The Menu
tarragon chicken salad with first of the season black, seedless grapes
tiny pasta purses with carrot top pesto, chevre and black forest bacon
whole wheat apple bread pudding
summertime cheese plate with grilled cherries, eggplant compote and grilled baguette slices (recipes below)

For the cheese plate:
I wanted to make something a little more sophisticated than just a couple blocks of cheese and I really wanted to show off a bit of the market’s July produce. So to my raw, goat’s milk cheddar, I added a few accoutrements I hoped would tempt the eyes as well as the tongue.

I’d had a burning desire to play with grilled cherries ever since a friend texted me from a restaurant to tell me she having a hot, grilled cherry orgasm. Grilling diminishes the cherry’s tartness slightly and adds earthy char. So I grilled the bread to mimic that charred note and help the fruit blend a little better with the sharp, tangy notes of the cheese. To make the eggplant work on the same plate as the cherries, I added thyme, an herb that pairs pleasantly with both cherries and eggplants. And I squeezed in a little lemon juice at the last minute to give the compote a similar tang to both the fruit and the cheese.
Serves 6 as a side dish or dessert course

6-8 oz goat’s milk cheddar

For the eggplant compote:
1 lb japanese eggplant
2 tbsp olive oil
1 sm yellow onion, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
2 sprigs fresh thyme
1 tsp lemon juice
salt to taste

Heat oven to 325 degrees.

Cut eggplant lengthwise. Put cut side up in a small baking dish and drizzle with 1 tbsp olive oil. Cook until tender, approx 25 min.

Let eggplant rest until cool enough to touch. Scoop flesh from eggplants and discard skins. Roughly chop. Remove thyme from sprigs, mince, then add to eggplant.

Heat remaining olive oil in a saute pan. Saute onion and garlic for 1 minute. Add in the eggplant and thyme and lemon juice. Season with salt to taste. Saute for about 30 seconds.

Transfer to serving dish and cool to room temperature.

For the grilled cherries and bread:
12 black cherries
1 baguette sliced on the diagonal
Heat grill to medium-high. Add cherries and bread slices to the grill. Grill cherries for about 2 minutes then flip to the other side. Grill bread about 1 minute per side. Add both to cheese board and allow cherries to cool for at least 5 minutes before serving.

That’s why this week, my farmers’ market recipe is a simple, peak of season summer salad.

makes 2 servings
2 small carrots
1 persian cucumber
5 breakfast radishes
1/4 c sliced sweet onion like maui or texas sweet
1 tsp dijon
2 tsp red wine vinegar
2 tsp flax seed oil (you can use a neutral oil like grape seed instead)
salt to taste
4 basil leaves

Slice vegetables paper thin using a food processor or (as I prefer) a mandolin.

In a small bowl, mix together dijon and vinegar. Whisk in the oil, (I just do this with a fork). Toss the dressing with the vegetables. Season with salt to taste.

Chiffonade the basil and top salad with the basil ribbons.

Serve immediately.

This week I didn’t exactly reinvent the wheel but for my Sunday brunch I picked up morels(!), komatsuna (a Japanese green similar to spinach but more herbal, less tannic), a candy onion (sweeter than vidallia but with the bite of a typical yellow onion), duck eggs and some black cherries. Oh, and a baguette from my favorite bakery.

While I was cooking, I decided to experiment with the rich, green fluff preventing my carrots from fitting in the refrigerator’s vegetable drawer. I made a quick carrot top pesto as a dip, helping to make use of the overabundance of mini spring veggies in my market basket. (And to help with space conservation in my fridge!)

Scrambled Duck Eggs Over Morels & Komatsuna with Grilled Cherries and Toast
serves 2

1 1/4 tbsp butter
2 tbsp chopped candy onion
5 fat morels, trimmed and quartered lengthwise
1 tsp fresh tarragon, finely chopped
1 1/2 c fresh komatsuna leaves (or fresh, baby spinach)
2 duck eggs
1/4 tsp fresh chives, finely chopped
salt to taste

Crack eggs into a small bowl and thoroughly whisk. Set aside.

