Frittata with Beet Greens

I wish I could show you pictures of my vegetable beds, but after two months of neglect my garden is all but pretty.  Just before I left I threw few beet seeds in the soil, hoping for some tender beets at my return.  As you can see I was rewarded with these beauties.

There are so many varieties of beets, this is called Detroit Dark Red, the deep red color is amazing, and the flavor mild. As you can see these beets also produced lots of leaves, not to mention they are so pretty in the garden. The package says that 1 cup of greens has more iron than an hamburger, you can't beet that (pun intended!). 

The first time I ate beet greens was about 4 years ago, prepared by a lovely sous chef I used to work with.  She saved them from going into the trash because nobody else thought of using them (the other sous chefs were a lazy bunch, never seen anything like that).  She simply sautéed them and they were delicious, I became a believer.  I love growing beets, I harvest them young so I can eat the whole thing, even the delicious leaves.

The best part of this frittata is that I used all ingredients from the garden, down to the eggs my chickens laid.  Can't get more locavore than this.  I love the pink hue of this frittata, could it be the iron?

Delicious!

Frittata with Beet Greens

Two medium shallots
1 garlic clove
2 tbs extra virgin olive oil
Leaves of 4-5 beets, chopped
3 large eggs
Salt and pepper to taste

Heat a non stick skillet and add 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Sautée the shallots until translucent. Add the garlic and the chopped leaves and cook for 10 minutes, until tender, let cool. Beat the eggs with salt and pepper. Add the cooled leaves. Heat a non stick skillet, add 1 tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil, then add the egg mixture. Cook on medium heat until very little liquid is left. With the help of a plate turn the frittata upside down into the skillet. Cook for two more minutes. Enjoy warm with a salad and some bread for a complete meal. Makes two servings.

Other frittata recipes:

Kale Frittata
Borage Frittata

Cherry Almond Cake

When I am invited to people's homes for dinner often I get asked to bring dessert, and I eagerly do so. If I have time I use it as an excuse to try something new so if the recipe works I can add it to my growing collection of tested recipes. Eager to finally cook a dessert containing fruit other than apples, I decided to try a cherry dessert, so when I saw this recipe I knew it was the one to try.


I also wanted to try this cake because it looked like I could easily make it gluten free since it already contains almond flour. I got used to eating gluten free, but my big sweet tooth really suffers from the lack of an occasional slice of cake or piece of cookie. With this cake I can eat all I want!


This cake could be made with different fruits, and some of the almond flour could be substituted with pistachio meal. To make it with regular flour, omit the tapioca and use all purpose flour in place of the rice flour. I will bring lemon verbena ice cream to the dinner party as well.


The original recipe comes from Sigrid's blog, Cavoletto di Bruxelles, who got the recipe from Annalisa Barbagli, a contributor of the Italian food forum Il gambero rosso.

Torta di Ciliege

500 gr cherries, pitted
100 gr brown rice flour
100 gr almond meal
2 tablespoons tapioca flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
80 gr butter, at room temperature
100 gr granulated sugar
2 eggs

Pre-heat oven to 350F. Butter the bottom and sides of a cake pan (I used an 8" pan). Spread some granulated sugar to the bottom and sides. Sift together the dry ingredients. In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat butter and sugar until fluffy, add one egg at the time, clearing the sides of the bowl with a spatula. Beat until smooth. Add the dry ingredients and mix just until incorporated. Spread the batter at the bottom of the prepared cake pan. Add the pitted cherries pressing them a little into the batter. Bake for 40-45 minutes until a cake taster comes out clean.

Pizza with Kale and Ricotta Salata

This post is dedicated to my cousin Manuela, who found a new passion for bread and pizza, could it be that she is nesting?

Italians breathe pizza, this simple dish is so integral to our culture that we can't live without it. The best pizza I ever tasted was made in Naples, in a tiny hole in the wall, no wonder pizza napoletana is so well known. When I moved to the States I pretty much gave up on the idea of eating pizza since the versions I tried were a sad counterpart to the thin and crispy original. They were loaded with cheese and vegetables, the crust too thick and soggy. I started making pizza at home, but couldn't find a recipe that worked until I did an internship at the renown restaurant Chez Panisse. The pizza there was phenomenal, I wanted the recipe! Since I started using the following recipe I never looked back, it is delicious. Sadly, I can't eat pizza any longer since going gluten free, but I still make it at least once a month because of the joy it gives me to see people eat it.

