Stephencooks

Update, and a Side Attraction...

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his is just a quick note to say thank you to the many readers who've contacted me in the last few weeks to offer support and encouragement to me as I retool Stephencooks to be a resource not only for people who like interesting food prepared at home but also for people with diabetes or pre-diabetes who want to eat well while keeping their weight and glucose levels under control.

It's taken me a bit longer than I expected to make the revisions and add the new features to the site, but it will be rolling along on a regular basis within two six weeks (major overhaul, but I promise it will be worth the wait!).

Baby Turnips are Here!                                                      Skate Wings with Arugula

The side attraction: as some of you know, when I'm not cooking or blogging I'm taking pictures, and over the last nine months I've been working on documenting the constructions shown in the picture above, along the shore of the Back Cove in Portland, Maine. In response to a number of requests, I've just launched a site dedicated to the project so I'd like to invite you to take a quick look at The Portland Cairns Project. Please let me know if you have comments on the project, and pass it on to anyone you know who might enjoy the photographs.

Thanks again for all your support and patience!

.....I've got to get back to the kitchen now.

Seafood Stew Recipe with Lobster, Scallops and Clams

When you think of Maine you think of lobster. Shore dinners, lobster bakes, clambakes (which actually center on the lobster), lobster docks and lobster stew. Ubiquitous lobster boats, lobster buoys and lobster pots that weekend sailors spend their afternoons steering around in the summer. So, of course, living in Maine (and before that owning a vacation house here for a number of years) I have personally presided over the conversion of countless bags of "bugs" -- the lobsterman's traditional term -- into platters of steaming pleasure.

I like lobster and I like making my family and friends happy so I'm not complaining, but for a cook, boiling up pots of lobsters is boring -- especially if you have to repeat it for each successive wave of July and August visitors. Usually it's served with more boiled food: corn on the cob, which when it's fresh cannot be ignored any more than can platters of fresh homegrown tomato slices, but from the cook's point of view that's boring too.

Fortunately for me, Jasper White decided to close his trendsetting first restaurant (Jasper's, in Boston's North End) in 1995 to take a break and write Lobster at Home, among other projects. Published in 1998, this book -- though of course it deals with boiled lobster -- opens up a whole new world to the cook whose victims are clamoring for lobster.

While there are many creative and unfamiliar recipes using lobster -- ethnic-influenced, updated signature dishes of other chefs, pastas, etc. --  lot of the book is actually about the many traditional New England lobster dishes that White has spent a good part of his life researching and, since 2000, serving to crowds of happy diners at his Summer Shack restaurants in Boston, Cambridge and at the Mohegan Sun casino: chowders, lobster rolls, baked and stuffed lobsters, thermadored lobster, Newburged lobster, lobster salad. 

This seafood stew was adapted from White's "Traditional Lobster Stew" -- but I hasten to add that if you want to make the real Maine lobster stew, follow his recipe to the letter. Mine has been modified to make it friendlier to healthy weight and glucose control -- primarily by reducing the butter amount and using 1-1/2% milk instead of the whole milk he calls for -- and, pretty much just on a whim that hit me when I was at the fish market -- the addition of scallops and clams. I served it with a salad of fresh greens, crusty French bread and a crisp pino grigio. Jasper suggests traditional common crackers, and some might say beer is a better pairing.

Spinach Recipe with Leeks and Ginger

Spinach is, as we know, a powerful food we should all be eating as part of a healthy diet, especially if you're a person with diabetes. Like a lot of leafy greens it's low in carbs, high in fiber and protein and brings very few calories to the table. It also packs a calcium and potassium punch. But by itself I find cooked spinach uninteresting, so I'm always looking to somehow add a twist when I'm cooking spinach.

Fortunately my friend Donna taught me about 10 years ago how to make braised leeks. I love those flavorful little threads and I use them in all sorts of ways, so the other night I combined some braised leeks with my spinach to perk it up. I also added some garlic, ginger and a little oyster sauce to make a very satisfying and healthy spinach side dish. It paired nicely with the Low Carb Lemon Chicken, for example.

