Projectland

Eat the lawn

It has been very warm here in Chicago so the dandelions have been growing like, well, weeds. One of my favorite spring rituals is to make salads made from the dandelions that grow in the yard. Their taste is so bright and fresh and their texture soft. It's rewarding to eat something that naturally grows abundantly, is considered a nuisance and best of all tastes delicious!

Yesterday I made a twilight harvest from our yard,

washed the leaves carefully, after all we do have a dog...

...and tossed them with a slightly sweet balsamic vinaigrette. We ate them with pasta topped with a garlicky sauce made using homegrown tomatoes from last summer, a bit of goat cheese, salt and pepper. Not bad locavore eating!

Managing February

It's February, not April that should be named the "cruelest" month. I usually find it so hard to get through without getting depressed at not seeing green leaves on the trees or hearing birds singing. But this year it has not been so hard. Maybe its because it started out with a very enjoyable afternoon at Binth, where I have been working part time, attending a Letter Writers Alliance social. It is very inspiring and satisfying to be creative with a bunch of other people also being creative. The fact that it has been sunny and occasionally even warm, has also been a check in the plus column of February.

 

I think I was supposed to write a letter, but inspired by green jello's blog, I made a valentine boat instead, and gave it to my sweetheart of 20+ years.

Working at Binth part time has been so rewarding. I enjoy the space, the beautiful Binth paper goods and design, but of course it's the people there I enjoy the most. When I started there, Suzanna asked if I wanted to bring in my paper mache birds to try and sell. I had been working for months to make an "alphabet" of birds and I had completed it. But I wasn't sure what to do with them once they were finished. I wanted to initially make a book, but it just was not coming together for me: is it a kids book or one for adults? Is it a story book or an ABC book? Is it for people who want accuracy in their bird models or don't mind a little creative interpretation? Too many questions for this frazzled mom-mind. Really, the important thing to me was that I had gotten from A to Z. Literally. So I brought the birds in to Binth because they were not getting any younger sitting in my basement studio, and to everyone's surprise, they were snapped up by bird fans! I have been making more birds, but also started teaching paper mache bird painting workshops.  I make the paper mache "blank" birds, then bring paints, brushes, bird ID books and start up the "Chirp USA" app on the ipad so we can listen to different birds songs while we paint. I have really enjoyed getting to know fellow birders and crafters at these workshops, and I had no idea there were so many bird fanatics out there! If you are interested....check here to see when another workshop will be held.

 

One of the other things that has made this winter more manageable is that I've managed to fit in a few lunches here and there with friends. One of the more interesting meals was shared with one of my best friends, Bonnie from Goods and Heroes . We were at Ba Le enjoying sandwiches and when we were done with lunch, of course I was craving something sweet. I was in luck because in the cooler were packages of flourescent green, orange and purple rice.  (I picked purple because it reminded me of Easter and springtime and the other two colors were just too other-worldly...) I don't know its name, but it is made with coconut milk and has a topping of coconut, sugar, peanuts and sesame seeds. Yum!

The next food adventure was with Fumika Yamamoto, who Bonnie by chance discovered was interested in teaching Japanese cooking classes. Bonnie wrote about our experience here and so did Fumika here.  So, I won't repeat the event, but just share the pictures from my camera that morning.

The ingredients!

The mountains of deliciousness!

And the final dish "Okonomiyaki in the Hiroshima style".

February, you truely are not soooo bad.

Just from the oven goodness.

I remember when Mark Bittman from the NYT wrote about a no knead bread method and I thought, "I have to give that a try..." but I think I had a one year old and a four year old when the article came out, so my time was otherwise spoken for.  A year or two later, we got this book as a gift, where it sat on the shelf up until a few days ago. Since it's winter and I love baking when its cold out, I pulled the book down, checked to see if I had all the ingredients, and mixed up some dough. What a revelation! This bread recipe turns out one of the best breads ever. It's beyond good and beyond easy. Mix up a few ingredients, let it sit on the counter for 12-24 hours and then bake. It is incredible. I can not believe that this bread came out of my home kitchen oven! And what is even better is that it fits the bill for the "busy family meals" category perfectly. A slice of this bread still warm from the oven with a cucumber-tomato salad and a bowl of chicken noodle soup and the kids were in heaven.

