Chocolate Beet Cake

Well, March has arrived, and I am very surprised to report that I have made it through this winter in one piece. It has actually been a very nice winter! Maybe I shouldn't be saying this, though, could I be jinxing myself? The wind is blustery outside, and still slightly sharp even in the sun. The rivers and streams are running strong, and I can see the mud just starting to appear. I went to a sugaring event the other day and was told it was a good maple syrup season. I've been seeing bluebirds cavorting in the front yard! However, it still doesn't smell like spring. Do you know that smell? It's when the ground really starts to defrost and release it's earthy smell. It's still not there.

I can't quite believe that in only two weeks I'll be digging into my garden and planting kale and pea seeds. I also have a few trees to transplant--two crab apples that I started as whips and now are quite sturdy. Down with the rest of the baby orchard you go! Along with the quinces, plums and apples. And before you know it, the perennial patch will be sprouting asparagus, rhubarb and strawberries. This is absolutely my favorite time. The feeling of anticipation and longing is sometimes what makes winter so worthwhile.

But it's still cold, and baking little goodies is still on my mind, albeit made with low sugar and maybe something healthy tucked in. I'll say it again: I'm not against butter laden cookies or sugary cakes, but when I make something for the house (read: something I'll have constant access to) it has to be a healthy treat. I save my splurges for the bakery or chocolatier. And, if you have a little one in the house, you might want a treat like this. Though I will warn you: these are not sweet. At all. Even with a half cup of sugar! But the moist chocolatey-ness is really gratifying. It might be better, though, with some cream cheese frosting sweetened with maple syrup. Let me know if you do that, would you?

Chocolate Beet Cake
Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease a 10 inch spring form pan.

1.5 cups white whole wheat flour

1/2 cup cocoa powder

3 teaspoons of baking powder

1/2 teaspoons of baking soda

1/2 teaspoon of salt

1/2 cup brown sugar
1 tablespoon molasses
1/2 cup canola or coconut oil
1/3 cup milk or coconut milk

1.5 cups pureed beets*

1 teaspoon vanilla

Whisk together dry ingredients. Beat oil and sugar together until fluffy. Add molasses, oil, milk, beets and vanilla. Add wet ingredients to dry, and blend until smooth. Bake for thirty minutes.

*Preserver's Tip: Back when local beets were abundant, I boiled a bunch, peeled them and sliced them and threw them in the freezer. I was thinking future borscht at the time, but now they are all destined to become cake. Beets freeze phenomenally well. I also had some golden beet puree that became Golden Beet Blondies, but I neglected to write down the recipe. They came out quite nicely!

Fresh from the Garden Salad

I am in love with this photograph. It looks like a painting. It's slight blurriness and bright sun just feel so romantically hopeful, and the background tan of the lawn so bleak and washed out. There's a story in there. A story of a person in the midst of a drought who picked their first batch of chioggia beets, their hand clutching the bunch with pride. Somehow, in this moment, the beets were all she needed.

This salad makes me proud because it's almost all from my garden, and entirely local (excluding the dressing). The only thing I didn't grow was the corn, which is from Davenport's Farm in Stone Ridge. I grilled it and cut it off the ear to add to the salad. The rest is sugar snap peas, green beans (Hank's Xtra White) both blanched first, beets boiled off, and scallions. Tossed with a vinaigrette. That's it. There aren't many recipes flying around here lately because when you have stuff like this you just prepare it the way it needs to, and toss it in a bowl. That's how we eat summer. Yesterday I made kale salad and it was simply this: steam kale until tender, chop up coarsely, add a cup of pickled carrots and their brine, and voila, an insanely tasty and healthy salad that just gets better as it sits. No oil.

In the meantime, while you're making summer salads, check out Tigress' giveaway for The Lost Art of Real Cooking by Ken Albala (he has a blog, Ken Albala's Food Rant) and Rosanna Nafziger (her blog is Paprika Head). This book came my way, too, and I'm pretty impressed with it. When I first began reading it, I thought, well, now here's a book that's pretty much all about what I like to do and then some! That's always a good thing to think when cracking a book. I'm planning on making beer following their recipe, and when I do, I'll have a giveaway as well. So if you don't win Tigress' giveaway, come back over here in a bit and try again!

