Giant in the Kitchen: Strawberries, Two Ways
So Arianna is out of town this weekend singing some jazz gigs in Denver. I’m beginning to realize that her absence has had an odd effect on my meals. It’s not necessarily for the negative, but is certainly a change from the norm. When she’s around I cook like a fiend. I’m always roasting garlic and making butterscotch sauce and getting up in the middle of the night to bake bread for our breakfast toast. In other words, I do my best to make sure we eat like royalty.
I’m not particularly eloquent when I speak, so I find that I do a better job of expressing myself through my actions. I put effort into my cooking because I see it as a physical manifestation of my affection for her.
I’ll give you a for instance; I woke up early last Monday and made up this meal for breakfast:
I call it Strawberry Grits Arianna, but that’s not a particularly specific description because I tend to name everything I make that tastes good after her (i.e. Arianna Pizza, Arianna Alfredo, Pasta Primarianna, Fresh River Trout Arianna with a Roasted Garlic and Sage Brown Arianna Butter sauce… you get the drift).
What I really made were strawberry grits. We have an abundance of strawberries in at Fair Shares, and I have been taking full advantage of their deliciousness.
The thing is, now that Arianna is out of town, I don’t feel compelled to cook to quite the same extent. I’ll give you another for instance – this was my dinner Friday night:
That’s right, I ate an entire quart of strawberries for dinner. The only reason they’re in the bowl is because I couldn’t wash them in the cardboard pint container. This is a healthy, seasonal meal, but it’s certainly a bit more rustic than my usual Friday night repast. Let’s call it, for consistency sake, Strawberries Kevin.
I don’t want to give the impression that I have a low sense of self worth; that I don’t think I am worthy of Strawberry Grits Arianna and have relegated myself to a life filled with Strawberries Kevin whilst humbly awaiting her return. I just have a harder time pulling together a full meal when I’m cooking alone.
Both meals were quite tasty and are worth trying.
Strawberry Grits Arianna
Grits are one of those down home delicacies of which non-southerners seem to be blissfully unaware. If the runny white stuff served at Waffle House is the extent of your gritty knowledge, you should give them another chance. Good grits are buttery and peppery and all kinds of delicious. I usually eat them as a side with eggs, fruit and coffee, but they also work well as a breakfast cereal.
I always use stone-ground cornmeal for my grits, Hodgson Mill and Bob’s Red Mill both have good stuff, but use what you’ve got as long as it’s coarsely ground. I greatly prefer yellow cornmeal – I think it is considerably more flavorful.
The basic proportions for making grits are 4 parts liquid to 1 part cornmeal with a good knob of butter thrown in at the end. I use half water and half whole milk for my liquid. I find that this gives it a good creamy consistency which is still greatly improved with a bit of butter. For Strawberry Grits Arianna, I used 1 and 1/2 cups of water, 1 and 1/2 cups of milk, and 3/4 cup of cornmeal.
Heat the liquid to a simmer in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Whisk in the grits gradually to avoid clumps. Mix in a large dash of cinnamon. Cover and turn down to low heat stirring about every four minutes.
While the grits are slowly cooking, hull and slice fifteen to twenty strawberries, maybe about half a quart.
Stir two thirds of the sliced strawberries into the grits and reserve the rest for topping your bowl at the table. Continue to cook, stirring regularly.
When the strawberries have broken down and your grits are getting a nice rosy tint to them, add a splash of vanilla and stir in honey to taste. The grits only need to cook for about 25 minutes. You’re good to go once they have an even, smooth, consistency. Turn off the heat and stir in a knob of butter.
Serve and enjoy.
Strawberries Kevin
Take one quart of strawberries. Wash thoroughly in that old metal colander that your mother gave you with the big holes that make for an easy clean up later. You know the one.
Serve and enjoy.
The Artist Drinks: Top Notch Limoncello
It took me a couple of years in college to realize that I’m not very good with hard liquor. I’d have a few mixed drinks on a Saturday night, and the next thing I know, I’m sitting 20 feet up in a tree, pantsless, and bellowing out Italian art-songs as loud as humanly possible. I won’t even mention the embarrassing nights.
I’ve learned moderation in my drinking since then and rarely touch hard liquor, but I do like having a few liqueurs around for special occasions. Liqueur is basically alcohol infused with whatever flavors you like and then sweetened with a simple syrup.
Limoncello is an Italian lemon liqueur that you can find in most liquor stores. It is almost always expensive and generally not very good.
