Experiment at Breakfast

Ahh, finally a sunny summer morning. We had a perfectly ripened canteloupe on the counter, and I'd just been to the garden and plucked a handful of jalpenos. Hmm, what if...

Yes. Those pops of heat were delicious in that melon sweetness.

A Tomato in Winter

If you do not find picture below inspiring, I guarantee that if you take the time to roast some whole canned tomatoes, inspiration will find you.

Used whole along side winter vegetables such as chard or kale, these beauties impart a burst of summer.  Chop a few and fold into an omelet.  Mash a couple and spread on some good toast. If you eat meat, these would be fabulous with a steak. You get the idea. Their jammy sweet yet savory flavor is just the thing for winter when you are longing for a taste of summer.

 I suggest you start with at least two 28 oz. cans whole tomatoes. They shrink as they roast.  Prepare the tomatoes by draining the juice from the can and stabbing each tomato with a small knife. Make a slit large enough so that when you apply pressure, the juice inside comes out. I do this in my sink. Preheat oven to 275. Set rack in the middle of oven.

Put the squeezed tomatoes in a bowl and add some olive oil, enough to coat each one. Place in an oiled ceramic or glass dish, leaving space between them. Chop some onion, or some garlic, sprinkle on the oiled tomatoes. You could place some fresh rosemary or thyme springs under them.

Roast in oven 3-4 hours. Check occasionally. It could take less time.  Remove from oven when they have nearly collapsed and have some blackish edges. Sprinkle with coarse kosher or sea salt.

These store well in the fridge. But they won’t last long because you will love them.

Kale again

When my stepdaughter, Aimée, recently shared a kale salad recipe with me, I immediately wanted to eat raw kale. Somehow, this fall, I’ve been feeling like the  “Into the Woods” Witch rapping in the prologue: “Greens, greens and nothing but greens”.

As it turned out, I had an opportunity to make a variation on this salad the very next night. It was simple, a citrus dressing tossed in a bowl of torn up baby kale.

Here is what I did:  SO EASY!!

Dressing:

3 clementines: halved and then juiced

approximately an equal amount to juice of good extra virgin olive oil

½ clove garlic, finely chopped

2 T rice wine vinegar (a  little fresh lemon juice would do)

 some salt, some pepper

As much baby kale cleaned, washed and with big stems removed as you need for you and your dinner companions.  I use my mother-in-law’s way of measuring: 2 or so handfuls per person ( but we are big salad eaters .She planned one handful per person as a side salad quantity.)

Now here is what is important: Toss kale in dressing at least fifteen minutes before eating.  This allows kale to absorb the dressing and to soften a bit. Even though it is young, the baby kale can be sort of chewy.

(If your kale is not really young or picked from your garden, it will be ok. Just let the kale sit longer in the dressing, And be sure to discard of tough stems and ribs.)

 Add some salt and pepper before serving.

Summer Sliders

Oh my gosh are these delicious. If the base of your stack is a garden tomato slice, then you could call these a summer vegetable napoleon. But if you start with a piece of baked eggplant, these become sliders that you can handily pick up to eat!

For two people you’ll need:

2 med very fresh eggplant

a few sliced garden tomatoes (if you don’t have really good tomatoes this is not the dish for you)

fresh mozarrella, sliced in a few slices, however thick it suits you

Some fresh basil, chopped in fine strips

olive oil

commercial bread crumbs. I use unseasoned, but you could use whatever you have

s+p to taste

an egg

Start with quarter inch slices of peeled very fresh eggplant, and dunk them in beaten egg you thinned with a little water. Then dredge in breadcrumbs. Put a fair amount of olive oil on a foil lined cookie sheet and arrange the slices on here. Then, I like to use my Misto to spray the tops with olive oil.. I use the oven and heat it to 375. When they brown on one side flip them to finish. (You could, of course, fry these in a pan)

Make little stacks: a piece of eggplant, a piece of cheese, a little basil, a tomato another eggplant slice, more tomato, basil, eggplant, voila, cute yummy slider. Or start with a tomato base and commit to using a fork. We’ve found 3 stacks each makes a very nice supper.

