Eating In: You say Eggs in a Nest, I say Toad in a Hole

I'll just start off by admitting that I have been calling what I made for Saturday morning breakfast "Toad in a Hole" for, well, since birth I guess. So imagine my surprise when, just now, as I was getting ready to post this recipe, I decide to look up a recipe to see if my winging-it Toad in the Hole was anything like what you're supposed to do when making Toad in the Hole.

Well, lordy me, guess what? Toad in the Hole apparently looks like this:


I can assure you: I did not make Toad in the Hole. But hey, sausage, eggs, puff pastry? YUM. Maybe I'll try that sometime.

What I did make was Eggs in a Nest. You know, when you punch a whole in a slice of Columbia City Campagne bread, butter it, then put the bread into a pan to toast on one side while you get the eggs out of the fridge and, hmm, maybe crumble up some Beecher's cheese and maybe cut up a few scallions.

And then, once the bread is toasted, you flip the bread over and carefully place an egg in the hole and toss on some cheese and scallions and hope your pan isn't too hot because then the egg cooks too fast (you want runny eggs).

And then one last quick flip and voila!
Toad in the Eggs in a Nest. And it was yummy.


[where: 98118]

Increased child hyperactivity linked to food additives

Turns out that that awesome "cheese" that doesn't need refrigeration and those yummy-as-hell "cakes" that don't get hard or dry even after two years on the grocery store shelf probably aren't that good for you.
I know! I'm pissed off and shocked, too.



According to a study conducted at the University of Southampton (linked to on Grinder)

We now have clear evidence that mixtures of certain food colours and benzoate preservative can adversely influence the behaviour of children. There is some previous evidence that some children with behavioural disorders could benefit from the removal of certain food colours from their diet. We have now shown that for a large group of children in the general population, consumption of certain mixtures of artificial food colours and benzoate preservative can influence their hyperactive behaviour.

Sorry, I know that's a real downer. But hey, at least no one's saying babies shouldn't watch TV, right?

Eating In: Fresh Summer Corn Fritters

Local corn was at its absolute peak last week, so I had to get some at the Columbia City Farmers Market. But then what?


I went to my favorite recipe site, Simply Recipes, to see what Elise had in her archives. And I found this recipe for corn fritters. I'm not sure I've ever fritted before, but one look at that recipe (and the pictures) and I knew I was the fritten kind.

I cut the recipe in half since it was just for Ed and me, but after making the fritters and the dipping sauce, we decided that the dipping sauce sucked and that it took away from the pure corn taste. So I made some changes to the recipe. Here's my version.

Fresh Summer Corn Fritters
2/3 c flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp fresh ground pepper
1/2 tsp coriander
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp smoked paprika (optional)
1/4 tsp dried chili flakes

1 egg
juice of 1 lime
1/4 c water
3 scallions, thinly sliced white and green parts
2 large or 3 medium kernels of white corn, cut off the cob
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro, or more to taste
Vegetable or corn oil for frying.

Mix flour, baking powder, salt, pepper and spices together in a large bowl.

In a separate bowl beat egg slightly, then add lime juice and water. Add this mixture to the dry ingredients and beat until smooth.

Mix scallions, cilantro and corn in third bowl, then add to the flour-egg mixture. Stir to coat.



In a wide frying pan or saute pan, add enough oil to coat the bottom of the pan liberally. Heat over medium-high until oil is shimmering. Drop batter in 2 tablespoon portions and press down to flatten, leaving a little room between fritters.

Fry for 2-3 minutes or until bottom is golden brown. Serve immediately with a little sour cream mixted with lime juice and cilantro.

Or do what we did and dig into some of the best tomatoes of our lives (from our garden!!) alongside the fritters.



Awesome summer dinner.

Sunday late-summer boat ride

I love houseboats.







Thanks for the cruise, dad.

Good read on Ruhlman

Russ Parson's showed Michael Ruhlman his ass on the subject of local farming and farmers markets on Ruhlman's blog today. Seriously, he starts out with

Ruhlman, you ignorant slut.

So yeah, it's worth a read.