Beet and Sweet Potato Pancakes

Or fritters. Or whatever you want to call them. But once you start getting good stuff from the garden you go crazy on the salads, and just a drizzle of olive oil is enough dressing. But after the thrill is gone, you start to crave something crispy or fattening. Or at least I do. That's where vegetable pancakes come in. Any amount of vegetable, tubers or squash or whatever, can be grated and mixed with an egg or two, some flour (anywhere from one or two tablespoons to a quarter cup), seasoning and then fried up in some nice olive oil. Put a dollop of yogurt or sour cream and some fresh chopped herbs on top and you have a pretty nice meal that didn't take all that much time, or heat in the kitchen. You could also bake them in a 350 degree oven if you are worried about the frying, but seriously, the frying is what I'm talking about. You could grate some cardboard and fry it up and I'd be chomping on it, happy as a clam.

It's getting hot enough that I'm starting to forget to eat because I'm just too hot and lazy. I should be so lucky to forget to eat, right? Good thing there are no beaches here in the Hudson Valley. I recently had a run in with a half-gallon of cream which led me into this kind of trouble: pot de creme, strawberry ice cream, butter, etc. How about a salad with some French lentils tossed with olive oil, red wine vinegar, cumin, garlic, salt, pepper, a goodly amount of preserved lemon, loads of fresh parsley and scallion, and topped with some grilled chicken? To be honest, I see the words grilled chicken breast and I yawn, but it's good stuff. It's just because that's all we eat now that we bought forty pounds of local and humanely raised Murray's chickens.

I'm on my way to the fine city of Montreal in a bit, to indulge in all sorts of luxe items and to visit with some wonderful friends. How cool is that? I think I might have a cheese frenzy while I'm gone. When I get back I'm going to cleanse the dairy (and alcohol?) from my system for a bit. I'm also going to catch up on all the cool things that happened in June that kept me living, and not documenting, life. Like meeting so many can jammers that I met through Tigress' Can Jam: Sarah from Toronto Tasting Notes, Shae from Hitchhiking to Heaven, Kate from Hip Girl's Guide to Homemaking, and Tigress herself, from Tigress in a Jam and Tigress in a Pickle. (I already talked about meeting Doris and Jilly Cooks here.) I've also been doing some freelance pickling for a local drinking establishment, and just took a meat curing class with Peter at Qui Si Mangia Bene. Whew. That's a lot of links. That's making me tired enough to go drink some super cold rosé. You don't drink it you say? Check out Peter's FAQ on rosé and change your mind.

Baby Bread Redux

Every week I make at least one loaf of what I call "baby bread." This quick bread is, well, quick, and easy, so a little guy can help. It's also healthy but tasty, with a slight sweetness. It's a perfect snack upon wake up from a nap, or a mid-morning bite after a romp outside. The great thing is the versatility of these breads. The one above was made with pureed sweet potatoes, beets and carrots. The batter was a bright, technicolor pink! I had pressure cooked a small dice of these root vegetables for the little guy, but he decided not to be interested in them. So, I pureed them. Still not interested. Baking them in a bread did the trick, and made the loaf naturally sweet and moist. Like baking with applesauce. I'm sure you could interchange any number of vegetables or fruits and get a satisfactory result.

3 cups of flour (2 cups wheat and 1 cup all purpose)

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup buttermilk or yogurt

1 cup vegetable puree (beets, sweet potatoes, carrots, in this case)

1/4 cup agave

Mix wet and add to dry. Bake at 350 degrees for about 50 minutes. I used a square 8x8 inch pan.

Flower interlude: aren't grape hyacinths special? I never planted a one, and they are scattered all over my lawn, probably thanks to the squirrels. They are so intricate! And the neighbors wonder why I don't cut my lawn. There's too many nice things growing in there!

Now here's a sturdy baby bread. Peanut butter bread! Slathered with jelly, this is my kind of snack. I used vanilla sugar, too, so when it was baking it smelled like Reese's Pieces, which I have a thing for. I was going to make peanut butter granola cookies. But I saw via Twitter this from Foodista, an anonymous recipe that I adapted to my tastes and needs. The hook was peanut butter bread with jelly. Of course I was sold. There's the random beauty that is Twitter.

2 cups flour

1/2 cup sugar

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup peanut butter

1/4 cup oil (I wonder if this is even necessary, but did it anyway)

1 cup buttermilk (milk or yogurt would do fine)

2 eggs

In my slapdash fashion, I mixed wet and added to dry, folding the peanut butter in at the end. Bake at 350 for about 50 minutes. I use a square 8x8 inch pan.