And so, here is Jim Lahey's  no knead bread recipe :

(I like that someone in our house decided to color in the little white circle on the book's cover. It does kind of ask for it!)

Whew, fall is over but... the holidays approach!

I have been absent on this blog. Sorry! things are busy around here and I am finding it hard to write- although my intention is to keep up with the practice because it has been so rewarding. The latest news is that I am starting a part time job! I will be working in Forest Park at the first Binth design store with Suzanna, the founder and principle designer of Binth. After seven years as a stay at home mom, I am ready for re-integrating into the outside world!

Here's a recap of the goings on in projectland recently;

We celebrated a friend's 50th birthday in Michigan. You can read more about his birthday and see lots of pictures here on his highly honest website and blog: Out Your Backdoor

We trick or treated with the neighborhood gang. Can you spot the mermaid and the cheetah?

I co-coordinated and was in the 3rd annual West Walker Holiday Fair which is a benefit for the Three Brothers Garden, a community food bank garden in the neighborhood. I brought scrappies, a new stuffed doll I have been making (more about that in later post!) and some hand painted porcelain. I shared the table with artist friends Alison and Prisana. The fair raised about $2000 for the garden. I was very happy with the turnout and the amount of money raised!

I made paper mache turkeys with my daughter's Montessori class. This one was my favorite- I love the expression and the rainbow tail.

We celebrated Thanksgiving with friends. The food was incredible, and the sentiments and reflections people made as we went around the table were heartfelt. It has been a good year and we have so much to be thankful for.

And so as we head into the last month of the year, I continue to shop for our groceries at our neighborhood grocery store: Tony's Finer Foods for which I have nothing but praise. Look at that display! It's so beautiful. Tony's always has what I am looking for and they inspire me to try new things, although I am still not sure what to do with a bitter melon or all those starchy tubers from central and south America....

and I continue to enjoy cooking for the family. We saw the documentary Forks over Knives and resolved to try to eat more grains, fruits and vegetables. This is a tart made with the last kale leaves from the garden.

There will be lots more to write about come January and hopefully I will get in a short post here and there in December, but till then, stay warm!

 

 

 

criss cross applesauce

One day this fall, just south of the Wisconsin border we turned into a tidy U-pick apple orchard that was impeccably manicured. The kids tumbled from the car, happy to be free after an hour and a half drive. They ran around on the grass and on wood-chipped pathways that ran in between two big flowerbeds. My friend Amy and I walked over towards a white tent surrounded by absolutely gorgeous apple trees laden with fruit, red wagons lined up in 3 neat rows and an older man with furrowed brows scowling in the direction of the kids. He had a 10 am 6" cigar stuck in his mouth. The kids turned to run towards us, and then came the full frontal attack from cigar guy:

"...Hey, git those kids outta da flowerbeds... Listen, if you want to have kids here, you gotta watch em at all times!!!! dey can't run around screaming and climbing the trees and picking apples dat aren't ripe. see dat sign? It says, no children allowed unless accompanied by an adult at all times..."

Then the Mrs. of the orchard came out from behind the back of the tent and her first word was not "Hello" but "Are you looking for a petting zoo? Or rides?, 'cause you ain't gonna to find that here, you might want to go somewhere else"

Whoa! What kind of U-pick place is this? Amy and I looked at each other and I knew we were both thinking the same thing:  load everyone back up into the car and leave ASAP. But we stayed promising to closely watch the kids. The fruit looked too good. Plus the reason we chose that farm other than the fact that they had a picture of a two year old girl biting into an apple on their web page (which I took to mean "family friendly") was because it DIDN'T have a fee to park, a fee to enter the orchard, rides for a fee, and expensive apples.

