Lemon Marzipan Cake

Two of my cousins have had babies within the last year and a half, turning both of my grandmothers into great-grandmothers, and giving me some of my first experiences with babies.  It's also made me realize that my parents are at the age to be grandparents, and I'm nearing the age at which my mother had me.  I won't bombard you with platitudes about time flying and life being short, but I swear that I was a kid myself just a couple of years ago.

It's gotten me thinking about my own great-grandparents, the one's I knew.  They were German immigrants, my father's grandparents, and I remember their thick accents and how very ancient they seemed to me.  My mom says that I got my chestnut-colored hair from my German great-grandmother.  When I knew her, her hair was obviously white.  But I definitely got this German Plum Cake from her, and little pieces of chocolate-covered marzipan every time she and my great-grandfather came to visit.

There was something comforting about that box of marzipan.  No surprises like the boxes of mixed chocolates, no getting stuck with the chocolate-and-dried-fruit piece because I didn't realize there was a map on the lid of the box.  Always marzipan, always a safe bet.

I've made marzipan before, blanching almonds, grinding them with sugar and egg whites, and finally dipping the pieces in chocolate.  This, obviously, is not the same thing.  And I didn't make the marzipan either.  And in fact, it's not really marzipan, but almond paste.  The difference between them seems to be a point of contention, in as much as ground almonds can be a point of contention.  But evidently almond paste is less sweet than full-on marzipan.  It's more of an ingredient than an end in itself.

Don't worry if your almond paste never quite reaches a perfectly smooth consistency, by the way.  There might be little pockets of almond floating around in your batter, but they're delicious in their own right.  I've adapted the recipe a bit, substituting in a little all purpose flour for part of the cake flour and reducing the sugar just a bit.  I find almond paste to be quite sweet, even if less sweet than true marzipan, so I don't think the cake requires a huge amount of extra sugar.  I also added the lemon zest with the sugar at the beginning, rather than stirring it in near the end.  The reason for this is that the granulated sugar works something like sandpaper, releasing the oils in the lemon skin and making the zest even more fragrant. 

Lemon Marzipan Cake
Adapted from Linda Carucci's Cooking School Secrets for Real World Cooks

2 cups cake flour plus 3/4 cup all purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
4 ounces almond paste
1 2/3 cups sugar
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
6 large eggs, separated
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup sour cream
Zest of 2 large lemons

Preheat the oven to 300F and grease a tube pan.  Set aside.

Sift together the flours, salt and baking soda into a medium bowl and set aside.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the almond paste on low until crumbly (I never did get to smooth, but maintain that it doesn't matter).  Add the sugar and the lemon zest and continue to beat on low until combined.  Add in the butter and beat until fluffy, another 5 minutes or so.  You may need to stop and scrape the bowl down before adding the egg yolks and the vanilla extra.  Beat until combined.

Add 1/3 of the flour mixture, then half the sour cream, 1/3 of the flour mixture, the rest of the sour cream and finish with the final 1/3 of the flour.  Be sure to mix well between each addition, but don't over-beat.

In another clean, dry bowl, use the whip attachment to whip the egg whites until firm but not dry.  Fold the egg whites by hand using a spatula into the prepared batter.  Be gentle so as to deflate the whites as little as possible.

Pour the batter into the prepared cake pan and bake for 1 to 1:15 hours, until it passes the toothpick test.  Let stand in the hot pan for about 5 minutes, then invert onto a cooling wrack, and again onto another cooling rack so that it's sitting the right way up.  Let cool completely before serving.

Baked Sea Scallops

So... I was supposed to leave for Paris today.  Thanks a lot, Irene.  For screwing up my plans, but also for giving me a few extra days with R and the pups.  But also for messing with my city in a way I'm not excited about, and for freaking me out enough over the last few days that I bought gallon jugs of water, batteries for the flashlights and canned tuna. But I'll be skipping town any day now.  And maybe by the next time we talk I'll finally be in Paris.

I'm going to warn you now that I'm planning on pre-scheduling some posts for the first few weeks in case cooking just doesn't happen the moment I get over there. But since I'm not there yet, I can't really go on about Paris.  I can tell you, however, about a recipe my mom has been raving about for months. Months. Years, actually, but she rediscovered it recently when staying with my grandmother for an extended visit.

