Gâteau Breton with Raspberry Jam

In his authoritative book The Food of France, Waverly Root begins the chapter on Brittany thus: "In the Middle Ages, there were two principal ways of acquiring new territories - conquest or marriage. France acquired Brittany by a combination of marriage and perseverance. It took three kingly weddings, two of them with the same bride, before Brittany became French." Has history ever been better explained?

When I think of Brittany, never having been myself, the paintings of Gauguin come immediately to mind. And his pictures of Pont-Aven peasants dressed in costumes that actually post-date the French Revolution and were worn to play up the rustic character of the place that so attracted tourists and painters. In addition to costumes not-quite-historical, Root even takes the famous Gâteau Breton away from Brittany and claims that it was actually created in 1850 in Paris, but offers no further detail. Even if the cake didn't originate in Breton, it is a classic of the region now according to both Anne Willan who unwaveringly gives it to that area in her 1981 book French Regional Cooking, and to Joanne Harris and Fran Warde, whose recipe this is (Incidentally, Harris and Warde's book has not failed me yet in the dessert department.)

In Willan's version, the cake reads almost like a pound cake, with equal weights of butter, sugar and flour. But this cake is flatter than a pound cake, closer, as Harris and Warde suggest, to the sablé cookies of that region. It is dense, almost cake-like, but meltingly tender and tasting of butter. You can make it plain, as is the classic version. Or you can fill it with jam, prunes, fruit soaked in liqueur. I tend to think that jam in cake is never a bad thing.

Traditionally, you should draw a criss-cross pattern on the top of the cake with the tines of a fork. But I didn't want to shift the top layer that was resting on the jam, so I left it. It is quite an easy cake, and so very, very French. If you don't have superfine sugar, you can wizz normal granulated sugar in a food processor for a few moments until it is a finer, powdery consistency. Superfine sugar isn't, however, powdered sugar, so don't substitute between the two.

Gâteau Breton with Raspberry Jam
Adapted from Joanne Harris and Fran Warde's My French Kitchen

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups superfine sugar (see note above)
5 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into small pieces and then held out of the refrigerator to soften.
5 large egg yolks
Zest of 1 orange
Several spoonfuls of your favorite jam, I didn't measure how much I used, since this part wasn't in the recipe. I just put some good dollops on the first layer and spread it around.

Preheat the oven to 325F. Butter or spray a 9 or 10" tart/cake pan with a removable bottom and set aside.

Put the flour, sugar, butter, egg yolks and orange zest into a large bowl and work all of the ingredients together with your fingers until the mixture is blended and start to hold together in a sticky dough. Divide the dough in half.

Press half of the dough into the prepared cake pan. Spread several good dollops of jam on top of the dough in an even layer. Carefully press the remaining half of the dough on top of the jam, making sure it reaches to the edges. Just press in small-ish pieces of dough as you go, like you're patching it together. Don't just dump the dough in the center and try to press it out, or you'll get a jammy mess.

Bake for 35 minutes until it is a golden brown color and the sides start to release from the pan. Let cool for 5 minutes before removing the bottom from the pan. Serve the same day it's made.

Stir-Fried Kale with Almonds

Strangely, if there's one vegetable that I regularly crave, it's kale. So I was a bit disappointed the other week when two characters form my favorite TV shows totally bashed it! First, Kitty on Brothers and Sisters (I know, I know, I can't believe I'm still watching that show either. I promise I'm going to stop after this season) dismissively said she was sick of it, as though it embodies all that is wrong with boring, tasteless health food as against cheeseburgers and fries. And then on Modern Family (I frickin' love that show, no apologies), Mitchell complained that kale should be considered nothing more than a garnish! A garnish!

My very favorite way with kale is steamed and served with this homemade teriyaki sauce. I know, it's random, and I know the sauce is meant for chicken, but I love, love, love it on kale. But if you're in need of something even simpler, this stir fry takes mere moments. With kale and almonds sauteed in garlic and ginger.