Melt 1/2 tsp butter in a small saute pan over medium heat. Add the onion and saute until soft. Add morels, season with salt and cook until mushrooms begin to brown, about 3 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in tarragon.

While mushrooms are cooking, add komatsuna with a splash of water to another pan. Cover and cook over medium heat until greens are limp, about 2 minutes.

Divide the komatsuna between two plates and top with mushrooms. Return mushroom pan to heat and add remaining 3/4 tbsp butter. Turn heat to medium low and add eggs. Stir constantly until eggs are cooked, approximately 4-5 minutes. Season with salt if desired. (You will need no seasoning if using salted butter!) When eggs are about set, stir in chives, remove from heat and divide between two plates, topping the mushrooms and greens. Serve with toast and a side of grilled cherries.

To grill cherries, wash a handful of black cherries. Heat grill to medium high and grill cherries for 4-5 minutes, turning once, until grill marks show on both sides. Let cherries cool for a few minutes before serving as their sugar will become burning hot.

These cherries are super sexy and can be served any time of day, as a snack, with an aperitif, accompanying grilled pork, etc. Use your imagination!

Vegan Carrot Top Pesto

I never know what to do with the tops of my carrots. I hate to waste them but I don’t really love their taste on its own. So I tried making a carrot top pesto, which is totally vegan, easy and surprisingly good!

1/4 c unsalted walnuts
1 tbsp + 1/4 c olive oil
1 tbsp onion, roughly chopped
1 bulb garlic, roughly chopped
1 bunch carrot tops, thoroughly washed and roughly chopped
smoked salt

Toast walnuts in pan or oven until golden. Set aside.

heat 1 tbsp olive oil over medium heat. Add onion and saute until soft. Add garlic and saute an additional minute before adding in carrot tops and a pinch of smoked salt. Cook until carrot tops wilt, about 1 minute.

Transfer to blender, adding toasted walnuts and 1 tbsp water. Blend, adding olive oil in a slow stream until mixture becomes a coarse paste (the texture of pesto!) You may not need all the olive oil or you may need additional.

Season with additional smoked salt to taste.

Serve as a dip, salad dressing or over pasta.

Chile-Rubbed, Grilled Chicken Salad with White Corn, Radish, New Potatoes and Avocado with Fresh Garlic Vinaigrette
Strawberry Bread Pudding
Apriums with Fresh Strawberry Sauce

For the salad, just rub boneless, skinless chicken breasts with your favorite rub (or marinate in your favorite seasoning). Grill and chill. Boil 2 new potatoes per person until a knife slides easily through. Allow potatoes to cool before quartering. From the market, select the best lettuce of the season–I chose red leaf and baby butter lettuce–then garnish with the season’s finest vegetables. (This could be anything from pea shoots, scallions and fava beans to grilled asparagus and heirloom tomatoes.) Top with your favorite vinaigrette, or just top with a splash of flax seed oil (loaded with mood-lifting omega-3’s), a squeeze of lemon and pinch of salt.

For the bread pudding, I followed cookbook author Chrysta Wilson’s recipe, only I reduced the soy milk to 1 cup and replaced the apple with 1 c sliced strawberries.

Fresh Strawberry Sauce Recipe

3/4 c very ripe strawberries, chopped
1 tbsp sugar
3 tbsp warm water

Put all ingredients in blender and blend on high until smooth. Chill until serving. (Adjust sugar depending on your preference and ripeness of your berries.)

Drizzle over fresh or grilled fruit, top ice cream, oatmeal, lemon tarts, pound cake or plain yogurt.

I decided on traditional fare: organic eggs scrambled with butter with my favorite French fingerling potatoes simply roasted. To lighten the meal, I added a salad of shaved fennel with onions, pomegranate and tangerines as well as a salad of gorgeous strawberries, (I LOVE that the West Coast has an autumnal strawberry season in November), a pineapple (not purchased at the farmers’ market), kiwi and Buddha’s hand zest (a funky looking, Asian citrus) topped with tart, natural frozen yogurt.

