Vegetable Garden Week 6 - first harvest

I got my first (little) harvest this weekend! I took some lettuce for a salad. It was so great! So much more flavorful than store bought and so crunchy and fresh. I'm so glad we decided to grow lettuce! What a fab salad.

Look at this poor tomato

I was worried about the garden because of the cold snap last week, and honestly, some of it wasn't looking so good.

Ramp, Stinging Nettle, and Sunchoke Soup

This soup just oozes spring. I've been totally going overboard with ramps - I made them with duck, made them into pesto, topped them with olive oil and grilled them... I'm drinking the cool aid. Before they go out of season, I wanted at least one more try.

I went to the farmers market yesterday hoping for veggies. I'd been eating a little unhealthily this week, so I needed it. I grabbed some stinging nettles, ramps, and sunchokes all at the same stand and thought it would make a great, springy soup. It did! Very easy to make and takes about 45 minutes. It's a beautiful bright green and goes really well with a parmesan twist from Amy's Bread (or a roll or baguette or any other bread). I can't wait to eat it again for lunch! The sunchokes thicken it up a little, the ramps give it an earthy smoothed out bite, and the nettles are super springy. It tastes great and you feel like you're being healthy. Just don't touch the nettles with your hands until after they're cooked!

Vegetable Garden Week 5

The vegetable garden is really starting to look like a garden! (Though a little goofy with the wall o waters.) It's so great. We packed up the tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants that had been living in our apartment and headed out to Long Island Saturday morning.

The wall o waters are up, and they will really be tested this week with the temperatures suddenly plummeting! I planted all of my tomatoes, eggplants, and peppers. I was able to squeeze a few of the little ones together in one wall o water, so that was nice.

Tomatoes from Union Square

My 4 Big Boys and 4 Super Sweet 100s are growing bigger every day on my windowsill, but I needed some funky heirlooms to round them out (my garden has space for 13 tomato plants! isn't it amazing??). On a Wednesday trip to Union Square I came back with 5 very cool tomato plants - 2 cherry tomato and 3 bigger. I can't wait to see the tomatoes they have because they all look so funky and cool. I didn't get any heirloom beefsteaks because I think we'll have enough with the 4 Big Boy plants. We'll certainly have tons of cherry tomatoes! Those are so great for salads and are always prolific, so I don't mind. I can make salsa, too!

Here are the cool heirlooms I bought today! (Info from rareseeds.com) I hope to have a very colorful garden!

Big:

Japanese Black Trifele - "80-90 days. Attractive tomatoes are the shape and size of a Bartlett pear with a beautiful purplish-brick color; the fruit are perfect and smooth with no cracks. The flavor is absolutely sublime, having all the richness of fine chocolate. This was our heaviest producer for 2004. The plants produced loads of fruit all summer long. It has become a favorite with many seed savers and we are glad to be able to offer such a colorful variety. It is believed to have come from Russia, so don't ask me about the name! "

Plum Lemon - "80 days. Bright canary-yellow 3” fruit looks just like a fresh lemon. The perfect tomato for marketing (along with Green Zebra, Orange Banana, and Black Prince) to chefs and other gourmets. This variety was collected by Kent Whealy, of Seed Savers Exchange, from an elderly seedsman at the Bird Market in Moscow. Delicious, sweet-taste. "

Shaved asparagus salad

Quick post! Made a super easy super tasty asparagus salad last night. It's so fresh and springy, and healthy. Get fresh asparagus and make it into ribbons with a vegetable peeler. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Drizzle with lemon juice and a little apple cider vinegar and a teeny bit of olive oil. With the vegetable peeler, shred a few pieces of pecorino Romano. Eat!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Kalua Pig

While we were in Hawaii, Jamie and I feel in love with Kalua pig. It's the Hawaiian version of pulled pork and it's great. They served it on nachos and on taro buns with BBQ sauce. Since I had the time, I made it last weekend and it was fab. I halved this recipe and it was still big enough for one dinner for three with BBQ sauce on a bun, one lunch for three in a grilled cheese, one dinner for two with nachos, and three lunches with BBQ sauce on a bun. So basically, it's a lot! It's totally worth it, though, because you can use it so many ways - and you'll save money on lunch for the week!

I made a pineapple barbecue sauce to go with it, but any BBQ sauce will work. I also served them on brioche buns instead of taro - it was great! The sweet, soft brioche bun was perfect with the rich pork and tart sauce. Yum yum yum.

