Weekly Dish

make granita! That’s what we’ve been doing at our house, anyway, and it’s keeping the end-of-summer doldrums at bay. For now, anyway. It isn’t that we’re sad to see the change in weather, or the start of school, or new work routines; beginnings are usually exciting to all of us. But they also inevitably mean the endings to other things, and summer, for our little family, is a season we are sad to leave. It affords us the time and space to be together that just isn’t possible during the busy schoolyear, and we relish the long days and later-than-usual nights spent at the park, the water fountain downtown, or just walking in our neighborhood.

We will also be sad when the watermelons are no longer lined up in neat rows beside Mr. Buddy’s Plantation Pecan table at the Farmer’s Market. Josie loves to bend down and touch each round green fruit, until she finds just the right one for us to take home. A whole watermelon goes a long way for just three people, and sometimes, despite our best intentions, we end up with a tupperware container full of cubes that have lost their freshness.

I am happy to report, however, that we do not have to say goodbye to the mushy watermelon when it’s no longer fit for eating plain; this recipe is just the thing to transform past-its-prime mush into summer deliciousness. It also does a number on a melon that, even fresh, is just so-so (which happens sometimes when you let a two-year-old pick the one you take home).

The granita is so simple — just watermelon, lime juice, mint, and a little sugar — but it is a really fun thing to have stashed in the freezer. The mint and lime boost the watermelon flavor with a hint of contrast, and you can add as much or as little sugar as the melon needs, or to suit your taste. You could freeze the mixture in popsicle molds if you have them, but plain old ice trays and a metal baking pan worked just fine too.

We try not to keep junk food in the house, and we often have plain, fresh fruit for dessert, which usually suits us all just fine (well, except for David, who really needs chocolate after dinner to thrive). It is so nice to have a special treat, though, especially for those two-year-old moments, the ones where she’s demanding something completely absurd with all of the drama she can muster (you know, like, “Go go library RIGHT NOW,” when the library, is in fact, closed). Watermelon popsicles make a nice bartering chip. And, a bonus? The ice cubes are also heavenly when placed in a glass with club soda and coconut rum. You know, in case you need to barter with someone older than two.

I can’t believe it, but this week marks the four-year anniversary of this little site. I also can’t believe that I started this blog the exact same week I began a Ph.D. program (did I really think I would need to find something else to do?!) At any rate, I’m grateful to have this record of our time here and a little history of how I’ve grown as a cook. Most of all, though, I’m thankful that this space has brought so many friends, old and new, together over these last years. Many, many thanks to all of you who’ve visited, commented, and cooked from the recipes here; it has brought me much joy to have fellow food-lovers to share my cooking adventures with. When life gives you mushy or mediocre watermelon, may you always find a way to make granita. In our household, we think that can make all the difference.

Watermelon-Lime Granita

Half a medium-sized seedless watermelon, flesh cut into chunks (about 12 cups of loosely packed chunks, yielded about 8 cups of juice)
Juice of 3 limes
handful of mint
about a 1/2 cup sugar (this completely depends on the flavor of the melon)
Dash of salt

In a blender, puree the watermelon chunks in batches. As you finish one blender-full, pour the juice into a 9 x 13 metal baking pan. On the last go-round, add the lime juice, mint, sugar (start with about 1/3 cup), and salt. Stir this batch thoroughly into the pan of juice. Taste. If you need more sugar or lime, transfer a little juice back to the blender to adjust. Continue until it tastes like you’d like to drink it straight, on the rocks (which I highly recommend, especially if you happen to have coconut rum to add). Once you’ve got the taste as you like it, pour off enough juice so that the baking pan is no more than 2/3 full, less if you want it to freeze more quickly.* Place in the freezer, uncovered. Stir every half-hour or so for the first couple of hours, then freeze solid (this takes about 3 hours, but we never make it that long; ours is always a little slushy). Scrape out with a spoon to serve.

*The extras make fun popsicles if you have some spare small plastic or paper cups: just fill, cover with foil, and poke a wooden stick in the center. I made tiny ones for Josie in a plain old ice cube tray (without the sticks).

I started this blog because I wanted a place to write about what I love, a place to record what happens in my kitchen, and a place to share recipes with friends and family and anyone else who might find them useful. Since Josie, it isn’t just that it’s difficult to take the time to write (which it is). It’s that the whole way I cook has changed with a little person around, and I haven’t figured out how to share that process. It’s not necessarily that I cook different kinds of foods; for the most part, Josie eats what we eat, and is happy to do so. It is more about what actually happens during the cooking, a juggling act which involves very little measuring and a good deal of haste; hungry toddlers are grouchy creatures. What that means is that when it’s over each night, I generally have no idea what happened, much less recipe notes or photographs to show for it. If I tried to give you a peek into our kitchen window, most days you’d have to stand on your tiptoes to see over the piles of vegetables, a trail of plastic bowls and cups “washed” by Josie, and the tangle of books, paper, and markers that follow us from room to room. But amidst the mess, cooking is happening every day, which seems like a tiny miracle all by itself.

Corn and tomatoes are farmer’s market staples for our family during the summer months, as I imagine they are for many of you who try to eat seasonally and locally. Sometimes I find myself staring at yet another heaping pile of shiny red globes or tripping over the bag of yet-to-be-shucked corn in the corner of the kitchen wondering how on earth I will ever find a way to use them creatively. To help solve that existential crisis, I’ve been assembling a collection of recipes: a dozen ears of corn and a box of tomatoes (somewhere between 3 and 5 pounds) come home with us every Saturday, and sometimes one or both ingredients will form the center for a whole week’s worth of meals. So I thought I’d share a bit about what some of those meals look like while I remember. With a little extra prep the night before, these dinners are not terribly fancy, but they are economical, fairly easy to make, and the one, unfailing qualification in my kitchen: delicious enough to enjoy for dinner and lunch the next day.

