A chilled seasonal soup for unseasonably hot weather: Green Garlic Vichyssoise

Green garlic, in farmers markets right now, teams with leeks, potatoes, butter and half & half to create a cool, creamy, delicately garlicky first course. Recipe (with substitutions) below.

When it comes to large, hardworking families with big personalities, Allium outdoes even the Baldwin brothers. More savory recipes than not put at least one of member of the Allium family to work—onions (yellow, Bermuda, pearl, etcetera), leeks, scallions, chives, garlic, shallots… And then there are the seasonal workers—ramps, scapes and the star of last weekend’s Logan Square Farmers Market, green garlic.

Green garlic is just what the name implies—garlic picked early, before the bulbs have formed into cloves. Originally the byproduct of farmers thinning their garlic crops, green garlic has come into its own as a seasonal treat found almost exclusively at farmers markets and roadside stands. Continue reading “A chilled seasonal soup for unseasonably hot weather: Green Garlic Vichyssoise” →

Big flavor in a hurry: Asian Turkey Burgers with Sriracha Mayonnaise

Weeknight quick to make, turkey burgers get a flavor boost from hoisin sauce, green onions, ginger, garlic, soy sauce and a topping of Sriracha mayonnaise. Recipe below.

There are Sundays that lend themselves to giving in to indolence, lounging about and doing nothing more ambitious than occasionally stirring a pot that cooks for hours. This past Sunday was not one of those. We spent much of the day hiking around the National Restaurant Association Show in the cavernous McCormick Place (motto: “You’ll love our 2.6 million square feet of hard concrete floors”). Then, because we apparently hadn’t walked enough, we did a little more hiking along Chicago’s lakefront.

After a day of walking and grazing on various delicious, mostly fatty foods (more about the restaurant show next week), we wanted a dinner that wasn’t a fat bomb, but still delivered big taste. And personally, I didn’t want to spend a lot of time on my feet in front of the stove. These Asian turkey burgers were just what we needed. Continue reading “Big flavor in a hurry: Asian Turkey Burgers with Sriracha Mayonnaise” →

A crisp, lively welcome for reluctant spring: Chinese Sesame Asparagus Salad

This chilled Chinese salad makes the most of minimal preparation and five simple ingredients—asparagus, soy sauce, olive oil, black vinegar and toasted sesame seeds. Recipe below.

It snowed Monday night in Chicago. Still, it’s officially spring, and beautifully thin asparagus is starting to turn up in grocery stores—and along some roadsides. So I’m going to turn the kitchen over to Marion and let her tell you (and me) about her foraging adventures before we met.

Asparagus wasn’t my first experience with gathering food from the wild—that would have been mushroom and berry picking, when I was a kid—but it was my first great breakthrough as an adult, when I had half forgotten the experiences of my childhood. That you could wade into all that mixed weedy stuff by the roadside and come out with a handful of tender! young! asparagus! (and for free, I might add) was a revelation. Continue reading “A crisp, lively welcome for reluctant spring: Chinese Sesame Asparagus Salad” →

Real food, real quick: Wine-braised Chops and Potatoes are weeknight fast, comfort food good

Dijon mustard, tarragon and garlic add flavor, complexity to quick and easy Wine-braised Pork Chops and Potatoes. Recipe below.

I like to think I’m a fairly nonjudgmental person. Live and let live, celebrate our differences, walk a mile in another person’s shoes… Until I’m in the grocery store check-out line.

As you watch fellow shoppers unload their carts, piling box after bag after frozen package of processed “edible foodlike substances” (as Michael Pollan calls them) on the conveyor belt, it’s hard not to ask how they made it through the produce department without picking up a single fruit or vegetable. Or where are the eggs? The milk? Even the fresh meat, for that matter? And it’s easy to see why obesity, childhood diabetes and heart disease are reaching epidemic proportions in our country.

So it was particularly refreshing to visit the kitchen of four recent college graduates this weekend and see real food. Continue reading “Real food, real quick: Wine-braised Chops and Potatoes are weeknight fast, comfort food good” →

Talking cheese in Oregon, making grilled cheese sandwiches in Chicago

Two variations on classic grilled cheese sandwiches—one with pear jalapeño chutney, one with roasted tomatoes, both with delicious Tillamook cheeses from Oregon. Recipes below.

A FEW YEARS AGO, OUR FRIENDS BUD AND CHRISTINE WERE VISITING FROM FRANCE. Before dinner, we put out some Tillamook aged white cheddar with crackers. Between bites, Christine kept exclaiming in her charming French accent, “You can’t get cheese like this in France!” Her words alone might have simply referred to the fact that the French don’t make cheddar-style cheeses. But the way she and Bud were happily gobbling it up said it wasn’t just cheddar—it was the Tillamook cheddar. Continue reading “Talking cheese in Oregon, making grilled cheese sandwiches in Chicago” →

Big flavor drives Cuban seafood dish, not big heat

Cuban-inspired Fish Fillets and Tomatoes rely on garlic, cumin, cilantro and capers to deliver big flavor; crushed red pepper flakes add just a touch of heat. Recipe below.

