Roasted Fennel Dip

My sister often gives me produce from her organic home delivery when she can't finish it all.  When she gave me a huge fennel bulb last night, I knew just what I wanted to make.  A warm Roasted Fennel Dip.  If you love an artichoke dip, try this.

Ingredients

2 fennel bulbs, trimmed and cut into 2" wedges
3 cloves of garlic
3 tablespoons olive oil
Salt and Pepper
1/3 cup plus 2 tablespoons fresh grated Parmesan cheese
1/4 cup mayonnaise

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. In a roasting pan add fennel and whole garlic cloves.  Toss with olive oil and salt and pepper. Roast until fennel is very tender, 20 to 30 minutes. Let cool slightly.
2. Raise oven temperature to 450 degrees. Puree fennel and garlic in a food processor until smooth. Season with salt and pepper, and stir in 1/3 cup cheese and the mayo. Transfer mixture to a 2-cup baking dish, and sprinkle with remaining 2 tablespoons cheese. Bake until dip is hot in center and cheese is golden brown, about 20 minutes. Serve immediately with crunchy french bread or crackers.

Stinging Nettle and Fontina Frittata

Our family has a wonderful cabin on Anderson Island, the southern most island in the Puget Sound.  It's a small cabin overlooking the sound with a cozy fireplace and our go-to place to get away anytime we have a few days and no other plans. The weather was great last weekend so we took a short trip down to Ander.

The long, meandering driveway down to the cabin is lined with stinging nettles. I have memories of being stung quite often when I was little, trying to tromp through the woods making forts or whatever else.

I've been noticing stinging nettles more and more often around in recipes and being sold at farmers markets.  I've been waiting for spring so I could get down to the cabin to be able to forage some of my own nettles.  It's like having a driveway full of organic spinach... why not start eating some of it?

I came home with a bag full of nettles and an itch to make something delicious with them.  I came up with a Singing Nettle and Fontina Frittata recipe.  It was so good, and not too much work to get the stinging out of the nettle: well worth the effort.  Its mild flavor can be used in just about any recipe you would use spinach in. 

Look here for a note about foraging your own stinging nettles.

 Recipe for Stinging Nettle and Fontina Frittata:

1 cup stinging nettles (washed, rinsed, and blanched)
2 Tablespoons butter
1/2 yellow onion thinly sliced
8 Organic brown eggs
3 Tablespoons milk, cream or half &half
3 0z Fontina cheese grated
Salt and Pepper to taste

Let your nettles rinse in a tub of cold water for about 10 minutes.  Place nettles in boiling water for about 3-4 minutes.  Immediately drain and place in a ice water bath.  Squeeze out the remaining water and now you have a ball of wilted sting free nettles.

Adjust top oven rack to be about 6-8 inches from broiler.  Turn on broiler.
Over med-high head add 2 tablespoon of butter in a nonstick or cast iron 10inch skillet. Add onions and cook 3-4 minutes until soft.
Add cooked and blanched nettles and saute another 2 minutes.
Whisk eggs with salt, pepper, and 3 Tablespoons of milk, half and half, or cream.  Add egg mixture to skillet.
On medium high heat, cook the eggs for about 2 minutes, scraping the sides and bottom with a spatula. Stop when the eggs are mostly cooked but still very wet. You want to see cooked egg scattered throughout, but loose egg in between.
Continue cooking on stove for another minute so underside sets.
Sprinkle the fontina on top. Put skillet under broiler. Let cook under broiler for 4-5 minutes or until brown on top and eggs are cooked throughout. 

Lemon and Oregano Marinated Artichoke Hearts

Store bought artichoke hearts are so tasty and versatile, but I started to think how much better they could be made with fresh artichokes, fresh herbs and a few other really quality ingredients. I just planted an herb garden with some really healthy Oregano and I had a bunch of lemons laying around the house so I used that as the base to my marinade. 

Lemon and Oregano Marinated Artichoke Hearts

2 large or 4 small artichokes steamed about 30 minutes and hearts removed.  If your not familiar with cooking Artichokes check out this tutorial.

You can also use 2 8oz packages frozen artichoke hearts.  Cook according to directions on box and then add to marinade.

For the Marinade

1/4 cup Olive Oil
1/4 cup lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon lemon zest
3 tablespoon white wine vinegar
2 cloves of garlic sliced thin
1 pinch of dried chili flakes
1 tablespoon finely chopped Oregano
Salt and Pepper to taste

Mix all ingredients together in a bowl.  Pack two 8-10oz jars full of cooked artichoke hearts.  Pour over marinade to cover all artichoke hearts.

These will be ready to eat in just a few hours and can last up to a few weeks in your fridge.

These are great in pasta, sandwiches or just eaten as is.  Also a great Homemade gift idea too!

I made a simple sandwich of Salumi salami, marinated artichoke hearts, a spread of chevre and arugula drizzling a little of the extra marinade on the bread.

Enjoy!

