A Tiny Update (i.e. Veggie Burger Bites)

My darlings, I did not make anything new last week.

Perhaps I was lazy? It is true that we have a resident bird whose 4 a.m. call mimics the tambourine-playing of an exuberant, arhythmic toddler. I am slightly exhausted. But I do love the early light and sound.

It is also true that I've been making lots of old favorites. These rhubarb-crumb bars, for example. And this granola. These eggs. When I'm not out on my hands and knees, sniffing at the lilies of valley. Or stretching up to catch the too-much perfume of the decaying lilacs. Or closing my eyes to daydream about the bleeding hearts and peonies.

Spring is the season of the cigar-tube "vase"

and the world's tiredest cat.

Anyway. All I have to offer you is a miniature tweak of my veggie burger recipe. And it's simply this: make tiny ones for a potluck appetizer! It couldn't be easier. Just use a cookie scoop to portion out the mixture, then use wet hands to flatten them into patties. Chill if you've got time (so they don't fall apart) or go ahead and fry them right away in a nice big slick of oil. Drain them on paper towels on top of cooling racks, and serve hot, warm, or at room temperature. (I didn't have any cilantro, so I actually flavored these with parsley and chives and lime zest. Yum.)

My parting advise: Read One Good Egg, by my new friend* Suzy Becker. It's an illustrated trying-to-get-pregnant memoir that strikes just the loveliest balance between funny and earnest and irritable and kindhearted. I loved it.

* I have never actually met Suzy Becker. But I would like to. And we did exchange some exceedingly pleasant work emails!

Oh, and one last last thing: We are listening to Packing for Mars with the kids, and it is the perfect level of interesting for all four of us. Lots of delightful details about the very human side of space travel (e.g. pooping, peeing, barfing). I recommend it completely for anyone 10 and over. If you've never read anything by Mary Roach, prepare to be blown away by her wonderfully extravagant style of curiosity.

The Ultimate Kale Salad

Photo of Birdy and kale by Douglas Merriam, courtesy of FamilyFun (where I published almost exactly this recipe but without the breadcrumbs. I'm sorry FamilyFun! I wasn't holding out on you! I just hadn't seen the light).

Things are breaking up a little here, straining at the seams. In the Venn diagram, the circle of my happy, beautiful life is overlapping exactly with the circle of my thrumming fretfulness. It’s lilacs and lilies of the valley and violets, purple-scented perfume breathing into our windows where I lie with my beloved partner, where our thriving children sleep with the rosy blossoms of their faces tipped up into the moonlight. And also my oldest friend has been ill, my heart’s companion of 41 years, and this illness is the hazy double of all the rest of it, the ghost outline of every dogwood tree and Mother’s Day card and meal and thought. I don’t really know how to write about it, except to say that sometimes I feel like I’m living multiple simultaneous lives. It’s not that I don’t love baked beans and great novels and spring and kids, because I do, and this is really my real and happy daily-ness (as it is hers). And also there’s this other thing that I can’t write about, and that isn’t really mine for the telling, that is the dark side of this blog’s moon, if you know what I mean. Also, because she will get better, it seems silly to burden you.

I took this one myself just yesterday!

Anyways. I don’t know why I mention this now, except that I sighed a little existentially as I was uploading this recipe (Kale? So what.). Even though this is possibly the single best recipe I have ever shared, so please, please don’t let my sighing angst deter you from making and loving it, which you should and will! And you’re like, Haven’t I already made your kale slaw before? That one with the lemon? Or that one with the walnuts? And you have, and those were great, they were. But this one is better. This is the new and improved one (Now with new sudsers that actually gets your clothes clean!) that forces me to confess that the others must have been ever-so-slightly imperfect, because of the perfectness.

I posted, and then deleted, the one with Michael's parmesan-grating middle finger fully extended. I am not currently entirely confident about my sense of humor.