The Mr. and Mrs. warmed up to us after a while and by way of an apology cigar man said, "your kids are OK. They're doin' great".  I said, "you must have had some bad experiences with kids here huh?" He told us about a couple of times when parents were not supervising their kids and a boy had done a lot of damage to apples with a jackknife and another boy had climbed up to the top of a tree and broken some branches.

Although the fruit was excellent and the owners were actually friendly in the end, I think we need to find an orchard where our "city kids" can run around and cut loose a little. If they can't do that in the countryside then where? (I don't want to give the name of the orchard. I think they just woke up on the wrong side of the bed that day, and I am sure that any small family farm needs all the business they can get to survive.)

Is it just fate that we will get crankier as we get older? I hope not, but it is a noticeable trend.

OK- on to applesauce, because I love any excuse to use my china cap which I bought half my life time ago at a Kiwanis sale in Ann Arbor, MI.

 

Homemade applesauce is hands down the best. Here is a simple recipe:

Cook 10-15 apples whole or core them. Combine with 2 C. of water, 1/4 C. brown sugar, and 1t. cinnamon over medium heat. Cover pot, and stir apples every few minutes. After 20-30 minutes, the apples should be soft and mushy. Let them cool, and then use a China Cap, or any other food mill/strainer to mash apples into apple sauce. If you don't have a china cap, you can use a cuisinart to make sauce, but make sure to core apples before cooking them, otherwise it will be hard to pick the seeds and stems out before processing the cooked apples.

We went to an orchard a couple of weeks later that I can heartily recommend. It is Ela orchard in Rochester, WI. It's not a u-pick, but the apples and pears are beautiful and delicious and most importantly, the owner, Bob is warm and open to people of all ages coming to his farm! You can feed the goats who comically gum the apples, drooling away, until they are the right size for swallowing. Here are a few pictures:

 

The last picture is my very own Honey Crisp.

Perfect pocket pies

A very pleasant lunch was spent recently with friends eating royal pie at Pleasant House Bakery . If you are in Chicago, I highly recommend a trip there. It's a very casual place, but sunlight brightens the small dining room and on the day we went, the counter staff were pip pip cheery-o eager to make sure we had a delicious British workingman's meal.

The kids and I had already been experimenting with empenada style pies using  this brand of buttermilk biscuit dough. (I read on-line that a recipe re-viewer's Chilean grandma uses it for her empenada dough, and I had to try it.) We made a filling together and they had fun spooning the filling onto the dough, folding the other half over and pressing the edges with a fork.

Ground turkey empenada filling that passes the kid taste test

Brown 1.5 cups of ground turkey in a frying pan with a little oil. Add 1/2 C. tomato sauce, 1/4 C. golden raisins, and 1/4 C. diced red or orange bell pepper. Season with 1/2 t. chili powder and salt. Let simmer for 10 min to blend the flavors and soften the peppers. Remove from heat and put in a bowl. Let cool for 10 minutes, then add 1/2 C. shredded cheese. Mix well.

Open biscuit dough and roll out each biscuit until it is an oval that is 1/8" thick.

Spoon about 1-2T. of the turkey mixture on one half of rolled out dough before folding over the other half. Seal edges by pressing the tines of a fork around edges. Brush tops with egg wash and sprinkle sea salt or a dry herb mix on top. Bake empenadas on a pan at 375F for 12-15 minutes or until golden brown.

They didn't eat theirs with sauce, but Chief Rail and I put fresh tomato salsa on top of ours.

After our lunch at Pleasant House, I got inspired to use a muffin tin and the same buttermilk bisuit dough to make chicken pot pies. The kids ate them up and asked for seconds. No joke. It's scary-easy to use that dough. I am starting to think that most everything might taste good "pocket style".