When a Cuban-inspired seafood dish caught my eye recently, I was intrigued as much by what wasn’t there as what was. Where were the chiles? Where was the heat? Sure, the recipe called for red pepper flakes, but a mere 1/8-teaspoonful. That wouldn’t even register on our heat-loving palates.

But then I thought about the Cuban sandwich place near my office. The sandwiches I’ve had there all aim for savory flavors, with little or no heat. The salsas they bring to the table alongside follow this pattern too—only one of the two is at all spicy, and even then, not in the sinus-opening way salsas found in Mexican restaurants can be.

So I did a little research. It seems that fiery heat just isn’t part of the Cuban culinary vocabulary. Continue reading “Big flavor drives Cuban seafood dish, not big heat” →

Give basil the night off: Cilantro-Parsley Pesto takes pasta in a lively new direction

Surprising cilantro-parsley pesto needs only some tomatoes, onion and feta to make a quick, delicious pasta dinner that won’t overheat your kitchen. Recipe below.

I would make a terrible farmer. Once something’s planted in the ground, I want to be harvesting it. Now. This spring, we (and by we, I mean Marion) planted some tomatoes and a few herbs in the yard. The other day, wanting some pesto, I went outside to glare at our tiny basil plants, hoping it might hurry them along. It didn’t. Not sure why I thought it would work—that same impatient fatherly glare has never had much effect on our kids either.

So I tromped back inside, still wanting pesto and not wanting to resort to store-bought. Then I picked up the current issue of Food & Wine. There, tucked into a catchall piece of various chefs giving tips for being frugal, Chicago’s own Rick Bayless was talking about using leftover cilantro and parsley to make a pesto. Ha! Screw you, little weenie basil plants. I just met some cuter, cooler herbs. (Not really—I do love basil. But the idea of a pesto change-up had definitely caught my eye.) Continue reading “Give basil the night off: Cilantro-Parsley Pesto takes pasta in a lively new direction” →

Hold the mayo, not the flavor: Grilled Lamb Feta Burgers get boost from Light Rémoulade Sauce

Grilled Lamb Feta Burgers are made even more flavorful with a lightened rémoulade sauce that substitutes Greek yogurt and olive oil for mayonnaise. Recipes below.

I remember feeling all grown up and adventurous the first time I ate feta cheese. Of course, I was in college at the time, and just about everything that didn’t make me feel idiotic, overwhelmed and scared made me feel grown up and adventurous.

If anything, my first experience with feta made me feel all of those things at once. This cheese didn’t come wrapped in individual slices, and it was decidedly not what was, to my then culinarily naive ears, comfortingly called ‘American.’ Most daunting of all, you couldn’t find it in the supermarket (at least not the ones of my college days). When a friend announced she was going to try a recipe that required the exotic substance, I was assigned the challenge of finding some. Continue reading “Hold the mayo, not the flavor: Grilled Lamb Feta Burgers get boost from Light Rémoulade Sauce” →

Sweet, spicy, surprising: Strawberry Gazpacho

Strawberries, cucumber, cayenne pepper, chives and hot sauce blend into a sweet, tangy, spicy take on classic gazpacho in this quick no-cook first course. Recipe below.

It’s always nice to start a dinner party with an impressive little surprise, especially if it’s simple and can be made ahead of time. Marion takes over the kitchen this week with a lively Strawberry Gazpacho that delivers on all counts.

As you know if you read last week’s post, beautiful fragrant strawberries are starting to appear in the stores, and we are thinking about them a lot. This recipe came together in our heads from a lot of places. The first chives appearing in the backyard; a wonderful, mysteriously flavored gazpacho we had a while back at La Boca, the tapas restaurant in Santa Fe; a dessert soup of strawberries my sister and I once had at Le Petit Lutécia in Paris; and memories of little kid Julys picking wild strawberries in northern Michigan. Of course as kids, we did much more eating than actually picking these tiny, intense strawberry bits. Continue reading “Sweet, spicy, surprising: Strawberry Gazpacho” →

Quick and easy improvised sides: Asian Stir Fried Noodles with Cashews

Quickly stir frying pre-cooked noodles with a variety of flavorings—in this case, shallots, green onions, roasted cashews, soy sauce and mirin—takes them from bland backdrop to exciting side dish. Recipe and variations below.

These noodles weren’t meant to be posted. I just needed a quick side for the Chinese Pork Tenderloin I was serving, something a little more interesting than the usual steamed white rice. But then they turned out so well. Even better, they were quick and easy to make and open to endless variations. So here they are.

I kept my dish simple—udon noodles, shallots, green onions, toasted cashews, oil, soy sauce and mirin [a sweet, low-alcohol Japanese cooking wine—you could also use sherry]. I didn’t want the noodles to overpower the tenderloin. Toasted pine nuts would be a fine substitute for the cashews.

You could also change this dish completely, Continue reading “Quick and easy improvised sides: Asian Stir Fried Noodles with Cashews” →