Stir-Fried Kale with Almonds
Adopted from Eat Up Slim Down 2006

Olive oil for the pan
2 garlic cloves, passed through a press
1 teaspoon grated ginger, finely chopped. I'll admit that I ran out, and used a teaspoon of powdered ginger added with the almonds, but do for fresh if you have it.
1/4 cup slivered almonds
1 head of kale, stems removed and torn into 1" pieces
2 tablespoons of vegetable broth or water

Heat the oil over medium-high heat in a large skillet, and add the garlic and fresh ginger. Cook for about 30 seconds, until it start to get fragrant. Reduce the heat to medium and add the almonds. Toast them for 1 minute, then add the kale and the broth or water. Wilt the kale for about 5 minutes, until softened, but not soggy. Serve.

Your New Sour Cream Coffee Cake

I've been baking quite a bit lately because there have been occasions. Babies born, parties attended, visitors we're waiting to host. Occasions always enlivened by baked goods. Also, it isn't a bad idea to have an incredibly rich, buttery, sour-creamy coffee cake in your repertoire. A recipe people will most likely want you to write down for them, or at least make again. The kind that fills your house or, in my case, small apartment with aromas of cinnamon and walnuts roasting.

Plus, even though I declared winter officially over a few days ago, the weather gods, or whoever is in charge of things, aren't listening to me. And we're back to expecting 'wintry mixes' and rainfall and degrees bellow freezing. Damn it. I may be partly to blame for bragging about a recent 75 degree day on Facebook for the express purpose of sticking it to my friends and family back in Colorado, who are usually the ones bragging about weather. Double damn it.

The recipe comes from an oddly shaped volume called Recipes from Home by David Page and Barbara Shinn. Too narrow and too thick to stay open on the counter, I can recommend canned goods as paperweights to keep the pages open. Makes you wonder if perhaps some people don't actually use the products they design. For example, the fact that two of our three small closets aren't even deep enough for hangers to fit into. I mean, someone was paid to design this apartment, right? Anyway, I'm forgiving the authors for the shape of their book because they gave me my go-to coffee cake. And because they were probably no more responsible for it than I am for my ridiculous closets. Page and Shinn started the NYC Home Restaurant in 1993, and it's billed as a farm to table restaurant in Greenwich Village. I'll admit that I've never been, but since we have a guest coming next weekend, a guest from not-America, a place known for its seasonal American food sounds pretty perfect. But in any case, if you've been looking for a tender, delectable sour cream coffee cake, you can stop now. Because this one is not at all difficult, and it is positively addicting.

Sour Cream Coffee Cake
Adopted from David Page and Barbara Shinn's Recipes from Home

3 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup packed dark brown sugar
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
3/4 cups chopped walnuts
3/4 pounds (3 sticks) butter, softened
1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 large eggs
1 1/2 cups sour cream, full fat

Oven preheated to 325F, grease a 9x13" baking pan, such as a pyrex. Page and Shinn call for a 12x9x2" pan, but all I had was the classic pyrex, so I reduced the baking time from the called-for 50 minutes to 40 minutes and it was perfect. Set the pan aside.

In a medium mixing bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, nutmeg and salt. In a separate small bowl, combine the sugar, cinnamon and nuts and just mix it together with your hands. That's the easiest.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, or with a hand mixer, cream the butter and sugar together until pale and fluffy. Beat in the vanilla, then the eggs one at a time. Beat well between each egg. Beat in the sour cream, then turn the mixer down to low speed and mix in the flour gradually. Stir just until combined.

The dough will be quite firm and somewhat elastic, so I found the best way to deal with getting it into the pan is by hand. Spoon 1/3 of the dough into the baking pan and spread it by hand so that it covers the bottom of the pan. It will be a somewhat thin layer. Sprinkle 1/3 of the sugar mixture over the top, then spread another 1/3 of the dough over the sugar layer. Again, it's easiest just to kind of stretch it and pull it by hand. Sprinkle another 1/3 of the sugar, and then add the last of the dough, continuing in the same manner. Finish with the final 1/3 of the sugar mixture sprinkled over the top.

Bake for about 40 minutes, until the cake passes the toothpick text. Cook for about 10 minutes, then serve warm or cooled to room temperature.

Hearty Oatmeal Pancakes

We recently had what I'm going to consider to have been the first day of Spring (with a capital S) because the warm weather wasn't negated by rain, and, well, there was warm weather.