There are a couple of reasons she loves this recipe. 1) It's effortless. 2) It's fast. 3) It's delicious. Three good reasons that should have you convinced by now. Plus, sea scallops are kind of classy. Kind of fancy in that we normally don't eat them every day. And yet active time is about 5 minutes.

Nana's Sea Scallops
Family Recipe

We usually do 4 scallops per person. So for 4 people, you'll need 16 scallops
4 shallow dishes
8 ritz crackers
1 1/2 sheets graham crackers
2 tablespoons butter, melted

Preheat the oven to 350 F.

Lightly butter 4 shallow baking dishes (like shallow ramekins or individual gratin dishes). Place 4 scallops in each, and pour the melted butter over them.

Crush together the ritz crackers and the graham crackers and sprinkle over the scallops (you'll probably have some leftover).

Bake for about 20 minutes until the scallops are cooked through. Serve and enjoy!

Kale Chips

So way back in the day, about a year and a half ago, I posted a recipe for Baked Spinach Chips which I personally love. But they're fragile and not very filling because spinach bakes down to almost nothing. Still one of my favorite ways to put down a bunch of spinach with practically no effort.

Then, or maybe before, kale chips hit the scene. And they've been on almost every blog in the 'sphere. Then I finally saw them show up at the local over-priced grocery store for $7 per small bag. Seven American Dollars. I almost spit the crumbs of my free chocolate chip cookie sample all over the display.

So instead of spending $7, you can get twice as much if you make them at home. R was skeptical at first (as is par for the course), but he ate enough of them to tell me that he'd have them again. Plus, we have been trying to limit how much processed food we eat, which means not buying it, which means no chips. Except when they're made of vegetables.

Kale Chips
Adopted from all around

1 bunch kale chips
sprinkling of olive oil, if you want
Sprinkling of salt

Preheat the oven to 300F, with the wracks in the top and bottom third.

Wash and completely dry the kale. Tear the kale leaves off of the stems and spread them out in a single layer on two baking sheets. Sprinkle a little olive oil over them, and then season with salt. You could also add other dried herbs and spices, so be creative.

Bake the kale for about 22 minutes, until crispy. Serve

Watermelon Tomato Gazpacho

If you've been reading along, you'll know that I've been aspiring to bring my lunch each and every day to the not-so-little gallery where I work on the Upper East Side.  For a couple of reasons.  First, it's too damn expensive to buy lunch every day on the Upper East Side.  When I first moved to NYC, I received a guidebook from my school which instructed us to look very closely at people exiting or entering townhouses on the UES.  Because those people are, as it said, very, very rich.  Which is why I have to take a train in from much further uptown.  Way past where the eponymous Uptown Girl would have lived.

So I'm trying valiantly to brown bag it every day.  And since the not-so-little gallery doesn't really have a place for eating, my office-mate and I take our lunches to Central Park and sit on benches, listening to kids play and one street performer in particular go to town on some kind of stringed instrument.  And every day, we walk past the same gourmet food truck New York is so crazy about.  I swear they time their frying of slabs of thick-cut bacon destined for avocado BLT's for exactly 1:00 so that the little salad I've inevitably brought will start to look a little sad.  Or at least, exactly not like bacon.  The other week I found myself without lunch, which was still back at my apartment, left in the morning hurry, and passing by the cart.  So I ended up with that avocado BLT and a cup of their heavenly watermelon gazpacho.

Of course, I'll admit to loving pretty much every gazpacho I've ever tried.  And if I had to pick a favorite food, gazpacho would make the top two (and I can't think of the second).  But this was the first time I'd had a watermelon version.  Theirs is spiked with vinegar, with little chunks of fresh watermelon (and that part is key) floating in the purée.  But remember all that stuff I said about buying lunch on the UES being too expensive?  That still holds true for food carts and $8 BLT's with a side of $5 soup.  So the only thing left to do, is make it yourself.

I looked at quite a few recipes for Watermelon Gazpacho, but none of them where quite right.  It needed vinegar, like my food truck version, and chunks of diced vegetable to ward off the monotony of a completely puréed soup.  Plus, I noticed that most of the versions I found did not contain bread as the base for the soup.  And in the words of one of my favorite food writers, Anya von Bremzen, it's the bread that makes gazpacho a meal.  In the recipe below, although I say to add more of each vegetable/fruit chopped for garnish, what I really mean is that you should chop a whole bunch extra so that you can ladle your soup over a pile of fresh chunks.  Garnish is really a misleading word here.  This serves two purposes.  The soup tastes better that way, more substantial, with something to chew on.  And you can use up any little leftovers, like the rest of your watermelon or the whole bunch of tomatoes. 