Pizza Dough
from Chez Panisse Café Cookbook

Sponge:
2 tsp dry yeast (10 gr)
3/4 cup lukewarm water (180 ml)
2/3 cup bread flour (100 gr)

Dry ingredients:
4 cups all purpose flour (560gr)
1/4 cup rye flour (35 gr)
1 tsp salt (1o gr)

1/3 Cup EVOO (75 ml)

In the bowl of an electric mixer, dissolve the yeast in 3/4 cup of water and stir in the 2/3 cup of bread flour. Cover with 1 cup of the dry ingredients and let sit for 30 minutes. After the sponge is nice and bubbly, add 1 cup of lukewarm water (225 ml), and mix well. Cover with the rest of the dry ingredients and let sit for another 30 minutes.

The sponge is ready!

Add the olive oil and mix for 5 minutes, or until the dough passes the window pane test. The dough should feel soft, slightly sticky. A soft and moist dough makes the best pizza.

Window pane test, gluten has developed.

Let the dough rise, covered, in a warm place for 2 hours. To develop a better flavor, the dough can be left to rise in the refrigerator overnight. Punch down the dough and divide it in portions of 7 ounces for medium pizzas. Shape each piece in a tight round. Allow the dough to rest at room temperature for an hour before shaping and baking. Individual rounds can be frozen and thawed overnight. Makes enough for 5 medium pizzas. Bake at 450F.

I normally make Pizza Margherita with tomato sauce (chopped tomatoes from a can, pureed and reduced on the stove), mozzarella, drizzled olive oil, some basil or oregano, super simple. The latest version I was inspired to make is a pizza bianca with kale and ricotta salata, in which I halved the mozzarella and added ricotta salata and some sauteed kale, delicious! To make it spicy add some chili flakes.

Buon Appetito!

Kale Frittata-Nutrients Overload

My love for kale started two years ago after I went to the Green Gulch farm, also a Zen Center, to help out one day. I rescued few kale seedlings that were being composted since they didn't have space for them at the farm. Knowing how kale is good for you I decided to give it a try.



That year the little seedlings grew to giant plants with beautiful purple stems and tiny yellow flowers. This variety is called red russian kale, not sure why red since it is so purple, the Latin name is Brassica napus pabularia.

I didn't use them at all that first year, not sure why. I let the plants go to seeds and then added them to the compost pile, not giving it too much thought.

Brassicaceae, Cruciferae, or plants belonging to the Mustard family, make tons of tiny little seeds, a great way to propagate themselves. Those myriad of seeds survived the composting and were then unknowingly spread to my vegetable beds. To my surprise, little plants started germinating everywhere, and so life of the kale plant continued. I have to keep harvesting the plants since they are growing where I don't want them but they are so tender and flavorful, I could eat them raw. I am also letting few plants go to seed again so I will have more kale next winter and spring.

Frittata is such a great vehicle for lots of different vegetables. Sautée them in olive oil with chopped shallots or spring onions, add to beaten eggs and you have a very healthy meal. This frittata couldn't be more sustainable, all the ingredients except the oil, salt, and pepper come from my garden, or my chickens, feeling really blessed to have this little piece of land to cultivate.

Frittata with baby kale

Two spring onions or shallots
EVOO
Bunch of tender kale leaves
3 Large eggs
Salt and pepper to taste

Heat a non stick skillet and add 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Sautée the onions until translucent. Add the chopped kale and cook for 5 minutes, let cool. Beat the eggs with salt and pepper. Add the cooled kale. Heat a non stick skillet, add 1 tablespoon of extravirgin olive oil, then add the egg mixture. Cook on medium heat until very little liquid is left. With the help of a plate turn the frittata upside down into the skillet. Cook for two more minutes. Enjoy warm with a salad and some bread for a complete meal. Makes two servings.

Buon Appetito!

Photos of the Week

Spring has finally arrived and my pear tree is full of blossoms. Last year a neighbor used our pears to make a pear liquor, this year we'll try to grow few pears in bottles, just for fun, stay tuned... I am also thinking of buying a dehydrator since the pears ripen all at the same time and we end up losing 75% of them. Any of you have done that?

Borage flower, I love this stinging plant

Spring also means that it time to clear the garden from dead plants and weed like crazy, so I will have to just rely on photos to show you that I am still around and alive...time to go outside now.

Work has been crazy, this weekend I worked Saturday too so I have not had the time to take any photos of my cooking. I made tons of things, eggplant parmigiana, farro risotto, artichoke pasta, and even some bread, but didn't have time or the light to photograph them. Oh well.....stay tuned for photos of the bread, it is in the oven and I can't wait to taste it.