The Ultimate Kale Salad

Makes 1 large bowlful

Total time: 15 minutes

This is, currently, my most-requested recipe. I don’t mean to be immodest, but the number of people here for dinner who tentatively hold their plates out, “Oh, just a little for me,” and make the ew-kale face—and then return for an unseemly amount of seconds? Well, it’s a big number. Raw kale salad is, simply, the greenest-tasting thing I know, and it converts everyone who thinks they don’t like kale, because they’re thinking steamed and stinky, and are then shocked and delighted to be served a bright, fresh tangle of salad.

Also, I’m usually flexible, I know, but I have lots of picky notes here about trying to follow the recipe as written. There is something so utterly balanced about this, with the rich, salty cheese and the crunchy breadcrumbs against the tangy, garlicky greens. You’ll see. Also, this doubles well—so you should double it. (As shown in the photos below, where I am making lots.)

1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 cup fresh (or frozen) breadcrumbs (Note: if you don’t have any, just put a slice or two of any kind of bread in the blender! But maybe don’t use the dusty cardboard-scented kind from a cardboard can, which will not be tasty here.)

1 healthy bunch of very fresh kale (ideally the lacinato or dinosaur variety, which is sweeter and has a better texture here, but any kind is good)

¼ cup olive oil

1 to 2 large cloves of garlic, smashed, peeled, and finely minced or put through a garlic press

2 tablespoons sherry VINEGAR (Not cream sherry, not cooking sherry. Balsamic or white-wine vinegar makes a good, but not ideal, substitute.)

¾ teaspoon kosher salt

2/3 cup freshly grated parmesan

Heat the 1 tablespoon of oil in a smallish pan over medium heat and fry the breadcrumbs, stirring some, and then later more, until they are very brown and toasty, which will take longer than you might imagine (5 or so minutes). Set them aside in a bowl so that they don’t burn in the still-hot pan.

Wash and dry the kale. Now strip the ruffly leaves off the kale's stems by grasping the bottom of each stem and pulling your hand up it forcefully. Discard the stems. Stack and bunch the leaves together, then use a large, very sharp knife to sliver them as fine as you can. Put the slivered kale in a large bowl. (Any thoughts on the stems? I’m starting to think it’s silly to compost them and that I should either a) not bother stripping the leaves or b) find a great kale-stem recipe.)

Now, in a tiny pan, heat the oil over medium heat and fry the garlic in it until fragrant and just on the verge of coloring (which you will need to intuit, given that it won’t have colored yet!). Add the salt and vinegar, and stir for another minute as the vinegar sizzles furiously and the whole thing foams and becomes outrageously fragrant. Pour half the hot dressing over the kale and toss very thoroughly with a pair of tongs. Then get in there with your hands and massage it until the leaves are glossy and dark. Now taste it, and add more dressing as needed. Stir in the cheese and breadcrumbs, taste for salt and vinegar, and serve.

A little of this, a little of that

Dear Ones, how patient you are.

Radio silence--and that after having to hear annoyingly about how my kids make their own lunch (and with panache, no less!) with little to no information about how children would get to this stage of culinary development. I'm sorry! This comes, you know (or should), after years of teaching them to cook--the kind of teaching where there are great, choking clouds of flour everywhere and Terrifying Knife Experiments, and lots of chaos and tedium. I'm sorry to have misled you. If your children are 2 and 4, then indeed, no, they won't be making their own Chopped-style lunch.

Speaking of: Can I brag? You know ChopChop, the scrappy little nonprofit kids cooking magazine that I'm the editor of? We won the James Beard Publication of the Year award! Can you even believe that? Did I have to crowd-source a cocktail dress on facebook? Yes I did. Did Birdy say, as I was leaving the house, "So. Wait. Sorry. Tell me again! It's just going to be, like, you guys and all the actors that have ever played James Bond?" If only! But I did get my picture taken with Ted Allen, the host of Chopped, to prove to the kids that it was not all lameness and drear.

Okay. Enough with the boasting (but thank you for indulging me).

I wanted to offer some links to things I am loving right now:

This book, which I tore through and couldn't stop reading, even though it's EPIC. And this book, which I am tearing through now, even though it's NOT LONG ENOUGH.