Watermelon Tomato Gazpacho
From the Cooking Books Kitchen

1 1/4 lbs watermelon (about 4 cups chopped) + more for garnish, chopped
1.4 lbs ripe tomatoes (about 4 medium tomatoes), chopped, one of them held aside for garnish
1.5 lbs cucumbers (about 1 very large cucumber),  peeled and chopped, hold 1/4 of it aside for garnish
2 large stalks celery, chopped
4-5 tablespoons sherry vinegar
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste
Juice of 1 lime
1/2 loaf of peasant bread, crumb removed from the crust (you can discard the crust)

Soak the crumb of the bread in water while you chop the vegetables.  When the vegetables are chopped, put what you're holding aside for garnish in a separate bowl and set aside.  Ring extra water from the bread.

Purée the watermelon, tomatoes, cucumbers, celery, lime juice and bread in batches in a blender.  Season with the sherry vinegar and with the salt and pepper to taste.

To serve, spoon some of the reserved vegetable chunks into a bowl, then ladle the soup over it.  This way you get the goodness of both a puréed and chunky soup!

Cherry and Couscous Salad with Honey Nutmeg dressing

I'm leaving for Paris soon.  As in, less than two weeks soon.  And I'm staying there for 12 full months, or one complete year.  However you want to think of it.  Which means I'm going to be missing autumn in NYC.  And it's kind of crap, because I suffered through that hellish winter and the almost equally hellish heatwave of July, only to get booted off The Island by September 1st.  And there is nothing like autumn in New York.  It's the title of a cheesy rom-com that I've actually never seen, after all.

But whereas the heat wave usually comes at the end of August, at least it's been that way for the last few years, it's starting to feel surprisingly like fall already.  So this recipe, although created just the other day, is a bit out of its element.  For one thing, I should absolutely not be buying cherries anymore.  It's far too late in the summer.  And when the checkout person at Gourmet Garage holds them aside after scanning to ask if I still want them once the price has been revealed, well, it's time to kick the habit.

So I vowed that these would be the last.  Which means that I had to do something great.  This recipe was born, then, from the final haul of cherries and from my need to eat lunch.  Not dessert, lunch.  I had one yellow onion in the fridge, but somehow it seemed too assertive, so I ran out to the corner Latin market and picked up what look to be overgrown green onions.  They taste like overgrown green onions, too.  So I guess that's what we'll call them.  Someone might know better exactly what type they are from the photo, so if you do, please let me know.

But otherwise it's a simple and straightforward little concoction with a few surprises.  Fresh cherries in couscous, for one.  And a light dressing made of yogurt, honey and nutmeg for another.  The original inspiration for that came from a green bean salad originally published in the New York Times Natural Foods Cookbook, but which I never managed to actually locate.  So this yogurt dressing is what I think it might have been.

It's also the kind of dish you should probably get used to seeing around here, because although I have some posts saved up to buy me some time once I get to Paris, I'll be leaving most of the fancy cooking behind in New York as I don't think my 160 square foot Parisian pied-à-terre is going to be coming equipped with a full betterie de cuisine. (Like how I'm practicing my French already?) But, you know, it will be Paris.  I'll survive.

Cherry and Couscous Salad with Honey Nutmeg Dressing
From the Cooking Books Kitchen

1 cup couscous, cooked according to package directions
1/4 cup plain yogurt
1 teaspoon honey
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
2 large green onions, or 4 of the normal size, white and light green parts sliced
2 cups fresh cherries, pitted and cut in half
1/4 cup slivered almonds
2 tablespoons fresh minced mint, plus more for garnish

Cook the couscous according to package directions.  That usually involves bringing one cup of water to a boil, adding the couscous, covering, turning the heat off and letting it sit for about 4 minutes to soak up the water.  Remove the cover of your pot and fluff the couscous with a fork.  Set aside.

While your couscous is cooking you can make the dressing.  Simply whisk together the yogurt, honey and nutmeg.  Done.