Day One: usually, I try to cook and use the corn as quickly as possible; the farmer I buy it from has picked it the day before, but once harvested, the sugars start to break down, and the corn starts to lose its flavor. (It’s still good after day 3, but best before that). If I want to make a dinner where the main event is the flavor of the corn, that usually happens on Monday. One such recipe that’s all about sweet, fresh corn is a very simple soup.

This recipe is based on Sara Foster’s Summer White Corn Soup. The genius of the recipe is the broth: while you’re preparing everything else, you put a big pot of water on to boil, add the stripped corn cobs, basil stems, onion trimmings, and a palmful of salt. The boiling water leeches out all of the vegetable’s goodness, so that the finished soup tastes of little else but sweet summer corn. I make twice as much as I need for the soup and reserve it for corn and tomato risotto later in the week.

I serve the soup with crusty bread, rubbed with butter and garlic, and a big salad. For company or a special occasion, I like to top the soup with boiled shrimp.

Sweet Summer Corn Soup
–adapted from Sara Foster, Fresh Everyday

6 ears sweet corn, shucked and stripped from the cobs, cobs reserved
1/2 cup milk
1 T. butter
1 T. olive oil
1 sweet onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, chopped
2 small new potatoes, scrubbed and chopped
4 cups corn broth (see method below)
coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
1/2 cup fresh basil leaves, thinly sliced

First, start the broth: in a large stock pot, cover the stripped corn cobs, basil stems, and onion and garlic trimmings with 4 quarts of water. Sprinkle with 2 teaspoons of salt and a couple of grinds of black pepper. Bring to a boil, and then reduce the heat to a simmer. It will reduce quickly, so keep an eye on it; if it reduces by more than half, add more water. You should end up with about 2 quarts of broth.
Meanwhile, put the corn kernels in a small saucepan with the milk. Heat gently over medium heat, just until the milk bubbles and foams. Reduce the heat and simmer for another 5-7 minutes. Set aside to cool.

In a larger saucepan, heat the oil and butter over medium, and add the onion. Cook until very soft and beginning to turn golden, about 15 minutes. Stir in the garlic and cook for another minute or two. Add the chopped potato, 4 cups of broth, and half of the basil. Turn the heat up to medium-high. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, and taste. Add more if it needs it. When it begins to boil, turn it down to a simmer and cook for another 20 or 30 minutes, until the potato is soft enough to mash with a fork.

Next, puree half of the corn-milk mixture in a food processor or blender. Stir the puree into the soup, and add the remaining corn and milk. Salt as needed, and serve with the remaining basil leaves sprinkled on top. The leftover corn broth will keep in the fridge for a week or so, and indefinitely in the freezer.

In an attempt to create some meaningful patterns and routines in what might otherwise be characterized as a chaotic existence, I maintain rigidly to a few, basic rules: 1. no work on Sunday; 2. buy most of my produce from the Farmer’s Market on Saturday, and 3. read for fun before I fall asleep at night and on Sundays when I’m not working. I know, I’m quite the rebel. But when one’s job is to read, for class, for the dissertation, for a conference paper, to reclaim the act of reading for pleasure feels strangely exhilarating. Sometimes, I only make it a few pages in before I’m out cold, but other times, I find myself buried into my pillow until very late, captivated and fighting off sleep to keep reading.

I’ve been an avid reader for most of my life, but contrary to what most people assume about a person getting her Ph.D. in English, I’ve never been one to love the “right” books. I couldn’t get into many of the assigned novels in high school–besides the ones for Mrs. Reynolds, the best English teacher ever–and I’ve always been drawn to a genre that finds little acclaim in the world of high literary theory: the life story, either told as a biography, by someone else, or as a memoir, by the person herself. I think it might have started with Pete Maravich, that famous basketball player whose biography I found on my dad’s bookshelf and who inspired me to spend the better part of a summer trying to learn to dribble everywhere I went (I was spectacularly unsuccessful and took up tennis instead).

However it started, a genre I’ve enjoyed recently has been the food memoir, people who retell part of their life according to what they ate or cooked. Over the holidays, I read Amanda Hesser’s Cooking for Mr. Latte, a lovely (and often self-deprecatingly funny) collection of stories about her relationship with a man first known to the reader as Mr. Latte, and later as Tad. In it, one of the things Hesser learns about herself (and she’s a food writer by trade, so this comes as no shock to the reader) is that she tends to cook new things often, but that she lacks what she refers to as a “repertoire,” a passel of recipes that she cooks really well and is known for. Here, according to Hesser, are the qualifications for a repertoire: “I wanted it to contain recipes that represent who I am, what I find pleasurable, how I live. It should express my true sensibilities as a cook, not my ambition. And all of the dishes should be simple enough that I could make them at a moment’s notice” (190-91).

I’ve never thought of myself as a particular kind of cook before, but after reading that description, I decided that I am one who tends to cook the same dishes again and again until I’ve perfected them, out of habit, yes, but also because I find that I am more intuitive than rule-following in the kitchen, and so the more I make pound cake by feel and by memory, the better the pound cake tastes. It’s one of the reasons I started this site, in fact, to record and share the recipes I know and do best. Not all of the recipes posted here are time-tested, many are records of experiments, but a good many of them are things you might find on our dinner table on any random weeknight.

Because I tend to cook seasonally, with whatever I find the farmers at my market have grown, my repertoire tends to change as one season gives way to the next. A hallmark of any season, however, is soup: in summer, I love to make eggplant and basil bisque; in fall, sweet potato soup often shows up on our weekly menus, and in the winter, there are many, but my favorite is this Italian White Bean Soup. Spring, I’ve realized, is missing a staple soup, and thankfully, Amanda Hesser not only revealed to me what kind of cook I am, she also provided that missing link: carrot and fennel soup.

