roasted concord grape two ways.

 Oh dear, I have been so delinquent in keeping up the blog lately! Life is getting the better of me and the days are flying by. Here we are mid October already! I want to share some of the things I have been making and eating lately. There are no recipes to accompany these as they are meant more for inspiration. The first is Roasted Concord Grapes With Olive Oil Maple And Sea Salt, on top of Greek yogurt with maple and flax seeds.. You can do it with any fruit as I been doing since the first stone fruits arrived in the Summer and unless you are really wild about Concord grapes like I am you might be better off with a simpler fruit like apple or plum The Concord grapes are real pain with the seeds and they require some serious work to get them out!breakfast I know I said I wasn't going to give a recipe but here is the gist of it in the loosest sense; Take whatever fruit you decie to use and spread it on a lined sheet pan. Drizzle with a little olive oil, sprinkle with sea salt and top with a touch of maple syrup. Pop the whole tray in the oven and slow roast the fruit at 350 degrees until it is soft. (With the Concord grapes, you must carefully split the grape and remove the seeds once they are soft and roasted... this takes patience and diligence and a small sharp knife!)

Once your fruit is roasted, Place a generous portion of it on top of your bowl of Greek yogurt and drizzle with a little maple, a tiny hit of sea salt and a good heaping tablespoon or two of flax seeds!

My other grape inspired recipe is Concord grape and Hen Of The Woods Crostini.

Place a generous amount of hen of the woods mushrooms on a lined baking sheet or in a big cast iron frying pan. Drizzle with olive oil, seas salt and fresh cracked black pepper. Cut a handful of concord grapes in half and gently remove the seeds. toss the Concord grapes with the hen of the woods and olive oil mixture. Throw the pan in the oven and roast at 350 degrees until the mushrooms are soft and some of the edges are a touch crispy.

Toast some really good bread and brush with olive oil after toasting. Top the bread with the roasted mushrooms and grape mixture. Shave some Pecorino Romano on top and get to eating! 

That's it! 

Have lovely Tuesday friends!!

I promise to be back sooner than later! 

where the wild things are. no.15. eggs and ramp. easter breakfast.

What a gorgeous day it was here in New York! Spring has finally arrived and ramp season is in full swing both in the city and the forest. We celebrated by making poached eggs over rosti with sauteed ramp greens. (the greens were left over after making pickled ramps. The greens have a soft woodsy taste. I don't find ramps to be especially strong in flavor despite their intense onion aroma) The Green Market at Union Square this week was such an inspiration. I couldn't help but to pick up these beautiful organic eggs to accompany the ramps we gathered on our land upstate.

 Sauteed ramp Greens

1 bunch of ramps

Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Sea salt

Cracked black pepper

Rinse the ramps under cold water to remove any dirt or debris.

Gently peel back the  lower outer most layer of the ramp and discard.  If the roots are on the ramps the outermost layer can be a bit transluscent and slimy, this is what you want to get rid of!

Cut the hairy root ends off the cleaned ramps and discard.

If you are using the bulb end of the ramps for pickling, cut them just above the pink stem, This will give you the bulb end for pickling and the green for sauteeing. You could opt to just sautee the whole cleaned ramp if you wish. I did it this way because I was using the bulbs for pickling.

Pat the greens dry and and plop them ino a large cast iron skillet.

Add a drizzle of olive oil.

Toss the greens over low heat until JUST wilted. do not overcook.

Add salt and pepper to taste.

Serve over rosti with a poached egg or on any grain or toasts. Eat them any way you would a wilted spinch.

 organic eggs

 wild ramps

sauteed ramp greens

poached eggs over rosti with sauteed ramp greens 

 poached eggs over rosti with sauteed ramp greens and pickled ramps

where the wild things are no. 13. stinging nettle and spring garlic soup.

NETTLES

According to one of my very favorite books, The Dictionary of Gastronomy 1969 which offers concise little blurbs of information of all things gastronomic; “Nettles are a troublesome weed sometimes called stinging nettle. They are nourishing enough to eat if picked when young and tender. Country housewives cook nettles as spinach and in Eire, nettle soup is a specialty. Nettle beer is also made in some countryside districts in Britain."