Ingredients:

1 large banana leaf (I got these at Essex Street Market)

3 lb bonless pork shoulder, cut into 3 pieces

1 1/2 tbsp kosher salt

1 1/4 tbsp liquid smoke

Chocolate Meringue and Mint Chip Ice Cream Cake

I've been drooling over this recipe since last summer and finally pulled my act together this weekend to make it. Yum! I love ice cream cake, I love mint chocolate chip ice cream, I love meringues. It's a win, win, win. The meringues are light and fluffy and chocolatey and the whole combination is great. Also looks super impressive. I halved the original recipe because there were only three of us and made it round.

Ingredients:
5 1/4 tbsp sugar, divided
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons cocoa powder
2 large egg whites
1 pint mint chocolate chip ice cream, softened

1/4 cup chilled whipping cream
powdered sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla

Vegetable Garden Week 4

After being away for about a month, I went back out to the country last weekend and got to see my garden. Apart from being super dry, it looked great! (Especially once I watered it.) Four of the five brussels sprouts I planted sprouted, a perfect line of beets popped up (I'll need to thin them next weekend), and all the peas had sprouted! So exciting.

Brussels Sprouts

Beets

Peas

I planted another row of beets and carrots, a row of swiss chard, zucchinis, and cucumbers. I also set up a little trellis for the cucumbers and planted some lettuce underneath.

Pomegranate-Glazed Seared Duck Breast with Ramps and Crispy Potatoes

I went to the Union Square market yesterday to see what looked good and I decided to try ramps! I've always wanted to cook with them but have never tried. I love garlic, so I figured I couldn't go wrong. I also got a duck breast. I had potatoes at home. I figured I could make something good with this. (Potatoes + duck fat = yum yum yum yum) I saw a good looking recipe from Anne Burell with how to perfectly sear the duck breast, and she used pomegranate molasses (a totally awesome ingredient). I thought hers sounded a little too syrupy sweet, so I changed it up a bit. It was delicious! I highly recommend this for impressing someone for dinner. The pomegranate molasses is tart and sweet and sticky and the duck is rich and salty. The ramps look beautiful on top, and the potatoes are perfect to soak up the extra juice. Make it while there are still ramps!

Serves 2
Ingredients:
3 ramps (bulb and leaves) roots removed, 1 finely diced
1 duck breast, fat scored in a crosshatch pattern
1/2 lb small potatoes
1/4 cup pomegranate molasses
1/4 cup reduced chicken broth (I used a cups worth of bouillon with 1/4 cup water)
2 tbsp red wine vinegar
1/8 tsp (big pinch) cumin
1/8 tsp (big pinch) coriander
1/8 tsp (big pinch) chipotle powder
2 sprigs fresh thyme

Directions:

Mix the pomegranate molasses, chopped ramp, stock, and herbs in a bowl or measuring cup. Heat a skillet to medium-low and put the duck breast and the ramps in (duck skin-side-down).

Rhubarb!

My wonderful friend Kara came back from her house in PA this weekend with a piece of split rhubarb for me! I'm so, so excited because I loooove rhubarb. This rhubarb was Kara's great-grandmother's! It's really hard to plant rhubarb from seeds and it's recommended that you split the crown of an existing rhubarb plant and plant that. I'm not going to put it directly in the garden because they tend to get huge (fingers crossed!). I'm already day dreaming about all of the things I want to make with it. Pie (my fave), chutney, jam, sorbet (this sorbet is amazing), and even mustard.

What are your favorite rhubarb recipes? I can't get enough.

Wall O Water

Has anyone ever used these?? I just found out about them from this blog and I'm super excited about it. I hope they arrive by Friday so I can plant my tomatoes this weekend (and peppers and eggplants too). If not, I'll do it next weekend. I'm so excited to try them. You can get them on Burpee and Amazon. Hope they work. Of course, will keep you posted!

Easy Chicken Liver Pâté

My brother-in-law Austen got me this awesome cookbook for Christmas - Home Made by Yvette van Boven.

The chicken liver pâté looked good, and easy. I'd never made pâté but always wanted to, so now I can check it off my list! It's simple, cheap, and so rich and creamy. Next time I may use a little less cream and maybe add some more herbs, but this is great to have with cornichons, some jam or chutney, and warm bread. I served it with my tomato jam (and new favorite condiment) and it was fab.

Ingredients:
1/2 lb chicken livers
1 1/2 tablespoons butter
1 shallot, minced
1/2 cup cream
2 tsp dark rum or brandy (it calls for brandy, but I didn't have any, so I substituted dark rum)