I started making my own limoncello four or five years ago, and make a batch about once a year. It’s a dead simple process and the end result is a million times better than the stuff you buy in the stores. Limoncello makes for a nice gift during the holidays and is a classy thing to bring along to parties as an alternative to wine.
I learned how to make this from my aunt and uncle, Sara and Stephen. They’re foodies and brewers and know what’s up when it comes to all things delicious in the kitchen. I’ve tried some variations, but always seem to come back to the core recipe.
Here’s what you’ll need for making Top Notch Limoncello:
1 Giant sealable glass jar. (Around 4 liters)
2 750ml bottles of Everclear
2 750ml bottles of CHEAP vodka (I’m talking about Captain Vladimir's Bottom Shelf Special Reserve Rubbing Alcohol or the like)
30 Organic Lemons (Splurge! – you saved money on the vodka. Trader Joe's has them in bags for a reasonable price)
11 Cups of water
9 Cups of white sugar
A fine-meshed sieve
A few coffee filters
Last but not least - a bit of patience.
The first step to making awesome limoncello is washing the lemons. Scrub with a mildly abrasive sponge and a bit of soap. This will get off any wax from the shipping process – the alcohol will kill off everything else!
Zest the lemons with a very sharp knife or a good potato peeler. I’ve had the best results with a peeler and a side-to-side sawing motion to get super-long strips of zest.
Getting the zest can be somewhat difficult, because you don’t want any of the white part of the lemon (the pith). The pith will make the limoncello nasty and astringent. Take your time with it. You’re going for quality here. The zest in the picture above has a bit too much pith on it, but it’s easy enough to get it off with a paring knife.
Once you’ve peeled all of the lemons, you’re ready to crack out the booze. Pour the four bottles into the jar and toss in the zest. Put on the top and give it a hearty shake. Stick it in a cool dark place, and find something else to do – for forty days.
Biblical, right? I said that you’d need some patience. All you have to do for now is shake the mixture up every few days.
The alcohol will be infused with the oils from the lemon and will turn bright yellow.
When the forty days (at a minimum) are up, make a simple syrup by heating up the 11 cups of water over medium heat and mix in the sugar. Don’t bring it to a boil, just get it hot enough to dissolve the sugar. Set aside to cool.
While the syrup is cooling, you can filter the alcohol. Run it once through a fine-meshed sieve into a large container or pot. This will catch a lot of the impurities and bits of lemon peel. Give your jar a rinse to remove any grit and dry with a towel. Place a coffee filter into the sieve and pour the mixture back into the jar. Switch out the coffee filter with a fresh one if it gets too gummed up. This will take a while, but it’s a big part of what makes this limoncello superior to anything else you’ll try.
Cover the alcohol until the simple syrup is completely cooled and then mix together to form your limoncello. Just a note: If you mix it all together when the syrup is still warm, the heat will evaporate your alcohol; nobody wants that!
Fill a bottle up with the limoncello and stick it in the freezer – the rest can live the the jar in a dark place until you’re ready to use it.
And remember: drink your homemade limoncello in small sips – the Everclear gives it a real kick.
Giant in the Kitchen:Quick Strawberry Jam
So I've been absent for a week, but I promise you that I haven't stopped eating - or thinking about eating. Arianna and I moved to St. Louis this past weekend, and what with packing, loading and cleaning, I never got around to posting. It's okay though, I can't imagine that you'd be all that interested in hearing about the chicken sandwich I had in West Virginia last Friday night. I will say that even though I'm not much of a fast food eater, I will miss Chick-Fil-A
It was surreal and kind of scary to move cross-country without my parents. I think I was expecting it to be like when I moved away for college or something, but it was so much more work than I anticipated. There were times where I couldn't see an end to the process, but fortunately we made it through in one piece. Now I'm sitting in my mother's basement, looking for an apartment on craigslist and trying to find a church that will hire me to sing.
I do think that it is strange that U-Haul is willing to put me behind the wheel of a 26 foot truck with an attached 12 foot car trailer, but that as a 24-year-old I can't rent a car. I'm sure there is an actuary somewhere that can explain it to me.
We're coming to the end of the strawberry season, but I've got this jam that I want you to try while the berries are still fresh. It's one of the most delicious things that I've ever made - and so damn simple! It is basically Jamie Oliver's recipe, found here. I used less sugar than him, but the less you use, the more it will be like a sauce.
Take about 4 pounds of strawberries, washed and trimmed, and squish them up in a bowl with ¾ cup of sugar. Throw it in a big pot and simmer for 30 minutes. As it cooks, a pink foam will rise to the top that you should skim off. That's it. Easy.