Growing things are starting to creep back up walls, the snow is finally gone, and the light, now that I look back at these photos, looks strangely like fall. So I don't really care what the calendar says, winter is officially over in my book. I will now commence wearing inappropriately light jackets that nave no hope of keeping me warm when the temperature dips again, and I might even try to reintroduce a little color into my wardrobe. I've even shaved my legs in anticipation. Sorry, was that too much information?

Anyway, you can imagine, now that it's spring, the kind of lazy breakfast eaten perhaps outside and lingered over because the weather is just getting so good. Rather than because the weather is so bad there's nothing else to do.

These are not the light and fluffy buttermilk pancakes (although there is buttermilk) that go straight to cloying once syrup is added. At first read-through you might think they're way too much work. Actually, they're no work, but the oats do have to soak for at least 2 hours before you make the batter. Even that requirement is misleading because they can just as easily soak overnight. So no, you don't have to sneak out of bed two hours before breakfast to get them started. Don't make that mistake on a lazy Sunday morning.

It's important that you use regular rolled oats, not the quick-cooking kind, so that they maintain some texture. Bob's Red Mill is a good choice and is the brand I managed to find. It's surprising (well, actually not that surprising) how hard normal rolled oats actually can be to find. Probably for the same reason that my local grocery store stocks 10 different types of brownie mix but no bread flour. But anyway.

These are incredibly delicious and not at all health-food-tasting. And they're filling in a way that doesn't make you want to fall back asleep, necessarily. Although you always could, on what I hope is a beautiful Sunday morning.

Hearty Oatmeal Pancakes
Adopted from April Moon's The Flying Biscuit Cafe Cookbook

2 cups rolled oats
2 cups nonfat or low-fat buttermilk
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon salt
Oil for the griddle

In a medium bowl, soak the oats in the buttermilk overnight (in the refrigerator, obviously). Or for as little as 2 hours.

Remove the oat mixture from the refrigerator and add the eggs and melted butter. Set aside.

In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and stir to combine.

Heat your griddle or pan over medium-low and add some oil. You want the pan on medium-low because the pancakes have to cook a bit longer than normal ones, so you don't want the outside to burn because of the increased time. Using a 1/4-cup measuring cup, spoon the batter into the pan.

Cook the pancakes for about 5 minutes per side, until bubbles appear, and then flip. Serve with butter and real maple syrup.

Chocolate Crème de Menthe Sandwich Cookies

I'm trying to get ahead on my blog posting because the next few months? They're going to be crazy. Just in the last couple of weeks I've been in Connecticut visiting family (twice!) and Boston for research and visiting friends. Next up is Chicago to visit my sister and see this show at the Art Institute (I'm not going to apologize for planning trips around art exhibitions. Just be glad you're not being dragged with me), Washington D.C. for more research and more visiting friends, and, if everything works out the way it should, Norway in June. That's a lot of places in a few short months.

In Boston, well more exactly in Cambridge, I had what is probably the best hot chocolate I have ever had at a place called L.A. Burdick in Harvard Square. (Turns out there's one in NYC as well!) It helped that it was a positively stormy, wintry day, the kind you spend hopping from brunch place to cafe to perhaps museum and back to cafe.

Being the intrepid travelers that we are, we also spent an afternoon wandering the Freedom Trail, which was so much more fun than I thought it would be. The views were beautiful, even as night fell and it started to get really frickin' cold.

Before we left I made some Chocolate Crème de Menthe Sandwich Cookies that would have been perfect alongside that Burdicks hot chocolate. Although I don't think they would have been quite upscale enough. The original recipe called for peppermint extract to be added to the buttercream filling, but I went with crème de menthe for a couple of reasons. The first being that I have a bottle taking up precious room, and I'm really only able to use it a couple tablespoons at a time. So I'll take any excuse. The second is that I love the bright green color that would be lost using peppermint extract. Also, it's delicious.

A word of warning about the dough. It's very fudgy and impossible to roll out with your hands into any kind of log. Helen Witty, whose recipe this is, suggests a somewhat complicated process involving used, but cleaned, tin cans with their tops and bottoms removed. Umm, no. Instead, just glop the divided batter into the center of two sheets of cling wrap, wrap it up, and roll it out like you'd roll out a clay snake. Then refrigerate it long enough to firm up. It will be easy to cut at that point.