I also made a smoked salmon platter. Smoked salmon is a special tradition in my family, but the fish must be hard smoked. (This was how my parents friends, the Dinkles, in Wasilla, Alaska used to do it in the smoke house in their back yard.) The salmon marinates with brown sugar and salt for a few hours then is hot smoked for several more. I use a Bradley smoker, not nearly as cool as the Dinkle’s homemade wooden smoke house but more practical. The result is something very different from traditional, fleshy, moist salmon but is much more flavorful and interesting, faintly sweet and less salty.

Since it was a birthday affair, the brunch required a cake. Only I was a little desserted out after the Thanksgiving holiday so instead we did “danishes” from Olio restaurant, made from the restaurant’s excellent pizza dough as opposed to traditional pastry and then fired in a wood oven to order. Delicious, original and yet still candle-friendly. Everything was, of course, washed down with a bottle of bubbly. It was a good birthday!

There was Kona coffee, Maui-grown cacao nibs, acai sorbet, bbq’d abalone and more ginger and orchids than would fit in Waikiki’s grandest presidential suite. My first purchase was at a stand offering samples of “sea asparagus.” The vegetable I know as sea beans were hydroponically grown, producing a gentler, less salty flavor than the ones I’ve picked in Cape Cod marshes.

To accompany the sea beans I picked up Nalo Farms baby mizuna, sunrise papaya, star fruit and something called taro poke (make like Hawaiian tuna poke only with cooked taro root as the main ingredient), all while sipping a zippy mango-ginger drink garnished with fresh mint.

After an hour at the market both my bag and belly were full. But before I was off to the kitchen, I stopped at the market for some fresh fish and passion fruit puree.

For dinner, I started with pupus, (which ism for those of you who are as worried as I was the first time I was offered a morsel referred to in this way, the Hawaiian name for appetizers,) of goat cheese-topped star fruit with a sea bean garnish along side taro poke with Maui potato chips for dipping. The main course was tuna belly with sauteed exotic mushrooms and baby green beans with a passion fruit glaze. Dessert was a Cailllebaut chocolate-passion fruit fondue with pineapple and star fruit slices.

Tuna Belly with Sauteed Exotic Mushrooms and Passion Fruit Butter-Glazed Baby Green Beans
serves 2

8 oz baby green beans
2 tsp butter
12 oz exotic mushrooms, such as shitake and oyster, cleaned and trimmed
8 oz tuna belly
salt & pepper
1 1/2 tbsp butter
1 tbsp rice wine vinegar
2 tbsp passion fruit puree
salt to taste

Heat a small saucepan of water to a boil. Blanch green beans for 1 minute then drain and run under cold water to stop the cooking.

In a non-stick sauce pan, melt 2 tsp butter and saute mushrooms until soft. Set aside.

Season fish with salt and pepper and saute over medium-high heat 2-3 minutes per side until just cooked through but barely.

Remove fish from pan and turn heat down to medium. Deglaze pan with remaining butter, vinegar and passion fruit puree, scraping in any pan drippings from the fish. When ingredients form a glossy sauce, add green beans and toss to coat, making sure to thoroughly reheat the beans.

To serve, put half the green beans on each plate, top with half the mushrooms and half the fish. Serve immediately.

But what I had in mind for brunch was a blt with watercress and a rainbow of heirloom tomatoes. Unfortunately, that old friend I mentioned? Well she’s gone gluten free on me! So instead of bread, we did lentils, French, black lentils to be specific. The result? Certainly nothing like the original but as far as salads go, it was light yet filling, fragrant and flavorful. (Oh, and did I mention insanely easy?)

lentils blt
2 c pre-cooked black lentils
1/2 c sweet onion, finely chopped
2 medium heirloom tomatoes, chopped
1 bunch watercress, washed, dried and trimmed
1 1/2 tbsp mayonnaise
1 tsp french tarragon, finely chopped
4 strips crisp bacon, crumbled
salt and pepper to taste

Toss all ingredients in a serving bowl. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

The theme for the menu was going to be food for rose Champagne. I planned some elements of my menu in advance, making a variation on the Blue Cheese Walnut Brittle from The Love Diet on Saturday (out of peanuts and parmesan with rosemary) as well as a chocolate chip and potato chip cake earlier in the week. (I used the vanilla cake from the Kiss My Bundt cookbook with chocolate chips and potato chips folded into the batter).