This game, which is like a cross between Puerto Rico and Agricola, but not as hard to learn as either of them. We are addicted to it.

But, for a non-gamer game, we are also loving this small, good-natured word game.

This origami documentary is so excellent.

Also--I've said it before but I'll say it again--this beer.

And this always useful and good cake.

I have two pieces up over at Brain, Child. This, that's new, and this, about Birdy's beloved Strawberry.

A recipe is coming soon. Thank you for bearing with me!

Iron Chef: Lunch!

"Well, judges, here we have Cheese Two Ways: a feta-garlic-toast alongside a cheddar quesadilla wedge, and served with a  peanut-studded clementine salad and pineapple garnish. Enjoy."

Necessity Laziness is the mother of invention. Because here's the thing: I can get through a week of making school lunches, but just barely. In the cartoon version, the green, palm-swaying oasis of Saturday would be, like, three feet from me, but I'm stuck in the desert of Friday morning, parched and ragged and clutching empty lunch boxes without a single idea left in my head. I will manage to eke out one final lunch (Cheese and crackers? PBJ tortilla?) before collapsing.

Only then, to my everlasting horror, the children seem to expect to eat lunch during the weekend also.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" I don't say. But here's what I do say: "Iron Chef lunch!" This is a contest that the children organize entirely on their own, whereby they are allowed to use anything in the house (leftovers are fair game) to make lunch for themselves and each other. Sometimes they seem to have a time limit ("10 minutes left!" they call to each other) and sometimes they don't. Sometimes they judge each other (amazingly, it is always a tie) and sometimes they don't bother, although there is always much discussion of presentation and flavor. Sometimes they have friends over and break into teams. Sometimes there is a mandatory ingredient everyone needs to use. They appear to have intuited that if they cover apricot jam with honey and rainbow sprinkles and call it lunch then the authorities will be brought in to shut down the entire operations, and so they prepare reasonably wholesome meals. And the grace! The flair! The utter stylishness with which they accomplish this! I cannot recommend enough that you let your kids have at it. But you have to be prepared to leave them alone, or I think that the whole thing won't work. Even if it means that they garnish toast with croutons or think that a salad needs "just a weensly more pickles." Plus, you maybe have to watch a little bit of awful tear-streaked food-contest TV first (you can do this on Hulu).

"Judges, I present you with Red Grape and Dill Havarti Crostini, with cashews, mint, and a strawberry vinaigrette."

"Judges! Enjoy this Cheese Plate. Garlic toasts, digestive biscuits, brie wedges, and house-spiced olive oil."

Ben and a small friend add the finishing touches to their Cheese Two Ways "platings."

Meanwhile, Birdy and her friend (and Strawberry) figure out how to glamorize leftover rice.

Which they do successfully. "Here we have a Peanut Rice Salad, with a peanut vinaigrette, roasted peanuts, dried cherries, and a cilantro garnish." It was crazily good.

Checking In Belatedly

I know your thoughts, like mine, have been with Boston and the runners, with the lost and the bereft. It's so sad in every way. I cried watching the celebration after they captured the surviving suspect: I understand the relief, of course, but my God--he's just a kid. It's beyond imagining, that kind of radical alienation from the most basic framework of compassion and fellowship. And then, of course, you must think of all the people, all around the world, who live with violence woven into the fabric of their every day. We ourselves are bodily unharmed and--thank you for thinking to ask--Michael was not running. 

I am posting a meal idea later today. Just checking in for right now, sending love.

xo

Baked Beans for a Barbecue

Hey. We never said we were trying to win Beautifullest Side Dish. Lay off.

Despite the fact that, some nights, it is all I can do to put Pizza Toast on the table, I love to have lots of people over for dinner. I really do. And as soon as the weather is nice, I like to make burgers and veggie burgers and huge salads and a ginormous pot of (cheap and cheerful) baked beans. Everybody loves them (by which I mean "most people like them pretty much"), and they're great if you're actually too lazy to make veggie burgers, because then you still have a protein to serve the vegetarians! (Sleazy but real, folks.) Also, if you got a pressure cooker like I told you to recommended, this is a very quick and effortless recipe. Otherwise, this is a very time-consuming and effortless recipe, and one that I'm not quite as sure about.