Fry Baby, Fry

I cannot remember the last time I fried anything…I mean actual frying in a least an inch of bubbling hot oil.

It is the Season of the Eggplant around here and after the caponata was put up and the eggplant lasagnas safely tucked into the garage freezer there were still a few small eggplants in the garden.

Dinner was looming.

I had a vision of small golden eggplant cubes, enrobed in a fresh tomato sauce and served up on pasta.

It seemed a no brainer to get busy with the cast iron chicken fryer and heat up some oil. I peeled two smallish eggplants cut them into squares about three quarters of an inch all around, doused them in beaten egg and tossed them in a bag with bread crumbs . Corn and peanut oils are preferred for frying because of their high smoke point, but I had canola on hand, about 1.5 inches of oil total, I’d say. I was frying at approx. 350-375 degrees ( yes I used a thermometer) and did not have any problems.

Because the cubes are small and vegetable, they fry very quickly in the hot oil. They were all I’d hope for and more. The tomato sauce I mentioned was very simple: chopped up 2 or so garden tomatoes, a bit of fresh basil, garden garlic, a little olive oil. And I added a teensy bit of Wondra to provide little body.

The cubes were custardy inside and crisp on the outside. The tomato sauce was velvety and sweet. And this did not take very long. It’s one of those meals where you have to think and make a plan ( do sauce first, heat pasta water, get oil heating, cut up eggplant), but once stuff it prepped it goes very quickly. And completely worthy of the small planning effort.

Hail Kale

The good thing about kale is it thrives during winter when nothing else is in the garden. The other thing about kale is it continues right on into the early summer. I am growing Laciniato, an Italian heirloom variety. It is also known as dinosaur kale. It has bumpy, bluish green pre-historic looking leaves.

We love kale for its earthy green flavor and its versatility.  I am sad to see it going by.

We were halfway through eating when the thought came to me to post this easy and most delicious kale dish we had last night.  The “bones” of the dish are from Alice Waters.  I’m sorry we ate the meal before I could whip out my camera.

For 2 people:

About a pound of kale. Remove stem and central vein and chop roughly. Rinse well.

Approx. 1/8 C olive oil

½ large onion , sliced

2 or 3 garlic cloves

1-2 T  red wine or cider vinegar

Pasta of your choice ( I used YDFM Mezzaluna)

Over med/low heat in a large frying pan, cook onions in olive oil til they become medium golden brown.  When these are correct color, boil and salt pasta water. Add a layer of kale to the onions, add some salt, let them wilt, then add the rest of the kale. Stir in the garlic, and mix the onions into all the kale.  Put pasta in to cook.

When kale is wilted and tender enough to your taste, take off lid and let any excess liquid evaporate. Take off heat and add vinegar. Stir in.

Serve kale mixture on top of pasta. A little grated cheese doesn’t hurt. And you could add a pinch of dried red chili pepper, or even a little hot fresh garden pepper.

This could be a really fast meal if you skipped the onions. But they add a very nice sweetness. So if dinner time is crazy, you could think about precooking the onions some other time while you are up to something else and holding in the fridge til you need them.

winter wonderful-ness

During the warm months, we enjoy something we call “on top of’. This dish is built with a green salad dressed in home made vinaigrette, perhaps some olives or red onion and tomato, whatever looks good from the garden, and a cooked protein, served on top of the salad. Sometimes shrimp, sometimes grilled chicken, sometimes a bison burger.

I constructed a winter version of this recently, using a variety of vegetables I had in the fridge.
I cleaned and cut parsnips and carrots into two inch lengths, cut a few Brussels sprouts in half, threw in a few smallish pieces of garden broccoli and a handful of grape tomatoes. All this was tossed in olive oil and put in a shallow pan in one layer. I pricked a hot Italian sausage and laid this in the pan on the veg and cooked it all at 400 til the sausage was done and the veg were still firm, but no longer crunchy.