Both carrots and fennel tend to appear at the beginning of spring in my part of the world, while the oranges are still lingering from winter, so the ingredient list makes this recipe nearly a perfect fit for this time of year. It is also, as luck would have it, a perfect soup for my marriage: David cannot abide the texture of completely pureed soups, but I’m not a fan of overly brothy ones. Pulsing this soup just a few times at the end of cooking gives it a chunky texture we both liked. The flavors are perfectly balanced too. I’ve made it twice in the last two weeks, so I’d say it’s a keeper, especially if these two vegetables keep showing up at the same farmer’s table in the weeks to come. Happy spring, friends!

Carrot and Fennel Soup

–adapted from Cooking for Mr. Latte by Amanda Hesser
The making of stock from the fennel stalks and carrot tops is my addition to the recipe, but I found it added an extra layer of flavor that heightened the carrot-fennel flavor combination. Plus, it’s always handy to have a good vegetable stock in the freezer, and this recipe makes twice as much as you’ll need for the soup. But if you need the soup today, water, or other vegetable stock will work fine too. I wouldn’t use chicken stock, though; the flavor will overwhelm the vegetables.
1 medium, or 2-3 small fennel bulbs with stalks and fronds (should give you about 1 1/2 cups sliced bulb)
1 1/2 pounds carrots, with tops (about 4 cups carrot slices)
Trimmings from: onion, garlic, and/or celery
2-3 quarts water
1 T. coarse salt
cracked pepper, to taste
1 T. butter
1 T. olive oil
3 cloves garlic, sliced thinkly
Juice from one orange (about 1/3 cup)
1/4 cup sour cream, plus more for garnish
Salt and cracked pepper, to taste

First, prep your vegetables and make stock (I do this at least a day before I’m planning to make the soup): Trim the carrots, and peel if necessary (if I buy mine fresh from the farmer, I just scrub them really well), cutting off the green tops and removing the tough ends. Trim the fennel, cutting of the stalks, and removing the feathery fronds. Set fronds aside, and add all other trimmings to a big soup pot. Cover with water, and sprinkle in 1 T. salt and a few grinds of black pepper. Bring to a rolling boil, and let it bubble for 10 minutes or so. Turn the heat down so that the pot is simmering, and let it stew for several hours (I start mine in the morning and turn it off when I start dinner; by the time we’re cleaning up the kitchen at the end of the day, the stock is cool enough to put away). Let it cool, reserving about 4 cups for the soup, and freezing the rest. This should yield about 2 quarts stock.
To make the soup, heat the oil and butter in a big pot. Thinly slice the fennel bulb, and cook over medium heat until very soft and golden. Meanwhile, thinly slice the carrots and garlic. When fennel is changing color and soft, add the carrots and garlic. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the carrots begin to soften. Sprinkle with salt. Cover with 4 cups the stock and simmer until the carrots are very soft, about 20 minutes. Remove from the heat and stir in the orange juice, sour cream, and all but a handful of the fennel fronds (for garnish). Using an immersion blender or a food processor, pulse the soup a few times, leaving some large chunks and an uneven texture. If soup has lost its heat, return to the stove until warm. Serve with a dollop of sour cream and a sprinkling of fennel fronds. We’ve found that a soft nutty whole-grain bread toasted and smeared with goat cheese makes this a delicious and filling dinner.

Whew. What a year. How often I’ve wished that I’d found the time to stop in here and tell you more about it, but, as it turns out, this past year swooped in like a mother cat and snatched us up by the backs of our necks, dragging us from one destination to the next without once stopping to ask us if we were ready to move again.

The number one reason for that constant motion, of course, is that we started 2008 with a docile infant, just learning to crawl, and ended it with a toddler who runs full-throttle everywhere she goes, laughing gleefully or shouting, “No, no!” at the top of her lungs, depending upon her mood and whether or not the cat is doing something that displeases her (poor Matilda, our little black kitty who joined our family in the spring; it seems she can do nothing right as far as Josie is concerned.) The presence of a toddler makes our days full and chaotically busy and delightful and maddening all at the same time. And that’s without adding in work and school.

One happy obstacle completed in 2008: I passed my General Exams and am now, officially, a candidate for the Ph.D., a distinction known in the academic world as A.B.D. (all but dissertation). The dissertation is a big, momentous thing looming ahead, but it is only one thing. And since I’m a girl who likes to pour my intellectual concentration wholeheartedly into one, focused job at a time, that feels like a huge relief. For now, our immediate task ahead, is for David to finish his thesis show and graduate (hooray!) with his M.F.A. in May. I can’t wait.

In the midst of all of this, I am, slowly, learning how to be a cook in this still-new parent-teacher-student life, and I hope to occasionally document the ways that this season is changing how dinner gets on the table (as it still manages to do, miraculously). One way is that we always have good eggs in our refrigerator. At our local farmer’s market, eggs are such a hot commodity that if you aren’t there promptly at 8 a.m. when the bell rings signaling the start of business, you’re usually out of luck. It’s one of the only days of the week we’re thankful to have an early riser: Josie gets us there on time, and usually, we come home with eggs.

And it’s a good thing: they have sustained us through many, many a long week. This preparation is one of my favorites for when we have an abundance of Swiss chard in our garden, which, this year has been pretty much all the time, save the hottest months of the summer. You poach the eggs right in the pan with the greens, so it’s a one-dish meal, and except for the cooking of the eggs, it’s a fairly lazy method: the onions can be left alone for a while to carmelize, and then the greens can wilt at their lesiure after that. Chard is laden with nutrients, but the flavor can be a bit astringent; in this dish, the bitterness is all lost beneath the cloak of creamy yolks and buttery onions. It’s a particularly satisfying meal on a cold night, a warming end to a long day. Or year, as the case may be.