From the farmers’ market I grabbed the best of late summer and early fall, combining apples, passion fruits, chanterelles, heirloom tomatoes and figs into the menu. The figs, one of the highlights, were a small, green, thin-skinned variety I’d never seen before, that I served simply with sour cream and brown sugar a la Fork Me, Spoon Me. (Yes, I do actually cook quite a bit from my own books.)

Along with the figs and the cake, I served a baked chanterelle, zucchini, arugula and truffle oil frittata, kale and apple salad with parmesan peanut “croutons”, heirloom tomatoes with rocket onions and chevre and a passion fruit mahi mahi ceviche (served with a side of kettle cooked potato chips). To finish the meal, one of the guests brought a delicious array of cookies from The Cravery (for whom she had worked on recipe development) which we washed down with espressos and more Champagne.

Passion Fruit Mahi Mahi Ceviche
4 passion fruits
juice of 2-3 limes
juice of 1 lemon
1 lb mahi mahi filets cut into 1/4″ pieces
1/2 ripe mango, cut into 1/4″ pieces
1 small sweet onion, finely chopped
1 tbsp fresh cilantro, finely chopped
salt to taste

Strain the passion fruits and add their juice to the lemon and lime juices. Toss with the fish, mango, onion and cilantro. Then stir in the remaining passion fruit seeds and pulp from the strainer. Add additional lime juice to taste and season with salt. Refrigerate for 1-2 hours before serving.

Baked Chanterelle, Zucchini, Arugula and Truffle Oil Frittata

1/4 lb fresh chanterelles
8 eggs
2 tbsp flour
2 tbsp milk
2 tsp black truffle oil
1 small, Spanish onion, chopped
1 large zucchini, thinly sliced into rounds
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1/2 c fresh arugula
pinch of salt and pepper
1/4 c freshly grated parmesan

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Trim and roughly chop chanterelles and set aside.

Combine eggs, flour, milk and a pinch of salt in a mixing bowl and whisk until smooth. Set aside.

In a non-stick saute pan, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the onion and saute until soft, about 2-3 minutes. Add zucchini, oregano, pepper and salt and saute for an additional 4 minutes before adding in chanterelles. Saute until chanterelles are soft, about another 3-4 minutes. remove from heat and stir in arugula.

Coat a 9×13 or other large baking dish with cooking spray. Spread vegetables evenly on the bottom of the dish then pour eggs over top. Bake for 18 to 20 minutes until eggs are set but not firm. Top with parmesan and broil for 4 minutes.

Serve hot or at room temperature with sparkling wine and good company.

Today our brunch crowd was small, just 5 of us, so I felt more comfortable taking risks with the menu. First, I bought fresh dates, little yellow globes all clinging to one stick. Serving is simple with fruit that naturally presented itself so prettily. The Palm Springs-area farmer from which I bought the stalk recommended that I freeze the fruit for a couple of hours and then serve raw, “like candy,” he said. The result? Very tasty but terribly hard to peel.

Then there were grapes. Oh, the grapes(!)-I saw at least 10 varieties and bought myself 3, (muscat, tomcord-a tiny, bluish, thompson seedless/concord hybrid-and a white grape called sugar sun or sun sugar, I can’t remember which). These were washed and served with wine while brunch was prepped.

From the Italian stall I bought asparagus-artichoke ravioli which I tossed with grilled summer vegetables and semi-dried tomatoes. With this I served freshly baked, whole grain bread which I also grilled and served warm.