After I sprinkled the cooked veg with some kosher salt, I served this with whole wheat couscous under the veg, with the sausage on top. It was a colorful land delicious winter dinner.

Take a look in your veg drawer and see what needs to be used . You’ll be happily surprised at how easy it is to make a really good meal. And if you prefer to forgo the meat, the roasted veg and the couscous stand well on their own.

Beautiful Brussels Sprouts

Now that we are well into Fall and approaching holiday menu planning, there has been a lot of chatter about Brussels sprouts in various cooking magazines. This is good. Brussels sprouts really are versatile as more than a side-to-major-hunk-o’-poultry or other protein.

Earlier in the Fall I discovered how delicious they could be added to pasta. Here is what I did tonight:

Plan seven Brussels sprouts per person. If you have a Cuisinart, terrific. Use the finer blade attachment and slice them up after removing the stem ends. If you are using a knife, slice them as fine as you can. Be careful. They roll.

Render some chopped pancetta, about 2 oz. per person. After the pieces are brown, remove and save the fat.

Slice a small onion ( for two, a med. or large, for more people, or if you have them , a few shallots) and brown over medium low heat in a mixture of olive oil and a little butter and the pancetta rendering.

Chop up some kalamata olives. Chop up some garlic.

Start heating your well salted pasta water. I used fusilli for pasta. I am particularly pleased with the joyous springiness of this pasta. ( I plan about 3 oz. pasta per person)

After the pasta has been in the boiling water for about 2 minutes, put the sliced Brussels sprouts, the browned onions (or shallots), the chopped garlic, and all the pan oils and the pancetta in a preheated skillet. Add a bit of dried red pepper, too. Grind some fresh pepper in there. Toss over a relatively high heat. til crisp-tender, remove from heat. Drain pasta and toss in the Brussels sprouts mixture. Add the kalamata olives.

Add a handful of freshly grated parmesan cheese. Serve in bowls.

A full bodied red wine is nice with this.

shades of summer

There was a beautiful bowl of colorful tomatoes in my kitchen and I knew I had to use them soon. And those listada di gandia eggplants were getting big enough to pick.. how about a nice little summer lasagna for the two of us? Not a gooey, dense lasagna, but a light and almost fluffy concoction: summery.

I made a quick sauce of the tomatoes with a little garlic, only partially cooking the tomato pieces to hold their shape. They were so lovely in the pan I was inspired take them outside into the midday light to snap the picture seen here. I thickened the sauce with a bit of butter and flour mashed together (the French call this beurre manié) sliced, oiled and roasted the eggplants and made a small béchamel, (or, as it is called in Italy: salsa balsamella) and tossed a little grated romano cheese in to it. I picked some basil and chopped up a handful of leaves. I browned up some hot Italian sausage.

I never cook lasagna noodles, I just soften them in hot water for about 10-15 minutes and pat dry before layering in the pan.

As with any lasagna, I started with tomato sauce on the bottom of the ceramic dish, then layered noodles, sausage , béchamel, eggplant, basil noodle and tomato sauce. Topped it with more grated cheese baked it for about an hour. I let it stand for an hour and served it with a little green salad. It was light but creamy and packed with summer flavor.

Super Ribs

The Super Bowl was coming. And so were three friends. We are not even close to what one would call real fans, we are interested observers of cultural phenomena and we love the half time shows, the ads and the excitement of the BIG games. Our younger family members are genuine fans, and we support their teams. But even though we are not avid sports fans…we are avid eaters.

Sunday’s event seemed to be calling for ribs. Here is what I did about that.

I rubbed the racks of pork back ribs with a mixture of chopped garlic, hot and sweet pîmenton and kosher salt.
I let these rest, tightly covered, in the fridge for two days.

Then I baked them at 300 degrees in a foil-lined pan, completely sealed, for two and a half hours. Then I uncovered them, let them cool and put them in a large ziplock bag in the fridge ‘til I was ready to heat up for eating. I really tried to hold onto as much moisture as I could.