For these, I rolled the raw biscuits out to about 1/8" thick 6" diameter circles and pressed the dough into lightly oiled muffin tin cups. Then the kids and I filled the cups with the pot pie mixture, gathered the overhanging dough and pinched it together at the top so it looked like Vietnamese Bao. We brushed them with egg wash and sprinkled the adult ones with Herbs de Provence then baked them at 350F for about 15 minutes until they looked like the picture. They came undone a little in the baking, but didn't spill their cups. Let them cool for about 5 minutes, and then when you are ready to eat, run a knife around the edge to loosen them from the tin. They were fantastic. I could see serving these at a dinner party. Sprinkle a little flour on the counter top and people will think you made the dough yourself.

Just kidding purists.

You can use any chicken pot pie recipe you like, but my kids do not like onions or cooked celery. Too "slimy". So with that thought: here is the recipe for the filling we made.

Chicken pot pie recipe for kids (no slimy stuff)

Make a white roux by melting 2 T. butter in a sauce pan, adding 2 T. flour and mix with a whisk. Allow to bubble for 30 seconds or so, but don't let it burn. Whisk in 1/2 C. chicken broth and allow mix to thicken. Whisk in 1/2 C. milk, add 1/2 C. green peas. Season with salt, a dash of Maggi sauce, 1/2 t. of dried herb mix and a few sprinkles of smoked paprika if your kids will let you... let pot simmer while you:

Cut 1 C. raw chicken breast into 1/2" cubes.  Brown chicken in a frying pan with a little oil. Add 1/4 C. diced raw carrots, 1/4 C. chopped raw broccoli and let vegetables soften for about 5 minutes. Add this to the roux with peas and mix well. Use this filling in the dough filled muffin tin.

YUM. YUM. YUM.

 

Takoyaki in an Ebleskiver Pan

I bought an ebleskiver pan this summer, made these scrumptious Danish filled pancakes and was hooked. We all were!

We tried chocolate sauce, strawberry jam, and apricot jam fillings.  Adults thought apricot was the best, kids said, "chocolate!".  While researching batters and the ebleskiver pan itself, I discovered that there is a Japanese dish, Takoyaki (AKA Octopus balls) that it seemed could be made using an ebleskiver pan. Loving Japanese food, I filed that away for a future date.

Fast forward a few months. I went to Mitsuwa with a friend and saw a sauce for takoyaki. There was a recipe on the package, so I bought the ingredients I didn't already have at home- namely octopus and hondashi bonito soup base and went home all excited to make Octopus balls.

It was one of those times that the finished dish WAY EXCEEDED my expectations.

In the following picture, you can see the octopus leg on the right that the kids poked at for a while, simultaniously giggling and saying "ewww, weird".

Here is the batter recipe from the sauce package. I tried it their way, then made a few additions that made it better.

Takoyaki recipe

1 C. all purpose flour for batter, plus one T. for filling

1 1/2 C. fish stock (I used Hondashi Bonito instant soup stock)

2 eggs

4 oz. boiled octopus, cut into bite size pieces

1 oz. finely chopped green onion

1 oz. Tempura crisp flakes

1 T. dulce flakes or Aonori

1/2 t. salt

3 t cooking oil

Takoyaki Sauce

more dulce flakes for sprinkling on top

Thoroughly mix fish stock, flour, tempura crisp flakes, dulce, salt and eggs together in a bowl.

In a separate bowl, mix the octopus, green onions, and 1 T. flour.

Heat ebleskiver pan over med. flame. Brush oil inside indentations on pan. Spoon batter a little more than halfway up each indentation. Put in a small amount of octopus/green onion/flour filling in center of each batter filled cup, then add more batter covering the filling.

Let batter cook until the edges of each circle start bubbling and turning brown, about 4-5 minutes. Carefully turn each ball over completely using two chopsticks or the pointed ends of wooden knitting needles (in traditional Danish fashion). Let cook further, about 2 minutes.

