toast.

*Don’t you hate it when there is an asterisk with no corresponding footnote? I promise to never do that to you.
To the matter at hand: I used dried golden oyster mushrooms from Om Gardens.
**I intended to use chicken broth for the sauce, but realized I could use the strained liquid reserved from reconstituting the dry mushrooms. It’s full of flavor and tastes earthy, delicious and nutritious.


The sweet potatoes roasted while I made the sauce and sautéed chard from my garden (thanks, Chelsey!).

Last night I used the last of my mashed potatoes to make something like Bittman’s garlic-rosemary potato fritters. Instead of garlic and rosemary, I used caramelized onions (which I cooked the night before to save time) and thyme. Some crumbled blue cheese would have been a fantastic addition; I found my fritters a little dull.

An aside: How I love fritters! Here are posts on pumpkin fritters, corn fritters, and zucchini fritters.

Onion-thyme potato fritters with Greek yogurt and some endive and olives.

Along the same lines, read this great essay by Tamar Adler about applying Thanksgiving-meal planning to everyday cooking:

We see in everything we buy and cook the promise of leftovers, and the makings of meals to come. … To cook sustainably, we need meat and vegetables to come in their own skins and on their bones and covered in their leaves, because they’re more economical and will leave us more to turn into future meals. We need to cook a bit more at once, and then do little cooking, and more adjusting during the week, which is often all we have time for, anyway.

Sounds a lot like someone I know.

Not only is this book great because of its low-tech premise, but the “recipes” are straightforward instructions for assembling ingredients, which makes food preservation a lot more approachable. Guidance on traditional preservation techniques (salt, sugar, oil, vinegar, alcohol, etc.) is uncommon in this age of hyper-liability-conscious USDA food preservation manuals, and seeing these simple instructions in a formal (published) form, gives them credence.

Pickled garlic, pistou, basil vinegar, basil oil

I always plant too much basil, so finding new uses for it is a perennial task. What do you do with it? Last weekend I made “pistou,” the Provençal cousin of the Italian pesto.

Pistou
from Preserving Food Without Freezing or Canning
1 large bunch of basil
4 cloves garlic
salt
1 c olive oil
small jars and lids

Grind the garlic and basil, add a pinch of salt and cover with oil. Mix all the ingredients well and spoon into small jars. The jars will keep very well for more than a year if kept in a cool place. I look forward to cooler weather when I can bake some bread to eat with my pistou.

With the remaining basil I made basil-seasoned vinegar and oil. I used a chopstick to shove the leaves into bottles and filled most of the bottles with apple cider vinegar. One bottle was filled with olive oil.

After I finished the basil projects, I started on the garlic. I put on some good music (Wilco, Neko Case, Neil Young) and went to town peeling garlic cloves. And then I took a nap. It doesn’t look like all that many, but it was time-consuming, and eventually, painful. I began to really appreciate the cloves with skin that slipped off in large, cohesive, crispy pieces. Were those a different variety, or just older? I’d like to know.

Look at the variety of shapes.

Pickled Garlic
from Preserving Food Without Freezing or Canning
1 lb. garlic
1 quart water
1 T salt
bay leaves
black peppercorns
1 c vinegar
½ c water
¼ c sugar
a saucepan
small jars and lids

Peel the garlic. Boil one quart of water with 1 T salt. Add the garlic and continue to boil for 3 to 5 minutes. Drain the garlic. Fill small jars with the garlic, one bay leaf, and five black peppercorns. Boil the vinegar along with ½ c water and ¼ c sugar, pour this mixture over the garlic, and immediately close the jars. The garlic will keep for a very long time, and is particularly tasty in salads.

I was broke and tired, but having a fun, liberating adventure. One of my memories from that day centers on the cheap, hearty, delicious meat pie I bought from a sweet, gray-haired lady. I remember being astonished at the deal and pleased by the pie’s portability. Prior to that experience, my notion of hand pies came in a Mrs. Baird’s wrapper (nonetheless delicious!).

Nearly a decade later, and — guess what — here I am still broke and occasionally tired, but having a fun, liberating adventure and I find myself turning to hand pies.

These Greek hand pies that would make Popeye proud. I’ve used greens gathered from my own and friends’ gardens: chard, amaranth, beet greens, lambs quarters, along with mint, basil, oregano and dill. The first time I made the dough, I followed the recipe, which calls for olive oil. The second time I used lard, which was more enjoyable to work with.

These pies are surprisingly delicious and nearly free. I have twice devoted the time to make a batch to freeze for quick meals. Taken straight from the freezer, they take about 20 minutes to fry.

Eager to find another use for the cream cubes, I was already considering custard or panna cotta recipes when I came across Cathy Erway’s basil panna cotta in The Art of Eating In (which I finished last night — good book). Erway goes from coupledom to singlehood about half-way into the book, which tells of her 2-year mission to forgo restaurants, take out, food carts, etc.

Turns out, abstaining from restaurants somewhat complicates the typical first dinner-date routine. She has a guy over for dinner and endeavors to create a date-like meal and atmosphere. Apparently, she had fantastic luck inspiring romance, and credits her fresh basil panna cotta. While I didn’t experience this phenomenon, the indulgent dessert did garner appreciative moans.

