The Artist Roasts: Garlic
I bake weekly. I haven't bought bread in close to a year and my cheap pizza stone has taken up permanent residence on the lower rack of my oven. I don't say this as a judgment of people who buy bread, I just really like baking. I'm fortunate to have a flexible schedule as a freelancer, (my new, positive self-descriptor replacing slacker and layabout) so I regularly incorporate bread making into the day's routine. I love the process of baking bread, and am reassured by the fact that I can control every ingredient that goes into the final product. I might be a little OCD.
As the weather has warmed over the course of the past few weeks I've gotten to thinking more about the economy of 
heating the oven. A hot oven is a lovely thing in the winter, making the kitchen a warm and inviting place, but in the summer it makes my thighs stick together and produces beads of sweat on my upper lip. I'm not willing to stop baking when the weather is hot, but I have been thinking of ways to get the most out of the time that I do have the oven running.
What I've started to do lately is roast garlic while I bake my bread. Roasted garlic is super useful to have around. It doesn't have the harsh burn of fresh garlic but is amazingly mellow and creamy and versatile. It is great thrown in with eggs, tossed in pasta with fresh basil and red pepper, spread over toast with a bit of cheese or used as a topping for pizza. It is 
especially awesome in homemade hummus. Try replacing 3-4 cloves of roasted garlic for every clove of fresh garlic that you would normally use.
Roasting garlic is simple. Whack off the top of the head of garlic so that the cloves are exposed. Give it a healthy glug of olive oil over the top, wrap it tightly in tinfoil and toss it in a 400°F oven. Bake it for 35 minutes. The cloves should be a rich brown and fantastically creamy. If you baked bread during the process, you now have something to put the garlic on. Bonus!
Giant in the Kitchen: Sweet Potato Griddlecakes with Field Greens and Poached Eggs
For me, the one unifying trait shared by all great food writers is their ability to inspire culinary creativity in their readers. I've found that reading stuff by Molly Wizenberg or Francis Lam can really help me to get out of my 
everyday cooking ruts. It's easy for me to get stuck futzing with a specific dish and never actually getting around to making a well-rounded meal. This past winter, I was completely focused on baking breads and sort of skimped on cooking real meals. Arianna is patient with me experimenting in the kitchen, but for some reason she doesn't seem to think that bread and cheese is a meal. Maybe I need to throw in a box of wine to round things out?
My point here is that I was reading the aforementioned writers the other day when I suddenly got a wild hair to abandon the computer for a pint of seltzer and the company of my cast-iron skillet. As I sipped my fizzy drink, the muse of culinary inspiration struck me across the head with her magic wooden spoon, and before I knew it I had created a pretty kick-ass, well-rounded lunch.
Sweet Potato Griddlecakes with Field Greens and Poached Eggs
What you'll need:
For the Griddlecakes:
1 sweet potato
1 cup white flour
1 cup coarse cornmeal
Pinch of salt
1 tsp dried basil
½ tbsp baking powder
¼ tsp cayenne pepper
1 egg, lightly beaten
2 cups milk (roughly)
For the Field Greens:
This is just an estimate, but let's say 2 cups of field greens per person.
For the Eggs:
1 or 2 poached eggs per person, whatever is right for you.
Give your skillet a healthy swig of olive oil and preheat it over medium-low heat.
Slice the sweet potato into 1 inch cubes and nuke for 8 or 9 minutes, until soft (Slow Cooking Option: roast them in a 400° oven with a good coat of olive oil until soft and caramelized).
Mix your dry ingredients while the potato is cooking. Mash the potato thoroughly and add to your dry mix (I left the skin on the potato, but if you aren't a fan of skin, it should come off easily when you mash the potato). Stir in the egg and add the milk ½ a cup at a time. The amount of milk you use depends on the size and moistness of your sweet potato. You're going for a thick, fairly chunky batter. Spoon the batter onto your skillet making cakes 5 or 6 inches across. Brown on both sides, and top with the greens and a poached egg. Give it a drizzle of your best olive oil (or truffle oil if you're feeling adventurous) and you're good to go!
The Artist Forages: Strawberries
Strawberries are one of my favorite fruits, but the store-bought ones are always so bitter and flavorless that I never really want to eat them. My mom has this awesome strawberry shortcake recipe that's been passed down the line of moms for generations, but it's more sugar than strawberry. It tastes great, but it's kind of a lie because it doesn't matter if the strawberries are fresh, or in season. I think this is really what strawberries have become for most people. We've lost sight of the fact that fresh strawberries function perfectly as a fruit and don't inherently need sugar to be enjoyed.
In our ongoing quest to eat food that actually tastes good, Arianna and I took the morning off yesterday and went strawberry picking. She found this awesome fruit farm online that's near Raleigh called Whitted Bowers Farm. Rob and Cheri Bowers follow organic and biodynamic practices and have created a unique place in the state of North Carolina. I really got a kick out of talking to them about their approach to farming - it's refreshing to find people who have a true philosophy behind their work. Check out their site, and if you can, pay their farm a visit. It is well worth the effort.
I'd never picked strawberries before, only blueberries and apples, but it turned out to be really easy. They had the plants set up in raised rows, and it sort of felt like strawberry picking for dummies. We were picky about getting the perfect berries that were a deep, rich red on all sides. The kind that likes to hide behind big green leaves. In an hour and a half we picked close to 8 pounds of strawberries.
Driving home along the country roads I almost squashed a huge turtle that was slowly crossing the road. It must have been 4 inches from the car as I sped by. I guess sometimes it's good to not be able to dart - if it were a squirrel it would have probably jumped under my wheels at the last minute. I pulled the car into the grass along the side of the road and hopped out to move the turtle out of the way. It definitely hissed at me when I picked it up. I feel like we shared a moment.
I have a bunch of ideas for strawberry recipes, but I haven't gotten around to making them all yet. Arianna and I are making a pinwheel strawberry tart right now and if it works out I'll post pictures and the recipe next week. For now here's a go-to strawberry salad.
Strawberry Walnut Salad with Orange Hazelnut dressing
I've been eating tons of salad lately. I can't seem to get enough greens in me after the long season of hearty winter vegetables. This is a simple salad without a lot of ingredients - that's the point.
The toasted walnuts can be turned into caramelized walnuts without any extra work. The trick to toasting walnuts in a skillet is to not ever leave the stove! Seriously, they're toasting along, you go to open a beer and suddenly you have a skillet full of burnt nuts...
What you'll need:
8 cups field greens
10-15 strawberries, sliced
2 cups walnuts
2 tbsp butter (optional)
2 heaping tbsp brown sugar (optional)
1 cup hazelnut oil
¾ cup orange juice
1 lime
Preheat dry cast iron skillet over medium heat while you slice up the strawberries.
Toss the walnuts into the skillet (with the butter and sugar if you are going that route) and toast for about 5 minutes, stirring regularly. They're done when the smell is so awesome that you can't resist popping one in your mouth and burning your tongue. Remove to a plate and let cool.
Make the dressing by whisking together the hazelnut oil and o.j. with the zest and juice of 1 lime. Taste it and see what you think. O.J. really varies in sweetness and acidity so you might need to futz with proportions a bit.
Mix the greens, berries and nuts, and toss with the dressing until well coated. Serve immediately.
