A sunless tease

Dear Seattle:

The past three (four?) weekends of sun and warmth were marvelous. Really great. Out of character, making them that much more enjoyable. I was inspired! I puttered in the garden (aka, on my patio). I PLANTED THINGS. Things that, according to my middle school biology teacher, need sunshine to grow. Since that time, you have given me zero (0) hours of sunshine. I know that you're just trying to be you. Really, I get it. But couldn't you even things out a tiny bit? Please? I'm going to be unable to tend to my plants for the second half of May so it would be swell if everything could be settled in and growing, or at least stable, by then. Thanks.

Readers, I am frustrated. I'm having a few more challenges this year than previous years. It's only the very beginning of the season, so there's plenty of time for things to be corrected, but there have definitely been some bumps. My lavender and mint continue to plug along happily, but everything else...less happy. My rosemary, for one, is struggling. I've never had a rosemary problem before - it's always been so sturdy - but I think this past winter has left serious aftereffects. While the plant has hung in there and is still alive, it is definitely newly scrawny, and is still dropping needles (albeit at a slower rate). I've aerated, repotted, drained, added fresh soil. Who out there is knowledgeable on rosemary? It's one thing to lose a pretty flower plant. But the rosemary - that's functional. I cook with it often, and just pop outside to snip a few branches. I actually make good use of this plant!

Here's how it looks today:

Meanwhile, I'm attempting salad ingredients again. Last year I planted a mesclun mix - didn't employ a lot of order, just scattered seeds. So far, no big deal. However...I then proceeded to not thin it, ever. I couldn't bring myself to pluck things when I didn't know which would be the better grower, so I left everything...and killed everything. Well, maybe I didn't KILL it - but I did grow albino salad, as the density of the leaves blocked their own sun. It was sort of remarkable, and not very edible. This year, I will be cold and harsh and pluck at will. I'm also growing simple baby spinach instead of a mix, and I planted in a more orderly manner, and I'm hoping both of these will lead to a better result. Anyway, the whole point of that ramble is to share that a mere week after seeding, there are a few tiny green shoots popping out of the spinach pot! Very exciting. (You've got to look really hard, but trust me - they're there.)

Finally, my tomatoes. I ordered a packet of cherry tomato seeds from Burpee, and followed the directions, planting what should have provided me with seven plants, and planning on using the two sturdiest. Of those seven, I got one. One! Ridiculous, and not impressive. Today I gave in and bought a start from my farmers' market. After I potted them both, I realized just how sad and puny my homegrown start was. Maybe this will work out and just lead to a staggered harvest...(can you guess which is which?...and don't be fooled by the apparent brightness in this photo. It was overcast, just brightish overcast.)

Fingers crossed, people. Fingers crossed.

Oh yeah, I'm planting things too

When I started this blog, I promised it would be for cooking and for gardening, and thus far (thanks to Seattle's weather) it's been all food, all the time. No more! We just had this bizarre stretch of nice weather (which is now MIA, but there's rumors it will return), and I promptly headed out to my patio, cleaning up the winter's mess and getting things going for the spring/summer. About a month ago, I started a few seeds in those little cups that break down in the larger pots - no replanting required - and am now, with a few exceptions, gradually moving them outside. I am 100% a container gardener - I have a patio of a decent size, and that's the end of it. Which is perfectly fine by me - no weeding! A few years back I tried to garden in a patch at the back of my parents' yard, and it was a disaster. Granted, it was the summer of May and June deluges, so the shallots and garlic drowned and rotted and things that lived were stunted at best, but on top of that I felt like there was a daily losing battle with the weeds. And this was when I was unemployed, so had plenty of time to be out there weeding every day - and I still couldn't keep up. So, containers are how I roll now.