Panna cotta is a good make-ahead dessert for dinner parties, date nights, pot lucks, etc. And because of the recipe‘s simplicity, you could have fun playing with the flavors. Instead of the basil-infused cream, next time I’d like to try chocolate panna cotta infused with mint.

Beautiful cream from Wagon Creek Creamery; basil from my garden.
You can see how the fat rose to the top of the panna cotta — just like what happened in my coffee, but more appetizing.

I’ve made two versions of this stir-fry in as many weeks. I loosely followed Deborah Madison‘s recipe, which is available on Parsnips Aplenty. I didn’t have any peanut oil, so I used chicken fat instead. The second time I added Pork & Greens stew meat, which was tasty and easy, but not necessary.

Bok choy is my favorite cooked green, and this bunch came from the Yang Farm in Tulsa, via Urban Agrarian. The peanuts are roasted runners from Snider Farms in Hollis.

Crispy Prosciutto Cups
Adapted from Managing PCOS for Dummies (Odd, I know.)
Lightly grease four cups of a muffin pan. Line the cups with paper-thin slices of prosciutto. (Next time I’ll try using Colpitts’ shaved ham.)
Dry fry a couple of tablespoons of finely chopped mushrooms to release and evaporate the moisture. Cool. Mix with 2–3 T. of plain Greek yogurt.
Fill each ham-lined cup with the mushroom mixture.
Carefully crack an egg on top of each “muffin,” taking care not to let the egg white spill over the edges.
Bake in the middle of a 400˚ oven for 10 minutes, or until the egg whites are set, but the yolks are runny.
Remove from oven and carefully ease each ham crisp out of the tin.

September 14. Potato cakes, chard, tomatoes, blue cheese.

Use leftover mashed potatoes to make potato cakes! Inspired by Deborah Madison.
Use your hands to shape the mashed potatoes into patties. Coat them with sesame seeds, bread crumbs, potato chip crumbs, etc. Pan fry.

I brought Linda’s Hot and Spicy Pickled Eggs to two gatherings, and while there was some initial hesitation, they were ultimately a hit.

So, now I’m a pickled-egg fan. They are a quick, tasty protein source that will last for a couple of weeks in the refrigerator. As far as those unrefrigerated ones in the gas station—I would probably only eat one on a dare.

Do you have a pickled egg recipe? Please share!

Linda Ziedrich’s Hot and Spicy Pickled Eggs
:: About 12 hard-cooked eggs (to fill a quart jar), peeled
:: 2 T pickling salt
:: 6 fresh or pickled green chile peppers (such as serrano), slit lengthwise
:: 1 1/2 cups cider vinegar
:: 1/2 cup water
:: 1 T minced fresh ginger
:: 1 T black mustard seeds
:: 1 T crushed black pepper
:: 2 garlic cloves, coarsely chopped

1. With a fork, pierce each egg through the white to the yolk about 6 times. Put the eggs into a 1-quart jar. In a nonreactive saucepan, combine the remaining ingredients. Bring them to a boil, reduce the heat, and cover the pan. Simmer the contents 15 minutes.
2. Let the liquid cook a little, then pour it over the eggs. Cap the jar, and refrigerate the jar for at least 1 week to allow the eggs to absorb the flavorings. Refrigerated, the eggs will keep for several weeks.

My notes: To color the eggs, I add 1/2 t turmeric to the spice mix. I found black mustard seeds at the Asian market, though I have made the recipe with common yellow mustard seed and it was just as tasty. I vary the number and type of peppers depending on what I have on hand and who will be eating the eggs.

Pickled eggs without turmeric.

Pickled eggs with the added turmeric.

I had never worked with meringue before and I’m not a fan of fluffy meringue pies; however, this concept of crunchy meringue intrigued me.

The cap of meringue sealed in the applesauce, so I had to tap, tap, tap to break through. It sort of felt like ice fishing—not that I have ever ice fished.

The recipe worked beautifully and I can’t wait to apply this crunchy meringue cap to other desserts, namely a semi-sweet dark chocolate pudding.

Of course, if you want to try the recipe with applesauce, Oklahoma apples are in season right now.

July 31: Salad, corn fritters, and smoked salmon we brought back from the “Take Home Fish Company” in Neah Bay, WA.

August 15: Buffalo and blue cheese meatballs, roasted okra from the garden (yay!), and potato salad (this is one of my favorite potato salad recipes because, not only is it very tasty, it uses ingredients I can easily get locally: yogurt, chicken broth, and oregano). This meal is approximately 94.37% local. Well, not really, but close. Definitely close.

August 19: Finished off the salmon we brought back from our vacation, roasted okra, and butternut squash with butter, brown sugar, and pecans. Let me tell you about this squash: it patiently sat in the pantry since November. A great keeper! The outside looked a little rough (spotty), but the inside was just fine.

August 14: Beautiful brioche from Prairie Thunder Baking Company via Urban Agrarian.
Take a slice of that pretty loaf and top it some butter, thin apple wedges, and blue cheese. Broil it for a couple of minutes. I’m on a blue cheese kick right now.