a dinner party

Dinner parties are harder to host now that we have a baby. Unless, as I discovered recently, you invite your friends who also have babies. Last weekend I invited two couples plus their two babies over for dinner. The plan was to have them come about a half hour before they normally put their kids to bed, we'd be ready with pack n' plays and low-lit rooms and we would have a glass of wine, put down the babes and get to partying. It almost worked out perfectly.

I had planned a simple dinner: the focaccia you see above (with carmelized onions, pears and blue cheese, the recipe is here), a winter salad, mushroom and butternut squash risotto and roasted chicken thighs. Oh, and chocolate cake for dessert. All was prepped and ready to go. I was feeling pretty organized and the baby was in a good mood, as if she knew a party was about to start.

About 15 min. before they were supposed to arrive, one of my friends calls with the news that her baby was puking all over the place. These things happen. She was worried and of course, they would not be able to come. I felt bad for her, told her I hoped her little girl would be all right, and went about making a few changes to the menu. One thing I did which turned out great was instead of making a 'real' risotto with arborio rice and standing at the stove for half an hour stirring while everyone else had fun, I put some short-grain brown rice on to boil while we drank wine and ate the focaccia (which was yummy).

I'd already pre-cooked the mushrooms and squash earlier in the day. When we were ready to sit and the chicken was still in the oven, I added some butter and grated parmigiano to the rice and stirred in the veggies. It was not exactly like the risotto I had planned, but pretty close and just as good (*note to self: with baby it is no longer necessary to make a traditional risotto for a dinner party). Even though I've always been a pretty organized cook, doing as much as I can ahead of time so I can enjoy the party, I still am learning new ways to cut corners.

Even though we missed the couple with the puking baby, our dinner was fun and we enjoyed getting to know the other couple. The two babies went to bed without much fuss and never made a peep until it was time for them to leave. (*Another note to self: it's possible to have a dinner party while your baby sleeps as long as the other baby is as good as yours).

Oh, the chocolate cake was delicious and we ate it for two days, although I have no photo of it. It was rich and moist, a typical buttermilk-cocoa powder 3-layer cake with chocolate frosting. That's the only good thing about the friends not being able to make it: the leftovers.

If you're reading E, we missed you guys!

three healthy (veggie) dishes

From English trifle to... brussells sprouts? Not as far-fetched as you think. After all, being pregnant means you crave all kinds of weird things but most of all, it's important to eat a healthy diet and wide variety of things. So lately, my sweet man has been looking up healthy recipes and stepping up his weeknight cooking and I couldn't be happier. If it were up to me some nights, I'd eat pickles and ice cream and throw in some popcorn for good measure. Not my usual fare, I know, but like I said, your relationship with food takes on a whole new meaning when you've got a bun in the oven.

So, here are three really good dishes we tried recently, one of which is an old standby of mine, and two were newly found recipes.



The first one comes from one of our favorite cookbooks: The Silver Spoon, Italy's version of the Joy of Cooking. It's 1200-page tome that will make your head spin but it's also organized extremely well by ingredient and color coded with each recipe only a few lines long. Very simple and very user-friendly (read: perfect for baby daddys-in-training). It was easy, very healthy and very tasty.

garbanzo bean and spinach soup (adapted from The Silver Spoon)

5 cups veg., meat or chicken stock (pref homemade, but low-sodium if not)
2 T olive oil plus extra for drizzling
1 onion, chopped
1 carrot, chopped
1 celery stalk, chopped
3 cups spinach, chopped
1 cup canned or dried and cooked garbanzo beans
1 cup whole wheat soup pasta (elbows or other small pasta)
salt and pepper

Bring the stock to boil in a pan. Heat oil in another pan, add the onion, carrot and celery and cook over low heat, stirring occasionally, for 5 minutes until softened. Add the spinach, season with salt and cook for a few minutes more. Add the garbanzo beans and stock and simmer for 20-30 min. Add the pasta and cook until al dente. Season with pepper, drizzle with olive oil and serve. (Also great sprinkled with fresh grated parmigiano before serving).



