Delicious Brussels sprouts and cheese tart

This Brussels sprouts and cheese tart is a keeper. Below, this is how the sprouts look on the plant before being harvested. They're kind of like mini cabbages. They're also attractive to deer and we have to use wire or sheets late in the season to keep the harvest from being eaten.

Here's another good reason to grow Brussels sprouts -- this cheese and sprouts tart.

The recipe comes courtesy of the Star Tribune's food section via Newsday -- yes, there still are newspapers that recognize the value of food sections.

Brian made the tart for a Thanksgiving Day appetizer, putting some of the last of the Brussels sprouts to flavorful use. The verdict -- a unanimous "yes," even the self-described sprouts-hater among the four of us found the tart appealing. Well, he at least found it palatable. The dual cooking approach -- sauteing and roasting -- eliminates the bitter that some people are sensitive to. Here's a link to the recipe (I've also copied it below.) Brian did make one change -- he substituted Jarlsberg cheese for the Gruyere. The leek and thyme called for in the recipe came from our garden, too.

GRUYÈRE AND BRUSSELS SPROUTS TART

Makes 4 to 6 servings

• 1 (14-ounce) sheet puff pastry, defrosted in the refrigerator overnight

• 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

• 1 leek, white and light green parts, sliced thin

• 10 ounces Brussels sprouts, halved

• Salt

• Ground black pepper

• 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

• 1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh thyme leaves

• 4 ounces shredded Gruyère (we used Jarlsberg) cheese

• 1 egg, lightly beaten

Directions

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Unfold the puff pastry and place in middle of baking sheet. Prick all over with a fork. Cover with plastic and place in freezer.

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Heat olive oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add leek and cook until softened, about 3 minutes. Add Brussels sprouts, salt and pepper to taste and cook, stirring occasionally, until they are spotty brown, 5 to 7 minutes.

Add balsamic vinegar and continue to cook, stirring, until most of the liquid has cooked off (this will take less than 30 seconds). Scrape into a bowl, stir in thyme and set aside to cool.

Remove puff pastry from freezer, and spread cooled Brussels sprouts mixture over it, leaving a 1-inch border all around. Sprinkle the cheese over the Brussels sprouts.

Brush edge of dough with egg. Bake until the pastry is golden and cheese is browned and bubbling, about 20 minutes. Cool slightly and serve warm or let come to room temperature before serving.

Jam-a-pa-loo-za (featuring chutney gluttony)

 The results of an afternoon spent canning.

The plan: Pear Chutney, Brandied Cherries, Ginger-Grape Jam, Tomato Jam (two versions), Current Jelly.

The setting: A sunny kitchen on Minnesota's Iron Range.

The players: Five women in need of a late winter pick-me-up.

We gathered on Saturday with fresh gingerroot and other spices; garden and farmstand cherries, grapes and tomatoes still colorful and flavorful after several months in the freezer; and a collection of various sizes and shapes of jars along with the kettles and other paraphernalia necessary for a fun afternoon of canning and catching up.

This is what gardening looks like in December

A snowy harvest of parsnips. These are 'Gladiator'.

The snow fell early this year. It started falling before all of the parsnips were pulled from the ground. But, hey, what's a little snow in a Minnesota garden?

So, on a day when temperatures hovered in the mid-teens, it was time to shovel back the snow and harvest parsnips before the ground froze solid. I came home from class to find the resident head gardener, with his faithful companion close by, digging and pulling the pale roots from the ground.

Two trays full of parsnips were brought inside for cleaning and storing in the refrigerator; a bunch also went to Scott, who was hard at work installing an air exchanger in the house. A short row was left in the ground, topped with some straw mulch, to overwinter until spring.

We love parsnips -- sauted, gratined or souped, parsnips are a good bet to fill the void come winter. For dinner Wednesday night, several nice-sized roots were topped, tailed, peeled and sliced into a pan with some melted butter. Seasoned with salt and pepper, they cooked gently until tender and were a tasty side to the breaded pork chops. 

Talk about timing. Even in December, it can be a matter of a few hours from harvest to supper. Brilliant! 

Brrrrrr!

Karen cooks Kale and Cannellini Soup

 Kale and Cannellini Soup from Bon Appetit magazine. The kale, carrots and garlic are from the garden. To prepare the kale, use a sharp knife and cut on either side of the center rib. Discard the rib and give the leaves a rough chop.

True. I am not making this up. I made a pot of Kale and Cannellini Soup for supper this weekend. From scratch. With minimal coaching from the resident chef.