I made sauce: some low-sugar ketchup, some cider vinegar, more chopped garlic, some soy sauce and a bit of dark molasses. On game day, this was spread over the ribs in a foil-lined pan, covered in foil and warmed at 250 ‘til they were hot.
I heated the remainder of the sauce and served it along side the cut up ribs.

I served this with slaw with toasted mustard and caraway seed dressing and big dishtowels as napkins.

Our guests went crazy for these!

another good soup

There is something about black-eyed peas that makes me happy. First, their name: little winking eyes on the small tan beans. Then there is the ease of cooking them and their all around usefulness: hot and cold Then, the taste! Earthy, but still fresh. Wintry, but you can taste spring in the distance.

A retired minister member of my church passed his own black eyed pea jalapeno soup recipe to me several years ago. It was pretty good. I had some dried black-eyed peas waiting in my pantry and I was again hankering for another soup. This is my spin on the original recipe:

1 pound dried black-eyed peas. Cook in a lot of water over low heat til soft. This will take 45 minutes or so. Drain.

1 cup chopped leeks. You could use onion. I had leeks in the garden.

3 or 4 large cloves garlic, smashed and chopped. Add these to the leeks and soften in a little olive oil in a heavy pot. Add a generous handful of salt. As these approach doneness, add 1 qt. good chicken broth. (I used Progresso, low sodium, no msg. It was on sale so I tried it. I liked it a lot.)

Add 3/4 of the cooked beans into the liquid mixture. Mash up the beans with a stick blender or by hand. Then add the remaining beans. Add water to desired thickness. Then add 1 small can salsa verde. Taste. Chop up a fresh jalapeno and add. Taste. Add another jalapeno if you like.

For our dinner I added diced avocado as a garnish. By the way, odd as it may sound, soup is a great breakfast!

I have been eating legume-based soups as a breakfast for the past several weeks. They are easy to heat, taste great and leave your stomach feeling content.

a good mutt

It was our third day of house arrest: Deep Freeze 2011. Actually, we ventured out mid-morning yesterday to shop for dog food and home repair project supplies while the roads were somewhat melted. We had to go the long way around to the center of Snellville because our road was too icy.

Anyway, despite going out for provisions, at around four o’clock I found myself pondering what to make for dinner. In addition to dog food, I’d bought fresh spinach, and some crackers and a hunk of parmesan, soymilk, clementines and some apples and four bottles of red wine: none of these in any combination seemed like dinner. I found about three quarters of a cut up free-range chicken in the freezer. I knew a good braise was on the menu.

This is sort of a mongrel coq au vin: a mutt.

Reconstituted dried porcini mushrooms: about 1/4 cup chopped up. Save liquid. ( If you have fresh mushrooms, chop in half and sauté: use as many as you like. )
A good carrot, cut in about 1/2 “ pieces.
A large onion, chopped small
I had a shallot.
You could use all shallots if you had enough to make about 3/4 cup chopped.
As many garlic cloves as you like, peeled and smashed. I used around 5.
Put all the above into a heavy casserole, add some kosher or sea salt.

Chicken legs, cut up, breast, cut in half. Brown skin side down in a tiny bit of oil.
Use medium heat to start to render out fat, then turn heat up to finish browning.
Put in casserole on top of vegs, add some kosher salt and a hefty grind of pepper.
Drain out any oil in pan, deglaze with a bit of wine. Add to casserole.

I went outside to get some rosemary, thyme and sage. The rosemary was completely under ice, but I was happily able to secure 5 good size springs of thyme and 4 sprigs of sage from my pot on the deck.
I resorted to dried rosemary chopped up, about 1 T.

2 C chicken stock. (I used the turkey stock from Thanksgiving that I had in the freezer)
Approx. 1 C white wine, or enough to just cover other ingredients with liquid. Add the mushroom liquid, too, if you have it.

Bring all to boil on top of stove, remove immediately from stove when it boils.
You want this to cook slowly. Put covered is preheated 325 oven. Check in about 15 minutes, if still bubbling, reduce heat. Taste, adjust seasonings as this cooks. It is done when meat is nearly falling off bone. This took about 1.5 hours.