The second recipe is my version of Italian style brussells sprouts. The only thing that makes them Italian is the parmesan cheese, which could be left out if you prefer. I love brussells sprouts and they happen to have protein, folic acid, lots of Vitamin D and A and are just plain good for you. So we cooked them up to go along with the garbanzo bean and spinach soup and they were a deliciously crunchy side dish alongside the steamy soup.

Brussells sprouts my way

1 lb of brussells sprouts
1 T butter
1 T olive oil
fresh-grated parmigiano cheese
salt and pepper

Prepare a pound of brussells sprouts by washing and cutting them in half lengthwise. Then heat the butter and olive oil in a large skillet. (you could make these healthier by omitting the butter, but the butter really is what makes them so delicious). Place the b.s. cut side down in the hot butter-oil mixture, turn up the heat and let them get nice and brown, for about 5-7 min. When they are brown on one side, add a splash of water to the pan just to steam them through, put the lid on the pan and cook gently until tender, but not soft, when pierced with a fork. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and freshly grated parmigiano and serve them while piping hot.

stir fried tofu with red cabbage and butternut squash



The final healthy dish we loved was from Martha Rose Shulman's "Recipes for Health" series in the New York Times. My midwife said I should be getting more protein since I don't eat a lot of meat. So we looked for protein-rich foods and found this recipe in the Fitness and Nutrition section of the Times (a great resource for simple, healthy recipes). This is definitely a dish we'll return to and it could be modified in lots of ways. The recipe says to serve with grains or noodles and we chose red quinoa for it's protein-richness and nutty taste.

But the next day I ate some leftovers served over soba noodles and it was equally tasty. A bright and colorful dish that packs a lot of nutrients and tastes great. What more could you need? The recipe? Here it is.

Cranberry bean salad with butternut squash

There is no bad way to eat butternut squash. Its warm Fall flavor is slightly sweet and when its full flavor comes out through roasting or sauteeing, it compliments so many other ingredients. I just have never met a butternut I didn't like. I know I should expand my squash repertoire and move into some other winter squashes, but I find that there is something so comforting about the butternut that keeps me coming back. It could be the pale salmon color and how great they look on the outside, compared to that eye-popping orange on the inside. (Orange happens to be my favorite color).

So another quest for butternut recipes this week led me to this wonderful side dish that would allow me to use the last of my borlotti beans from Italy. Borlotti are the beautiful red spotted beans called cranberry beans here. The color is wonderful and they look really cool when fresh and still in their pods. They have a color and a crunch that makes them the perfect compliment to softly sautéed squash and little bit of bitter greens.



I'd seen a salad like this before in one of my cookbooks, but found this recipe on Marthastewart.com. As usual, I altered it to meet my needs. The recipe calls for bacon but I didn't have any and wanted to keep it vegetarian as I was serving it alongside a classic pot roast for dinner. The salad was also delicious cold the next day for lunch. Martha's recipe also called for broccoli rabe, which I love, but it is not yet available in my local market so I substituted kale from our farmers.


(the pot roast was a simple braised beef roast that I cooked low and slow in the oven with fresh herbs, garlic, red wine and beef broth and added chopped carrots and potatoes toward the end of the cooking time. So delicious. The perfect comfort dish.)

Cranberry bean salad with butternut squash (from marthastewart.com)

1. Beans (2 lbs) should be soaked overnight and then cooked with one onion, 1 bay leaf and sevel black peppercorns, with enough water to cover beans. Bring to a boil; reduce heat and simmer until cooked through about 25 min.

2. Drain beans, reserving a little cooking water. In a medium bowl, toss beans with 1 T each olive oil and cooking liquidl season with salt and pepper. Set aside.

3. Peel and cube 1 small butternut squash. Working in batches if necessary, sautee in olive oil until lightly browned and cooked through. Season with salt and pepper and transfer to a bowl.

4. Heat 2 T olive oil and add 3 garlic cloves, minced. Sautee until golden brown. Add kale or other leafy green, saute until wilted and heated through, about 5 min. Season with salt and pepper.

5. Add beans and squash to skillet and cook just until heated through and combined. Drizzle with olive oil before serving.