And it was delicious.

The kale is a variety called 'Nero de Toscana'. It has thick, puckered leaves that seem to get sturdier as the days get colder. You could probably harvest it in the snow -- assuming you could keep the deer off it. An old bed sheet protects the crop now.

The recipe is from November's Bon Appetit magazine. Note that you make the Beans with Kale first -- you get enough to make an appetizer one day and the soup another day. The recipe is easy to follow and doesn't require any fancy techniques or equipment. We didn't have any Italian seasoning on hand so I subbed in some thyme and basil. Instead of toasted baguette slices, we had extra Parmesan cheese to garnish the soup and crackers on the side. And we did without the final drizzle of truffle oil.

This is not a wimpy soup. It has depth and substance and flavor. There were no leftovers.

This is how the kale looked in September.

Good eating on a blustery fall evening

Boeuf Bourguignon Before: The day's harvest included (clockwise from left) parsley and thyme for the bouquet garni and peppers for salad; Purple Haze and Nelson carrots, yellow and red onions; Austrian Crescent potatoes; small yellow onions for braising. 

Boeuf Bourguignon After: The main dish was accompanied by steamed Austrian Crescent potatoes, garden salad, a freshly-baked baguette and peaches and cream for dessert.

Several weeks back we enjoyed a visit from family from Illinois. The day they arrived was cold, windy and wet, and the resident chef made the perfect call by preparing Boeuf Bourguignon to welcome them for their weekend stay. He loosely followed Julia Child's recipe in "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" doing what good cooks naturally do, adapting the recipe to suit their own tastes and available ingredients. Child says in the cookbook, "as is the case with most famous dishes, there are more ways than one to arrive at a good boeuf bourguignon. Carefully done, and perfectly flavored, it is certainly one of the most delicious dishes concocted by man ..." Amen to that.

It's cold and gray today and I'm remembering how delicious that meal was -- good food prepared with garden vegetables harvested only hours earlier, a simple table setting with tealights and small bouquets of sedum and parsley, plenty of red wine and good conversation. It doesn't get much better than that.

Pretty flavorful

 The creamy flowers of rhubarb pair nicely with pale yellow bearded iris about two weeks ago.

Rhubarb may be one of the original multi-tasking plants. It's pretty and it makes a great pie. Or cake. Or sauce.

It also may be one of the toughest plants around. Some of my rhubarb survived at least two years in a heap of roots and soil in a cardboard box. Maybe that ability to withstand harsh treatment is why its ornamental value too often is overlooked. But really, why wouldn't you plant it as an ornamental even if you don't like eating it. Rhubarb has fabulously huge leaves and towering flower stalks. A little tidying up now and then and you're good to go.

But in a gardening world gone edible, it is the culinary qualities that keep rhubarb on the must-have list. I found this recipe for Rhubarb Crunch in a cookbook published by AAL. Simple to make and yummy for dessert. Or for breakfast. Yes, breakfast.

Rhubarb Crunch

4 cups fresh rhubarb, cut into 1/2 inch pieces

2 cups sugar, divided

2 tablespoons flour

2 tablespoons butter

1 cup sifted flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 large egg, beaten 

Sift 1 cup sugar and 2 tablespoons flour together; mix with rhubarb. Pour into an 8- or 9-inch baking pan and dot with butter. Sift together the remaining sugar and flour with salt and baking powder; stir in beaten egg. The mixture will be crumbly.

Sprinkle it over the rhubarb and shake the pan a little so the crumbs will settle down in the rhubarb. Bake for about 40 minutes at 350 degrees or until the crust is a delicate brown. Serve warm or cold, plain or with milk or ice cream.

Well-thymed meals

Snowbanks receded enough to reveal a couple of thyme plants with some fresh green leaves among the old stuff. A good handful found its way into dinner.

Talk about a lucky intersection of seasons -- the last of the 2009 parsnips found their way into a meal fragrant with 2010's first harvest of thyme. Here's how the resident chef made Sunday's Thyme-stuffed Chicken Thighs with Parsnips. (And the leftovers were just as delicious a couple of days later.)

Make a stuffing of bread cubes, wild rice, onion, celery, chicken stock, salt, pepper and lots of fresh, chopped thyme. Stuff six to eight boneless chicken thighs. Slice peeled parsnips lengthwise into planks and then layer the planks in a baking pan. Drizzle with some oil and season with salt and pepper. Place the stuffed thighs on top and sprinkle with some more fresh thyme. Bake at 350 degrees in a convection oven for 30 to 45 minutes until the skin is nice and golden and crispy.