Remove chicken pieces and mash solids. I used my handy stick blender for this, always a terrific tool. Thicken (you just want to make it into a sauce with a teensy bit of body) any way you like: you can make a little roux with some butter and flour, you can use equal proportions of raw flour and butter and mash together as a paste and add to liquid over med. heat, or you can do what I did: I used about 1 T or 2 of Wondra flour (perfect for such an occasion!)

With this we had cauliflower purée with a bit of horseradish stirred in.

Now I have to plan tonight’s menu. We’re iced in again.

holiday recovery

We survived the holidays: the rich food and the dessert and the parties and my gosh all that chocolate. We’re home, after a nine-day visit with our New England family. It’s time for soup again: hot, spicy, delicious filling soup. Here’s what I put in the pot that’s simmering on the stove:

3 andouille sausages (1pound), sliced
1 chicken breast, cut into 1” pieces
1 largish onion: chopped medium
1 bunch kale, cleaned, stemmed and chopped small-medium
1/2 sweet potato: peeled, diced approx. 1/2 “
1 can pinto beans, drained and rinsed
1 qt. chicken broth
2 28 oz. cans crushed tomatoes and 1.5 cans water
3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
1/2 tsp. dried thyme, crushed
pinch or more hot pimenton
1tsp. honey

I put the chopped onions and the sliced sausage in the pot together and let them cook, covered, on medium low (with about a T of canola oil), stirring a couple of times, til the onions were soft. Then I added the rest of the ingredients, except the chicken breast. When the mixture was nearly boiling, I added the chicken, and brought the temp. down to a simmer.

I am theorizing the sweet potato will sweeten the kale, the kale and pinto beans will add earthiness and the andouille sausage will provide zing. I like the connection with the past by using these traditional southern ingredients, especially this time of year when the garden is asleep.

cold day comfort

OK. It’s been cold. Not the 40 degree with a bit of moisture-feels-kind-of-raw cold we’re used to here in Atlanta, but Minneapolis, Boston, Chicago 16 degree and blustery-cuts-right-through-you-wind cold.

Clearly we needed something really warm to eat… something flavorful, with dimension, something with color. Something… interesting. And it’s the holidays, a time so loaded with rich food that I did not desire anything based on meat or dairy.

I’ve been reading a terrific book by Joan Nathan about Jewish food in Paris. I am sure the following recipe reflects influences from her descriptions of Moroccan food. This can be a stew or a soup, just adjust the liquid to your preferences. I served it on whole wheat couscous for dinner then by itself as a lunch.


2 onions: chopped
1 cauliflower: chopped, not too small
4 garlic cloves: chopped
1 large butternut squash, peeled and chopped in cubes
2 cans chick peas, drained and rinsed
1.5 quarts chicken broth, or vegetable broth

1/2 C whole green olives,
2-3 T chopped fresh ginger
1-2 lemons: juiced and zest grated
1 jalapeno, chopped and seeded according to your heat preference
2 T ground cumin
2 tsp. ground ancho chile
1 tsp. marjoram
1/2 tsp. allspice
Bunch of fresh cilantro
cayenne to taste

Soften the onions in butter and olive oil. Remove from pot. Toss the cauliflower in some olive oil and add the cumin, chile and allspice and salt to taste. Cook over high and add the garlic when nearly done: you want it slightly softer than raw, but not really soft. Add the onions back in, and the butternut squash, the broth, the chick peas, ginger and the marjoram. Bring to boil, then cut heat back to simmer. Taste. Add salt as needed. Cook covered til squash is soft. With a fork, mash the squash against the side of the pot so that 3/4 are mashed and 1/4 remain in cubes. The mashed squash will provide body to the liquid.

Add green olives, lemon juice, grated zest and jalapeno. Taste. Adjust seasoning. Before serving, add chopped cilantro.

