Old-school Em-i-lis

The past couple days have found me yearning for leisurely hours in the kitchen. It's been a long while, too long, since I've felt I had any significant amount of time to relax in there and play around. I miss it, and have noticed that when rushed, dinners become more chore than pleasure, and I cut culinary corners in ways I don't like. 

Our spring has, so far, been an awfully wet and chilly one. There have been glorious days of warmth -heat even!- and sunshine, promises of lemonade stands and relaxed evenings on the deck with a cold glass of wine. But by and large, those times have been elusive, and most days are still "pants and long-sleeve T's, boys" rather than shorts and sunblock ones.

That said, it's spring somewhere, and the produce of the glorious season is starting to roll our way. It's the right time for rhubarb, and those beautiful pink and green stalks are showing themselves at our local farmers markets as are greenhouse tomatoes and herbs and the earliest strawberries. Asparagus is in its prime.

At the grocery, fava bean pods glow green and swollen, and plums, peaches and apricots are finally being trucked in from places north of Chile!

Perhaps I should thank the mostly-gloomy days of the recent past, for they have offered me quick moments in which to steal to the markets and have then shooed me back inside when the rains return. During the latter periods, the beautiful beans and fruits and tomatoes and greens beckon to me, and I have gone to them.

Shelling beans is an always-pleasant task, meditative, productive and grounding. Favas and borlottis are my favorites to hull, because my reward is a bowl of vibrant green or cranberry-speckled beans that only nature could conjure. Favas beg to be smashed with mint and pecorino and olive oil and a squeeze of lemon, slathered atop grilled bread slicked with more oil. Nothing this beautiful can be anything but healthful or a pleasure to eat.

fava bean and mint crostini

The smell of tomatoes alone is thrilling, but then the juicy pop of each orb's taut skin is the happiest salvo. The crisp crack of each asparagus spear's end breaking off at just the point that woody and fibrous gives way to silky and tender. 

the freshest pizza 

All of these ingredients make such delicious dishes but without much effort; that is the gift of real, fresh, seasonal food.

velvet apricots

Today, I made my black velvet apricot and Cognac jam. It is as delectable as it is pretty; looks rather like a jewel, really. I love recipes that freeze an ephemeral ingredient in time for later enjoyment. It's why I make mango butter even though straight-up mango, peeled and sliced, is our favorite way to enjoy them, especially the Ataulfo, or champagne, variety that comes out in late April each year.

I also made some old favorites this week including my farro with golden beets, candied pecans, feta and a sage-chive oil and oven-roasted rosemary salmon, and, perhaps most thrillingly, treated myself to this Meyer lemon tree on Mother's Day. I'm positively over the moon about it, and will feel equal parts Cher (from Clueless; remember when she reaches out of her father's office window to pick a fresh lemon for his tea?) and Martha Stewart when I pluck a fresh lemon from its boughs.

farro with golden beets, candied pecans, feta and chive-sage oil

Now, if only the sun will come out a little bit more and help us all dry and grow and ready ourselves for the next marathon of cooking and growing and rooting, it'd be swell!

Easy breezy herb garden pasta

As you might definitely know by now, I am forever trying to grow as much food as possible in our extremely shady back yard. Spend time trying to keep birds, squirrels and snails at bay organically while coaxing even a small handful of strawberries from a garden spot under a large tree, and you'll never balk at farmers market prices again. Suffice it to say I've mostly given up on plants beyond the trusty basics: greens of all stripes, container tomatoes and herbs. That said, a sage plant I planted a couple years back has decided it loves the shady spot under the tree and has grown into a sizeable bush pregnant with velvety, finger-length leaves. I love sage but don't use it enough. One of my favorite applications is sage butter tossed with pumpkin ravioli though that's most often a go-to meal for one when T is away because he finds pumpkin too earthily sweet to truly enjoy. But sage in large-scale use?

My good friend, M, has a terrifically sunny spot in her yard and is awash in herbs as I write. She recently made my mint-pistachio pesto and later asked about my sage-walnut pesto. Her question and subsequent making of that pesto jogged my memory in the best way: why wasn't I making sage pesto right now?

Last night, I did. And it was scrumptious. Simple, bright, unexpected. And a great way to use a delicate yet assertively flavored plant that's rarely forefront in people's minds. Try it soon; you'll love it too!

It's not all about basil! Ginger Golds, chutney and a canning tip

While I love well-spiced food, it's worth remembering just how fresh, or not, your dried peppers are before adding them generously to a dish. Yo on my chutney and the ruby specks from a new jar of crushed red pepper flakes that makes it hop. I added a bit more apple and sugar towards the end to cool things down a tad and this will definitely still raise a sharp cheddar and roast chicken sandwich to new heights.

I find -and here's a helpful tip for you new'ish canners out there- that seasoning elements like spice and herbs tend to mellow as your jam or chutney cools and ages. So do err on the side of really being able to taste what you've added or you risk having it be a lost flavor later.

This is a great recipe, is posted in my Jams and Chutneys section, and I highly recommend you trying it out. I'll be teaching a canning class in Fairfax in October, and this is the recipe we'll be making, so come one, come all. It's a perfectly seasonal recipe too in the sense that it utilizes the wonderful-for-cooking Ginger Gold apple which is coming into season as I type (I bought a half-peck a couple days back and put most to use in this batch of chutney). Lest you worry that the Ginger Gold is the same apple as the horribly underwhelming, mealy and sad Golden Delicious, NO! The yellow delicious is one of the parents of the GG but it was partnered with the Albemarle Pippin which adds crunch and kick and a nice shade of green to the peel.

Last night, I had a slight revelation via pizza. Sage is great in addition to or alongside basil. Sage is fabulous in general, an under-utilized, under-appreciated herb, in my opinion. You'll see I have two different sage pesto recipes in Dressings and Sauces, just yesterday I made another batch of my Blackberry and Peach Crisp with Sage-Brown Butter Topping, I love the blackberry-sage jam I concocted last month, and the fried sage leaf/sage oil drizzle atop my Pappa al Pomodoro is the cat's meow.

Sage, known as salvia in Italian, was first described by Linnaeus in the 1750s. Long considered to have many medicinal qualities, the scientific name for sage is Salvia officinalis with officinalis deriving from "officina, the traditional storeroom of a monastery where herbs and medicines were stored." Sage is a hardy plant that's easy to grow in most spots; it's one of the few things I can cultivate without fail. In fact, it overtook a planter of mine so I transferred the whole plant (bush really) to the ground, and it's thriving.

Its leaves are utterly pleasing in shape, feel and color: kinda of sweetly furry, soft, sizeable and a comforting, beautiful shade of green.