Chocolate Crème de Menthe Sandwich Cookies
Adopted from Helen Witty's Mrs. Witty's Monster Cookies

For the cookies:

3 ounces unsweetened chocolate, cut up
6 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/4 cup vegetable shortening
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 egg, beaten
3 tablespoons water
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
Buttercream filling (follows)

In a double boiler or in the microwave, melt the chocolate along with 2 tablespoons of the butter. Stir constantly if using a double boiler, and often (about ever 30 seconds) if using the microwave. Set aside to cool.

Cream the rest of the butter with the shortening. Next beat in the sugar, then the egg, the water, the melted chocolate and the vanilla in that order, adding the next ingredient once the previous one has been combined. Beat until everything is well blended.

In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder and salt. Stir this dry mixture into the just-creamed mixture. Divide the dough in half, and form two logs by rolling each mound of dough using cling wrap (see the note above).

Refrigerate the dough for several hours, until it is firm enough to cut with a sharp knife.

When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350F. You'll be using an ungreased baking sheet, so have it out and ready.

Cut disks from each log, about 1/8 inch thick. Rotate the log as you go so that it maintains its round shape. Lay the disks on the baking sheet leaving about an inch between each, although they shouldn't spread much.

Bake the cookies for 12-14 minutes until they are barely firm to the touch. Allow to cool on racks completely before filling and sandwiching.

For the filling:

1/4 cup unsalted butter
2 cups sifted confectioners' sugar
4 teaspoons crème de menthe

Cream the butter by itself until soft. Add the sugar and continue to beat until fluffy. Add the crème de menthe and beat until completely combined. You can add a tablespoon or so of milk if it's too stiff, but the crème de menthe will probably take care of that.

Use to sandwich the chocolate wafers together.

Healthy and Easy Baked Eggplant with Tomato Chutney

I'll cut straight to it today. This is one of those rare recipes that is easy, extremely healthy and completely delicious. Most of the time is spent baking some eggplant and sauteing some onion. And these two things can be done simultaneously. You don't even have to cut up a tomato since you'll be using the canned, diced variety. And given that it's pretty hard to find a tomato worth eating in March anyway, you win on both taste and ease by using the canned kind.

I'm constantly surprised at how much I love the recipes I make from a series of books called Eat Up Slim Down! (The exclamation point is theirs, not mine.) Mostly because I usually eschew diet books since I don't really like the idea of making due with things like 2 tablespoons of cheese. But somehow everything I make from this series is wonderful. There was that Tomato and Watermelon Salad, one of my favorite salads ever, which really is better saved for when tomatoes are in season, not to mention watermelon. And then the Millet and Sweet Potato Cakes that I became so obsessed with I made them something like three times in one week. So I'm happy to add this Baked Eggplant with Tomato Chutney to the list.

Basically you're going to slice an eggplant, and roast it in the oven while you saute some onion and garlic, cook it down with tomatoes, basil and balsamic vinegar, and then combine it all for one last stint in the oven. The recipe claims to feed four, but I think two is a more reasonable number for a main dish. Definitely four if it's a side or appetizer. I made a few changes to the recipe, upped the garlic as I tend to, and substituted sunflower seeds for pine nuts since pine nuts are just too expensive-feeling lately.

Baked Eggplant with Tomato Chutney
Adopted from Eat Up Slim Down! 2010

1 medium eggplant
olive oil for the pans
salt and pepper to taste
1 small onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, passed through a press
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
Handful of basil leaves, chopped, plus extra for serving
1, 14.5 ounce can diced tomatoes
1/4 cup sunflower seeds

Preheat the oven to 425F. Coat a 13"x9" cooking dish with spray and set aside. Cut the eggplant into 1/2" slices and brush them on both sides with a little oil. Sprinkle with salt and pepper on both sides, then place them in the baking dish. Bake for about 20 minutes until tender. This might vary depending on your oven, and it could take up to 30 minutes.