Butternut squash and roasted red pepper soup

Fall is definitely in the air and I love it. Ever since I moved to the South, I am happiest when the weather turns from hot and muggy Summer to crisp, clear and beautiful Fall. I really appreciate the change in seasons in the Southeast, not least because I get to cook new things!

Now is the time for winter squash: butternuts, pumpkins, acorns and kabochas. I love them because they look and taste like Fall. Before I cooked so much, I used to buy them at farmer's markets and leave them on the counter or on a table on the porch and enjoy looking at them. But now that I try to cook and eat seasonally, I look forward to the arrival of squash and all the new ways I find each year to cook and enjoy them.



I remember being in Italy last Fall and being excited that the same winter squash that we have were found in all the markets (and the menus) over there. It was late September and we visited an organic farm in Tuscany where they had a storage room full of butternuts. I could think of nothing more than putting them to good use for torellini di zucca with sage butter sauce, perhaps my all-time favorite pasta dish.


(look at all those butternuts!)

Butternut is my favorite. This week I had three on the counter from the farmer and one big one growing in my garden, so I thought I should get creative. I threw one in the oven, sliced in half, to roast while I thought about ways to use it for that night's dinner. Just then, Ben Frank posted a link on facebook to his blog with a recipe for a creamy winter squash soup. The photo was so beautiful I couldn't help but click over.

There are a million recipes for butternut squash soup, but this one struck me as very unique. It combined the sweet flavors of roasted butternut, apple juice, roasted red peppers and the heat of cayenne peppers. In addition, it started with bacon! What could be better than that? So I immediately decided this was the soup for my roasting squash. I still had a few red peppers from the farmer and a neighbor had given me a handful of cayenne peppers from her garden last week. I threw the red peppers into the oven to roast along with the squash.



I followed Ben's recipe exactly, except I substituted a cup of chicken stock for the cranberry juice. But I did use apple juice for the rest of the liquid as he calls for. At first I thought that would be a weird addition for an already sweet soup, but because of the spiciness of the peppers, the apple juice was a welcome sweetness and of course, the flavor of apples and bacon cannot be beat.

I raved about this soup for a while after dinner. I liked it so much I even brought some in a small container to my neighbors across the street to share. I thought the combination of squash and peppers, roasted until all their juicy Fall sweetness comes through, and the heat of the cayenne and other spices such as nutmeg and allspice made for a really complex flavor combination that you don't get too often in chunky Fall soups. I will return to this recipe again, I'm sure.



And, taking Ben's cue that there's no better accompaniment to soup than a grilled cheese sandwich, I served the soup with grilled camembert, provolone and fig sandwiches that were deliciously rich. All together, a perfect Fall meal.

a huge thanks to our farmers

I was moved by the words of Jeff Poppen, the Barefoot farmer in his last missive of the growing season to the CSA supporters. I share part of it here along with a few examples of how we've loved his produce over the last 8 months as a way of saying thanks.


In Jeff's words:

"You get something besides food from this farm, and we get something besides money. I’m reluctant to name it, because it might be love, and love is scary. It makes me woozy, dizzy, so happy and so sad. When you think of us, we feel it here at the farm. And you can feel our care when we are planting a crop before a rain, or harvesting an acre of potatoes. We are connected, and that creates happiness. As the last delivery pulls into town, the sadness of our winter separation dawns on us. We will miss you, but it’s easy to transcend the emotions. We’ll continue to draw on your thoughts and support to get the soil ready for another great year to come."

It's our last week and our last bushel of beautiful produce (like the above roots) from the Long Hungry Creek Farm. We will do it again next year. The farmers have become our friends and we respect what they do more than ever. We've made good use of our farm share and feel fortunate that we were able to use most if not all of what they gave us in some new and interesting ways. I still have butternuts that need to get used. And strange cabbages are crowding my vegetable drawer. There's a radish that is scary long and bitter but tastes great with some sweet cream butter on bread with salt.