Heat a small, dry skillet over medium-low heat and add the almond slivers.  Toast until lightly browned and fragrant, but keep an eye on them because they can burn quickly.  You can just throw the almonds straight into the couscous and use the same pan again for the green onions.  Return the pan to medium heat and add a little oil.  Sauté the onions until soft but not quite browned.  Add those to the couscous, then toss in the halved and pitted cherries.  Add two tablespoons of the fresh mint and the dressing and toss to combine.  Serve with an extra sprinkling of mint over the top.

Rye Crust Pizza with Green Tomatoes and Summer Squash

Oh green tomatoes and pattypan squash.  There's been so much of you this summer!  It seems like every time I open my refrigerator door hoping irrationally to find some chocolate (irrationally because I didn't buy any chocolate), there you are instead.  And you're so demanding all the time.  You require some kind of preparation, always hinging on whether or not I can work up the energy to stop being lazy about you.  So I turn to pizza.

But more specifically, I turn to a pizza dough recipe from my secret little weapon, The Nordic Diet by Trina Hahnemann, because she always comes through with the rye crusts.  Plus, it gives me an excuse to barrage you with pictures of Norway from the trip we took there in June, but about which I have yet to write.  (I'll get there.  See the "I'm lazy at heart" caveat above.)

Although there seems to have been a little disagreement between my 1 ounce of active dry yeast (that's 4 packages, people) and her suggestion to bloom it in 1/4 cup lukewarm water.  First, there's no way that much yeast is ever going to bloom, or activate, in only 1/4 cup water.  It will instantly become paste.  I was also not convinced that you'd in fact need a full ounce, so on my second attempt I cut it down to 2 packages (or 1/2 ounce) active dry yeast and bloomed it in 1/2 cup water.  Much better.  I'll concede that it's possible she meant some other kind of fancy European yeast, but active and dry is the way we do it in the US.

The second problem with this pizza is that, as already mentioned twice, I'm lazy.  No, it's true.  I really, really am.  And I just didn't feel like making a tomato sauce with, you know, herbs, and flavoring and stirring.  So I blended canned puréed tomatoes with half of the caramelized onions I used as a topping and called it a day.  It just felt easier.

Rye Crust Pizza with Green Tomatoes and Summer Squash
Crust adapted from Trina Hahnemann's The Nordic Diet

For the crust:

2 packages active dry yeast
1 1/4 cups lukewarm water
3 cups rye flour
Scant 1 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt

Dissolve the yeast in 1/2 cup lukewarm water.  Set it aside for a few minutes so it has a chance to bubble.  This wakes up the yeast and gets it ready to go.  Once the yeast is bloomed, add it to the bowl of a standing mixer along with 2 tablespoons of the rye flour and 1 tablespoon of the all-purpose flour.  Stir these ingredients together until they form a paste, cover with a towel and let rest for 30 minutes.

Uncover the bowl and stir in the rest of the water, then the rest of both of the flours and the salt.  Mix with the paddle attachment until it starts to come together like a dough, then switch to the dough hook and kneed until smooth.  Remove the bowl from the mixer, re-cover with the towel, and let rise for 2 hours.

For the pizza:

Oil for the pan
1 15-ounce can puréed tomatoes or tomato sauce
2-3 cloves garlic, passed through a press
1 large white onion, thinly sliced
1 large pattypan squash, cut into 1" cubes
2-3 green tomatoes, diced
Salt and pepper to taste
Handful of basil leaves, torn into pieces
1/2 - 3/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese, or to taste

 Heat the oil over medium heat in a large sauté pan.  Add the garlic and cook for a minute until it becomes fragrant.  Add the onion and cook until caramelized to the degree that you prefer.  I keep it going for at least 10 minutes, but you could go for longer if you want.  Season the onions with salt and pepper.  Remove from heat.  Pour the puréed tomatoes into a blender and add half of the caramelized onion.  Blend until smooth and set aside.

Preheat the oven to 425F.  Roll the pizza dough out to two thin squares of about 14 inches each.  Transfer each to a greased baking sheet.  Spread the tomato sauce on both crusts, then add the rest of the caramelized onions on top.  Pile the squash and green tomato cubes on top of that, followed by a handful of basil leaves.  Grate the Parmesan cheese over the top and slide the sheets into the oven.

Bake for 20-25 minutes until the vegetables are roasted through.  Slice and serve

Green Tomato and Leek Frittata

This is the first summer that I've had a farm share, and let me tell you.  I cannot use up an entire box in one week.  It can't be done.  Not with just the two of us, not with the best of intentions, and not without being like those people on the annoying fiber commercials eating stalks of raw broccoli while walking on the treadmill and rolling our eyes about how we're constantly having to eat vegetables just to get all the fiber in that one little pill.  Even when we should be working out!