It's still early in the season, so the only thing that's actually "grown" so far is my lavender. Lavender grows like crazy out here - I accidentally created a wild lavender offshoot in one of the apartment complex-maintained planters when nature sent some seeds/pollen floating over from my pot. My plant had gone dormant over the summer, and having never grown it before I wasn't sure what to expect. It lives in this cool ceramic pot that I like, but which doesn't slope out enough at the top for easy repotting. So, I left it be...then two weeks ago, looked out my window to see the thing had just about doubled in size!

                             

So, a good start out here, as with the mint plant that also refuses to die. Other struggling holdovers include rosemary and sage, both of which got a little more rain than I think they would have liked. But they're hanging in there, and I'm hopeful. Bring on the sunshine!

Gotta Have a...Bundt?

Recently, I had one of those "I want to use that pan" moments. Maybe you aren't a person who has acquired a bizarre number of specialized kitchen items, and you don't have these moments. I do. The pan in question was a kinda-vintage butter yellow enameled Bundt pan, acquired either at a yard sale or at the free table in my old apartment building in Hyde Park. Either way, not exactly an investment - but I've had it for a while and had never used it. I also was getting some grief for not baking anything for the office recently, and on top of that - there were little hints of spring here in Seattle. Nothing really dramatic, but enough to trigger my craving for things involving either berries or lemon or both. (This recipe technically uses berry preserves, but I bet if berries were actually in season they might be juicy enough to be smushed up and used on their own.) I had been meaning to look for something...and then one morning in my inbox, via the Food&Wine Daily, there it was: Blueberry Sour Cream Coffee Cake!

Blueberry-Sour Cream Coffee Cake (adapted from Food & Wine Online) [*note from your blogger: this link is a little fluky lately, but I'll give it a try*]

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 Tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 sticks (1/2 lb) unsalted butter, softened
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
2 large eggs, at room temperature, lightly beaten
1 cup sour cream
1 Tbsp pure vanilla extract
3/4 cup blueberry preserves, plus 1 Tbsp melted preserves
Confectioners' sugar, for dusting

Preheat the oven to 350°. Butter and flour a 10-inch Bundt pan. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt. In a large bowl, beat the butter until creamy. Add the granulated sugar and beat until fluffy. Beat in the eggs, sour cream and vanilla. Beat in the dry ingredients just until incorporated. [*note from your blogger: USE CAUTION if using a stand mixer. I'd gotten used to recipes formatted for stand mixers, but I don't think this was because my cake had definitely been beat a little two much....cue my father's bad pun about black-and-blue and blueberries here*]
Spread all but 1/2 cup of the batter into the prepared pan. Using the back of a spoon, make a trough in the batter, all the way around the pan. Mix the 3/4 cup of blueberry preserves with the reserved batter and spoon it into the trough. [*note from your blogger: this is tricky. Beware. Mine was a teeny bit messy. Still tasted fine though!*]
Bake the cake for about 1 hour, or until it begins to pull away from the pan and a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean. Let the cake cool in the pan for 15 minutes. Invert the cake onto a wire rack, remove the pan and let cool completely. Sift the confectioners' sugar over the cake, drizzle with the melted blueberry preserves and serve. [*note from your blogger: I was making this for the office and my colleagues have been leaning towards slightly healthier things of late, so I skipped the frosting. It was still tasty, and somewhat morning-snack-friendly*]

A long post, a long time coming, on a comfort food for long cold stretches [Or: Cooking with wine.]

Readers...if there are any of you left...I apologize. There's been this thing, and then another things, and...enough excuses. No more! I am getting back on this horse.

While it's way past the time of year for hearty cold weather food, I understand some of you unfortunate souls have been having nor'easter out there. So, for this I offer my story of a gloomy Sunday in Seattle, back in...I think it was late February.