Thanksgiving Dinner Report Card

So here it is: the highlights and low points of our much maligned (by the cook) and yet much anticipated dinner.

Turkey: 24 pounds of bronzed beauty: C+. Nicely cooked, but lacking in flavor. This guy needed brining. Or something.

Gravy: A+. Arranging carrots, celery and onion under the bird’s metal rack and adding chicken broth to this as the bird cooked resulted in the darkest, most flavorful gravy I have ever made. I used the giblet broth made early in the day for the gravy liquid.

Cider glaze for roasted vegetables: D. Flavor was lost on the veg’s (carrots brussel sprouts, garden leeks), though it tasted good when I made it. Just did not stand up, I think more acid was needed. By the way, the Cook’s Illustrated carrot roasting method was superb: cut them so they are all even (or choose small carrots as I did ) painted with melted butter, cover with foil cooked at 425 for 15 minutes, remove foil continue roasting til done. The covered cooking helps develop the sugar. Really good.

And the star of this meal: the super wonderful horseradish gremolata Louise posted before Thanksgiving on this blog. Hot and lemony and fresh, it added EXACTLY the right zing to the dinner. Everyone loved it. And it was terrific in sandwiches.

This gremolata will be on my table at all future Thanksgivings.

Thanks sis, for this winner!

another use for the under-appreciated quince

Ta-DA!!! Quince flavored vodka. Sublime. The quince imparts a slightly apple-y, floral but not sweet quality to the vodka. The vodka offsets the astringent quality of the quince. I gathered a few more today, as this test was a real success.
Tonight I made Quintinis :the dry vermouth smooths everything out perfectly.

Happiness.

getting past cranky

I’ve been more than a little cranky about Thanksgiving dinner these past few years. As much as I love to cook and eat, I’ve felt for some time that Thanksgiving is definitely not a dinner that I love: too mushy, too rich, no zip. And not colorful enough.

I know I could add southwestern flavors to shake things up: a bit of jalapeno in the cornbread dressing, some chilies here and there. But somehow this is not appealing to me. As a girl originally from Philadelphia, I like the concept of the traditional east coast Thanksgiving meal. I just haven’t been thrilled with the results of the considerable effort. I'd love to do a stuffed fish. But I'd have to make a turkey anyway, so that''s just adding work.

So, this year I am focusing on achieving some brighter flavors, and on color.

Sure, we’ll be having the succulent roasted bird and dressing made with cornbread, toasted pecans and sausage. There will be a velvety gravy and yeast rolls. But we’re also having an assortment of roasted vegetables including my garden leeks with a cider vinaigrette and maybe a pop of chopped jalapeno tossed in for fun.. And the mashed potatoes will have horseradish for pop, and the salad will be garden arugula, all peppery and fresh with a sharp mustard dressing.

I’ll ask my stepdaughter to make her fresh cranberry relish. And we’ll have a little bit of the jellied kind for the little kids and for anyone who wants it in sandwiches later. I might make Mark Bittman’s preserved lemons as a condiment along with my bourboned peaches.

I'm thinking about Martha Stewart’s awesome cranberry tart: it's pretty simple and lovely. I am definitely making chocolate pecan tart with vanilla gelato on the side for my family, they like a rich ending.

I’m considering a fresh fruit option: assorted grapes cut in half, sprinkled with lemon sugar in a stemmed glass? It could be pretty in the candlelight.

I’d love to hear how you brighten up your Thanksgiving dinner.

quincidentally

We have a quince tree in the far corner of our front yard. For several years in the fall a sad looking young woman would come by with her boyfriend in an old truck and would shyly ask me if she might gather the ones that had fallen on the ground. I was happy to give them to her. I’ve missed her these past few years and hope all is well with her.

I’ve fooled with these quinces a few times: they are as hard as rocks and difficult to peel and cut. Nonetheless, they are free food on my property. And, as Deb Duchon said in her terrific blog (culinaryhistoriansofatlanta.blogspot.com): there is nothing more locavore then eating stuff found in your yard.