And the worst offender?  Green tomatoes.  Don't get me wrong, I love green tomatoes.  But we're getting them every time.  Even when we think we're due for red, they always come in green.  The main problem with green tomatoes is that you can't just slather a good coating of pesto on them and call it a day.  Or drizzle over olive oil and a few leaves of basil.  You have to cook them.  I mean, you have to.  Green tomatoes are just red tomatoes, but nowhere near ripe.  So they're tart and piquant and delicious, but only after you add heat.

But they're also good news if you're growing your own tomatoes, which always seem to come in abundance.  And maybe you're worried that you won't be able to pawn them off on friends fast enough?  Or that you'll grow weary of pesto and caprese and tomato jam?  At least green tomatoes give you the option of picking a few early and getting started on your summertime tomato party before it get overwhelming.  Which is why I have a handful of green tomato recipes for you, as well as three more of those things waiting in the refrigerator.

This one is perhaps obvious, in as much as a frittata is always an obvious way to get rid of things that need to be gotten rid of.  This one combines green tomatoes, leeks, a snipping of chives and some Parmesan cheese.  All in the name of getting tomato season off to a nice, early start.

Green Tomato and Leek Frittata
Adapted from The Martha Stewart Living Cookbook

Olive oil for the pan
3 large leeks, trimmed of the green part, washed, and thinly sliced
3 medium green tomatoes, chopped
1 1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon fresh pepper
4 large eggs
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 cup fresh basil leaves, torn
2 large egg whites

Heat your oil in a large, ovenproof sauté pan over a medium flame.  Add the leeks and cook until they're soft and golden, about 7 minutes.  Add the tomatoes and season with 1/2 teaspoon salt and half of the pepper.  Cook until the tomatoes are tender, about 3 minutes more. Set aside for a moment to cool.

At this point, preheat your broiler.  Beat the 4 large eggs lightly with a fork in a large bowl, then add the leek and tomato mixture to the eggs.  Add the rest of the salt and pepper, the cheese and the basil.  Stir gently to combine the ingredients.

In another bowl, whip the egg white until stiff but not dry and then fold the white, a 1/4 at a time, into the vegetable mixture.

Return the sauté pan to medium heat and add in a bit more oil to coat the bottom of the pan.  When the oil is warm, pour in the egg mixture, reduce the heat to low, cover, and let cook for about 6 minutes.  The frittata should start to thicken, but still be a bit runny in the center.

Uncover the frittata and transfer the pan to the broiler.  Depending on the heat of your broiler, broil for anywhere from 2-4 minutes, until the frittata is set but not overly browned.  Remove from the broiler, cut into slices and serve either hot or at room temperature.

Beet Greens Braised with Raisins

If you haven't heard, cold soup is all the rage. Because it's too friggin' hot outside for warm soup, and I'm not about to give up on soup all together. One of my new favorites is this cold Borscht from my last post. So let's say that you bought a big, beautiful bunch of beets for a big beautiful batch of cold Borscht. If you buy them at, say, a farmers market, or if you're just supremely lucky, they will come with their lush greens still attached. And, just like with radishes, you should never, ever throw these greens away.

I've braised greens before. But probably never to the kinds of raves I got for these. Which is funny because it was quite literally a free recipe. Greens that just came attached to the main event, and a bunch of kitchen cupboard ingredients thrown together. In this case, no additional grocery shopping was required. You could do this same thing with any green you happen to have, and in her book Alice Waters suggests tossing them with pasta for a complete meal.

Beet Greens Braised with Raisins
Adopted from Chez Panisse Vegetables by Alice Waters

1 bunch beet greens
1/4 cup raisins
1/2 yellow onion, chopped
1 bay leaf
1 glove garlic, passed through a press
Oil for the pan
Salt and pepper to taste
Splash of red wine vinegar

Put the raisins in boiling water and let them soak for 15 minutes until they're nice and plump. Drain and set aside. Tear the beet greens from their stems and tear the leaves into pieces. Chop the stems into 2 inch pieces.