I was halfway through Sunday when I had this overwhelming urge to cook many hearty things. Midday Sunday is kind of  dangerous time for this mindset, unless you're of the organized and effecient type (I'm not). I CRAVED coq au vin, and I had this urge to make some kind of lentil soup. Since I couldn't decide which to focus on, at around 3pm I started preparations to make both. This involved, among other things, an insane amount of produce choppping.  I would probably not encourage anyone else to make both of these at once, at least without the following: a) a severe amount of kitchen/clock management discipline; b) at least two dutch ovens of your brand of choice (mine is a beloved 40-year old orange Copco - it's always exciting for me when orange cycles back through as the "it" color); and c) a big kitchen with a very big range. I have very little of (a), only one of (b), and and the only way I could be considered to have (c) is if a Manhattan studio walk-up is your comparison.  It's not remarkably small, but it ain't big and my range is entirely standard. Plus, it's electric, so I can't put move something off the heat to another burner unless said other burner hasn't been used within the past 20 minutes. But I digress.

So, to work I went. EPB earned his acronym with this one - aside from waiting through the excessively long time that I holed up in the kitchen chopping, simmering, browning, and occasionally swearing, before I finally announced that dinner was ready, he also acted as sous chef and chopped a few thousand vegetables/starches.

First: the coq au vin. (Technically I started the soup first so it could simmer, but that was much less complicated and I'm SURE none of you will make my mistake of making both of these at once, anyway.) I used a recipe that was adapted from a recipe - my mother has always used Julia's (that's Julia Child, people - keep up), but I was hoping for one a little less complicated. This one was fully two pages long, but I still feel that it wasn't as challenging as one would expect.

Coq Au Vin
Adapted from The Year in Food, who adapted it from the Amateur Gourmet

4-5 pound chicken, separated by wings, thighs, legs, breasts, rinsed, patted very dry, and generously salted and peppered. (Here’s a demo on carving a chicken.)
4 slices thick-cut bacon [*note from your blogger: your kitchen will smell amazing many times during this process. I strongly encourage a snack beforehand, and probably during.*]

1 bottle dry red wine [*note from your blogger: if you happen to, say, "lose" a small cup during this process...it'll still taste just fine. :) *]
1 cup chicken stock
1 medium yellow onion, chopped
2 carrots, diced
2 tablespoons brandy
1 tablespoon tomato paste
2-3 garlic cloves, minced
1 tablespoon fresh thyme, minced
2 tablespoons fresh parsley, minced
1 bay leaf
-
For the garnish:
1 medium yellow onion, chopped   [*note from your blogger: My mother has always used frozen pearl onions here. I think they absorb the flavor better...and as I've mentioned before, I hatehatehate chopping onions. So, I used one bag of frozen pearl onions.*]
12 ounces cremini mushrooms, sliced [*note from your blogger: or just chopped...up to you.*]
2 tablespoons butter
fresh parsley
salt+pepper

1. Place the bacon in a cold Dutch oven or similar large, heavy-bottomed pot. Cook over medium heat, turning as needed, for about ten minutes. You want it to be somewhat browned but retain some of the fat. Don’t cook it to a crisp. Remove the bacon, chop roughly, and set aside.

2. Turn the heat up to medium-high. Give the pot a few minutes to heat more. Have your chicken ready to go. Make sure it’s nice and dry, as this is what you will need in order to get that lovely brown crust when you sear it.
3. Place half the chicken (one each wing, thigh, drumstick, breast) in the pot and leave it alone for about five minutes. To get that crust, you don’t want to jostle the meat at all. After about 5 minutes, flip each piece, and repeat. If it hasn’t developed a really nice brown sear, leave the meat in for a little longer.

