Parsnip Cakes with Horseradish Remoulade

Sometimes a combination of flavors both suprise and delight and this recipes falls into this category.

4 cups grated parsnip

4 leeks, cut into thin rings then washed

4 eggs

1 tsp mustard seed

1/2 tsp salt

ground pepper

Combine and fry small pancakes in a small amount of oil.

Horseradish Remoulade

1/2 cup veganaise or mayonaise

1 tsp horseradish, fresh or prepared (the kind in a jar) or to taste

2 Tbls parsley

1 Tbls catsup

Combine in a blender.

Serve the parsnip cakes with a dollop of the sauce.

We served these this week-end with a pea shoot and kumquat salad.

WATERMELON AND FETA CRAZY SALAD

2 cups CANTALOUPE chunks, about 1"

2 cups WATERMELON chunks, about 1"

1/2 cup CHERRY TOMATOES, cut in half

1/2 cup FETA CHEESE, crumbled

1/4 cup SUN-DRIED TOMATOES, cut into slivers

DRESSING

2/3 cup OLIVE OIL

1/3 cup LEMON JUICE

1/2 tsp SALT

1/4 tsp PEPPER

1/8 cup SHALLOTS, minced

1 tsp each MINT/BASIL, chopped

1/2 tsp LEMON ZEST

pinch of cayenne

Place the cantaloupe, watermelon and the two types of tomatoes in a bowl and crumble the feta cheese on top. Drizzle the dressing over the top.

CHILE RELLENOS ON A SAUCE OF FRESH CORN

So Simple Chile Relleno

8 chiles (I used piquillos, espelletes and poblanos)
6 oz blue cheese

Instructions: Burn your chiles over the flame of your gas stove-top turning to blacken as evenly as possible. Try not to burn them to a crisp. Place chiles in a bowl with a plate on top while they cool.

So So Simple Fresh Corn Sauce

1/4 cup shallot, chopped
a little oil
corn kernels from 3 ears
a pinch of smoked salt (if not...regular salt will do)

Cut the corn off of the cob using a serrated bread knife. Saute the shallot and then add the corn kernels cooking for 2 or 3 minutes. Add a little water to thin it out.

Fry the chiles in a tiny bit of olive oil just enough to brown, allowing the cheese to melt. Serve the chiles over the corn sauce.

PAINTED PONY BEANS

Wallace Condon from "Small Potatoes" farm gave me the painted pony bean seeds at the Eco-Farm seed exchange. We planted about a half of a row of these beans. Francisco let them dry in the field and then shelled them for us. We ended up with about 3 or 4 lbs of these delicate brown and white spotted beans.

Tonight I boiled a pound of the beans in lots of water with some shallot, garlic and a bay leaf. I boiled them for 45 minutes. At the end I added smoked salt, more garlic and some very fine olive oil. I roasted 2 tomatoes, 1 jalapeno and a poblano chile on the burner; I then peeled and roughly chopped them up along with 2 avocados and another white shallot. I squeezed a half of a lemon over this. I ladled this salsa into our beans.
It was so lowly and so delicous that I am sorry you were not here to share this meal. I am also sorry not to have anymore beans.

SUMMER SQUASH WITH BUTTER HONEY AND MINT

Katy discovered this recipe in Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything cookbook...it is sublime, when I made it I added some onion too.

you will need: fry pan, measuring spoons, knife

zucchini, the smaller the better, about 2 lbs
butter 3 Tbls
salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
honey, 1 Tbls
mint leaves, 3 Tbls minced fresh

Cut the zucchini into 1/4 inch thick rounds.

Place butter in large skillet over medium-high heat. When foam subsides, add the squash and sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Raise heat to high and cook, stirring occassionally until the squash becomes tender and begins to brown (about 10 minutes). Stir in honey and mint, check for seasoning, and serve.

STUFFED SAVOY CABBAGE

INGREDIENTS

savoy cabbage - about 4 lbs

vinegar - 1 tbls
olive oil
onion - 2 cups, chopped
garlic - 1 clove, chopped
ground sausage (chicken or pork) or shitakke mushrooms- 14 oz
breadcrumbs - 7 slices of wholegrain bread or 7 oz
salt and pepper
nutmeg - pinch
parsley - 2 tbls
egg - 1

butter- 2 tbls
carrots - 1 cup
onion - 2 cup
celery - 1 cup
dry white wine - 1/2 cup
stock - 1 cup
bay leaf - 1
Find a medium to large pot and bring salted water to a boil. Add a dash of vinegar.
Separate all of the leaves of the cabbage and rinse each leaf.
Boil 6 or 7 leaves at a time, for 5-8 minutes, until tender. Drain the leaves in a colander in your sink.