Low Carb Lemon Chicken Recipe

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kinless boneless chicken breasts -- or thighs, if well-trimmed of fat -- always work very well for a healthy diet, whether you're looking to control your blood glucose level or just trying to stay trim. They're low fat, have zero carbs and are a good source of protein and so they frequently show up in diet regimens or recommendations.

The challenge with boneless breasts is, lets face it: how to make them interesting. Marinated, grilled and cut up to serve cold in a salad is a standard treatment. Or marinated, grilled and served hot, perhaps with a sauce of some sort, and next to, instead of on, the salad. But -- excuse me:yawn -- the meat can be dry and relatively tasteless. And in my experience the marinade or sauce in my view can rarely overcome this flaw.

Of course they can be breaded and sautéed, like a veal cutlet, and served with a mushroom sauce, but then it's not low carb, low fat food anymore.

Note: This recipe requires a Chinese style steamer rack, but if you don't have one you can still do it. Click here to see how.

The Chinese have a technique, however, called veleting which, with a little planning and a few simple ingredients, turns bland, dry chicken breast meat into a tender, juicy treat with a nice slippery feel in the mouth. I've learned this technique from years of cooking from Irene Kuo's excellent The Key to Chinese Cooking. (There are similar procedures for pork and fish which I'll present in future posts.)

To velvet chicken, it's sliced very thinly and then marinated in a mixture of cornstarch, egg white, salt and a little dry sherry or Chinese cooking wine. It's then plunged in boiling water for about a minute and drained. From that point the chicken needs only the quickest of stirfrying to be ready for the table.

In this recipe, adapted from Irene Kuo, the chicken after marinating is covered with a sauce and steamed gently. The result is a satisfyingly interesting blend of flavors and textures that is certainly a long way from the standard bland broiled chicken breast.   

A New Morning

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hanks to all my friends who've inquired about the status of Stephencooks and my health over the last few months. As some of you may know, I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes in September, 2008. I had been expecting this for some time, as I had been in the "pre-diabetes" zone for nearly ten years. Still, it seemed to be grim news. I knew so little about diabetes then. 

In that first diabetes session with my doctor he told me that "the cure for diabetes is education."  I try to be a good patient so I took his advice and immediately enrolled in the 14-hour six week course at my health center. In a word, it was great. A newly-diagnosed type 2 patient looking for help can feel adrift in the ocean of information that's available. Getting a grip on the life ring can be very elusive, so being taken by the hand and led, step-by-step, to a useful understanding of the disease and how to fight it was a wonderful experience.

 It's fiddlehead season!

So far I've been successful: my numbers are all in the target range after six months of tinkering with diet and exercise, and I've lost 40 pounds along the way.  So I decided to bring my new healthy diet into the sphere of Stephencooks.

Now I'm working on reshaping the site to fit my new regimen: going through all the recipes I've already posted, adding nutrition estimates and, in some cases, suggestions for modifications to make the dishes more healthy. I'm also working on adding resources to the site for people with type 2 diabetes and pre-diabetes, and adding new, more useful  directories. And, of course, there will be many new recipes. I'm shooting to complete this retooling by June.

Stephencooks will continue to be a source of interesting, flavorful, satisfying recipes, and food photos that are a pleasure to look at -- even if you never get around to making the dish in your kitchen. And it'll be about healthy food, too -- for everyone, not just people with diabetes.

I'm excited about this new direction for Stephencooks and for my life. What seemed like a dark outlook six months ago now feels to me like a bright new beginning, like a fresh summer morning on a pristine Maine pond.

For updates on the changes at the site, please subscribe to the feed, or sign up for an email subscription in the box in the left sidebar (I'll never give your address to anyone else or allow any spam to come your way) or, if you like, follow me on Twitter .