Eggs in a Nest
I found this idea in Barbara Kingsolver’s book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, the informational and interesting story of her family’s move to a farm and conversion to locally grown food; you can find more recipes and information on the book’s website. It’s a great read, particularly if you’re interested in how we eat affects the world around us, and one of my favorite parts is that Kingsolver’s college-aged daughter, Camille, contributes recipes and meal plans at the end of each chapter. This recipe is an adaptation of her version.
1 large bunch Swiss chard, or other leafy green
1 large, or 2 small sweet yellow onions, coarsely chopped
1 T. olive oil
1 T. butter
3 cloves garlic
Coarse salt and cracked pepper
6 eggs
1-2 tablespoons heavy cream (optional)

Remove the stems from the chard leaves and wash all very, very well. Wrap the leaves in dishtowels to dry and set aside.

In a large skillet, heat the oil and butter together over medium. Chop the onions and chard stems into pieces roughly the same size, and dump into the skillet. Stir occasionally, but let them cook until the onions are brown and very, very soft, about 20 minutes. In my opinion, the flavor of the dish comes from well-caramelized onions, so don’t skimp on the time here; if you need longer, say because you’re bathing a baby or something, you can always reduce the heat and let them continue to get all golden and yummy. They’re pretty forgiving as long as the heat isn’t high enough to scorch them.

While the onions are cooking, roughly chop the chard leaves; I like to roll them into long skinny cylinders and slice them into thin ribbons, but whatever works for you.
Once the onions turn brown, season with salt and pepper, and add the garlic. Cook for another minute or two and dump in the leaves. Stir to coat with the onion mixture until the leaves are wilted. Turn the heat down to medium-low.
Make six depressions in the greens, each large enough to hold an egg. Carefully break an egg into each depression, making sure to keep the yolks in tact. Spoon a tiny amount of cream over each egg. Cover and cook the eggs for 4-6 minutes, depending on the size of your eggs and how well-done you like your yolks. When done, sprinkle a little coarse salt over all. We like to serve ours with biscuits or hearty whole grain toast.

If anyone is still out there checking in from time to time, I wish you and yours a full and happy 2009. Thank you for bearing with me as life has swept me away from this space for longer and longer periods of time; it means a lot when I hear from one of you to know that a recipe has been useful or that you’re visiting for the first time. I hope you and I both will have many reasons to return this year.

Yes, that’s snow! In southern Louisiana!

Not many people envy the suffocating August heat that cloaks southern Louisiana in a perpetual swirl of steam — of this much, I am sure. But with that steamy heat comes another sort of coat, a wild, hairy, green one. As the sun and rain work their steamy magic, the growing things in these parts seem to go a bit mad. The jasmine vines on our deck appear to grow inches overnight, the basil replenishes its pinched stems within what seem like hours, and the grass erupts in a wild, verdant party every few days or so, despite the best efforts of my lawn-tending husband. The green simply cannot be stopped.

Josie, for her part, is happiest to join right into the green chaos, scampering to the door first thing in the morning, itching to get outside and dig in the dirt. She is so clearly her father’s daughter.

What this means for cooking of course, is that it needs to be both quick (too hot for stove-standing) and alive; our bodies seem to long for food that echoes the green of the ground. One of the simplest ways we’ve captured that greenness lately is with this so-easy preparation for green beans — blanched to slightly soften their crunch, and then tossed with butter, toasted cashews, and honey. Salty and sweet, with that fresh-from-the-garden bite, these beans often find themselves alongside other simply prepared vegetables for a veritable summer garden feast at our house. They also make a lovely heat-of-the-afternoon snack, rewarmed from the fridge, and excellent fodder for a baby learning to explore all kinds of foods.
In any case, I am happy to be taking enough breaks from exam-writing to enjoy the lush end-of-summer growth outside my backdoor, even if just to watch my daughter play in the dirt. I hope one day she will learn to coax living things from it like her dad does. Maybe she’ll even be in charge of our first crop of green beans. Until then, at least she’s happy to eat them.

Green Beans with Cashews and Honey

1 pound fresh green beans
3 T. butter
1/2 cup salted cashews, coarsely chopped
2 T. honey
Coarse salt, to taste

Wash the green beans and snap off the tough ends. Blanch in salted boiling water for just a few minutes, no more than 5. Drain the beans and set aside.

Melt the butter over medium heat, swirling to prevent burning. When it starts to turn the slightest bit golden, add the cashews and cook, stirring, for several minutes, until the nuts are fragrant and beginning to brown. Add the honey, and stir until it melts, another couple of minutes.
Return the beans to the pot, stirring to coat evenly with the sauce. Sprinkle with coarse salt and serve immediately.

–From Come On In! Recipes from the Jackson Junior League, Jackson, MS

Did you have black-eyed peas and cabbage for your New Year’s meal? We did — twice, in fact; once, prepared by some friends who invited us over on the actual first, and Thursday too, because I had already bought the fixings for the traditional peas, cabbage, and cornbread.

This might sound strange to those who know me well, as I have never been a lover of either peas or cabbage. I have learned to fix them to my liking, though, mostly because my husband loves them so — the cabbage, I braise with a green apple and red onion, while the peas get a more Tex-Mex treatment: garlic, jalapeno, cumin, and chile powder. Perhaps not as traditional as it could be, but a definite improvement for me and my finicky relationship with both legumes and cruciferous vegetables.

Even if I have learned to like them this way, the whole time I was braising the cabbage and stirring the peas this year, I couldn’t stop thinking about salad. Oh, yes, it was in the twenties outside, frigid for this part of the world, even in January. And I enjoyed my hot meal of cabbage, peas, and cornbread, which we topped with poached eggs, just fine. After it was over, though, I was still thinking about what those ingredients would taste like in salad form, despite the chill in the air.