 

Flip pan over onto plate to dislodge takoyaki. Put 3-4 in a shallow bowl, drizzle sauce on top and sprinkle dulce flakes and green onions on top. Let cool a few minutes before eating.

SOMEDAY, I hope to actually make it to Japan and eat takoyaki at one of the street food stalls in Osaka where they originated, but until then, I am pretty happy with my Midwest meets Japanese meets Danish version.

I'm inspired to make a Midwest version with some smoked Great Lakes fish and Wisconsin cheese, or local goat cheese with spring asparagus.

 

ps you can buy an ebleskiver pan from Amazon. Mine is from Nordic Ware

 

 

Fish tacos

I love fall. It's my favorite time of year, no joke. But, when fall arrives, I start thinking about winter, and when winter arrives I start wishing for an escape hatch to somewhere warm with big green leaves and bright colorful flowers. My parents have generously solved my cold weather blues by treating us to a big family gathering in Sanibel Island, Florida at Beachview Cottages . Our kids have been going there since they were born and think that my parents live there. In reality, we usually spend about a week, most of it outside, which makes my happiness meter go way up.

Last year we decided to do a little exploring and took a drive over to Pine Island. On the way there, we drove through the town of Matlacha and found The Olde Fish House Marina sea food market and restaurant. We really enjoyed talking with the owners and totally dug their back porch dining area overlooking a marina. That day we bought some big gulf shrimp to put on the BBQ, but the reason for this post is so that I can share my fish taco recipe!

If I had to narrow it down to my top 5 foods, fish tacos are in the running for first place. Before I knew any better, I ate them with flour tortillas, but then one day, I had a fish taco made with a corn tortilla and the heavens opened up to the glory that is the combination of corn, fish, lime, cabbage and hot sauce.

For the past few years I have been making fish tacos one night on the annual Sanibel vacation.  My Dad grills the fish that we caught that day on the little grill overlooking the beach. Then we sit down to dinner at a long table, watch the kids play and run in the sand while we eat tacos and drink beer and marvel at how fortunate we are to be there at that moment. Well at least I do. It just seems so right to be sitting next to the place where the food I am eating came from, and with people I love.

So without any more waxing, here she be:

 

 

Super delicious Fish Tacos

4-6 servings

 

Ingredients

• 1 pounds mahi mahi (skinned, boned and cleaned). You can use a variety of fish, but mahi-mahi is the classic fish to use. In Sanibel we use the sea trout we catch in Tarpon Bay.
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten
• 2 tablespoons water
• 2 cups panko bread crumbs
• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
• Vegetable oil, for frying (I like to use a wok for deep frying, or you can use a deep fat fryer if you have one)
• 1/2 head savoy cabbage, finely shredded (I use pre-packaged cole slaw mix)
• 1 bunch cilantro, leaves picked
• 3 limes, cut into wedges for garnish
• bottle of green or red Mexican hot sauce ( I like the brand “El Yucateco”)
• corn tortillas

Pink Mayonnaise:

• ¼  cup sour cream
• ¼  cup mayonnaise
• ¼ cup catsup

Guacamole with Tomatillo salsa

• 2 avocados
• 6 tomatillos, husks removed and tomatillos washed
• 1 fresh serrano or jalapeno chile pepper
• 3 garlic cloves still in their husks
• ½ t. salt
• 1 T. chopped cilantro
• juice of one lime

Tomato Salsa

• I just buy a good one from the store and add fresh tiny cubed fruit like mango or peach to give it a tropical and sweet taste which is good with the fish.

 

 

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350. Roast the whole tomatillos, whole chile and garlic cloves still in their husks for 20 minutes. Turn the Tomatillos ½ way through so they get brown on all sides. Take pan out and let cool for a few minutes. Squish the garlic cloves from their husks into a blender, add the roasted tomatillos, chile and any juices that have accumulated into the pan. Add about ½ C. water to the blender, or just enough to make the tomatillo salsa smooth. Mash avocado with a fork, add ½ C. of the tomatillo salsa, cilantro, lime juice, salt and pepper and mix gently so that the guacamole is still chunky.