Thanks for your continued support, and for your interest in my food. It makes all the difference. 

Breaktime

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s many of you have already noticed, I'm taking a break from posting on Stephencooks. I'm still cooking and taking pix, I'm just focusing energy that I was using on blog entries on some other interests right now. (One of them is curing, smoking and drying various pigparts that I'm lucky enough to get from Simon and Jane Frost at Thirtyacre Farm here in Maine. Nothing innovative, just time-honored techniques that I'm learning from Charcuterie, the excellent book by Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn.)

Right now I'd say there's a better than average chance that I'll get back to posting on Stephencooks.com sooner or later, so if you'd like to be notified scroll down the left sidebar to the Feedblitz box and fill in your email if you haven't already. (You'll have to respond to a confirmation email after you sign up to complete the process.) I'll never let anyone else have your address or use it for any other purpose than to notify you of new posts. Or, if you use a service like Bloglines, add me to your list.

Thanks so much for all the support, comments and friendship I've received over the last three years by way of this blog, and thanks to all who emailed over the last few months to inquire about my health...which is fine, by the way!

Fennel, Apple, Onion and Pancetta Pizza

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ennel seems to be constantly on my mind when I'm in the market lately, so I almost always seem to have a bulb or two waiting for me to use one way or another. And for me one of the best pairings for fennel is pork, in any format, so when I was thinking of pizza recently this fennel/pancetta combo easily came to mind.

Onions and apples are also great pals with pork so it wasn't a long jump to this happy grouping: fennel, onion, apple, pancetta. Add in my current favorite cheese combination -- Parmigiano Reggiano, Manchego and fresh mozzarella -- top with a few toasted pine nuts, dried grape tomatoes and some scallion threads and you have a very simple but interesting pizza. 

Sweet Risotto with Pear Compote and Ganache

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ndrew Barrow is a busy British food and wine writer and photographer who writes for a number of print publications and maintains a suite of blogs about food and wine which are listed, linked and described on this page at spittoon.biz, his flagship wine blog.

I've been corresponding with Andrew about food and photography almost since the day I started Stephencooks.com and he has been both encouraging and inspiring. The stunning quality and mood of his photography, whether the subject is food or more general, is a pleasure every time I visit one of his sites, and the breadth and sophistication of his food taste is constantly eye-opening. Add in his fresh, low-key writing style and the result is a pleasant few moments returned on every visit to his sites.

When I checked in at Andy's food blog Spittoon Extra a couple of weeks ago it was therefore no surprise to be blown away by his Dessert of the Week feature, where he presented Sweet Risotto with Rhubarb Compote. Though I love all preparations using rice, including of course rice pudding, and have spent many, many hours standing with a spoon over pots of risotto, I had never heard of or thought to try a sweet risotto. However, within minutes of clicking on that post I knew that situation would come to an end soon.

Rhubarb isn't generally available in the winter in the U.S., but since every year around this time I become obsessed with pears and pear preparations I had no trouble deciding what to use instead. I tinkered a bit with the risotto recipe but basically it's the same as Andrew's, using U.S. measures and adding a bit of the compote to the pot at the finish. The pear compote is a simple poaching of diced pears in sweet wine with some subtle flavorings and the ganache is an adaptation of Emeril Lagasse's method, which adds a bit of light corn syrup to deliver a more reliable and pleasing consistency to the result.

As you might imagine, this dessert was a big hit among the diners at my table!

Braised Fennel with Leeks and Bacon

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y friend Donna Quadri-Felitti -- a tremendously inspiring cook who has had a great influence on me -- taught me to braise leeks probably ten years ago and it's become a routine part of my schtick. I've varied the recipe this way and that over the years but this version is the winner so far and therefore deserves to be covered in a standalone post.

Of course, I've been braising fennel for a while too (see Seared Pork Medallions with Braised Fennel for example) but for some reason I'd never thought to do them together, or to add bacon to either, though now that I've done it I can't for the life of me figure out why it too so long to get this idea.