Cream of Asparagus Soup

Something really wonderful happened this weekend.  The sun came out and the temperature went over 60.  It felt so good to get out and get some things planted in the yard, mow the lawn and let our pasty children play in the sun.  I think I say for most Seattleites that it's spring days like this weekend that we desperately look forward to from January to March, but in this years case, mid April.

The markets are starting to come alive with produce other than Kale and potatoes.  Although the asparagus isn't quite in season here yet our stores are flooded with Asparagus from California.  Since its one of my very favorite veggies, I just couldn't wait to make some Cream of Asparagus soup. 

I made a super simple cream of asparagus soup.  Although the soup was excellent, I though it could use a little crunch so instead of the asparagus tips used to garnish the soup in the recipe, I made some garlic croutons and topped with a little chevre.

Soup recipe from Epicurious.com

Garlic Croutons Recipe:

1 cup of leftover stale french bread cut into 1/2 cubes
3-4 tablespoons olive oil
2 cloves crushed garlic

Heat oil in a skillet.  Once oil is hot toss in the bread crumbs and saute the bread on med high heat until almost golden brown.  Sometimes I add more oil if the bread has sucked it all up.  Depends on how dry your bread is.  Toss in the garlic and cook until a nice golden brown.  Sprinkle with a little sea salt and place croutons on a paper towel to cool. 

Eating Weeds

If you go to the farmers market this weekend, pick up some weed.

I was intrigued by a big bin of a flowering weed at the farmers market today.  "Its called Satin Flower," the girl selling her wares told me.  She had a enthusiastic look on her face and dirty hands like she had dug the stuff out of the dirt right before she came over to talk to me.  "Since I've been eating it, I've had so much energy and I've been jumping out of bed at the crack of dawn every morning."  With that enthusiasm and salesmanship, how could I say no?  I asked her what I should do with it and she said to throw it into a salad or blend it into a smoothie. 

So this week I'm focusing on a Satin Flower salad.  At the same stand I purchased some baby red cabbage and chiogga beets.  Tossed with a little goat cheese, olive oil and salt this salad was so good. Keith said it reminded him of the clover he used to pick out of the grass and eat when he was a kid.  I agree.  It did have that similar taste of clover, nutty grassy and a little sweet.  We'll see how early I pop out of bed tomorrow.

After doing a bit of research on Satin Flower, I found out its more common name is Chickweed.  Chickweed or Satin Flower are used as folk remedy to treat a range of things including skin irritants, metabolism-balancing, asthma and indigestion.  In addition its a great source of vitamin A and C potassium and calcium and many others. 

So if your at the market this weekend or next, pick up some of this little know edible lawn weed gem, or some other green you have never heard of and toss it in a salad. 

Blood Orange and Avocado Salsa

 

Last week I took a very short trip to San Francisco.  Keith was sent there for work so I flew down for a couple of days to visit with some old friends and just have a couple days in SF without kids.  It was really great and refreshing to get away.

I wanted to find a Farmers Market while I was in town.  It was great to see more of a variety in produce, especially all the citrus.  I bought a few pounds of Blood Oranges from Hooverville Orchards in El Dorado County. Very carefully, I carried them home on my lap.

 

I had some avocados left over from the weekly basket waiting for me when I got home.  I thought of a simple salad my mom used to make of grapefruit and avocado and improvised a salsa with that salad in mind.  The Salsa was so good and we paired it with some Pacific Cod to make some delicious and very simple fish tacos.

Blood Orange and Avocado Salsa

2 avocados cut into small chunks
3 blood oranges, sectioned
1/2 red onion, chopped
juice of 1 lime

With the left over blood oranges I made these refreshing Tequila Sunrises.  On a somewhat mild night on the first evening of Daylight Savings time, we ate our fish tacos and sipped our tequila sunrises at 6pm in daylight.  It was comforting to have the feeling that spring is slowly but surely on its way to the Northwest.

 

Blood Orange Tequila Sunrise

Fill glass with ice

2oz Tequila

Juice of about 2 blood oranges

1tblsp Grenadine

Baked Kale Chips

The other day I was hanging out with my great friend Lia and we were talking about what we often talk about: food. How much we spend on it, what our kids will eat and won't eat, new things we've tried or new places we've eaten, etc.  She mentioned wanting to try Kale Chips.  It immediately sounded like something I needed to try.  I went home and searched the Internet for some recipes.  I felt like I was so out of the loop.  I guess Kale chips are a bit of trend I had apparently been missing out on. I never heard of Kale chips before but it looks like everyone else has.

On Saturday I went to the farmers market and chose 2 different kinds of Kale: Italian Kale and Winter Red.

The chips were super easy to make and so delicious.

So Lia, this one's for you. No need to go out and buy that olive oil spritzer ;-)


Recipe for Baked Kale chips

Wash and rinse Kale well.  Its important to make sure your Kale has been dried thoroughly. If you have a salad spinner, that works great but you can also just tap dry with paper napkins or a towel.

Put Kale in a mixing bowl and coat with Olive Oil.
Mix well and season with salt.
Spread out on baking sheet.

 Bake at 350 for about 15 minutes or until brown but not burnt.