Prepare the pink mayonnaise by mixing the three ingredients together. Season with salt and pepper and refrigerate until ready to use.

Prepare the fish.

If deep frying: Cut the pieces of fish into 1-ounce strips. Set up a breading station of flour, lightly beaten eggs with water, and seasoned panko bread crumbs. Season all with salt and pepper. Dredge the pieces of fish in flour, egg then bread crumbs. Once all the fish is breaded deep-fry in small batches in (375 degrees F) oil. Drain on paper towels and season with salt. Keep warm in a 175-200 degree oven until ready to serve.

If grilling: season the filets with a paste made with minced garlic, olive oil, salt and pepper. Let marinate for 15 min. Grill fish on a hot grill 2 min per side.

To serve, set up the tacos "family-style". Assemble the fish in a pile on a plate; put the pink mayonnaise, tomato salsa, and guacamole in separate bowls. Set a pile of shredded cabbage, cilantro leaves and lime wedges next to the fish. Set out a couple of bottles of Mexican hot sauce. I like the green habanero one, but the red habanero is good too. Heat the tortillas wrapped in a dishtowel in the microwave for about 1 minute (might need one minute more, depending on the microwave). Or grill the tortillas, flipping them with tongs until they are hot and dark brown in spots.

To assemble: Lay tortilla down, put a stripe of pink sauce down the middle, add cabbage, 2-3 pieces of fish, guacamole, tomato salsa, a squeeze of lime on top, add cilantro and hot sauce, fold in half and eat.

Serve with rice, beans, and beer!

 

It's getting to be meat loaf season!

Sarah's Sweet and Spicy Meatloaf recipe

8 servings

Preheat oven to 350 F

 

Combine in a large bowl:

 12 oz. ground beef

12 oz. ground pork

1 ½ C. finely chopped onions

1 C. breadcrumbs

2/3 C. ketchup

½ C. raisins

1 C.  of a jar of Potbelly’s hot peppers or any good quality Italian Giardiniera

3 lrg. Eggs

1 t ground thyme (or 2T. fresh thyme)

1 t. salt

½ t. ground pepper

 

Knead the mixture with your hands until everything is well blended.

 

Fill a 9 X 5 loaf pan with the meat mixture, mounding the top.

Place the pan on a baking sheet and bake until the meat is firm to the touch and has shrunk from the sides of the pan or until an instant read thermometer inserted in the center of the loaf reads 160 F. About 1 hour.

Let stand for 15 minutes to serve hot, or let cool completely and slice thinly for sandwiches.

 

For sandwiches:

Serve with mayonnaise (recipe below), sliced tomato, and lettuce.

 1 C. mayonnaise mixed with ½ t. smoked paprika and 2T. chopped, mixed fresh herbs.

 

How to make raspberry jam in four easy steps.

Step 1:

On a beautiful late summer day, pick raspberries with friends. We went to Royal Oak Farm Orchard in Harvard, IL. Not because we want to eat HIS raspberries, but because they use IPM and don't spray their fruit with chemicals. (On the other hand, maybe they are being blessed by the holy triad: the fruit is especially delicious.)

Note: Be sure to eat just as many as you put into your pint container! This is important.

step 2:

Stand back and admire your picking ability.  Take a picture.

Step 3:

Bring said berries home (4 pints total=8 C.), put them in a pot on the stove over medium heat. Smash berries with a potato masher. For sure kids can help here!! Add 6 C. of sugar, and a granular package of Sure Jell pectin. Stir well. Bring to a boil, stirring all the while. Boil for one minute. Ladle jam (that's right folks, you just made jam!!) into clean, sterilized jars.  Recipe makes about 8 or 9 cups of jam. Cap with sterilized caps and rings. Process sealed jars in a hot water bath for 10 minutes. Let cool.

Step 4:

Once again, stand back and admire your "work". Then DIG IN!!