Warm some oil in a sauté pan and cook the onion and the garlic together with the bay leaf over medium heat until soft and translucent. Add the beet stems and cook for two minutes, then add the leaves along with the raisins and a splash of vinegar. Cover the pan and cook the greens for 5 minutes until wilted. Uncover the pan, season with salt and pepper and add a sprinkling of mint leaves. Remove the bay leaf and serve.

Cold Summertime Borscht

In the heat of summer, there is nothing better in this world than a cold soup. I'll stand by that blanket statement, too. I have a friend, perfectly reasonable in all other ways, who, as soon as it's chilled, strips the label 'soup' from any kind of puréed vegetable. Leaving us with, well, I guess just puréed vegetables. Baby food, really. And to me, baby food has never been particularly appetizing, so we'll go with soup.

This soup was divisive in other ways, too. I loved it. As in really, really loved it. Probably could have just drunk it straight from a glass like the vegetable smoothie my friend would probably insist it is. R? Not so much. He took a few bites and generously gifted me the rest of his bowl. I should have know, though. And I did know I was pushing my luck with this one. I think the bright pink color had him fooled for the first few spoonfuls, but then the vinegar, mustard, and beets (none of which he actually likes) started to sink in.

To me, these piquant ingredients are instantly refreshing, and they brighten up the earthy beets. Borscht seems so Old World, since it is, having its origins in Ukrainian and Russian cooking. The warm version usually consists of beets and cabbage in a meat broth, but the cold version is much lighter and perfect for summer. This one, the version from Christopher Hirsheimer & Melissa Hamilton's Canal House Cooking series, is traditional in that it calls for a base of sour cream. But I mixed part sour cream with part thick Greek yogurt. Feel free to use one or the other, although I'd go with sour cream for the garnish in either case.

Cold Borscht
Adapted from Christopher Hirsheimer & Melissa Hamilton's Canal House Cooking Volume 1

3 large beets, trimmed (remember to save those beet greens for another use!)
1 cucumber, peeled, seeded and diced
Half a small yellow onion, chopped
1 cup fresh bread crumbs
1 cup sour cream plus extra for serving
2 cups Greek yogurt (nonfat is fine)
3 tablespoons Dijon mustard
2 tablespoons half-and-half
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoon sugar
Salt to taste
Fresh chives for garnish

Preheat the oven to 400F and wrap each of the beets in tin foil individually. Roast for about 1 hour, until tender when pierced with the tip of a knife.

When cool, slip the skins off the beats and chop them. In a large bowl, combine the beets, cucumber, onion, bread crumbs, sour cream, yogurt, mustard, half-and-half, vinegar and sugar and give it all a good stir with a wooden spoon. Purée these ingredients in a blender, working in batches. Add salt to taste and refrigerate, preferably overnight so the flavors have a chance to develop.

To serve, top the chilled soup with a dollop of sour cream and a sprinkling of chives.

Radish Green and Artichoke Pasta

So it's farmers market shopping season. Which means instead of sad little shrink-wrapped radishes, you might be buying big, crunchy, juicy radishes still attached to their stems and leaves. You might be tempted to throw those greens in the compost, but you shouldn't because you can use them too, just like any other green.

I've seen them made into pesto, roasted right along with the radish itself, and stir fried into a spicy side dish. But I often find that the easiest way to use up greens is to wilt them in oil and garlic and toss them with some pasta. In this post, I mentioned how I became addicted to warm marinated artichoke hearts, so I tossed some of those in as well. Add a sprinkling of Parmesan cheese and you have a meal ready in about as long as it takes to boil a pot of water.

Radish Greens and Artichoke Heart Pasta
From the Cooking Books kitchen

2 large bunches radish greens, removed from the stems and torn into pieces
1 12 ounce jar marinated artichoke hearts
2-3 gloves garlic, passed through a press
oil for the pan
1/2 pound pasta, cooked (that should be about 1/2 a package, but you can even use the whole package if you want)
Parmesan cheese to serve
Salt and pepper to taste

Rinse the radish greens in a colander under cold running water. Don't worry about drying them, since you'll be wilting them in a moment. Set aside. Drain the artichoke hearts, but don't rinse them. You want all of that delicious marinade to stay on them.

Warm the oil in a large saute pan, then add the garlic and cook until fragrant, but not quite browned. Add the greens and the artichoke hearts, and stir to coat with the oil and garlic. Cook until the artichokes are warmed through and the greens are wilted.