In any case, this is an easy side that goes especially well with roast or grilled meats. Leftovers of the preparation are also especially welcome in the refrigerator too, as a little knot of this stuff (warmed for a few seconds in the microwave) on top of a bowl of rice makes a quick and satisfying lunch. It also makes a nice addition to salads or hearty soups.

I served it the other night as an accompaniment to Fusion Flank Steak with Japanese rice and it was a pretty perfect pairing in my book.

Roasted Pear Salad with Honey Butter Dressing

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inter brings the fruits of the Pacific Northwest pear harvest to our supermarket produce aisles and this salad of Bosc or d'Anjou pears has become an annual favorite around here when the cold winds blow. (Pears can be held in cold storage for up to six months after their fall harvest with little or no deterioration of flavor or texture, if picked before they are ripe. Ripening them at room temperature is actually considered preferable to tree-ripening, which can make pears mealy or mushy.)

         
         Got Pears?


Here are some more pear recipes from the Stephencooks archives:
Pear Bread Pudding
Pear Gorgonzola Bacon Pizza
Crab, Brie & Pear Pizza
Roasted Beet and Pear Salad
Duck with Roasted Pears

This recipe, like a lot of the ones you find here at Stephencooks, was adapted from another one.  I got some nice pears for my Seared Sea Scallops with Roasted Pears when planning a dinner for some new friends but then got an email answer to my usual question to guests about allergies and strong likes or dislikes: "serious seafood allergy - no seafood of any type or quantity!"  This salad -- using a vegetable broth instead of fish broth, and serving the pears with a vinaigretted knot of baby spinach and scallion threads instead of seared scallops -- was the result of my last minute menu change for the evening.

I served this with the Fusion Flank Steak and the peppery accents of the steak went well with the sweetness of the pears.

Poached Sockeye Salmon

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y neighborhood supermarket had wild-caught sockeye salmon for $8.99 a pound and a couple of different versions of farm-raised "Atlantic Salmon"  for an average of $4.99 a pound. For several reasons -- mostly related to sustainability and taste -- I've come to prefer the wild-caught salmon from the Pacific northwest to the pale, overly fatty and bland farm-raised East-coast product. Yes, I understand that the the fish has to travel 3000 miles to get to my table, and that it's therefore not local, but this is a matter of taste. Not only is the color of the uncooked fish an inspiring red-orange, but also the taste is stronger and more nuanced than the pallid farm-raised cousin.

Anyway, I bought it.

Poaching is the best way to go with most fish fillets, since it's gentle and allows delicate fillets to keep their integrity. And, the poaching liquid, when reduced, makes a flavorful sauce. This dish, though it has a fairly long list of ingredients, is actually quite simple: make a broth, poach the fish in it, then reduce the broth to serve as a sauce. The addition of some carrots, green peppers and cilantro serves to add interest to the sauce and the orange color of the carrots seems to intensify the visual appeal of these beautiful sockeye fillets.

Fusion Flank Steak

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usion as a culinary idea has been around for a long time, and to call a recipe a "fusion" dish today has dated feel. Fusion came on in the 70's and 80's, at a time when Americans and Europeans were just starting to pay attention to the range and depth of Asian cuisines that lay beyond the familiar neighborhood Chinese restaurant. Sushi, Thai food (outside pad thai), and Vietnamese pho were still largely unknown and untried  by most Americans when Wolfgang Puck opened Chinois on Main in 1983, giving the movement a home and a platform.

I never quite understood what was so radical about bringing herbs, spices and techniques from Asia to western cuisine, but that was probably because I was doing business in Japan in the early 80's and taking side trips to other Asian destinations almost every time I went to Tokyo on business. In Tokyo, Taipei and Shanghai, especially, I ate at exquisite restaurants where Asian-influenced Western dishes were almost the rule, and, with my exposure to these new experiences (and probably also because I lived just a few short blocks from the markets in Boston's Chinatown at the time) Asian cuisine was exerting influence on my own cooking. Later I found out it was a movement in fashionable cuisine and was, uh, unimpressed.