So salad it was, for dinner last night, a panzanella of sorts, modified with southern ingredients, particularly those considered lucky to eat on the first of the year. The pepper jelly vinaigrette softened the cornbread croutons and jazzed up the cabbage, while the goat cheese melted into the creamy peas in a way I wouldn’t have expected (I’m imagining the peas in dip form, blended with goat cheese…) to make a salad that was surprisingly tasty. In case you have some of these spare parts rumbling around in your fridge, post-New Year’s, here’s a delicious way to use them up. And it just might make you doubly lucky to boot.

New Year’s Cornbread Panzanella with Hot Pepper Jelly Vinaigrette

These proportions will make two dinner-sized salad. If you have a heartier eater on your hands, I think bacon or ham would work well to up the caloric anty; a poached or fried egg would also sit nicely atop this meal.

2 cups cornbread, cut into cubes
Olive oil
1 cup black-eyed peas*, cooked and cooled
1 T. red onion, finely chopped
2 cups green cabbage, sliced into ribbons
1 ounce goat cheese
Hot Pepper Jelly Vinaigrette (recipe follows)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Toss the cornbread cubes with olive oil and toast them in the hot oven for about 20 minutes (or as long as it takes to chop everything else and mix up the dressing).

To assemble: lay the cabbage ribbons in a single layer on two plates. Top each pile of cabbage with cornbread croutons, peas, and red onion. Divide the goat cheese into two equal portions, and crumble it on top of each salad. Drizzle with dressing.

*I used frozen peas that had been cooked in water for about 25 minutes, but I think leftover peas, cooked as you like them, would work too.

Hot Pepper Jelly Vinaigrette

1 clove garlic, minced
3 T. hot pepper jelly
1/4 cup cider vinegar
Squeeze of lemon
1/4 cup olive oil
Salt, to taste

Whisk together the garlic, pepper jelly, vinegar, and lemon. Pour in the oil in a slow steady stream, whisking vigorously until well-incorporated. Salt to your liking.

That’s about the extent of what I had on hand one day last week when I set about trying to rustle up some sort of afternoon snack to tide me over until dinner.

It had been one of those proverbial days. Starting at about 3 a.m., Josie had decided to have a little party in her crib. She does this occasionally — wakes up happy and talking and usually puts herself back to sleep — and this particular middle-of-the-night affair sounded like it would be no different. But, what began with sweet-sounding coos gradually escalated to all-out screams. Not crying screams, mind you; the child was still gleefully happy. But we live in a very small two-bedroom house, and at 3 in the morning, that kind of volume carries quite an eye-opening kick. I was convinced that I would find at least two or three more babies in the bed with her contributing to the noise level when I walked into her room. Whatever she was so delighted about she was determined to share with her parents, and it took a joint effort of feeding, rocking, and walking around from the two of us to calm her down and get her to go back to sleep, only to be awakened by her again by 5:30. At this point, it was clear she was ready to be up for good.

From there, the day tumbled into the sort of managed chaos that life with an infant sometimes is: it happened to be Wednesday, when David is gone from 10 in the morning until 10 at night; Josie, after her early-morning performance spent the rest of the day in and out of the exhausted fussing that always follows an out-of-the-ordinary night; and I spent the entire day grading one student’s paper. Josie took no naps to speak of, and when I finally put a grade at the end of the essay response I had been composing since 7 that morning, it felt like quite an accomplishment.

By the time the late afternoon rolled around, she and I were both tired and cranky, and, since she had needed more attention than usual, I could barely remember what I’d had to eat and was starving. The prospect of waiting until David returned for dinner seemed unimaginable, but I still needed something to get me through the next few hours until Josie would (hopefully) go to bed.

When it comes to dinner, I am good at planning, mostly because I’ve been in the habit for so long now. As those of you who remember my marker board posts know, I make a meal plan on Saturday mornings after we get home from the Farmer’s Market, we go to the grocery store for whatever else we need, and the marker board on the side of the fridge tells me what to make every night for the rest of the week. Before I had Josie, the rest of our eating just sort of happened; I kept cereal or oatmeal for breakfast, and we’d either have leftovers or grab something on campus for lunch. Snacks weren’t on my radar at all, save a piece of fruit here and there or the occasional bag of potato chips David would sometimes bring home.

Providing all of the nutrients for a whole other being has, predictably, changed my appetite, and if I thought I was hungry when I was pregnant, that was nothing compared to what my body demands now that I am nursing. It’s not that I eat that much more, in terms of quantity, but I certainly have to eat more often, which translates into having more food choices on hand. Some weeks I do better about remembering to think about snacks than others, but we’re in a seasonal fruit lull right now, which is my usual between-meal sustenance when there’s nothing else. I am also, of course, trying to be conscious of the nutritive value of everything I consume; making the most of my calorie intake was obviously important when I was growing Josie inside my body, but now that I can actually watch her little body become healthy and strong, I am even more aware of how significant the food I take in really is. That may sound stressful, but it isn’t something I spend a lot of time worrying about, I just try to make good food decisions.

On the particular day I found that can of beans in my pantry, though, I have to tell you that I think I might have consumed almost anything I had found that was readily available to be eaten. We are not in the habit of buying pre-packaged junk food, and it’s a good thing, because if, somewhere in the depths of my kitchen shelves, I’d stumbled across a box of Hostess cupcakes, I might well have eaten the whole box in one sitting.

Instead, Josie and I marched out the back door, gathered enough basil for a quick batch of pesto, and I made some semblance of this bean dip, tossing a few other ingredients into the food processor in the precious few moments I had between feedings, diaper changes, and entertaining an off-schedule, fussy baby. Perhaps it was the sheer force of my growling stomach, or maybe it was the fact that Josie sat happily in her little green seat outside for a full 30 minutes while I ate and relaxed for the first time all day, or it’s possible that I was so grateful for a stretch of time to actually savor, rather than inhale, my food. Whatever the reason, if you’d asked me at that specific moment, I would have told you this dip was the best snack I’d ever tasted.