Though I won’t be attempting Nettle beer anytime soon, nettles have been on my mind since encountering the nettle and pecorino pizza at Pizzaiolo in Oakland last month. Nettles are not unfamiliar to me. My relationship with them, however, has always been a bitter one. As a country kid, left to my own devices, I had more than the occasional encounter with the tiny stinging welts that cover your flesh once you come into contact with them. In the summer, we kept several bottles of witch hazel on hand to combat just such encounters. Nettles grow in the tall grass, at the woods edge, in abandoned building lots and surround blackberry bushes as though they are standing guard against little hands of intruders.

Nettles, have a long history as both a food source and a medicinal plant. Perhaps you have the fairly common nettle tea or a nettle pesto? Nettles, which must be blanched to be used in cooking in order to remove the toxins from the stinging hollow needle like hairs, taste a lot like  spinach and are full of vitamins and minerals. Why not just eat spinach you ask? The whole process of battling this wild plant is fun. It is a challenge. Why not get to know some of your wild edibles, especially those that are abundant not endangered, long seasoned and often free. I do admit that my first sip of nettle soup was taken with a great deal of trepidation. I waited for my throat to sting wildly. It did not. Nettles are one of the first plants to show up in the early spring thereby making them an attractive and green food source after long winters for settlers and Native Americans. There are many benefits to this little weed that outweigh it’s stinging reputation. As well as from being good for you, the fibers of the plant can be used to make a textile similar to linen, it’s roots can be used to make a  vibrant yellow natural dye. Nettles are rich in nitrogen,  which makies them an excellent compost activator and of course they taste good!

Wear long pants and long sleeves to harvest your nettles and always wear gloves! Clip the top tender most leaves of the plant, throw them into a brown paper bag for transport. When you get them home put the gloves back on and throw them into a salad spinner to wash away any dirt or little critters. When you transfer them to the pot to blanch them wear gloves! They are not safe to touch until they have been blanched or if making  tea after they have been put in the boiling water.

These days, Nettles are popping up on menus all over the country. You can most likely find them, if you prefer to be less adventurous than gathering them yourself, from a local forager or wildcrafter or local green market.

I might just declare this nettle week here at hungry ghost and shoot them all week long!

I did not gather these nettles myself as the weather upstate is still a bit cold on our side of the mountain. I got them both from a wild food gatherer and from a stall at the Union Squre Green Market. Because nettles shrink so much, like any green when cooking, you will need much more than you would think you would need. I look forward to gathering some near my own blackberry bushes once the sun finally shines on delaware country.

Keep in mind if you gather in the wild to always positively identify a plant before consuming it!

Stinging Nettle and Spring Garlic soup

15 loosley packed cups of nettles

1 spring garlic

Three small shallots

3tblspoons butter

1 qt. of organic chicken stock

8 cups of water

bowl of ice for plunge bath

Salt and pepper to taste

Fresh ground nutmeg to taste (optional)

Nettle blossoms for garnish (optional)

Method

Set 8 cups of water in a large pot to boil.

When boiling (with gloves) add your stinging nettles to blanch.

Quickly remove them once blanched and plunge them in an ice bath.

Squeeze the excess water from the nettles and set them aside ( they will be  a mere shadow of their former self at this point. greatly reduced in volume.

Chop the spring garlic bulb and the shallots into small pieces.

Add the butter to a medium size soup pot and melt over a low heat.

Add the onion and the garlic to sautee until just translucent and soft.

Remove from the heat.

Chop the ball of blanched nettles into coarse pieces.

Add the chopped nettles to the melted butter and sauteed onions and return to a low heat, Cook for two minutes stirring constantly.

Add the quart of chicken broth and simmer the onions, garlic, nettles and broth for twenty or so minutes until the nettles are very soft.

Remove from the heat and puree the whole mixture in a blender.

Run the soup mixture through a fine sieve o remove any large particles.

Return the soup to the pot and heat to serve.

Add salt and pepper to taste.