Daring Bakers-British Pudding

This month I am late, surprised? I even considered not participating this month because I don't have much time but then I thought that this challenge can be made pretty simple, and since I never made a steamed pudding I was intrigued. The upside is that we can have dessert for dinner tonight. Here I am at 5 PM pacific time waiting for the pudding to finish steaming. There isn't much sun so I am not sure of the quality of the photos I will take.

The April 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Esther of The Lilac Kitchen. She challenged everyone to make a traditional British pudding using, if possible, a very traditional British ingredient: suet.

Traditionally British pudding is made either with a pastry shell or as a steamed spongy cake. The pudding can be sweet or savory. The must have ingredient is suet, which is the fat that surround the kidney of the cow. I had to pass on the suet because I was sure not to find it in my town, and I didn't have time to look for it. Esther included a recipe for a steamed sponge pudding that calls for bread crumbs but since it didn't sound too appealing I went to one of the web sites she suggested and found this recipe which calls for butter.

I steamed the pudding into heat proof ramekins covering the tops with a piece of parchment paper like the recipe describes. The pleat is important because the pudding expands while cooking. After 30 minutes the center were still uncooked so I steamed them for 1o more minutes.


Strawberry Rhubarb Steamed Pudding

Ingredients

• 200g caster sugar
• 125g unsalted butter
• lemon zest
  
• 2 medium eggs , beaten
• 175g flour
  
• 1 tsp baking powder

1. Cook the rhubarb and the strawberries with sugar to taste over a gentle heat until thickened. Remove from heat.
2. Grease a 900ml pudding basin. Put butter and remaining sugar in a bowl and cream together. Stir in vanilla extract, then beat in eggs, a little at a time. Sift in flour and carefully fold into the mixture.
3. Spoon some jam into the bottom of the basin, then spoon the sponge mixture on top and level off surface.
4. Butter a piece of greaseproof paper slightly bigger than the top of the pudding basin. Make a pleat in the center and secure over the top of basin. Repeat with a piece of foil, then secure the whole thing with string. Place in a pan half filled with simmering water. Cover and cook for 1½ hrs, checking regularly that the pan does not boil dry. Remove cover, invert the pudding onto a plate, then carefully lift off the pudding basin. Serve with crème fraîche or single cream.

To check other creations and find the original recipes, please check the daring kitchen's site.

Daring Bakers-Orange Tian

The 2010 March Daring Baker’s challenge was hosted by Jennifer of Chocolate Shavings. She chose Orange Tian as the challenge for this month, a dessert based on a recipe from Alain Ducasse’s Cooking School in Paris.

I never heard of this dessert before reading about the daring bakers' March challenge. I thought it was a perfect selection for this time of the year since citrus fruits are at their best (in the northern hemisphere that is). This was another fun challenge, and I gave it a little spin and based the presentation on a dessert I saw in Charlie Trotter's Desserts cookbook. If you don't know this book check it out because it is amazing, full of beautiful pictures and creations, truly inspirational. In the book each dessert has many different components that can be used alone or together to create beautiful masterpieces. Trotter's dessert was composed by almond cookies, fresh strawberries, whipped cream and a basil syrup.


For the cookies I decided to substitute a third in weight with almond flour to the sablee recipe. I believe it is actually a sucree recipe but I am not Ducasse! I then rolled the dough into a squared log, froze it, cut 1/4" thick slices, added a sliced almond on top, and baked the cookies at 325F. The cookies were great, not too sweet, and the crumb was really nice. It was hard not to eat them all.

I loved the marmalade recipe because the extra added juice helped cooking the fruit pieces and imparted a nice flavor. I didn't add any pectin to the marmalade, just cooked it to a thick consistency. The color was stunning!

For the syrup I used a purplish peppermint I grow in my garden, ground it with sugar using a mortar, added some water and cooked it to a light syrup.

For the final presentation I sandwiched the cookies with whipped cream (that I didn't stabilize), and blood orange marmalade. I then cut some segments of blood oranges, dressed them with a little mint syrup and arranged them around the cookie stack.

Delicious!

Thanks Jennifer for choosing this month's challenge and to Lisa of La Mia Cucina and Ivonne of Cream Puffs in Venice, the creators of the Daring Bakers' challenge. To see the recipe and more of the daring bakers' creations click here.