Since that day, I’ve made the dip twice more, taking the time to actually measure the quantities and photograph it, and, although, I can’t say that it tasted quite as good as it did on that first day (thankfully, I haven’t had another one of those days!) it’s provided many an afternoon of a healthful, filling snack, smeared on whole wheat crackers, or as a dip for carrots or radishes. We’ve also spread it on our sandwiches and used it as a quesadilla filling. I love the fact that it’s creaminess comes from something healthful and protein-laden, and I can see endless possibilities for what you could use to flavor the white bean base. For now, though, I’m planning to stick with my original impulse, at least until the basil sends out its last fragrant green leaves of the season.

This recipe certainly is not earth-shattering in its inventiveness, and I’m sure it’s not terribly original, but these are days of creative utilitarianism around our house, and in the capacity of healthy, hearty snack food, this is a dip that does its job.

At the end of the day this dip first made its way out of the pantry and into my stomach, Josie went peacefully to sleep, dinner somehow got made, and I eventually got to climb into my bed and close my eyes. And, as a happy surprise, when I laid my head on the pillow and asked myself the question all mothers of small children must ask at the end of harrowing days — “Now, what, exactly did I do today?” — this bean dip came to mind. A small victory, yes, but a tasty one. And just in case one of those days happens along your path in the near future, a victory I gladly pass along.

White Bean Pesto Dip

1 15-ounce can cannelini beans, drained
2 cloves garlic
2 T. prepared basil pesto
1 T. olive oil
Juice of half a lemon
1/2 t. sea salt

Pulse the garlic in the bowl of a food processor fitted with a steel blade. Add everything else and process until well-mixed but still chunky.

Right after Josie was born, friends in our life brought us food. An age-old expression of community, in many cultures, neighboring women gather around a new mother to tend to the household chores — cooking and cleaning while Mom gets to know her new baby. My mother and sister stayed a few days after Josie’s birth, and I was fortunate to have my husband here all the time — he too is on an academic schedule and so was off for the summer. Still, figuring out what to make for dinner was not exactly the first thing on our minds, so after my mom left, meals prepared by other hands were a huge help.

The first week, my Aunt Anne, who lives in Baton Rouge, brought a big pot of chicken and dumplings, which she calls love food. And they were: homey and warm and delicious, they fed us for nearly a week, and I swear, I could feel my body healing as I ate them. The next week, our friend Kathryn rallied the troops from our Sunday School class to provide meals.

When we lived in Jackson, as one of the only childless couples in a Sunday School class for young marrieds, we cooked a lot of food for new parents. I loved doing it: not only do you get to meet a need for someone, but you also get to go and hold a brand new baby. In fact, I often signed up to take food to people I didn’t know very well, and we met some of our best friends that way. What I didn’t know then is how important that service is: when you’re exhausted and physically recovering and emotionally focused on figuring out how to be parents, food cooked by someone else just tastes better. It becomes more than just physical sustenance; to be really cliche, it ministers to your soul.

And, so, when Kathryn showed up with a simple grilled chicken salad right when my body was craving something green and fresh, and Felicia and Ed dropped off a homey casserole just in time to feed us for a whole weekend, and Sarah brought Italian food the day I had been dreaming of the perfect marinara (which hers was), I felt overwhelmed with love — all through the food I put into my body.

It was more than that, of course — all of these people are dear to us, and it is a wonderful thing to hand over your newborn baby to a friend and watch as she holds the baby’s face close to hers to smell that new baby smell or kisses the top of your baby’s still-soft head or touches tiny fingers and tiny toes in awe of the miracle of new life.

In fact, one of our first friends to bring dinner is one we met through her new baby. Our first Sunday at a new church in a new city, nearly 2 years ago, we sat in front of a couple with a tiny little baby girl wrapped in a beautiful blanket. I will never forget that Sunday because as we walked to the front of this strange sanctuary for communion, I found myself standing right beside this woman and her baby. And I couldn’t take my eyes off of that little face — with the light streaming in from the stained glass windows, she looked like an angel. And, so after the service was over, the couple introduced themselves, and we exchanged phone numbers and, since then, Billy and Garland have become some of our dearest friends.

So, when Garland arrived with black bean quesadillas and a huge container of wonderful, fresh salsa, I wanted to cry — it was just our kind of food, which she knew, and it felt like the continuity in a great big circle of community. When their daughter, Wilhelmina, was a newborn and we were just beginning our friendship with them, David and I kept the baby a few times and cooked for them a few times, and tried to make sure they were occasionally getting out of the house without the little one in tow. Walking with them through the first year of Wilhelmina’s life prepared us for parenthood in ways we couldn’t have imagined at the time: we’ve watched them figure out what to feed her as she started on solid food, how to manage discipline and bedtime routines and, most recently, potty training. Since Josie has been here, they have loved us in so many tangible ways — we have their car seat and their infant swing and their batting gym and plastic bins full of Wilhelmina’s adorable clothes.

A couple of weeks ago, on a Sunday when the temperature had nearly reached 100 degrees, our air conditioner went out. Spoiled as we are by modern conveniences, being stuck in a small house with windows that are painted shut and a sweaty 3-month-old felt like a major catastrophe. After a couple of hours as the thermostat inside climbed towards the 90-degree mark, we called Billy to see if Josie and I could come over for a while to cool off. Garland was out of town, so Billy had Wilhelmina by himself, and Garland’s sister and her daughter were also staying at their house. In the midst of all of that, he persuaded us to come and stay until the air conditioner got fixed. He changed the sheets on their bed, set up a portable crib for Josie in their room, and insisted that we make ourselves at home.

That kindness is the sort that, even after you’ve known someone for a long time, still manages to be surprising and remarkable — perhaps because it is so rare in a culture of busyness and self-sufficiency. It is also the sort that gets communicated in the gifts of food. Long after Garland’s satisfying meal, I found myself thinking about it, especially the salsa. I’m sure partly because nursing a baby causes your body to crave good, fresh, real food. But also, I think, I also craved the care that went into making it: the thoughtfulness it took for Garland to know me well enough to know that I would love it.