To accompany, I added a tomato and peach salad with tomatoes from the garden and for dessert there was roasted nectarines and pluots in rosemary syrup with lemon sour cream. (The roasted fruit recipe was a gamble, something I found surfing the cooking light site. It originally called for plums but I substituted with small nectarines and two kinds of pluots. The sour cream was my own addition, made extra tart with a sprinkle of lemon zest.) With this I served a failed experiment: cranberry-walnut-chevre brittle with sea salt (a variation on the walnut blue cheese brittle from The Love Diet). Its so nice dining with friends who think no less of you when your “brittle” is soft as a caramel. Or maybe its just that, after 3 bottles of wine, the lines between brittle and caramel blur…

Ravioli with Grilled Vegetables and Semi-Dried Tomatoes
makes 4-6 servings

3 medium tomatoes, quartered and semi-dried (done in advance)
1 sm shallot, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
2 tsp walnut or other nut oil + additional for vegetables
2 ears sweet corn, shucked and washed
3-4 sm zucchini, halved
2 small eggplants (or 4 chinese eggplants), halved
12 oz your favorite fresh ravioli
1 tbsp fresh basil, chopped
2-3 tbsp celery leaves, removed from stalks
1-2 tbsp Parmesan, grates
salt to taste

For the tomatoes: Heat oven to 270 degrees. Put tomatoes on a cookie sheet and bake for 1 1/2-2 hours, until edges curl but fruit is still moist. If making in advance, store in the refrigerator.

For the pasta: Rub ears of corn with oil. Grill until browned on all sides. Set aside to cool enough to touch.

In a small, non-stick pan, heat oil. Saute garlic and shallot for 1-2 minutes until golden. Set aside.

Heat water for the pasta.

Rub zucchini and eggplant with oil, season with salt and grill on both sides. Then cut into bite-sized pieces.

While vegetables are grilling, cook pasta in boiling, salted water for 3-4 minutes or according to package instructions. Cut corn from kernels and put in a large serving bowl with garlic and shallots, basil and celery. Add pasta, eggplant and zucchini and toss. Season with additional salt to taste and top with Parmesan.

Serve warm or at room temperature.

Tomato and Peach Salad

3 medium garden tomatoes
2 medium yellow peaches, peeled
1-2 tsp sweet onion or scallions, chopped
1-2 tbsp basil, finely chopped
2 tsp fruity olive oil
salt to taste

Wash and thinly slice tomatoes and peaches. Toss in a serving bowl with onion, basil and olive oil. Season with salt to taste. Serve immediately.

Prepping for a hurricane really works up an appetite when you live at the beach: put up the shutters, pull in the outdoor furniture, the mats, the buoy collection, lock all the window… you get the idea. So, after all that work, the meal with which you ride out the hurricane better be satisfying.

We planned on trying a clam pie from the Centerville Pie Shop, a Cape Cod institution so highly touted by Oprah that the company nearly went out of business trying to keep up with demand created by her shower of praise. To accompany the hearty pie, I made a fennel apple slaw, “Annette’s” kale salad and hot chocolate mini bundt with a side of cold cream cheese frosting (from the Kiss My Bundt cookbook, of course).

By nine pm, the salad and slaw were washed down by the last of the Champagne in the house and the pie was fed to the dogs. (I just don’t get 2 layers of crust filled with chunks of naked, stewed chicken drowning in gravy.) The cake was in the oven and Earl, well, he broke apart somewhere between Virginia and Nantucket.

Fennel Apple Slaw
1 small fennel bulb, shaved
1-2 crisp apples, cored and shaved
2 tbsp sweet onion, finely chopped
1 tsp canola oil
1-2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
1/2 oz Gouda, shredded
1 tbsp fennel fronds, chopped
salt and pepper to taste

Toss fennel through 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar in a large bowl. Mix in Gouda, fennel fronds and season with salt and pepper. If needed, add more apple cider vinegar 1 tsp at a time up to 1 tbsp.

Annette’s Kale Salad
1 medium bunch kale
1 oz Parmesan
1-2 tsp olive oil
juice of 1 lemon
salt to taste

Chop kale into bite-sized pieces. Shave Parmesan with a vegetable peeler and toss with kale and 1 tsp olive oil and 1 tbsp lemon juice. Add additional olive oil and lemon juice to taste and season with salt before serving.