In any case, this dish, adapted Irene Kuo's The Key to Chinese Cooking, is one of my oldest takes on the fusion thing, and the bottom line is that it's good food by any standard, old-hat though the style may be. My father, Grillmaster Bill, taught me in the 60's how to marinate a flank steak and cut in in thin slices across the grain and it's always been a favorite around my house. This version uses Chinese flavorings in the marinade and is served sitting in a puddle of flavorful broth made from the marinade in the style of the inspiring Becky Lee Simmons, chef at Katahdin Restaurant here in Portland.

I served the steak with a mound of Japanese rice and a knot of my Ginger-steamed Cabbage (with the shrimp omitted due to a guest's allergy issues and some shaved fennel and leeks cut in spaghetti strips added before cooking). The combination was well-received by the first guests to eat a meal cooked in my new kitchen.

Scallop and Pancetta Pizza

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eople sometimes ask me how I keep coming up with different pizza combinations, and the answer is simple: what I have on hand + what the food mood is at the moment = the next new pizza. This pizza is a perfect case to illustrate how this works.

We're in the middle of what seems like the fifteenth snowstorm of the season. I just got my lungs full of good Maine air with half an hour of shoveling and so the food mood in the kitchen is: warm comfort food! On hand is a container of scallops and three of my favorite cheeses: fresh mozzarella, Manchego and Parmigiano Reggiano. In the freezer is the chunk of pancetta I always keep on hand for moments like this, and of course there are onions, garlic and parsley available. So there it is: a very satisfying winter pizza, perfect for refueling shovelers (another 4 inches fell while I made it) or for greeting skiers, sledders, skaters or boarders on their return.

Moroccan-style Lamb Meatballs in Tomato Sauce with Orzo "Risotto"

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his was a nice bonus from a leg of lamb I prepared for another occasion. After trimming and boning the leg I had a pile of lean bits and pieces and a good amount of fat, which I put aside in the freezer for another time...which turned out to be a very good move, since I eventually thawed the package, ground the meat and made these tasty gems.

I'm back......!
I've been renovating an 1865 brick town house in Portland, Maine -- typical money pit project. We just moved in and I'm setting up my new kitchen, which will be the subject of a post in the near future.
THANKS to all who sent notes inquiring about my health during the hiatus!

The recipe is a typical pseudo-ethnic product of mine. Of course, if I were a chef and had to market it I'd call it "Moroccan-influenced" instead of pseudo-ethnic, but it's the same thing. Not the real thing and not pretending to be. Developing these recipes involved my usual loosey-goosey procedure: I read a bunch of recipes from disperate sources (cookbooks, files of torn-out recipes, the 'net), then close the books and throw stuff in that's available from my larder and seems to fit the theme.

The result -- a flavorful meatball with curry undertones and a sweetish tomato sauce redolent with cinnamon, saffron and mint -- was a big hit around here, especially paired as it was with the orzo, which was cooked risotto-style using a dilution of the sauce for the broth. Despite the long list of stongly-flavored ingredients in the meatballs none dominates, so the flavor of the lamb survived quite well. I served the dish with pita bread and a fresh salad of mesclun, lettuce, quick-blanched sugar snap peas, baby carrots and baby turnips, topped with sweet, juicy nectarine slices and a crumble of goat cheese.

Poached Cod in Lemon Fume Broth

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've been going through an obsession with poached fish lately. This was one of the first "serious" cooking techniques I learned, when I was young and poor in New York City. A Julia Child recipe for poached fillet of flounder, with a velouté sauce made from the reduced poaching liquid, became my routine dinner-date-at-home recipe. Once mastered it was easy, and produced enough of a flurry in the kitchen to let my guest know she was getting something that took a little work. Add a candle, soft music and a bottle of wine and it made my little railroad flat in the East Village into a pretty romantic place...