The skin was golden and crispy and flavored with thyme. The asparagus, alas, wasn't ours; it came from the grocery.

Happy Halloween snack

Brined pumpkin seeds -- delicious!

We don't normally get many (if any) trick-or-treaters out here in the boonies, but I always carve at least one pumpkin. Have to. Have to have the seeds. Have to have the seeds to roast them. Must have roasted pumpkin seeds. Some years I carve pumpkins that we've grown; this year we didn't grow pumpkins so I carved a couple brought home from the grocery store.

This year, for the first time, I tried brining the pumpkin seeds. I found the tip at apartment therapy. First, clean the seeds and place them in a saucepan. Then, for each cup of seeds, add two cups of water and 2 tablespoons of salt. Add a touch of olive oil. Bring to a boil and then simmer for 10 minutes.

After simmering, drain and toss with more olive oil and some spices if you like. I added a little sea salt and a generous sprinkling of curry powder. Mix and spread the seeds on a cookie sheet. Bake at 400 F. for about 25 minutes, checking and stirring the seeds periodically.

I also did a standard seed roasting to compare. (Mix cleaned seeds with olive oil, sea salt and hot curry powder. Roast at 300 F. for about 40 minutes.) The difference was subtle, but I think the brined seeds had a little more depth. And they weren't any harder to prepare.

These guys gave up their seeds for me.

Beans star in weekend dining

A bowl of just-picked 'Jade' green beans. I nibbled a few as I harvested. Just to keep my energy up.

It's all about the beans. And the herbs. And the potatoes. Is it any wonder why this is one of the best eating times of the year.

Let's start with the beans. Few vegetables give you so much bang for the buck, even in a semi-crummy growing season like this one. The green bush beans (variety is 'Jade') were ready for harvest last week. The bean harvest means one thing: Stir-fried Green Beans with Pork and Chilies from Madhur Jaffrey's "Far Eastern Cookery." This recipe has become a summer ritual for us; of course, we eat it other times of the year, too, but the first harvest of beans seems like an especially good time to enjoy it. You can adjust the amount of heat with the number of chilies you use. Here's the drill:

1 1/4 pound green beans
12-16 garlic cloves
6-9 fresh hot green or red chilies
5 tablespoons vegetable oil
10 ounces lean pork, ground
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon dark brown sugar
3 tablespoons fish sauce or salt to taste

Cut the beans into quarter-inch pieces. Peel and chop the garlic. Cut the chilies crosswise into very thin slices.

Put the oil in a wok and set it over medium-high heat. When the oil is hot, put in the garlic and chilies. Stir and fry until the garlic turns golden and then add the pork. Stir and fry, breaking up any lumps, until the pork has lost its raw look. Put in the beans, paprika, sugar, fish sauce and 1 1/4 cups water. Stir and cook on a medium-high heat for about 8-10 minutes or until the beans are tender and most of the water has been absorbed.

We also used our own homegrown chilies (superchilies, well-suited for northern climates) and garlic in the Saturday night dinner. The psychic taste buds get a boost from using ingredients that came out of the garden only hours earlier.

We have never tried a Madhur Jaffrey recipe we didn't like. She's that good.

The beans and pork are just about done stir-frying in the wok. Serve them over jasmine rice.

And then there was Sunday dinner. Beans again, but this time it was the French filet beans (variety is 'Nickel', thinner and more delicate than other bush beans). They were steamed and sprinkled with summer savory, an easy-to-grow annual herb that will self-sow. It doesn't get much better than this. Except when you add freshly dug Norkotah mashed potatoes with fresh rosemary and chives and chicken baked with a poultice of rosemary, thyme, sage and olive oil tucked under the skin.

It's an herb extravaganza. Those are bits of summer savory on the filet beans. I love the garnish -- sage leaves with rosemary and chives. Sort of evokes a bird.

Fa-va-va-va-voom: Fava beans!

A pile of de-podded fava beans ready for blanching after which their outer skins or husks will be removed. Is your mouth watering yet?

Summer Fest at A Way to Garden is focusing on beans and greens this week. We're a few days away from harvesting green beans, but the fava beans, well, that's another story.

Fava beans (Vicia faba) are among the first vegetables we sow here. They've also evolved into one of our must-grows. Not that we grow a lot of them -- just enough for a meal or two -- but it's always fun to anticipate a plate of the plump, pillowy beans.