And, so I’ve recreated it in a myriad of variations, depending on what I have on hand and what I’ve found at the farmer’s market. Each time I do, it tastes better — not as good as I remember hers tasting, but really good still — packed with fresh, clean flavors and a healthy dose of the sweet memory of kindness.

Exactly what friendship — and the food it brings — should taste like.

Peach Salsa

2 ripe peaches, diced
2 avocados, diced
1 bunch cilantro, rough chopped
2 hot peppers (I used hot banana peppers here, but I’ve also used jalapenos), finely chopped (I leave the seeds for spice, but if you’re sensitive to heat, remove them before chopping)
1 small cucumber, finely chopped
1/4 cup finely chopped red onion (about 1/4 of a medium one)
Juice of 1 lime
Sea salt, to taste

Toss together the peaches, avocados, peppers, cucumber, and onion. Squeeze the lime juice over and sprinkle with sea salt. Toss gently to combine. Serve with chips or quesadillas. I imagine it would also be a nice accompaniment to grilled fish or shrimp.

*Ivonne and Lis are hosting the second annual Festa al Fresco; this salsa would be the perfect thing to take to an outdoor gathering. But, I’ll have to warn you, here in Louisiana, a virtual patio party is the only kind I’d be willing to attend: it is still way, way too hot to spend more than the time it takes to get from front door to car outdoors. But, if I were in Toronto…that would be a different story.

I love Sundays. A day of rest is such a fabulous idea, really. Especially in the hubbub of daily chaos that is our current culture, purposeful slowing down is a good, good thing.

Want to know one of the best side benefits of having a baby? You are forced, for a time, to take life slowly. To curb your daily obligations in favor of tending to the basic needs of an infant is to live, for all intents and purposes, in a season of Sundays. If the baby wakes early, you feed her. When she needs to go back to sleep, you crawl into bed and sleep right along with her. If she falls asleep in the hammock on your chest, you close your eyes and drift off for a few minutes too. You don’t stray far from home, venturing out a few places now and again just to stretch your legs and make sure you are still able to interact with the outside world, but for the most part, you curl up in your cozy nest and you hibernate with your young.

Now, of course I realize that not everyone with a newborn would consider the first few months of a baby’s life to be exactly restful. And moms of more than one child, of course, probably never rest with a new baby around. But, as luck would have it, my little one apparently came into the world understanding that her busy parents were in dire need of slower paced days.

What that has meant for our eating habits is that we sometimes dine at seemingly random times, lunch at 3:00 in the afternoon after Josie has gone down for a long nap, dinner occasionally after 9 because that’s when she’s gone to bed for the night, etc. Out the window too are traditional notions of what to eat when: breakfast food, for instance, appears on our table at all hours.

Especially eggs. In the category of quick meals that provide maximum nutritional value for the preparation time involved, eggs rank high on my list. Particularly for those of us who eat meat infrequently (or not at all), eggs provide a highly valuable source of protein, which my body has craved since I’ve been breastfeeding.
Plus, I happen to be married to a man who prepares consistently perfect fried eggs exactly as I like them.

Recently, my friend Jessica and her husband acquired three lovely chickens, named Olive, Kiwi, and Sunny, and they brought us some of their eggs. If you’ve never had fresh eggs, the difference in taste, color, and general consistency from the standard supermarket ones is remarkable, especially when the egg is the center of attention.

For one of our many late nights of breakfast-for-dinner, I put David to work frying the eggs Jessica brought, while I whipped up mushroom duxelles, a fragrant paste of mushrooms, shallots, and a smidgen of cream and sherry. We each laid our contributions atop slices of toasted homemade honey whole wheat bread, sprinkled the whole mess with chives from the garden, and sat down to a rich and earthy dinner put together in less than an hour.

Now, could we spend more time preparing our meals? Of course, and we sometimes do. But we also like the option of eating well with a minimum amount of fuss — not because we’re too busy or too tired. Rather, we are content to enjoy the rest this season of life is affording us, and while there are times that part of that enjoyment means dawdling in the kitchen for hours at a time when Josie is napping, there are just as many times that I would just as soon curl up beside her and listen to her breathe, leaving dinner to be worried about later. Either way, it is still possible to eat healthy and delicious food — which a body needs to rest properly, after all.

Mushroom Duxelles with Fried Eggs on Toast

To prepare the duxelles, I consulted two sources: Julia Child for authenticity and The Joy of Cooking for a slightly updated version. Both have strict instructions for squeezing all of the liquid out of your mushrooms before cooking them, and if you want a true paste, you should not skip this step. I was not so concerned with the consistency, so I pressed as much liquid out of the food-processed mixture as I could (through a mesh sieve), but I didn’t spend too much time squeezing the mushrooms in a towel, as both books suggest.

For the duxelles:

Half a pound (or 2 cups) of mushrooms (I used a mixture of baby portabellos and cremini)
3 T. butter
1 shallot, minced
1 T. sherry (optional, but highly recommended)
2 T. heavy cream
Sea salt, to taste

Mince the mushrooms in a food processor with a steel blade as finely as possible. Dump the mixture into a fine mesh sieve and press out the liquid, being careful not to lose any of the mushroom bits. Meanwhile, heat the butter over medium heat and add the shallots. Saute until translucent but not brown and add mushroom mixture. Cook, stirring, until the mushrooms are brown and fragrant and the skillet is almost dry. Sprinkle with salt. Turn up the heat to medium-high and stir in the sherry. Stir and cook until it evaporates, then add cream and turn the heat down to medium-low. Continue to cook and stir until the mixture has absorbed the cream and is a thick, brown paste. Taste and salt as needed.