I decided to roast them in the oven. As they cooked they smelled heavenly, a combination of apple and hibiscus. I skinned them, used a spoon to dig away the flesh from the sizable pit, and mashed them up. It was very sour, but promising. I poured several additions of Vermont maple syrup our friend, Woody, had given us, into the mashed fruit. Then added about a tablespoon of fresh grated ginger and a pinch of salt and whizzed it around with the stick blender.

And now I have a wonderful brightly flavored fruit pureé. What shall I do? Make a soufflé? Take this fruit gift as a cosmic message to get busy with a piecrust and make a nice tart? Add it to some mashed turban squash for a more savory dish?

Stay tuned. I think I'm leaning toward a tart.


Next day update: Made a tart. It's wonderful. The filling is simply our eggs, some melted butter the quince purée and I added about a half cup of brown sugar to further sweeten and also round out the flavor. The taste of this is amazing: there are hints of vanilla, a floral leaning and the citrussy snap of the quince. I will be continue my experiments with this interesting fruit.

very simple very good

Sometimes it just works out.

Those unripe black plum tomatoes I picked from the garden a week or so ago have turned to mahogany in the laundry room. Handing a bag of them over to my neighbor today made me think of using some for our dinner tonight. I had a good looking head of cauliflower and decided to roast them together. I like to mess around with cauliflower, it takes nicely to many seasonings.

But tonight was simple: cauliflower cut into medium florets, ‘maters cut in half and all tossed in olive oil, roasted in oven on 375 til the cauliflower turned gold. By then the tomatoes had collapsed and released their juices, almost glazing the cauliflower pieces.

Interestingly, the flavor of the cauliflower, which sweetens as it roasts, contrasted with the tomatoes (usually experienced as very sweet when roasted). The tomatoes served as surprising acidic counterpoint to the cauliflower.

It was great.

You could easily use those cherry tomatoes that you still have in your garden before the birds eat them. Or you could buy a basket of grape tomatoes. You could add whatever seasoning you feel like, though it stands up nicely unadorned.

A Newburger

I was visiting with my friend Jennifer recently. She and I share a love of good food, cooking and talking about good food and cooking. She happened to mention some turkey burgers she’d made using a Cook’s Illustrated recipe. (Jen is a scientist, and she loves the precision and testing that CI brings to their recipes.)

This turkey burger thing stuck in my mind. I’ve never had an even close to memorable turkey burger, and decided it was time to step up and try to create one that had some real flavor. Ground turkey is the tofu of the meat world. Adding a little hot Italian sausage would be one way of adding flavor to this otherwise bland protein. I used chopped onion bits softened in melted butter, a handful of fresh parsley and some fresh breadcrumbs I had in the fridge. I also coated the burgers with panko, to give them a little crispness. They were delicious. So, here is my recipe:

Preheat oven to 400.
2 pounds ground turkey (leg meat or mixed breast and leg)
1 large hot Italian pork sausage , removed from
casing and broken into small pieces ( finger tip sized)
a handful of freshly chopped parsley
about 3/4 c fresh breadcrumbs ( just whiz some bread in your food processor to make some if you don’t have any around: this is a good use for bread loaf ends)
One small onion, chopped into small pieces ands softened in about 1 T. Butter
One clove or two fresh garlic, chopped fine
Some panko

In a wide flat bowl (or, the turkey container) spread out the ground turkey. Sprinkle the small pieces of sausage across the turkey. As the onions soften in the butter, add the garlic, until they are soft as well. Keep heat med. low so the onions don’t brown.
Spread the softened onions and garlic and all the melted pan butter across the turkey/sausage. Spread the parsley and the breadcrumbs over this. Blend in with fingers. You don’t want to compress the mixture: just mix it.. Add salt and pepper. (I would also, if I had one, add a chopped up jalapeno pepper. Or maybe some cayenne. Or it might be good to add a 1/4 c of finely chopped apple.)

Shape meat mixture into 4 patties. Coat these in panko. Bake in oven 20 minutes or so til interior T is 160-165. Outsides will be crunchy.