Fast forward a good many years to Portland, where we are living in an apartment with no grill while we wait for renovations to be done on our house. I have access to fabulously fresh fish at the dockside markets and I'm infatuated with the food that chef Becky Lee Simmons puts in front of me at Katahdin, a great under-the-radar restaurant just steps off the beaten path in Portland.

This current situation has led me to more and more prepare dishes like this poached cod in lemon fumé broth, which, to be honest, is a blatant homage (much nicer sound than rip-off) to many similar plates Becky's prepared for me over the last year. Ok, to be different I put my rice (molded into a hockey puck shape with a ramekin) next to the fish, whereas Becky would have put the fish on top of a less architectural mound of rice, but otherwise it's hers, more or less, with a nod to dear Julia as well.

The main difference between this sauce and the velouté is the omission of flour and milk (but not the butter!), so this dish has a lighter feel than my old standby, in which the delicate sides of flounder were draped with creamy white sauce and decorated with a scattering of minced herbs. Here the fish is out front, with the sauce in a more supporting role, and it seems to me that the flavor of the broth is more pronounced and accessible than when it's used as a base for velouté, and this in spite of the lemony slant of this particular version. In any case, this is an easy, flavorful way to prepare any fresh fish, especially if it's delicate and less likely to survive more stressful methods like sauté or grill. I usually pair it, as Becky does, with a small nest of cooked greens, a good fresh bread and crisp pinot grigio.

Late Summer Pizza with Four Cheeses, Sweet Cherry Tomatoes and Fresh Oregano

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he story this week is that the  ripe cherry tomatoes from our Wolf Pine Farm share was remarkable for their juicy sweetness -- so when E asked if we could have a pizza night I knew those little beauties had to have the star position.

This is a simple pizza made of the most basic ingredients: cheese, tomatoes, oregano, onions, garlic and a few bits of meat and olives. As I usually do when using fresh tomatoes for a pizza topping, I dried them for a while in the toaster oven and this seems to have increased their sweetness. The combination of the sweet juice with the bacon bits and tasty cheese mixture, accented by the fresh oregano, made this a memorable pizza of the season.

We ate this pizza with a simple green salad, accompanied by a bottle of pinot grigio and Kenneth Branagh's exuberant and summery HBO Films version of "As You Like It" -- with memorable performances by Kevin Kline (Jacques) and Bryce Dallas Howard (Rosalind).

Farro with Kale, Tomatoes and Fresh Mozzarella

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'm a little late getting on the farro bandwagon, it seems, but better late than never.  I was browsing for a gift in the spectacular Browne Trading Company store here in Portland and found a pack tucked away on a shelf, grabbed it, and now I'm an enthusiastic convert.

Farro (also called emmer wheat, and sometimes confused with spelt, a similar grain -- check the label for the genus/species, which is triticum dicoccum for farro) was apparently first cultivated around 10,000 years ago and may be one of the first agricultural products. It fed countless generations in the Middle East and later in Europe and what is now India and Pakistan, but was gradually replaced by other higher-yielding grains and has become a niche-market product, with relatively small acreage dedicated to its production. As a result the cost is high (around $12/lb at Browne Trading). It seems ironic that foods such as lobster (fed to prisoners and used for fertilizer in colonial times) and farro,  the food of the masses for thousands of years, have become high-value delicacies, though it seems understandable -- though not pleasant to contemplate -- when we recognize that probably the only way to feed the Earth's current population is through high-yield factory farms and livestock operation.

In any case, it's a wonderful grain. Somewhat like large barley or wheatberries, it has a pleasing mouthfeel -- firm to the the tooth but at the same time yielding, with no chewiness -- and clearly is a candidate for many different uses, especially since, like rice, barley and pasta, it absorbs and is transformed by flavors from the cooking liquid. In researching the possibilities for future farro forays I've bookmarked many nice alternatives for inspiration (see the links in the last paragraph before the jump).