For the toast and eggs for two:

Toast 2 thick slices of toast and butter lightly. Lay each slice on a plate. Spread some of the mushroom duxelles on each slice of bread. Fry 4 eggs (or 2, if you only want one per serving), and lay 2 eggs on top of each piece of toast. Top with more mushrooms and sprinkle with fresh chives (or other herb — rosemary or thyme would be nice too) and coarse salt. Serve immediately.

The leftover duxelles can be used any number of ways: filling for a calzone or an omelet, base for a pizza, or spread for foccacia bread. One morning we mixed it in with scrambled eggs and pesto, and that worked too. It will keep in the fridge for a couple of weeks.

As I have written here before, I do not winter well. Granted, I do not live in a climate with an especially long or harsh winter, but perhaps the perception of the deep south as a relatively warm place tricks me into thinking that I shouldn’t have to suffer winter at all. Adding to the illusion, cold weather doesn’t really kick in here until after Christmas, so I come up from a brisk, chilly holiday season thinking that spring should soon be on its way.

Only, I’d better get through January and February first. This winter has been especially cold and wet — it rained and stayed below 40 degrees every day for the first three weeks of the spring semester — but I’d braced myself to be prepared. After all, aren’t pregnant women chronically hot? I’m afraid carrying an extra person around with me has not made the wet chill in the air easier to endure as I’d hoped.

Just when I thought I could duck beneath the covers and stay until April, the Japanese magnolia in our front yard burst into purple and white blooms, showering the ground beneath with a welcome carpet of petals quietly announcing that the end must be near. Armed with this tiny bit of hope for warmer weather, I determined to make it through the next few weeks of blustery cold. To get me through and provide sustenance for our growing little family, David and I got into the habit of making soup on Sundays.

A fitting winter Sunday afternoon project, making soup requires leaving the stove on for hours at a time and ends with comfort food to last through the week. If you are just barely surviving winter where you are, I highly recommend this seasonal therapy. For me, it accomplishes several things at once: it warms me as I cook it, it warms me when I eat it, and it provides food for us on the nights when I just want to come home, put on my pajamas, and crawl into bed without standing over the stove. Soup has surely saved us from many a night of take-out (although we’ve had our share of those too). If you’re hankering for a warm bowl of something to tide you over until spring, head over to A Veggie Venture, where Alanna has been collecting soup recipes all month long.

This tortilla soup, adapted from the Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook, is not particularly difficult, although it does require a few preliminary steps before you throw everything into the pot to simmer. The complexly layered flavors reminds me a bit of a hot gazpacho: fresh with garlic and onions, rich with tomatoes and broth, smoky with the heat of the dried chilies. The onions and garlic I used were especially pungent; next time I make it, I might saute half of them to soften their bite just a bit.

A word about the dried chilies: the Lees call for a combination of anchos or mulatos and pasilla or guajilla chilies. I couldn’t find either of the latter two, so I substituted another dried hot variety, chiles de arbol. If you can’t find any dried chilies at all, I would recommend substituting roasted ones (poblanos would work well, I think, combined with a hotter pepper like a habanero or a serrano). Canned chipotles would also add an interesting note of smokiness and heat.

Whatever you do, don’t skip the toppings — they make the soup, in my opinion.

Vegetarian Tortilla Soup
2 cups corn or canola oil
4 whole dried chiles ancho (or other sweet-smoky pepper)
4 whole dried chiles de arbol (or other hot pepper)
10 soft yellow corn tortillas
Ground cumin
Chile powder
Seasoned salt
5 cups vegetable broth (you can substitute chicken broth for a non-veg version)
1 28-ounce can chopped tomatoes, with liquid
1 large yellow onion, diced
6 cloves garlic, chopped,
Kosher salt, to taste
Cracked black pepper, to taste

Toppings:
1/4 cup buttermilk
1/4 cup sour cream
zest and juice of 1 lime
1/4 t. chile powder
1/4 t. seasoned salt
Cilantro, chopped
Avocado, sliced

Heat about an inch of the oil in a soup pot. While the oil heats up, prepare the dried chiles: slit each one down its side, remove the stem and seeds, and cut into large pieces. (Kitchen shears are well-suited for this job). Add the chile pieces to the hot oil in batches, toasting for about a minute per batch. They should be a little soft and fragrant. Remove with tongs to a plate and set aside.

Add the rest of the oil to the pot and heat to about 350 degrees (medium-high on my electric stove). Meanwhile, cut 6 of the tortillas into thin strips; leave the remaining 4 whole. Line a plate with paper towels. Fry the whole tortillas one at a time for about 1 minute per side, or until crisp. Remove to paper towel-lined plate and season immediately with cumin, chile powder, and seasoned salt. Repeat with tortilla strips, which will crisp faster. Discard the oil.

To the pot (I used the same one), add 2 cups of broth, diced onions, chopped garlic, and the canned tomatoes and liquid. Sprinkle with a palmful of Kosher salt. Bring to a boil. Add the toasted chiles. Crumble in the whole tortillas. Simmer (bubbles just below the surface) until the liquid has reduced by about a fourth, about 10-15 minutes. At this point, you’re going to puree the soup in a blender. Here’s what I recommend: pour the hot soup into the blender and let it sit for a few minutes to cool.

Meanwhile, you can prepare the toppings: stir together the buttermilk, sour cream, lime zest and juice, and seasonings. Wash and chop the cilantro and/or green onions. Slice the avocado. Get out some bowls.

When you think the soup is cool enough not to explode your blender, place a dish towel over the top of the blender, and pulse a few times. If it appears to be behaving, puree until smooth. Return the pureed soup to the pot, add the remaining broth, and bring back to a simmer. Serve with a dollop of the lime cream, a handful of cilantro, slices of avocado, and a fistful of tortilla strips. Be warm and think lovely thoughts of a coming spring!

PS: Thanks to all who have sent pregnancy encouragement my way; your thoughts and words of kindness have brightened many a dreary, tired day!