The CSA experience has definitely made me a more creative cook. I am no longer a slave to the same lineup of veggies I have always used. I can whip up a turnip gratin, or a butternut squash risotto and it will taste amazing. And I made pumpkin bread from real organic pumpkins and sweet pickles out of baby cucumbers. We tried and loved mizuna in our salads and there is nothing better than Jeff's baby sweet potatoes, roasted with olive oil, salt and pepper and a touch of saffron.


pumpkins and squash


pumpkin spice breads


moroccan sweet potatoes


turnip gratin


sweet potato pie

I will probably never go back to not eating seasonally. We just may have to wait until Spring to taste veggies this good again. But it'll be worth the wait.

Chard gratin

I think I am going to enter a "gratin" phase. I've never really been a fan, finding the cheesy, potato-y dish too starchy and synonymous with bad potluck dinners. But I found a recipe that fits the comfort-food bill and is healthy at the same time.

Who would have thought you could make a gratin out of greens? It comes from my go-to book when I am at a loss for what to do with veggies: Alice Waters' The Art of Simple Food. I have gone to her for guidance in my moments of exasperation when I have too much squash or too many parsnips from the farmer and can't bear another pasta dish. This was one of those times. I had used up all the ideas I had for butternut squash and swiss chard and still we kept getting more from our farmer.

So there it was: Chard gratin, in its simplicity calling out to me to be given a chance. I did, however, tweak it to suit my needs and bulk it up a bit. I had half a butternut squash in the fridge that need to get roasted and used. So I put that in the oven on 400 and roasted it until it started to carmelize and become tender, about 45 min.

Then, finding some one or two-day old bread on the counter, I made some fresh bread crumbs. Alice and I agree that using bread crumbs made fresh is always better than the kind you buy in the store. They're more flavorful and just better looking too in their uneven and careless chunkiness. After processing them to a not too finely ground state, I baked them with a couple teaspoons of butter for about 10 min.



Then I cooked my chard alone in salted boiling water for just about 3 min. until it wilted. Drain that and set it aside until you need it.



Then I sautéed onions in some butter until translucent and soft, and added the chard with 2 tbsp of flour, 1/2 cup of milk, some salt and stirred while cooking it to let it thicken. This formed the basis of the dish. After putting that in the buttered baking dish, I scooped the squash out of its skin and layered it on top of the chard.



Then --and this is really what makes something a "gratin" --I sprinkled the bread crumbs on top and added some pats of butter to encourage browning. Temptation got the best of me and I sprinkled some freshly grated parm on top too but that was not in Alice's recipe. She's way too healthy for that.



The dish was baked for about 20-30 min. or until it looked golden on top and was bubbling just a little bit. This is one of those dishes that you bring to a party and everyone wants the recipe. You tell them you made it up with a mental nod to Ms. Waters.

farro with chickpeas and butternut squash

This is yet another variation on the squash theme that lately has been a big part of meals at my house. This time I wanted to feature farro, an ancient grain that the Romans ate and the Etruscans before them. It has a nutty flavor that I love. It is said to be closest to spelt here in the U.S. but is really a grain in its own right. They eat a lot of it in Tuscany and Umbria where it was cultivated for thousands of years, sometimes ground into a paste before cooking.



I bought some at the organic farm where we stayed in Tuscany and learned about the special Tuscan heirloom pigs, called Cinta Senese. This beautiful, organic grain--one of the healthiest grains there is --was one of the products they sold at Tenuta di Spannocchia, the rustic, centuries old eco-bed and breakfast near Siena. We toured the organic gardens, watched the huge, striped pigs graze in the open fields, hiked and got lost on the unmarked trails, and ate this amazing farro with butternut squash. I remember it being the best thing we ate there.



So I looked around for recipes trying to recreate this dish and found this one. They make it at The Kitchen, one of my all-time favorite restaurants in Boulder, Colo. It's a simple and straight-forward preparation, like a lot of the classic dishes at The Kitchen, where ingredients sourced locally and seasonally are the focus. It's a recipe that could stand up to endless substiutions and changes. For example, the next time I make it I will leave out the tomatoes. They gave it an acidic quality that it didn't need and masked the delicious flavors of the roasted squash and farro.

Here is the recipe. Take it, tweak it, make it your own. And while you're at it, browse some of The Kitchen's other great recipes for healthy, organic and just plain lovely food.


I wish I was there right now, sitting at the bar, sipping coffee and eating a fresh-baked cannele.