Many of the farro preparations are hearty soups and stews, which seem to me to be perfect fall or winter fare, but the idea of a lighter dish based on seasonal vegetables seemed to me to be the right way to go in August. The juicy picture at The Food Section -- just farro, ripe tomatoes and mozzarella -- got me started, and, after reading a bunch of recipes I went to work with the produce I had on hand from my Wolf Pine Farm share. The results were pronounced "outstanding" by E.

I served this warm, with a side salad of simple greens and some crusty bread, but the leftovers were very satisfying served as a cold side salad to accompany a steamed fish fillet on the following day. When served cold I found a nice addition was something crunchy: cucumber chunks, fresh celery slices or perhaps walnut pieces are good candidates.

By the way, there's some disagreement about how to cook farro: there's the "soak-it-first" crowd (Paula Wolfert, Guiliano Bugialli and Bon Appetit) and the "just-boil-it" group (Ilva at Lucillian Delights, Giada di Laurentis, Lidia Bastianich and Gourmet). There's also a wide range of opinion among the soakers on how long, from 30 minutes to overnight. I decided to follow the package instructions (I was using the vacuum-packed farro intero from Rustichella d'Abruzzo -- they also sell farro spezzato, which is a cracked version of the same grain), which called for a 45 minute soak. Also, I cooked it in unsalted water, since the package directions didn't mention salt, though some of the others cited used salted water.

Summer Squash and Fresh Corn Soup

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t's zucchini and summer squash season...an old joke in Maine is that you have to be sure your car doors are locked in August when you go to pick up the mail or you'll find the car full of zucchini when you get back! And I guess the growing conditions are pretty good this year, since I got a single summer squash in my Wolf Pine Farm share box last week that was just two ounces shy of two pounds...

My friend Alanna, the Veggievangelist, posted a nice cream of zucchini soup the other day, and it sounded so perfect that I set out to make her recipe (which she said was adapted from Julia Child's The Way to Cook) but of course I can't help going my own way once I'm in the kitchen, even if the map is from Julia by way of Alanna.

The presence of a couple of leftover ears of fresh Maine corn influenced me, of course, and the incredibly flavorful celery on hand from last week's farm share box also was crying out to be included, as was some tarragon from the herb garden and some of the nice carrots that also came in from the Wolf Pine farmers. Oh - and I tossed in some saffron to juice up the already-beautiful yellow color.

I usually make soups with my left hand while I'm cooking something else for dinner, and often over several nights, so this was no exception. I think the flavor gets better if the ingredients have some time to get to know each other. In any case, this was easy and also a big hit around here. I served it with salad from the Wolf Pine Farm box, and the usual casual summer supper accompaniments, white wine and crusty French bread from Standard Bakery.

If you're really swimming in zucchini and summer squash you might be interested a couple of other recipes from the Stephencooks archive -- both of which just scream summer on the farm:

Lobster, Zucchini and Corn Pizza

Zucchini/Rutabaga Cakes with Tomato Marmalade

Salad of Chiogga Beets and Romano Beans

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ast week in the Wolf Pine Farm share we had -- along with summer squash, kale, tomatoes, cucumbers, celery and parsley --  beets and green beans, two of my favorites. But they were both unfamiliar versions so I checked in with the Veggievangelist herself, Alanna Kellogg at A Veggie Venture.

Alanna instantly identified the newcomers:  romano beans -- a broader, flatter bean than the usual variety -- and chiogga beets. The beets were such a bright red that I first thought they were radishes, but when they had been roasted  they were a pale translucent pink, slightly redder on the root end. Their taste was earthy and sweet, with a silkier mouthfeel than the deep maroon variety.