In the meantime, preheat some oil in a saute pan over medium-high heat and cook the onions with the garlic until the onions are soft. Add the vinegar and basil and cook for one minute more, then add the tomatoes and simmer for 5 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat and add in the nuts.

Take the eggplant out of the oven and spoon the tomato mixture over the top. Return the dish to the oven for a final 7-10 minutes, until heated through. Serve with a sprinkling of fresh basil over the top.

Caramelized Onion and Apple Cornbread

This idea for adding caramelized onions to cornbread? Yea, it didn't start with me. I found it on one of my current blog-obsessions, Sweet Potato Soul. It's written by another NYC transplant, Jenné, and she focuses on healthy vegetarian food with a good dose of soul. As you might guess, sweet potatoes feature prominently.

I've had this recipe for Caramelized Onion Cornbread bookmarked for a while. In the original, Jenné uses a cup of onions caramelized in balsamic vinegar to punctuate her cornbread. And that's exactly how I was going to do it until I ended up with leftover Onions and Apples Caramelized in Honey. I have a feeling that Jenné's original onions, spiked with balsamic as they were, probably had a stronger taste in her bread than did mine. So I'd use maybe even 1.5 cups of onions if you go with the honey kind.

I used Jenné's recipe for cornbread without changing a thing. And since I want you to go visit, I'll link to the recipe rather than retyping it. If you're a real cornbread lover, try is both ways. Once with onions caramelized in balsamic, and once with onions and apples caramelized in honey. Enjoy!

For the cornbread, get the recipe on Sweet Potato Soul.
For the Onions and Apples Caramelized in Honey, see my earlier post.

Ellen Ecker Ogden's Warm Winter Salad with Roasted Garlic Dressing

My last post was about Ellen Ecker Ogden's new book The Complete Kitchen Salad, which I was asked to review. If you click over, you can read about the various kitchen gardens described in the book, and one of the most delicious salmon recipes I have ever made (no joke). But I wanted to post one more recipe from the book, along with a brief interview I had with the author. This Warm Winter Salad is incredible. It's beautiful, and colorful, and its flavor matches its aesthetics. They say that you should judge a cook by her (or his!) roast chicken. But I think the ability to put together a delicious winter salad is much more of an indication. It requires creativity, resourcefulness, and using produce that normally is a bit shunned. Here, heads of garlic, roasted to a thick paste and then whisked with oil, vinegar and lime, slightly wilt the spinach when the dressing gets tossed with the leaves. Paired with the Baked Salmon in Phyllo with Tomato-Ginger Filling from last time, it was a truly beautiful meal.

CB: What was the most surprising thing about writing and developing this book?

Ms. Ogden: The Complete Kitchen Garden captures my passion for art, food and garden design with one simple message: Grow Beautiful Food. When we shop for food instead of growing it, it becomes a commodity. Yet it is truly a miracle that a small seed can grow into a magnificent edible plant. There are so many ways to plant a garden and the designs in my book are focused on transcending the ordinary vegetable garden into a work of art. In writing this book, I gathered many ideas by simply visiting other peoples gardens. And I found that my inspiration for the designs came from the most unusual places as well as looking at old engravings of historic kitchen gardens of the 17th and 18th centuries. I love the way history is repeating itself and that our interest in locally grown is valued, and we are once again making the connection with our food. To fully answer your question, I would say that the most surprising aspect about writing this book was to discover that my interest in food gardens continues to expand and I love the connections with other gardeners. I enjoy listening to people talk about their gardens and the parts that work and the elements that could be improved. And I enjoy sharing ideas and techniques to simplify the art of growing food so that it is always a pleasurable experience.

CB: Do you have any tips for bringing a very reduced garden inside for apartment dwellers?

Ms. Ogden: There are lots of wonderful plants that can be grown in containers, and mixing and matching a range of ornamental edibles is the key to success. Here are a few tips:
1. Focus on crops that are specifically bred for containers which may require a little research to know which varieties will grow in containers.
2. Select varieties that you can't find at the market - and that will add to your cooking: salad greens and herbs are on the top of my favorites list.
3. Plant in containers that are as large as you can get. The smaller the pot, the more likely it will dry out. Container growing require constant vigilance to make sure the plants are watered and have enough nutrients. If you plan to grow crops indoors, be sure you have a south facing window.