Being a Locavore-Rose Geranium Lemonade

I am a firm supporter of locally grown food. I grew up eating produce grown in Sant' Erasmo, the biggest island in the Venetian lagoon, and bought almost daily by my mom. In a personal effort to reduce my carbon footprint, I try to avoid out of season produce grown in Mexico, and try to buy things grown within few miles from where I live. Even better, I grow few things in my garden and in the garden of a generous neighbor who has land to spare (can't get better than that). I am patiently waiting for zucchini, tomatoes, and green beans planted with my own hands (the bay area has been really cold lately so things are maturing very slowly, but there are lots of flowers!). Last June I made a simple pasta with peas, spring onions, and parsley, picked just few hours earlier from by garden, and that was utterly delicious. Local is the way to go, I am telling you. Soon I will have chickens, give me time to build a coop and I will order few chicks, I can't wait!

Growing my own food is one the most rewarding things I have done, and it makes me envision life on a farm, which is something I would do if I could. The sustainable grassroots movement that is growing in many communities across the country is so inspirational I want to talk about two upcoming documentaries you should all try to see. Food Inc., another movie that just opened, is also a must see.


Recently I went to hear and support East Bay Pictures, a group of filmmakers based in Berkeley who are in the mist of filming a documentary called Edible City, which depicts the booming of the urban farming movement. This grassroots movement of creating local gardens in backyards, or in communal areas is spreading like crazy in the Bay Area, and it is very inspirational to witness people going back to how things were done in the old days. Jessica Prentice, one of the creators of the term Locavores was there as well. I loved seeing many 20-something people who will be the next leaders mingling with some "old" folks like me, it is only going to be good!


The event was co-hosted at a house of a local resident and by a chef who cooked the dinner that was served before the show. She prepared the dinner with locally grown ingredients, and made an amazingly refreshing lemonade with eureka lemons and rose geraniums flowers. It was unique and so tasty.

On Friday I went to a screening of the movie Fresh, another documentary depicting few farmers who believe that sustainable agriculture is the only way to go if we want the planet and its inhabitant to survive, and who are becoming advocates for sustainable practices across the United States. It was an eye opener about the practice of growing animals in controlled overcrowded environments. Apparently, the animal farmers who grow poultry or hogs don't even own the animals, they just provide the space, and have to strictly agree with the rules set by the companies who provide and process the animals. The growers don't even know what is in the animal feed they dump into the tunnels where the animals are kept. Days old chicks get virtually thrown in a dark tunnel where they get fed constantly so they can grow very fast and be ready for slaughter in very little time. Because of the insane concentration of animals, these farms have ponds full of liquid waste that is so concentrated that it cannot even be processed into fertilizer (cow manure is the best fertilizer there is but in these places it cannot be used). Moreover, the waste is full of chemicals/pharmaceutical cocktails used to prevent diseases prevalent among the animals due to the overcrowding. This documentary can be seen in your own house, to request a house screening kit, click here. Warning: you might stop buying regular chicken, or start only eating grass fed beef after watching it.


The event was hosted by the visionary, and very passionate Ari Derfel, chef/owner of the soon to be opened restaurant Terrain, which will be the first fully organic restaurant in Berkeley. Michael Pollan was also there to inspire the audience talking about the right way to raise herbivores. If you are not familiar with Pollan's revolutionary books, run to your closest bookstore.


To all the people out there who are thirsty for change in the way food is grown I offer this lemonade, which wins the price for being super local as it was made with lemons from my little tree and rose geranium flowers growing in the garden.

There is an interesting story behind this rose geranium plant. Looking into a container of compostable scraps at a restaurant I worked at, I saw some steams of a geranium plant that had been stripped of the flowers and the leaves. I could not resist the idea of propagating them so I took some home where they successfully sprouted roots in a glass. I then placed the stems in dirt and few weeks later two had survived and fully rooted, very green indeed.


Rose Geranium Lemonade

1 cup sugar
1 cup water
1 cup rose geranium flowers
Juice of 4 lemons

Make a simple syrup with the water and the sugar, infusing it with half of the flowers. Mix the juice with syrup to taste (you will not need all the syrup), add ice and serve very cold. Garnish with extra flowers in each glass.

Take action, buy local, ask questions, support local farmers.

Bulghur Salad with Favas, Leeks, and Avocado

Initially the idea was to do a fava bean cover crop, let the plant grow during the winter and cut them before they bloomed to enrich the soil of Nitrogen. The plants had other ideas and they grew under our nose and started growing their beautiful pods. We didn't have the heart to stop them so we decided to let them grow more so we could harvest some of the fava beans before planting the next crop.


