I realize that I have been kind of lack in posting recently. I had all intentions of posting well before this, but things happen. On Friday, I confess, I just wasn’t in the mood to sit in front of the computer and write. On Saturday we threw a little party here. Nothing crazy; ribs, baked beans, cole slaw, etc. The problem lay in the fact that on that day I was introduced to Jeremiah Weed Sweet Tea Vodka. Mixed with lemonade it tastes just like an “Arnold Palmer” and you don’t realize just how much booze you have consumed until it is too late. So even if I wanted to post on Saturday be very thankful that I didn’t as I’m sure that anything I would have written would have been total gibberish!!! And well, Sunday…let’s just say I didn’t have a whole lot of motivation on Sunday and leave it at that. That brings me to today, and now I am guiltily posting what should have been posted days ago.

In our CSA box (now 1 1/2 weeks ago) we received another bunch of spinach. Now I know there are all sorts of novel things to do with spinach, but I have fond memories of Wilted Spinach Salad as a kid. It was the only way I would eat spinach. I wouldn’t touch the canned or frozen stuff if my life depended on it. Even today the thought of canned spinach makes me gag and while I do often use frozen spinach I only use it if it is an ingredient in a recipe. If I am sauteing spinach it has to be fresh or forget it. But as I kid I was even more prejudiced against spinach and Wilted Spinach Salads were the only way I’d eat the stuff. I’ve long gotten over my fear of fresh spinach, but still, every summer when fresh spinach is in season my favorite way to eat the stuff is loaded with bacon, onion and hard boiled eggs, all dressed in a sweet, smoky, warm dressing.

The key to a good Wilted Spinach Salad is to get just the right amount of wilt to it. Some people add so much hot dressing and end up literally cooking the spinach completely, while others I’ve had have been barely dressed with lukewarm dressing. I found the trick is to dress the salad a bit at a time, tossing between each addition. This way you control the amount of dressing and how much the salad will wilt. As for how hot the dressing should be. Once the dressing boils and the sugar dissolves, remove from heat and as soon as the dressing stops bubbling, start drizzling it over the greens but again, go slow or you will end up cooking your spinach which is not the goal here.

You will also notice I use 2 kinds of onions, both red onion and those canned fried onions. I love onion and those fried things are one of my secret indulgences. If you don’t like onions as much as I do you can leave one, or both, of those ingredients out.

Wilted Spinach Salad
serves 4 as a side salad or 2 as a main course salad

3 slices bacon (preferably thick cut) cut into 1/4″ strips
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup malt vinegar (you can use any variety of vinegar, but I prefer malt, sherry, or cider vinegar for this dressing)
1/2 cup salad oil
1/4 tsp. toasted sesame oil (optional)
1 pound fresh spinach leaves, stems removed
1/4 red onion, thinly julienned
3 hard boiled eggs, peeled and sliced*
1/3 cup canned fried onion rings (Durkee is the most popular brand)

In an nonreactive skillet fry the bacon until brown and crispy. Remove the bacon from the pan, leaving the bacon fat behind, in the pan. Add the sugar, vinegar and both oils. Stir constantly and allow the dressing to come to an easy boil. Remove from heat. Place spinach, both onions, sliced eggs and reserved bacon pieces in a large metal bowl. Drizzle a bit of the hot dressing over the salad and toss gently. Repeat drizzling and tossing until salad is dressed as you like it. You will probably have a bit of dressing left over. Divide among 2 or 4 plates and serve immediately.

*To get the perfect hard boiled egg. Start the eggs in cool water. Bring to a gentle boil and boil for exactly 13 minutes. Remove from heat and cool immediately in cold, running water.

Unfortunately, this will probably be my last post on ramps for the year. Work is going to be very busy as I have to cover some of my staff’s vacation. That means no weekends off for the next few weeks. In fact, I’ll be lucky to get a day or 2 off in the upcoming 2-3 weeks, which means that all of my free time will be devoted to chores around the house. No time to go wandering through the woods, looking for ramps. By the time I surface again, most of the other plants will have overtaken the ramps, making them much more difficult to find. And while you can gather ramps well into the summer, I prefer the more tender, more subtle flavor of early season ramps. If you can’t get enough, then I suggest you check out the article I wrote, for Chef Talk. It contains a wonderful recipe for a Grilled Ramp Salad that is a must try for anyone who loves ramps like I do. You can find the article here.