CB: Since you are an artist, and I am an art historian, if you could choose any artist to paint your garden, who would it be and why?

Ms. Ogden: My first choice would be Matisse. I love his work, and the colorful shapes of his cut out art would make for a wonderful interpretation of the garden. I think that a simple wash of colors is the best way to see the garden, rather than an accurate depiction of the plants and the form. One of the benefits of a kitchen garden is that the plants are replaced each season, so there is always the opportunity to start a new work of art each year. Gardens are always evolving and taking time to photograph the garden throughout the season is an excellent way to see how the plants expand and blend together.

* * *

For more on the book, please visit Ms. Ogden's website, and my first review post.

Warm Winter Salad with Roasted Garlic Dressing
Excerpted (with permission) from The Complete Kitchen Garden by Ellen Ecker Ogden, 2011. Stewart, Tabori & Chang

For the Salad:

1/2 cup pine nuts
Roasted Garlic Dressing (follows)
1 shallot, finely chopped (2 tablespoons)
4 cups spinach, washed and rinsed, stems removed
1 cup grated carrots
2 cups grated cabbage
1/2 cup dried cranberries
4 ounces plain chèvre (soft goat cheese), crumbled
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

In a skillet over medium heat, dry roast the pine nuts until golden brown, about 3 minutes. While they toast, make your dressing. Transfer the nuts to a small bowl.

Return the saucepan to the heat, and gently heat the dressing. Add the shallots and simmer for 3-5 minutes, until soft.

Meanwhile, tear the spinach into bite-sized pieces. In a large bowl, combine the spinach with the carrots and cabbage. Pour the hot dressing over the greens, carrots and cabbage and toss to coat. Allow to marinate for about 5 minutes, until softened. Sprinkle with the pine nuts, dried cranberries and chèvre. Season with salt and pepper and serve.

For the dressing:

2 heads garlic
1/2 cup olive oil, plus 1 tablespoon for drizzling
3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
Juice of 1 lime
Salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste

Preheat the oven to 400F. Without peeling the garlic heads, drizzle them with 1 tablespoon olive oil, wrap them in foil, and place them on a baking dish in the middle rack of the oven. Bake for 35 minutes, or until the cloves are tender to the pinch.

Unwrap the foil and let the garlic sit until just cool enough to handle. Using kitchen shears, snip off the pointed tops of the garlic heads, hold upside down over a bowl, and gently squeeze the garlic so that the soft pulp falls into the bowl.

Blend in the remaining ingredients and stir until smooth.

Ellen Ecker Ogden's Baked Salmon in Phyllo with Tomato-Ginger Filling

It's a cliche, but when I was asked if I'd like to review a copy of Ellen Ecker Ogden's newest cookbook The Complete Kitchen Garden, I of course sprang at the chance. And even though I live in NYC, with no real hope of a garden approximating anything like the ones laid out in the book, I am a pretty big fan of armchair traveling. Or in this case, armchair gardening. And anyway, although filled with pictures and diagrams that will help you recreate any one of the fourteen gardens highlighted, the book is also filled with recipes to use up all of that bounty. So if you don't have a garden, but you do have a farmers market, there's still plenty in here for you. I will also mention that it was mid-February when I was deciding what to try, and I still dogeared at least 30 recipes. Those are just the ones I thought I could get away with during the black-hole of produce that is mid-winter.

It won't be surprising that kitchen gardens have a long history. Ogden traces the first documented ones to ancient Persia, when cultivated gardens both bore food and served as a space for entertaining and respite. Just like food itself, you can think of the kitchen garden as merely providing sustenance, or you can cultivate a living, breathing work of art. Looking through the book, you wouldn't be surprised to read that Ogden is herself an artist.

Before delineating her ideas for different kinds of gardens, Ogden offers tips on how to get started, how to deal with soil, compost and seeds. She talks about what tools you'll need, what embellishments you may want, and things to consider when deciding on the theme of your garden. Speaking of the gardens, there's the Salad Lover's Garden, filled with arugula, chervil, claytonia, sorrel, mache and eight other varieties. Ogden prefers the unusual to the standard, since basic Boston lettuce, for example, can be easily purchased. There's also the Children's Garden, the Heirloom Maze Garden, the Artist's Garden and the Culinary Herb Garden, just for example.