Favas go in the ground in late April, six weeks or more before the bush beans (Phaseolus vulgaris) or the pole beans or the Chinese long beans and about the same time as the peas. We use a bacteria inoculant when we sow (You can buy the stuff at many seed/garden suppliers). Spritz the seeds with water, roll them in the inoculant and sow. The bacteria form nodules on the roots and help to fix the nitrogen from the air into a form more readily useful to a growing plant. (You can use it for other beans and peas, too.)

Favas here grow several feet tall and have very cool black and white blossoms. We grow a variety called 'Aquadulce' that we get from Stokes Seeds.These broad beans need a long, cool growing season and judging by our harvest, the cool temperatures I was complaining about earlier this summer were a boon to this year's crop. Harvest when the pods are thick and bumpy with the beans.

Once harvested, there's the matter of prepping the fava beans for cooking. Remove them from the pod and blanch them for several minutes in boiling water. Now it's time to remove their secondary husk. One by one, take each bean and squeeze one end to push the bean out of the husk. Yes, it's tedious, but not so bad if done while watching the news and having a cocktail. After this husking, all you need to do is warm them in a pan with some butter and salt. A vegetable like this doesn't need any fancy extras. If you do have leftovers (unlikely, but it can happen) try them in an omelet the next day.

Good to know: A small percentage of people have favism, an acute anemia caused by a reaction to eating fava beans or being exposed to its pollen.

The fava bean bed in May. Good things come to those who wait. We harvested in August.

A bowl of just-picked favas. We'll take them out of the pod and then shell them again before eating.

The beans cozy up to each other in the pod.

Fava beans prepared simply with butter and salt are the main attraction; peppered flatiron steak and puff pastry/blue cheese pinwheels play supporting roles.

OK, I can't resist, you've read this far -- here's the famous line.

Jammin'

Ripe peaches ready for a jam session. (The plants are lemon gem marigolds; they have nothing to do with peaches, I just like them.)

What's a girl to do on a gloomy August morning? Why, find some sunshine in a pot of almond-peach jam, of course.

The recipe makes enough to fill three 8-ounce jars.

We can't grow peaches here, but we buy a case or two each summer when they arrive fresh and fragrant at stores. And I like to make this almond-peach jam from "Preserving for All Seasons'' by Anne Gardon. The recipe is a small batch -- it makes about 3 cups -- and this is the first year I've actually canned it. Years past, I just kept it in the fridge because it always got eaten so quickly, but this year I'm canning some of it thanks to a confidence-building session with my jam buddies on a cold January day. Here's how I make almond-peach jam:

You'll need 6 peaches, cut into chunks, about 4 cups. Make the chunks tiny, as this jam is really more of a sweet spread than a smooth jam. I'm starting to call it "peach gravy" like my brother-in-law does. You'll also need 1 cup sugar and 1 generous tablespoon almond extract. Put the three ingredients in a saucepan and bring slowly to a boil, while stirring. Reduce heat and simmer until thick. The original recipe says about 10 minutes; I let it simmer for 20 minutes or so. Ladle into sterilized jars and process. Or keep it in a container in the refrigerator. That's it. Couldn't be simpler. Couldn't be tastier on a slice of toast made with homemade bread.

For more ideas on cooking with peaches, check out Summer Fest, Week 2: Fruits from Trees at A Way to Garden. Also take a peek at mattbites.com.

Breakfast the next day is toast made with homemade bread and almond-peach jam.

Join the party, celebrate tarragon

Margaret Roach at awaytogarden.com is hosting Summer Fest, a four-week celebration of garden-fresh foods and flavors. This week it's all about herbs, one of my favorite topics. And one of my favorite herbs is tarragon with its licorice-anise flavor. Growing tarragon in this neck of the woods is a no-brainer: Buy a pot of french tarragon, plant it in a sunny spot, divide every couple of years, enjoy the bounty. My best clumps get lots of southwest sun by the garage. It's one of the first perennials to show signs of life in the spring and I've been known to pinch off sprigs to chew while doing my garden rounds.

Tarragon chicken supper a few weeks ago.

A couple of weeks ago, the resident chef here improvised a divine chicken supper using tarragon. Here's how he did it:

You'll need chicken cut into pieces, tarragon vinegar, shallots, chicken stock, heavy cream and seasoned flour (1-1 1/2 cups flour, salt and pepper and 1-1 1/2 tablespoons dried tarragon).