Drain the cooked pasta if you haven't already and add it to the pan with the greens. Toss the pasta in the greens mixture until well coated. Season with salt and pepper and serve with a grating of Parmesan cheese over the top.

Grilled Tomato, Marinated Artichoke & Fresh Gruyère Tartine

Okay, so for the last two posts I've been going on and on about Sarah Huck and Jaimee Young's new book Campfire Cookery. I was going to stop with two, but see, the thing is, I really didn't want to leave this recipe out. I think I've fairly well covered the ins and outs of the book, so you should definitely refer to those first two posts for more.

Although it's billed as a book on campfire cookery (and it definitely is that), I was without a campfire, and successfully made everything on a grill on a balcony in Chicago. Speaking of Chicago, thanks to my sister's forethought and planning (and willingness to add me to a reservation she'd already made months in advance) we got to have dinner at Girl and the Goat, Stephanie Izard's Windy City restaurant. It was there that I discovered the glory of heating things normally served cold. In the case of Girl and the Goat it was hot, marinated olives. In the case of this recipe? Hot, marinated artichoke hearts. They are addicting, even leaving aside the tomato and gruyère, and I mean, who would want to do that? The recipe calls for 4 baby artichokes to be dressed by the cook with olive oil, salt and pepper. I'm sure that's perfection in itself, but we couldn't find baby artichokes, so used marinated hearts and simply left off adding more oil and flavoring to them.

Like the first two recipes, the trout and the shortcakes, these tartines/bruschette/toasts can be made either over a fire or simply on a grill. This entire meal was made from the cookbook, by myself, my sister and her boyfriend 'M' on the balcony of his his Chicago high-rise. I'll admit that living in NYC with no access to a grill has rendered it one of the pieces of cooking equipment in which I am anything but versed. So M manned the grill and managed to cook everything to perfection, even as he was working off of instructions like 'prepare a medium-high-heat fire' and let it burn. Just replace 'fire' with 'grill' and you too can be such a master of the backyard cookout.

Grilled Tomato, Marinated Artichoke & Fresh Gruyère Tartine
Excerpted (with permission) from Campfire Cookery (Stewart, Tabori & Chang; June 2011) by Sarah Huck and Jaimee Young

Provides 8 portions

Should one be in a wooing state of mind, we believe this tartine might b just the thing - the humble artichoke joins the ranks of oysters, chocolates, truffles, and Spanish fly in its supposed possession of aphrodisiacal powers. We've even heard murmurs that King Henry VIII nurtured an extreme fondness for them, and are we not all familiar with his insatiable, er, appetite?

Although there is simply no comparison to the clean, grassy flavor of fresh artichokes (which are abundant in spring and fall), if one does not wish to fritter away time removing the prickly purple chokes, then do substitute a tin of drained and marinated artichokes.

8 ounces baby artichokes (about 4), peeled and cut into eights (see Advisement)
1 1/2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
Kosher salt, to taste
Freshly milled black pepper, to taste
2 cups ripe grape tomatoes
One 12-ounce baguette, split horizontally and cut crosswise into 6 pieces
1 garlic clove, cut in half
12 ounces Gruyère cheese, thinly sliced
Metal skewers

1. Prepare a medium-high heat fire, with the flames licking the grill grate. Let it burn steadily for 30 minutes.

2. Toss the artichokes with 1/2 tablespoon of the oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Wrap the artichokes tightly in a square of foil. Place the artichoke packet on top of the grill grate or nestle it into the coals. Cook until a knife pierced through the artichokes proves them tender, 15 to 20 minutes.

3. Thread the tomatoes onto several metal skewers. Coat them with the remaining oil, sprinkle them with salt and pepper, and grill them, turning them occasionally with one's own gloved hand, until blistered and soft (the tomatoes, not the hand), 2 to 3 minutes.

4. Place the bread, cut side facing the flame, upon the grill. Stand by until lightly charred, a feat that should take only a dozen seconds or so.

5. Remove the bread form the heat and rub the cut surfaces with the garlic cloves. Top them with the roasted tomatoes, grilled artichokes, and cheese slices. Wrap each toast loosely in lightly oiled foil. Grill until the cheese is melted, 4 to 5 minutes.

Advisement: To make quick work of preparing the artichokes for the first, begin by slicing away the top third of the artichoke. Next, remove any particularly fibrous and stiff outer leaves, one at a time, as if descaling a dragon. Use a spoon to carve out the bristly core.