If you have a smaller amount of strawberries, like a few pints, just use a couple tablespoons of sugar and follow the recipe above.
This stuff is awesome on toast with butter or cream cheese, poured over hot oatmeal or pancakes, and especially mixed in warm with yogurt. It is basically just strawberries, so you can eat it with abandon!
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.
Giant in the Kitchen: Whole Wheat Rosemary Crackers
For some time now I have been struggling with a personal admission of guilt. I go back and forth in my head on how to admit - no, come to terms with - what I have become.
I am a thief.
On dark nights I slink around my neighborhood, sifting through other peoples' property and taking things which do not belong to me. Oh, it was easy to rationalize at first: a bit here, a bit there - "This house is enormous, they're rich and won't miss it" or "It's their own fault for leaving things lying about" or "They're growing it as a shrubbery - they aren't even using it as an herb". Once you get into this frame of mind, there's no turning back. At this point it's been about 8 months, and I can't imagine not going out late at night and snipping sprigs of other people's rosemary.
Now, hear me out, the quantities here in Winston-Salem are really quite staggering. In my small neighborhood, I can think of at least 15 rosemary bushes the size of Smart Cars. So who's really going to care if I take a bit of rosemary for a batch of crackers? (There I go, rationalizing again...)
Whole Wheat Rosemary Crackers
The challenge with having so much rosemary at hand is finding ways to use it. I've really focused on baking this past year and have come to enjoy strong flavors like rosemary and chive in my savory baked goods. These whole wheat rosemary crackers are great with runny cheese (St. Andre, anyone?) and the dough is firm enough to cut into shapes with cookie cutters. I picked up some killer animal-shaped ones at Ikea last week, but I'm not a huge fan of sugar cookies, so they're now officially cracker cutters. Who doesn't want to eat cheese off of a rosemary-flavored moose?
What you'll need:
1½ cups whole wheat flour
1½ cups whole white flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons minced rosemary
½ cup olive oil
1 cup water at room temperature
Preheat the oven to 400°F. Give a cookie sheet a light coat of spray oil.
In a mixing bowl combine your dry ingredients and the rosemary. Make a well in the center of the mixture and poor in the oil. Using a sturdy spoon, stir the oil into the flour. Slowly stir in the water a little bit at a time until the dry and wet ingredients are incorporated and you have a somewhat floury dough. You'll probably only need ¾ of a cup of water, but measure out a full cup just in case things are especially dry.
Dump your dough onto a counter and knead it for 8-10 minutes. This is a tough dough to knead, so if you aren't breathing hard after about 5 minutes, you're either totally buff or not kneading hard enough. The dough should be firm and not at all sticky.
Take a quarter of the dough and using a rolling pin, roll it into an amoeba-like shape. The dough should be the thickness of two nickels (do you even use nickels anymore? I do...to measure my cracker dough). If the dough is not rolling out well, try flipping it over and rolling the other side.
When the dough is rolled out, you have options. You can either make shapes with cookie cutters or go for the standard one inch square shape using a pizza cutter. If you are going for squares, transfer the dough to the greased cookie sheet and then cut a grid of lines into it with the pizza cutter. The squares will separate easily after they are baked. If you are opting for the awesome animal shapes, cut them on the counter and place them on the pan ½ an inch apart.
Bake the crackers for around 12 minutes, rotating the cookie sheet 180° after 6 minutes. The crackers should be just slightly browned on their outside edges.
Remove the crackers to a wire rack and enjoy when they're cool enough to eat. The crackers should keep for a few weeks in an airtight container.
Giant in the Woods: Fire Roasted Sweet Corn
Okay, so I wasn't exactly in the woods. Actually I was just in a backyard, but there was no kitchen involved so it was kind of like the woods.
It's corn season still, and the corn is terribly affordable. I ate fresh sweet corn 4 or 5 days in a row last week when I was in Ohio and I think we were only paying around 2.50 for a bakers dozen at a local farm stand. If this isn't struggling artist food, I don't know what is.
There's nothing better than a dose of fantastic sweet corn everyday. The recipe here is simple to do in conjunction with whatever else you are grilling and will make the whole meal delicious. It really brings out the flavor of good local sweet corn and only takes about 15 minutes, including prep. Try to make this recipe while you can get fresh corn. There's almost no point in using the out of season stuff from the grocer.
I'm going to assume that you know how to start a grill. I prefer charcoal grilling, but gas works fine. Just make sure that it is HOT. The corn is being roasted here, but since it is sweet and fresh, you don't need to cook it for long. Good sweet corn can be eaten practically raw (like in the Crispy Corn Salad Recipe), so you are just browning it with a quick dry heat. In the pictures I have the corn roasting on the sides of the grill, but they would do well placed right in the middle of the rack, taking the direct heat.