4. Take the first batch of chicken from the pot, and repeat step 3 with second half.
5. If you have a lot of excess fat in the pot, spoon the extra out, being careful not to remove any brown bits.
6. Reduce heat to medium, and add a tablespoon of butter. Add the onion and carrot, and saute, stirring some, for about five minutes.
7. Add the tomato paste and stir. Carefully add the cognac/brandy, deglazing the pot with it. Scrape all that yummy stuff from the bottom, and saute for another few minutes to reduce the liquid.
8. Raise the heat a little again, and add the bottle of wine, garlic, thyme, parsley and bay leaf, and bring to a boil.  Simmer until liquid has reduced by half, about 15-20 minutes.
9. Add the bacon and the chicken stock and stir. Reserve 1/2 cup of the cooking liquid for your second batch of onions.
10. Return the chicken to the pot. Amateur Gourmet suggested a certain order, but I didn’t find that necessary. [*note from your blogger: neither did I.*]
11. Cover the pot, reduce the heat to very low on your stove, and simmer, undisturbed, for 45-60 minutes. You want the meat to be incredibly tender, but not quite falling off the bone. (Mine started to fall off the bone, no big deal.)
12. While your chicken is braising, prepare the garnish. Heat one tablespoon butter in a medium pan over a medium flame. Add the onions and saute for about 5 minutes.
13. Add the reserved braising liquid, season to taste with salt and pepper, and saute until most of the liquid has been reduced, about 10 minutes or so. Remove onions from heat and set aside.
14. Add another tablespoon of butter to the pan. Add the mushrooms and saute until the liquid has cooked off, another 10 minutes, roughly. Turn off heat, return onions to the pan, mix together and set aside.

15. Check on the chicken. If it’s ready, turn off heat and skim any fat if necessary. Add the mushrooms and onions to the braise, stir.
16. Ladle this luscious stuff into bowls, garnish with more parsley, and enjoy!
PS: The flavors will improve overnight. [*note from your blogger: and over the next few days. Honestly, it keeps getting better. Especially if, say, you (ahem) accidentally cooked the chicken too long and dried it out...it re-moistens!*]

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Still here? Okay then. Sometimes, you just want a hearty soup that also isn't bad for you. When the recipe makes enough for nearly a week's worth of lunches on a relatively low budget, well, that's just a win all around, unless you don't like vegetables or lentils. In which case, stop reading now.

Still here? Okay. This recipe is also pretty absurdly easy. At least compared to the coq au vin. And it's so satisfying. I looked at the recipe - one this, one that - and thought it didn't seem like enough soup for the effort, so I doubled it. Wellll....let's just say that my pot (NOT the dutch oven, since that was going to be required for the coq au vin) was very nearly overtopped. Turns out this makes more than it seems. The recipe actually said it would make something like 4 servings...I ended up with 10. Ten! However: turns out this both doubles well and freezes well...so it was fine. Full disclosure, though - when you freeze it it comes out looking less colorful and somewhat unappetizing. But it's still delicious!


Hearty Lentil Soup (adapted from AllRecipes)

Ingredients

2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 bunch green onions, chopped
1 leek, sliced
1 carrot, diced
1 parsnip, scrubbed and diced
1 potato, peeled and diced
1 stalk celery, sliced
1 cup dry lentils, rinsed
1 (14.5 ounce) can diced tomatoes
3 cups vegetable stock
2 bay leaves
1 dash soy sauce
2 teaspoons vegetarian Worcestershire sauce [*note from your blogger: not only do I not have vegetarian Worcestershire (huh?), I also completely forgot the Worcestershire of any variety. I think I last minute compensated with extra soy sauce...not sure. Point is, feel free to experiment - this is a very forgiving soup.*]
1/2 cup red wine
1 bunch fresh cilantro, chopped [*note from your blogger: I'm one of those people who hates cilantro...so I skipped it. Didn't seem to me like the soup was missing anything, so your call.*]

Directions
Heat the oil in a large saucepan and mix in the onions, carrot, parsnip, celery, potato, and leek. Stir over a medium heat.
Place lentils, tomatoes, stock, bay leaves, a splash of the soy and Worcestershire sauces and wine in the saucepan. Stir and bring the mixture to a boil. Cover and simmer for 25 to 30 minutes, or until the lentils are cooked.
Remove the bay leaves from the soup. Stir in the cilantro and serve.