I have my regular routines, and with beans I usually blanch them and then season them with salt or sometimes a fresh herb while they are still warm. Great in salads or all by themselves. With beets I nearly always just roast them and skin them and then use them in salads. So, after going through the usual routines with these two (the beans were a little tougher than regular string beans so they took a little longer in the boiling water) I had the idea to bring them together in what seemed to me to be a perfect midsummer salad -- with some sweet onions, a few slivers of blanched baby carrots and a dijon vinaigrette dressing they were a perfect addition to a casual supper of poached fresh fish and fresh corn on the cob.

By the way, Alanna has more great ideas for these two vegetables: see Chiogga Beets with Horseradish Cream and Garlicky Romano Beans - take note, by the way, in the bean preparation, of the rosemary-infused oil(!).

Marinated Lamb Kebabs with Onions, Peppers and Nectarines

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he American Lamb Board, seeking to shore up demand which, according to their market reports, has fallen off significantly over the last two years, has enlisted a top-flight PR firm (Fleishman-Hillard) to spread the word. Apparently getting bloggers to write about lamb is part of their strategy so they Fedexed me a nice gift box containing a boned leg of lamb on ice, bags of dried herbs, some skewers and a leaflet with recipes.

Since I never heard of the American Lamb Board I asked my friend Farmgirl Susan, a bonafide sheep farmer and the creator of the wildly popular blog Farmgirl Fare, if she could tell me something about the organization.  She said:

""I'm embarrassed to admit that I don't know anything about them. We're not currently members of the Sheep Society or whatever those groups are called. Usually they're aimed at larger producers and/or people who don't know the words 'organic' or 'natural.'

"That said, I am certainly in favor of anything that helps to not only get more people eating lamb, but lets them know that their lamb doesn't have to come all the way from Australia or New Zealand (or Iceland, which is the place Whole Foods is touting their lamb is from now).

"But of course, naturally raised, grass-fed lamb that is hopefully locally produced is not as easy to come by--and it's going to cost more than the stuff at your average supermarket whether it's American or not. Unless it's marked otherwise, supermarket lamb will most likely come from animals fattened up quickly on grain in feedlots."

I get such offers of marketing swag every now and then and accept them with the warning that I may or may not write about the product, and that if I do write about it my comments may be positive or negative. Usually I don't write about the stuff that shows up (cookbooks, spice mixes, useless cheap kitchen gadgets, etc.) but I like lamb and so decided to cook it and blog about it.

My friend Julia's son Luke recently graduated from college and as luck would have it the lamb gift arrived a few days before the planned lawn party bash to celebrate Luke's achievement. Since I'm living in an apartment (while we renovate an old Victorian in Portland) with no outside space and therefore no grill I asked Julia if I could contribute kebabs for grilling at the party. (Julia and Joe use a gas grill, which is not my style, but beggars can't be choosers!)

Since it was a party I spent a little time on design of the kebabs and ended up with an appropriately festive look: red pearl onions at each end of the skewers, wrapped in pepper slices (green at one end, red the other), flanking two chunks of marinated lamb separated by a slice of mango apricot.  Since the vegetables need a longer time to cook than the meat they were blanched before being marinated.

The kebabs were served with triangles of pita bread and most guests washed them down with beer or wine. The result was generally acclaimed by the 30+ guests at the party. For my taste the marinade obscured the flavor of the lamb (I like a chop, simply grilled with rosemary and garlic), but since the dish was such a crowd-pleaser I can certainly recommend it.
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Tana, of I Heart Farms -- a passionate advocate for food quality and small producers -- also wondered about the American Lamb Board. See what she dug up (and what she thinks about it) by clicking HERE.
(Photo by Tana Butler)

By the way, if you want to see what some of your other favorite food bloggers have been doing with the American Lamb Board goodie bag, click the links below:
Amuse Bouche
Livin' La Vida Low-Carb
White Trash Barbeque
Get Your Grill On
Christine Cooks
Kalyn's Kitchen
Simply Recipes