Garnish with garlic mustard blossoms and fresh cracked pepper.

Serve with a hard boiled egg and some ramp butter on your favorite bread!

 

 

heirloom apple sauce spice cake.

 

 Copyright © 2012 Andrea Gentl all rights reserved 

Sometimes, it is necessary to dig into those old fashioned cookbooks. I like the ones with the simple covers and no photographs like Fanny Farmer or my grandmother's very worn and battered Joy Of Cooking. I was looking for a recipe for an applesauce cake, as these chilly spring mornings bring on the need for childhood comfort foods.

Strangely enough, as I opened the worn and battered blue Joy of Cooking an aged index card fell out. It was a recipe for an applesauce cake. It was in my writing and it was dated 1983. There many days when I sat down with my grandmother and attempted to record her recipes that were in her head, passed down from my Nonni, raised in Puglia and transplanted to the streets of Brooklyn and Long Island City. This index card did not represent one of those recipes; instead it most likely came from the pages of Ladies Home Journal or McCall’s Magazine. I looked in the index of the Joy Of Cooking and there was a recipe for an applesauce cake but it was different from the one on the card, so in an attempt to make my own mark, I have transformed it one step further. I omitted the allspice and the cinnamon and added ginger and heirloom applesauce as well as whole-wheat pastry flour. I finished it off by grating an apple and some fresh ginger on top.

Heirloom Applesauce Ginger Spice Cake

Butter

Sugar

Egg

Applesauce 

 Whole Wheat Pastry Flour

Salt

Baking soda

Baking powder

Nutmeg

Ginger (both fresh and ground)

Cream one 1/2  cup butter with 1 cup of sugar

Add 1 egg and beat well

Add 1 cup of applesauce

Mix the dry ingredients in another bowl

2 cups of  whole wheat pastry flour

1 tsp salt

1 tsp baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon of ground ginger

1/2 teaspoon of freshly ground nutmeg

Mix well and slowly add to wet mixture stirring until all combined

Grease a round cake tin

Add batter

Grate 1 small apple on top and a healthy dose of fresh ginger

Preheat oven to 350 degrees cook for 1 hr or until done.

where the wild things are no. 10. juniper pickled onions.

Strangely, I have been craving juniper this past year. It started late last Summer, upstate, with a series of wild cocktails and juniper stuffed trout. I have since experimented with a number of recipes and drinks, to which my friends can attest, as I have plied them with many a juniper tipped cocktail.  I had never really incorporated juniper into my cooking in the past but now, I don't think I could live without it!  It should really have come as no surprise to me that I would like it this much. I do, after all, love gin, that brilliant aromatic spirit, spiced with juniper and other aromatic herbs and spices. I discovered gin in my early twenties.(Right now my two favorites are Hendricks and Breuckelen  Gin.) Juniper smells both medicinal and like the darkest forest floor. It is very complex. I have many Juniper recipes to share but for now I will post my current obsession; juniper pickled onions! Once you try them, there is no turning back.

Juniper Pickled Onions 

 (I added a few shallots to this recipe)

3 cups Japanese Apple Cider vinegar

(you can use Bragg's Raw Cider Vinegar if you want, I used what I had on hand)

1 tablespoon dried Juniper berries

1/2 tablespoon crushed Juniper berries (crush with mortar and pestle)

1 teaspoon ground ginger

1 teaspoon black pepper corns

3 tablespoons sugar

 To make the brine:

Add the spices and sugar to the 3 cups of vinegar

Heat to a boil in a non-reactive pot

Turn off and allow to steep for 20 minutes for the spices to infuse

In the mean time, thinly slice 2 medium  red onions

After 20 minutes, heat the brine to a slow simmer.

Divide the onions into thirds and drop into the brine for 20 seconds.

Remove after 20 seconds with a slotted spoon and set aside.

The onions will turn a brilliant pink.

When all the onions have been run through the brine, turn it off an allow it to cool.

When cool put the onions in a Weck or Ball jar or some other airtight storage container and pour the remaining brine over the onions.

The pickled onions will last for a couple of weeks in your refrigerator.