To make the breadcrumbs:
Cut the bread into quarters and toast the bread in the oven at 300' for 25 - 40 minutes until dry...cool and crumble in a blender or food processor.

For the stuffing:
Saute the onion in a large frying pan over medium heat until tender.
Add the garlic and sausage meat and cook until tender but not browned.
In a large bowl, combine the sausage meant, breadcrumbs, salt, pepper, nutmeg, parsley and egg.
Mix thoroughly.

To assemble:
Create 4 piles of cabbage leaves by size. Arrange the largest leaves in a circle, overlapping them slightly and placing the curling edges up. Place 1/3 of the stuffing on top of the cabbage leaves. Top this with another layer of the next smallest leaves over the stuffing. Place another 1/3rd of the stuffing on top of those leaves. Do this one more time.

Take a long piece of cotton string and place it under the layers of cabbage and filling. Pull the string up around to the top bringing the bottom layers of cabbage up so it looks like a big cabbage; cross the string and bring it back down to the bottom. Cross the strin over and under the cabbage 2 or 3 times to hold the shape of the head. Flip the whole thing over. I hope this is easier than it sounds...you want to have a cabbage leaves on the outside and the stuffing inside.

Sauce:
Heat the butter over medium heat. Add the vegetables and cook for about 5 minutes. Add the wine, stock and bay leaf and cook for 2 minutes more.

Bake:
Place the stuffed cabbage in a deep baking pan surrounded by the sauce. Cover and bake at 375' for 50 to 60 minutes.

To serve:
Place the cabbage on a serving platter surrounded by the sauce and vegetables. Cut and remove the string and cut into wedges to serve.

PEA SHOOTS

It has been a month since I planted the peas and now I've begun to harvest the shoots. The seed was purchased from Evergreen Oriental Seed Company for $27.00 a lb. and is called Dou Miao or Muy Caro thought Steve when I told him how much I'd paid for it. I am new to this and thought I should buy the seed that explictly said "Olivia, this is the seed for growing the pea shoots".
Later my web search told me you can also use Oregon sugar pod II and Oregon giant, all disease-resistant bush snow peas developed at OSU or Dwarf Grey Sugar Peas. Also suitable is Cascadia, a disease resistant variety of snap pea also developed at OSU. They can be purchased for around only $8.00/lb. Snow peas are the flat edible peas and snap peas are the plump edible peas. I planted the seed in two long rows (Steve would know how many linear feet the rows are).

Last week my pea shoots looked to be about 6 inches tall, tall enough thought the internet; so I picked some. The stir-fry I made tasted a bit like fried compost. Different web information said pick only the end shoots having 3 or 4 leaves. On Saturday Devin and I crawled down the rows on our hands and knees and picked 6 small cups of pea shoots, three-quarters of the way down the row (Steve would know how many linear knees we had travelled) and after about 1 hour, we were both done! I immediately put the peas into the refrigerator of my EuroVan and later soaked and spun them dry.

At the farmer's market on Sunday I was unsure of my shoots. I gave a bag to Grace to munch on when she came by. I sold a bag to the amazing chef, Claude Mann for $2.00 instead of $3.00. Later that evening we were fiddleing around at the farm when Steve noticed his farmer's market chicken was warming up nicely on the front seat of his truck. We decided that was a message from someone much smarter than us, to go home. As I walked in the door I put it in a pot, poured a beer over it, threw in some leeks and fennel and turned on the heat. The phone rang, the cafe was slammed and we needed to go back to the Farmer and the Cook. Oh... how I wanted to stay home. We returned to the house at 8 pm and sat down to a perfectly cooked chicken and a simple pea shoot and kumquat salad. Today Liz and I planted 20 square feet of peas.

PEA SHOOT AND KUMQUAT SALAD
pea shoots, 3 cups
kumquats, 4 sliced thinly
shallot, 1 small, minced
vinegar, 1 Tbls
olive oil, 2 Tbls
salt and freshly ground pepper