If you couldn't tell, I'm obsessed with farmers markets (and gardening too), so this is right up my alley. The sustainability of our food supply is one thing, but what I'm more interested in is the subject of food that actually tastes good, ie the difference between the red thing you buy at the grocery store in November and the gorgeous tomatoes you wait and wait and wait for on your tomato plants every summer.

I'm reading Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle right now. In the book, Kingsolver writes about the year that she, her husband and their two children sustained themselves by eating food they grew and raised on their land in Virginia. Reading it makes me wonder: It's the end of summer, our eggplants, tomatoes, beets, carrots, corn, herbs, and squash are all peaking. Could I make a dinner of just food from our garden?

I'm not in the habit of making bread (at all, but especially in summer), so there'd be none. I could make pasta, but first I'd have to buy some eggs and flour, since Ed and I don't have a wheat field or chickens (much to the delight of our neighbors, I'm sure). Beans? Cheese? Anything for protein? Well, um, we aren't quite to the cheese-making point yet.

So the short answer is, sure, but we'd be vegans. Anyways, I'm not going down that road any further (because I'm definitely not giving up cheese, bread and pasta), it's just that Kingsolver's book challenges the reader to wake up from the cucumbers-in-February mentality a bit.

And I'm also thinking, hell, if we at just from what we grew, we sure would be skinny.

Eating Seattle: Skillet Street Food

Ruby and I just returned from an outing to where-the-hell-is-Terry-Street-anyways? to taste what Skillet Street Food was dishing today. I was expecting a long line, but when we got to the shiny, dented Airstream trailor around 12:30 there were just a handful of people--office workers, construction guys, people with babies (me)--milling about, playing bag toss to kill time while their food was cooked.

The menu changes every week or so; the three main lunch dishes on offer today were an almond-crusted chicken sammie with apple-fennel slaw, a burger with bacon jam, blue cheese and arugula, and a chopped salad with tiny bits of peppers, cucumbers, garbonzos and salami. They also had their "poutine," gravy-smothered fries with chopped up bits of white cheddar and fresh parsley.

We ordered three out of four: the burger, the salad and a side of the poutine (with the burger). The burger was rad: loosely bound, nice and tender and just a bit pink. Not sure what's in the jam (probably onions and bacon and fat) but it was great. I would order that burger again in a heartbeat. Didn't love the poutine, but I don't love fries in a puddle of anything but ketchup. And it seemed like the gravy needed something. The chopped salad was fine, but nothing spectacular. I like the one at Pagliacci's just as much. This was good but not worth ordering again.

Dangit, we should've had that chicken sandwich. I watched that thing walk away with lots of folks and regretted not ordering it. The slaw looked awesome.

What impressed me most was the gracious, friendly welcome that we recieved. Josh (Henderson), the cooking half of the operation, stuck his head out to say hello, but Danny (Sizemore)--the guy taking orders--was a delight to chat with while we waited. Or maybe that "delight" was a result of his irresistable "hay shugar" Kentucky accent. Either way, I'll be back.


RELATED: Skillet Street Food opens


[where: 98101]

Rebekah Denn leaves critic job at Seattle P-I, Seattle yawns

Where's the outrage? OK, maybe outrage is too much to ask for in Seattle, but where's the sorta-loud-buzz within the foodie community? Yesterday Rebekah Denn, the first Seattle writer in who-knows-how-long to win a James Beard journalism award (for her restaurant criticism at the P-I) decides to quit writing restaurant reviews less than a year after she's awarded that prize. And it's like a big ol' tree falling in a big ol' forest.

Hello?

Anyone out there?

Buhler?

Denn has decided to step into the food-writing chair left vacant by her former colleague, Hsiao-Ching Chou, who resigned earlier this summer. And in her "coming out" piece yesterday Denn talks about some of her inclinations and her points of view, but what struck a chord for me was what she says at the very end of the article about the collective inferiority complex that Seattle diners and chefs have about their city's food and restaurant scene.