I am not sure why the beans look so weirdly lacquered here. 

A few notes: despite the unconscionable amount of sweetener, these are just about right. Less sweet than many canned varieties, but still familiar in their smoky sweetness. I'm sorry about the sugar. It's kind of the baked-bean thing, but you can eat all your beans unsweet the whole entire rest of the year. Also, I'm sorry about the liquid smoke. You'll feel like you might as well be ashing your American Spirit right into the pot, but it really adds the perfect smoky flavor, I've found. You can substitute smoked paprika or chipotles, but be mindful of the heat potential if you're serving heaps of potentially bean-eating wimps kids. Edited to add: I forgot to mention (thank you, readers, for reminding me!) that the only reason you need to add something smoky here is the absence of bacon. How the mighty have fallen! A year ago, I would have been like, "Chop a pound of bacon and fry it. Fry the onions in its rendered fat." That's what you really should do, if you can.

Baked Beans

Makes tons (10-20 servings)

1 cup of purchased barbecue sauce is a good substitute for the ketchup, molasses, vinegar, cloves, and liquid smoke—although I confess to liking the flavor better in the more-ingredients version. Still don’t hesitate: the beans are delicious that way.

4 cups pinto beans (about 2 pounds) (Navy beans are traditional, but my devotion to big, succulent pinto beans knows no limit.)

3 tablespoon kosher salt (divided use) (or half as much table salt)

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 onion, chopped

6 cups water

½ cup ketchup

½ cup molasses

2/3 cup brown sugar

1 tablespoon white vinegar

¼ teaspoon ground cloves

1 teaspoon liquid smoke

1 teaspoon dry mustard (I like Coleman's)

1 teaspoon garlic powder

Put the beans and 2 tablespoon salt in a pot and cover them with water by a generous 3 or 4 inches. Bring to a boil over high heat, then turn the heat off, cover the pot, and leave them to soak for approximately an hour (a little more or less is fine!). Drain the beans.

Heat the oil in the bottom of your pressure cooker*, and sauté the onion over medium heat until soft and golden, around 8 or 10 minutes.

Add the drained beans to the pot, along with the remaining 1 tablespoon of salt, the six cups of water, and all the rest of the ingredients. Stir well. Seal the lid, bring the cooker to pressure, and cook at steady, low pressure for 35 minutes. Turn the heat off and allow the pressure to release on its own.

Now take the lid off. The beans will seem too liquidy and fall-aparty, and you’ll think you’ve overcooked them. Fret not! With the lid off, simmer the beans over low heat for 30 minutes to an hour, until the beans firm up (oddly, they will) and the liquid gets nice and thick. Taste and adjust the seasonings (if they don’t taste robustly delicious, consider adding more salt, vinegar, or sugar). Serve.

* If you don’t have a pressure cooker (which you really should have, if you’re at all serious about beans), try this method instead, based on one in The Joy of Cooking:

Soak the beans, as above, but don’t add salt and don’t drain them. Instead, after an hour, bring them back to a boil over high heat, then reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer for 45 to 90 minutes, or until the beans are creamy but still intact. Drain them gently.

Now sauté the onions, as above, in a Dutch oven (or another lidded oven-safe pot), then add the beans, 3 cups of water (instead of 6) and the remaining ingredients (use 1 ½ tablespoons kosher salt). Bake in a 250 oven until the liquid is thick and the beans are delicious: 4 to 5 hours. Taste for salt and other seasonings.

This is a nice, inexpensive way to make a huge side dish.

I like that the garlic powder turned away at the last second--so coy and mysterious!

Beans soaked and drained.

Half these onions were destined for the veggie burgers. It was kind of a twofer situation.

This is the watery stage, when you'll be despairing. No worries! They'll boil down nice and thick.

Why the librarian looked at me funny. . .

What? Fuck you, stupid fucking woolly little polar bear. You suck.