Dip the chicken in tarragon vinegar (reserve excess) and coat with seasoned flour. Saute in olive oil until nicely browned on one side, turn. Brown other side. Pour reserved tarragon vinegar over chicken pieces and continue to cook until vinegar has evaporated and chicken is cooked through, turning as needed.

Remove chicken from frying pan, drain on paper towels. Add a little more oil to pan if needed and saute some shallots until translucent. Add stock and reduce vigorously, scraping up browned bits until almost evaporated. Add heavy cream and reduce until desired thickness. Correct seasoning with salt and pepper and add chopped fresh tarragon.

Plate with starch of choice (we used vermicelli seasoned with butter, salt and pepper and chopped fresh parsley). Sauce chicken judiciously as this is a rich sauce. Garnish with a fresh sprig of tarragon. A nice acidic white wine with herbal or mineral notes, such as Riesling or Sauvignon blanc, goes well with this dish.

A robust stand of French tarragon in a raised bed by the garage. It seems to thrive on neglect. All I do is divide it every couple of years. I don't even mulch it over the winter.

All the cool kids are growing their own ...

... food. And this summer the New York Botanical Garden is celebrating edibles in the garden. Just take a look at how the NYBG is elevating such garden staples as squash, tomatoes and corn by showcasing them in containers.

Pots of tomatoes, peppers, corn, squash and other vegetables line the waterlily pool at the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory at the NYBG.

Corn is underplanted with cherry tomatoes at the NYBG.

It seems like I've been growing vegetables and herbs in pots for ages, albeit on a much less grand scale than the NYBG. I love having tomatoes nearby so I can brush up against the fragrant foliage (if someone could bottle the scent of tomato foliage I'd buy it by the boatload); having mint in a pot on the deck makes it easy to add a sprig to my iced tea; and eggplants are just pretty plants. Period. Whether or not we actually get any eggplants. And I always have at least one big pot of flat-leaf parsley on the deck out of reach of the deer.

Growing veggies and herbs in pots is easy. I use mostly recycled black nursery containers -- it helps unify the look on a deck or patio -- and potting mix that we buy by the bale. Find a sunny location. Pay attention to water -- the pots often will need to be watered every day depending on the weather. I use a liquid fertilizer about once a week. I also like to mix in a few flowers, often planting lobelia or alyssum as a ruffle around the edge of the pot.

Here's a grouping of a tomato, parsley, mint and two eggplants underplanted with lobelia. The mint winters over and everything else we grew from seed sowed in the house this spring.

A salad with bite

For years, I'd seen French sorrel (Rumex) in the herb books but never bothered to try growing it until a few years ago. It's not the most attractive plant, but the tiny seedling I plopped in place then came up early and strong this year. It had to be used. While there are recipes for sauces and soups (none of which I've attempted so far), I've taken a liking to using the leaves in salads. The tangy, citrus flavor adds some nice bite to the more mellow lettuce. Just pick a few leaves, wash, tear into bite-size pieces and toss with the other greens in your salad. My sorrel is thriving in a sunny spot in the herb garden; I even spotted some seedling progeny when I was weeding there the other day. But happy though it may be in its current location, I think a move to another, less visible spot may be in order.

Meanwhile, its cousin bloody dock (Rumex sanguineus) is making a return appearance in the front bed but didn't survive the winter in the courtyard berm. Go figure. I love the foliage on this plant, but it's not recommended for eating. I love the name even more: "bloody dock!" It's a nice substitute for cursing.

The season's first meal

The tomatoes under the lights downstairs are merely tiny seedlings and the spinach outdoors is just starting to germinate, but we've already enjoyed the first bounty of the season.

Last fall, for whatever reason, not all of the parsnips got harvested. The creamy white root vegetables spent the winter underground, under a layer of straw, topped by the snow. When the ground thawed this spring, the straw was pulled back and the parsnips were ready for harvest. And, oh, what a beautiful harvest!


This was a week or so ago and we hadn't yet turned on the hoses. So we piled the parsnips into a plastic bag and carried them back to the stream at the back of our property for cleaning. Of course, the silly dog kept an eye on all the activity.


Now, full disclosure: I am not the cook in the family. Brian took a bunch of those parsnips, harvested an hour earlier, and sliced them lengthwise into a baking dish. He added some cream, Parmesan cheese and freshly snipped chives. (Chives are one of the earliest edibles in our garden.) Into the oven at about 350 degrees for an hour or so, or until the cream reduces. Yum! There were second helpings all around.


This outdoor storage, while unintended, worked well. Maybe we'll try it with carrots this fall.