On a visit to New York in May to attend the 2007 James Beard Awards, I found many of the nation's foodnoscenti talking about our fair city with enthusiasm and pleasure, expressing none of the apologetic we're-not-New-York-and-we're- not-even-Vancouver inferiority complex we affect. Yes, we do have a disturbingly large supply here of the phenomenon known as the Mediocre $22 Entrée -- but the same is true in other large cities, New York included. And, lucky us, we have a rich selection of high-quality restaurants if we want to avoid that mediocrity. The food served at the Beard Awards was fabulous and exciting and creatively enlightening, but it was not, with a few exceptions (read: the remarkable Marcus Samuelsson), from a different universe. Our top chefs could have held their own at the dinner tables.

Having lived there and having reviewed restaurants there for three years, I feel very qualified to say that this is absolutely true. But what I find more interesting is that the very indifference, the underdoggish attitude Denn so rightly points about our city is clearly illuminated by the reaction to Denn's resignation.

When the best critic in town quits and nobody seems to care, one might find they've revealed the answer to the question: Why wouldn't she quit?

[where: 98101]

Eating In: Nectarine-Blueberry cobbler

We decided to road-trip to Lake Chelan for Labor Day weekend. Ed's parents were visiting and they're not really city people, and Ed and I needed a little vacation too. Plus, I have 20 years worth of swimming, waterskiing, knee-boarding, hand-stand competitions, putt-putt golf, jumping off "the rock", beach volleyball and flirting with the boys memories of Chelan. Needless to say, I was excited to introduce Ed to my family's favorite summer vacation spot.

I was also excited to go to the little farmers market in Manson, a town that used to be all about apples but is now becoming all about wine. So first thing Saturday morning we headed into "town" (it's 2 blocks long, so...) and were greeted by old bearded men with hands still dirty from picking the apples they were selling. This is my kind of place.

We picked up some corn and tomatillos (I made the prawn-corn-tomatillo dish for dinner that night). Then I happened upon an old couple: She was selling vintage linens and napkins with things like "There's nothing a Washington apple a day won't fix" on them. Her husband was selling gorgeous tree-ripened nectarines and some of his old cast iron pans.

So, you know, I had to get a little of both.

The pan is about 3" deep and has that "we've used this to make everything" look about it that I love about old Creuset pans and much-loved cast iron. I took one look, asked what he used it for ("I use that to fry my chicken") and said "how much?" It was mine in less than a minute.

Then I bought a bag of his nectarines for $3. I was already making blueberry-nectarine cobbler in my head.

Cobbler/crisp/pan-dowdy, etc are all pretty close to the same thing, just with different, sometimes regional names. We've always called it cobbler in my family, whether my mom used bisquick for her topping or whether she did the oatmeal-flour-butter-sugar crust. I prefer the latter, so that's what this had. The recipe below is approximate since I didn't actually use a recipe. The amount of sugar and flour that goes into the fruit mixture really varies widely depending on the type of fruit (juicy fruit requires more flour than, say, apples) and the ripeness (ie, if you've got tart apples you'll be using double than you might for super-ripe nectarines). As always, tasting is a good way to get an idea of how much you need.

Nectarine-Blueberry Cobbler
for fruit mixture:
3 c blueberries
5-6 large ripe nectarines
1/3 c sugar (more or less depending on ripeness)
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 c flour (less if your fruit is less juicy)

for topping:
1 c flour
3/4 c quick oats
3/4 lb (1 1/2 sticks) butter, cubed and kept cold
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 c white sugar
1/2 c brown sugar

Preheat oven to 350F.
Mix all ingredients for fruit mixture in a large bowl and set aside.


Mix flour, oats, salt, and sugars. Add cubed butter, and working quickly, use fingers to rub butter into the flour mixture. You don't want the butter to melt, so try not to let your palms get into the action--keep it just on your fingertips. This doesn't need to be uniform; in fact, it's better if there are some larger chunks. The topping will be like a coarse meal with chunks when it's ready.

Look at the fruit mixture. If there seems to be a lot of liquid in the bowl, pour some of the liquid out and add a touch of flour. Then place fruit in a 9" x 13" glass baking dish. Use your hands to evenly sprinkle the topping onto the fruit.


Bake for 45 minutes to an hour (we had the world's oldest, crappiest oven over there, so I ended up baking for 45 minutes and then broiling the top for a few minutes to get it all nice and crunchy-brown). Let cool for at least a half-hour before serving with vanilla ice cream.