Trout with Vegetable Hash and Fresh Ricotta Cheese

Last night's dinner was outrageously good. Was it because it was warm and sunny? Was it because we had dinner on the porch along with a bottle of rosé? Perhaps, rabbit, perhaps. I still think it was one of the better meals we've had in a while, and I'm sure it also has to do with the taste of meals to come. That is, it was a spring time meal. We had trout that I stuffed with the foamy leavings from my tangelo lemongrass jelly. I saved the lemongrass and foam because it looked too good to throw out. Good idea, says I, because stuffed in this trout was an inspired move. (And I cleared a jar out of the fridge!) I was waiting for some nice duck for that jelly foam, but haven't seen any. Did you ever think to stuff your fish with jelly? No? Think again! I baked the whole fish, stuffed and drizzled with olive oil, salt and pepper, for about twenty minutes at 400 degrees.

This here is what I'm talking about. Early springtime hash. Carrots, beets, leeks and portobello mushrooms, diced, sauteed in olive oil, salt, pepper, and drizzled with shallot confiture syrup. Can I say boo-ya? I hate saying that, but I really think it deserves it.

And, oh, what's this? Some fresh ricotta that I made and crumbled on top of the hash? You should make some of this cheese. I can't believe it took me this long in life to figure this out. Easiest cheese ever. (Except for maybe yogurt cheese.) I used this recipe from 101 Cookbooks, although it's pretty much standard stuff. And don't forget to save your whey. Yah, whey! You can bake with it, drink it (if you want, maybe I don't want to), use it in a soup. It's going to rain this weekend, so bread and soup it is.

And who is this?

Meet my girls! I didn't think I would get so attached to them so quickly! They are Ameraucanas, and I couldn't be happier with them. They lay delicious blue and brown eggs.

More on them soon. I've only had them a week so we're still getting to know one another, but I've been bribing them with scraps from the house and they are buying it. This weekend is all about outdoors and celebrating spring. I couldn't be more thrilled.

Happy Vernal Equinox, everyone!

Beet and Blue Cheese Pizza

When I am feeling bummy, like this morning, I know that there are a few things that will pick me up at least a little, if not turn my mood totally around. One of those things is to go out into the garden and put myself to work. I get totally distracted when I'm working in the garden, or out for a walk for that matter, and that is always a good thing. So, I went out and looked at my incredible kale. It's totally healthy but sadly over run by cabbage moth worms, but even though I can't eat the leaves, gosh, aren't they beautiful? And then I sowed some buckwheat seed for a green cover crop. Did I do it too late? I don't care; at least I did it, finally, after talking about doing winter cover crops for so long. It was nice to water the dirt and lay crisp leaves over it all, wondering what would come of it all. I began to feel a little more human.

Then I did another thing that helps on these kind of days. I went out and bought some dark chocolate and marzipan. Just one of those little square Ritter chocolate bars. I ate half of one in the car and I started to revive a little more.

Then I had some white wine outside while the sun went down. Or faded away into the gray, as it was that kind of day. Gray notwithstanding, I was still feeling better. The bumpy day was fizzing into a smooth finish.

Then, to really end the sadness, I made pizzas with a whole wheat crust. One with beets, red onions, parsley and blue cheese. The other with a sun-dried tomato bruschetta (jarred) and cheese. Now that's pretty much the way to coax out a contented sigh, yes? In the meantime, let's hope for tomorrow.

Beet Quickles

Quickles are quick pickles. These are glorious. Anything with beets arrest me with their glorious, jewel-toned beauty. Haven't even tasted them yet. No matter. I know they will be heavenly. Here's the recipe:

2 red or golden beets
1 fresh Thai chile
1 cup rice vinegar
1/4 cup sugar
1 fresh bay leaf
1/2 teaspoon black peppercorns

Scrub, trim, and peel 2 red or golden beets. Slice thinly, and transfer to a jar. Split 1 fresh Thai chile in half. Bring chile, 1 cup rice vinegar, 1/4 cup sugar, 1 fresh bay leaf, and 1/2 teaspoon black peppercorns to a boil in a small saucepan. Pour hot mixture over beets. Seal jar, and refrigerate. Beets will keep for 1 month.