Each garden, aside from suggestions for what to grow, features a floor-plan of sorts for organizing the plants. Some rely on rows, some on the Greek cross, some are shaped like diamonds with a border. I'm going to share two recipes from the book with you, one now and one in a couple of days along with a brief interview I had with the author. First things. This Baked-Salmon in Phyllo with Tomato-Ginger Filling comes from the Paint Box Garden, which features beds of plants growing in raised beds. The fennel would have come from this garden rather than from the local market. It's a perfect dish for a dinner party, since the packets can me made up ahead and then baked just before serving. My sister was visiting when I made this dish, and I'm pretty certain that her enthusiasm had nothing to do with my feelings. These are delicious, beautiful, unexpected and healthy.

Baked Salmon in Phyllo with Tomato-Ginger Filling
Excerpted (with permission) from The Complete Kitchen Garden by Ellen Ocker Ogden, 2011. Stewart, Tabori & Chang

4 plum tomatoes, halved, seeded and diced
2 tablespoons peeled and grated fresh ginger
Zest and juice of 1 lime
2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh fennel fronds
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
Oil for the baking sheet
8 sheet defrosted phyllo pastry dough
1 stick (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter, melted
1 1/2 pounds salmon, cut into 8 pieces about 2 inches wide

In a small bowl, combine the tomatoes, ginger, lime zest and juice and fennel. Season with salt and pepper.

Lightly oil a baking sheet. Spread out the phyllo dough, and set up a workstation. Using a pastry brush, lightly brush a sheet of phyllo dough with melted butter, then fold in half lengthwise. Place a salmon strip at one short end of the phyllo, about 1 inch from the edge of the bottom of the dough. Spread about 1 tablespoons of the tomato mixture over the salmon. Fold the short end of the phyllo over the salmon, then fold the bottom edge up and the top edge down, creating an envelope, and brush again with butter to seal the edges. Place on the baking sheet, seam side down. Repeat with the remaining phyllo, salmon and tomatoes. (The phyllo envelopes can be prepared, covered and refrigerated up to 4 hours ahead)

Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 450F.

Brush the tops of the envelopes with reserved melted butter. Bake until the phyllo is golden brown, 12-15 minutes. Serve hot with a dab of hollandaise as a special treat, or serve cold, with a bit of homemade herbed mayonnaise or aioli.

* * *

You can find out more about the book at the author's website.

Honey Caramelized Onions and Apples

My favorite French Bistro, just down the street, does something amazing with onions. The chef caramelizes them in honey and then adds them to things like crepes along with ham and gruyere cheese. When I do caramelized onions I tend to use balsamic vinegar, but just that tablespoon or so of honey achieves something amazing. So when my sister was visiting recently, I knew, with her insatiable sweet tooth (she actually suggested once that we get something sweet to go along with our Cadbury Creme Eggs), that she would prefer honey to vinegar. Not a bad philosophy in general, actually.

The apples came into play because I had extra chopped apples begging to be thrown in. So I complied. These would be great with any kind of winter-roast meat, or on a sandwich, or, yes, in a crepe along with ham and gruyere. This doesn't make an excessive amount, maybe 2 cups. If you want more to keep around, you can easily double the recipe. They instantly gormet-ify whatever you're making, yet their easy and inexpensive. Truth be told, I ate them straight from the bowl with only a fork while my sister wasn't looking.

Onions and Apples Caramelized in Honey
Original Recipe

2 medium yellow onions, sliced thinly
1-2 tablespoons of honey. I used two, but that may have been a bit much, so I'd start with one next time.
1 large apple, diced (I didn't bother peeling. I rarely do.)
Oil for the pan
Pinch of salt and sugar

Heat a medium skillet over medium heat, then coat with oil. Add the onions along with a pinch of both salt and sugar. Cook until the onions are soft but not yet browned. Add the chopped apples and the honey and continue to cook until well-caramelized. About 20-30 minutes total, the longer the better usually.