To know more about fava beans click here.

I collected 5 1/2 pounds of pods today, and after shelling them I had 1 3/4 pounds of beans. I made this simple salad, made with bulghur wheat, leeks, and fava beans. The beans were super tender and so fresh you could have eaten them raw.

Bulghur Salad with Fava Beans and Avocado

1 cup bulghur wheat
1 cup shelled, blanched and peeled fava beans
1 small leek
extra virgin olive oil EVOO
fresh mint
salt to taste
1 avocado, cut in cubes

Cook the bulghur wheat in 2 cups boiling water until tender. Drain and cool. Blanch the beans in boiling water for 1 minute, drain and chill in ice water to stop the cooking, peel the outer skin and reserve. Heat some EVOO in a skillet, add the leeks and cook until translucent, 5-10 minutes. Toss the wheat with some EVOO, fava beans, leeks, avocado, salt and chopped mint. Serve at room temperature, or chilled.

Buon Appetito!

Frittata di Boraggine-Borage Frittata

When I lived in Venice I used to go with my friends on weekend excursions in the woods of the Venetian countryside. In the spring time we always collected edible plants and then would make the most awesome dishes back home. My friend Paola is an awesome cook and one of the things that connected us was our passion for foraging. There are many plants that are easily foraged in Europe, free and delicious, nettles being one of them.

One of the things that I love to eat is Borage, a very prickly plant with beautiful blue flowers. The leaves can be fried and the tiny flowers can be candied and used to decorate cakes. Borage is a great plant to have in a vegetable garden, apparently it improves the flavor of tomatoes, and it has great health benefits, as an anti-inflammatory, as a stress reliever, and is full of minerals like potassium.

Three years ago I (stole) took a plant from a local garden, that plant grew and its progeny has reseeded itself for the past three years.

I did some work in the garden this morning and felt like eating something I grew, and borage was just calling my name. The easiest way to eat it is in a frittata, for a healthy, quick, and satisfying lunch.

Borage Frittata

1 medium shallot
EVOO
1 cup chopped borage leaves
2 eggs, beaten
salt and pepper

Cook the shallots in the olive oil until translucent, add the borage and cook until soft. Add the cooked leaves to the eggs and mix well. Heat some more olive oil in a non stick pan and pour the egg mixture in. Cook on medium heat until it is cooked halfway. Turn the frittata on the other side and cook through. Serve it warm. I simply rolled a slice with some arugula and ate it as finger food.

Buon Appetito!

Market Fresh

I love buying produce that is grown locally and organically for obvious reasons. Produce starts losing flavor the moment it is picked, some faster than other. Growing up in Venice, Italy, spoiled me in many ways, but I didn't realize how lucky I had it until I moved to the States, the land of supermarkets. Growing up I was lucky to taste amazingly fresh fruit and vegetables. My mom would go the farmers' market almost everyday, so everything she made tasted fantastic. Freshness is something I have experience for the past four years eating vegetables grown in my little garden. Last June I made a simple pasta with peas picked merely an hour earlier, baby onions, and parsley, also coming from the garden. The flavor of that dish was absolutely amazing. A quick sautée and they were ready. Most Italian dishes like Risi e Bisi, a traditional Venetian dish, have only few ingredients so freshness is a must. This year I planted twice as many pea plants to compensate for the peas I devour before they even reach the kitchen.

Marin County is an amazing place to live in, for million reasons, one being the availability of the best and freshest organic produce, grown within few miles of your home. We have two major weekly farmers' markets in San Rafael, on Thursday and Sunday mornings, and smaller ones located in other cities, some only running in the summer.

Today at the San Rafael Farmers Market there were the usual suspects, Star Route Farms, Marin Roots Farm, Full Belly Farm, to just name a few of these amazingly dedicated farmers. I first headed to get my fix of nettles but at Star Route they were sold out already, bummer! I bought some fava beans, spring onions, artichokes, and Italian kale.

My second stop was at Marin Roots Farm but they didn't have any nettles either, gone to seeds already. Instead I bought some kale flowerlets, which are awaiting inspiration. I am thinking to pair them with onions and lentils.


I also stopped at Della Fattoria stand and bought a wonderful rosemary, meyer lemon loaf, just gorgeous (this amazing bakery deserves a post of its own, coming soon.....).

Going to the market brings me an infusion of happiness, a sense of well being. Maybe because it brings back the feeling of walking through Venice's market stalls, buying some early spring offerings, waiting for inspiration to strike.

Happy Spring!