Take an ear and peel back the husk as if it were a banana. You aren't shucking here, so be careful. Don't tear off the husk. Remove the silk completely from the exposed ear, following the example of the pictures below. It doesn't really matter if you have a strand or two left, but you want to get rid of as much as you can. When you have the silk cleared away, fold the husk back up so that it is loosely covering the entire ear. Toss it on the grill for 10 minutes, turning occasionally, and you're done. That's it. Dash clever, right?
Giant in the Woods: Hobo Stew
OK, so Hobo Stew? Doesn't seem quite PC, right? I learned this recipe from my dad growing up. He probably learned it from his dad. I have to think that the term Hobo meant something different 100 years ago. I'm no etymologist, but I have to imagine that there was a time (don't ask me when, maybe the dust bowl) when the word Hobo just referred to itinerant men looking for work.
Anyway, where was I? Right! Camping! So Arianna, my Dad, and I went camping this week. We were at the Mortimer campground on Wilson Creek in North Carolina. It was really beautiful there and I got to play around with cooking on the campfire.
Here's a picture of the creek:
Campfire cooking is really simple when you have plenty of tinfoil. You can pretty much put anything in a tinfoil "envelope", throw it on the coals, and have a great meal in 15 minutes, assuming you already have a campfire going.
For Hobo Stew, you'll want lots of hearty vegetables, and (optionally) some meat. Dice everything up into bite-size pieces and you're good to go. (note: you can do all of the dicing ahead of time, and have it ready in a Tupperware in your cooler.) Take two sheets of foil and lay one on top of the other, making a cross. In the middle of the cross, make a layer of your slowest cooking ingredients (i.e. potatoes and/or meat). On top of this first layer pile up your more delicate ingredients, such as onions, green beans, green peppers, carrots etc. Once you have a healthy-sized pile you're going to want to season vigorously. I used some dried Italian herbs, a bit of chili powder and a good smidgen of salt, but it's really up to you. You could use a fajita seasoning mix, or just salt, pepper and oregano.
After you've seasoned your "stew", you'll want to make a very tight envelope by folding together the opposing sides of foil, making an air-tight seam. Really, you could just make a big ball of it and you'd probably be just fine. This isn't really a science; you're probably going to end up with some burnt food.
The next step is the really difficult part of the process. Take your food envelope and toss it on the fire. At this point, drink a wine juice box. When you have finished your wine (about 15 minutes), your food should be done. Take it off the coals using whatever you have at hand (I used a stick that had split ends, sort of like a divining rod). Open up the tinfoil, being careful not to burn yourself too badly, and check the potatoes. If they are done, you're good to go. If not, close up the foil and toss it back on the coals for another five minutes.
This is definitely rustic dining. You'll have a potato (or two!) that is very crispy, but there is something very rewarding about cooking over a campfire. I know this isn't marshmallows and hot dogs, but with a bit of planning, it's cake.
note: I sliced my fingers up a bit today, so thanks to Arianna for transcribing my dictation.
The Artist Drinks: Compari, A Drink You Won’t Have to Share
I have started drinking Compari a bit more lately because I've been watching the first season of Mad Men. It's a fantastic show about Madison Avenue ad men in the 60s. The show has really gone for historical accuracy, and so everyone drinks like fish. It blows my mind the amount people used to drink. I got excited by the ridiculousness of seeing people having 10 drinks a day and so I started emulating them. I've gone from having 4 drinks a week to having 5 drinks a week. Don't tell my mom...
My aunt Sara got me drinking Compari about a year and a half ago. It's an Italian bitters with a uniquely herbal taste. Often considered an aperitif, I prefer it as a digestif. Something to sip slowly into the night. Actually, we should be using the words aperitivo and digestivo because Compari is Italian. If I am going to be snobbish with my drinks, why limit my snobbery to the French tongue? I'm not a failed polyglot for nothing.
Here's what's great about Compari: it is an acquired taste. I've grown to really enjoy the medicinally herbal taste that it leaves in my mouth, sort of like a Ricola without the sugar, but none of my beer-drinking friends like it at all. I can be all sassy, "Hey guys, want to try my favorite drink?", and they never say yes twice. I come off as generous to my Pabst drinking buddies, but don't have to share my expensive Compari.
I like it straight up on the rocks, but if you're working your way into the taste of it, try 1 part Compari with 2 parts Seltzer. Cheers!