Last weekend my parents came up from Indiana to celebrate my Mom’s 70th birthday. Neither of them were very familiar with ramps so I figured I could make a few things that showcased them. On the night of my Mom’s birthday I created the Grilled Ramp Salad that I wrote about for the Chef Talk article, while the following morning, Sunday, I baked off this wonderful Strata, aka, Egg Casserole. My Dad also expressed some interest in how to hunt for ramps so I took him to my favorite foraging spot and gave him a quick lesson in ramp gathering. It was nice as we also got to spend a little father-son time, something that doesn’t happen often as they live 5+ hours away and when they come up, love to spend time with their granddaughter. And who can blame them. She’s awfully cute!

Egg Casseroles, Stratas, do require a little preplanning as they do best when they are made the night before and allowed to soak overnight. The nice thing about that is then that morning there is very little that needs to be done and you can relax with a cup of coffee. They can also be assembled early in the morning, if you are planning on doing a late brunch as you can get away with a 4 hour soak, but I wouldn’t allow for any less time.

Spinach and Ramp Strata
serves 8-10

10 eggs
2 3/4 cups milk
2 cups ramps, chopped (use the everything but the roots)
2 Tbs. butter, plus more for greasing the pan
12 oz. frozen spinach, thawed
2 cups swiss cheese, shredded
1 pound loaf french bread, sliced 1/2-3/4″ thick
salt
pepper
freshly ground nutmeg

Heat a large saute pan over medium high heat and melt the butter. Add the ramps and saute until tender but not colored. Add the spinach, salt and pepper and continue to cook until most of the water has evaporated.

Cool the spinach mixture. Crack the eggs into a large bowl and beat thoroughly. Add the milk and season with salt, pepper and a few gratings of fresh nutmeg. Butter a 9×13 baking pan. Place half of the bread slices in the bottom of the baking dish. Layer with the spinach mixture and top with 1 cup of the swiss cheese.

Top with the remaining bread.

Then pour the egg mixture of the everything, making sure to soak each piece of bread. Cover in plastic wrap and refrigerate, at least, 4 hours or preferably, overnight.

The next morning preheat the oven to 350°F. While the oven is heating uncover the strata and top with the remaining cheese. Bake for 45-55 minutes or until the strata no longer jiggles, in the center, when gently shaken. If it starts to get too brown cover with some aluminum foil. When done remove from oven and allow to rest for 5 minutes before serving.

For the last couple of weeks I’ve had a craving for Indian food. Unfortunately for me, the closest Indian restaurant is about 45-60 minutes away. Luckily, during my last trip to Penzey’s Spices, I stocked up on a lot of Indian spices so I was ready to do what was necessary to saitate that craving. The first dish I made was Saag Paneer, a wonderfully spicy, yet subtle dish of cooked spinach with chunks of fresh, homemade cheese. This is a great dish that is perfect for introducing people to the joys of Indian cuisine. I find the end product to be very similar to that standard steakhouse favorite, Creamed Spinach, but its seasoning is a bit more exotic. Nor does it have the fiery heat that many people associate with Indian foods.

The first, and most difficult step in learning to prepare Indian foods is gathering up all the spices needed. You’ll be surprised you probably already have many of the spices you will need, such as cinnamon, clove, cumin, peppercorn, coriander and fennel, though it is best to have these as whole, instead of the ground that Americans most often buy. Add to that list mustard seed, whole green cardamon, turmeric and possibly Ajwain seed or fennugreek and you will have most bases covered. Of course, there are many more spices that you could go out and purchase if you really want to get deep into the cuisines of India, but the ones I have listed will cover most dishes.

The next thing you need to do is make up a batch of garam masala. Garam masala is a spice blend that is the workhorse of many Indian cuisines. Like BBQ rubs here in the US, there is no one single recipe for garam masala and each region and each household has it’s own variations. What I would suggest is finding a couple of recipes for garam masala and trying each of them. Not only will this allow you to discover the blend that you enjoy the most, but you’ll get a chance to see how different blends work better with different dishes. The one thing that garam masala is not is curry powder. That particular spice blend was a creation of the British meant to imitate the garam masalas of India. Curry powder always contains a large portion of turmeric (its what makes curry powder yellow) while no garam masala recipes I have ever come across contains that spice. The recipe I offer here is heavy on the spices that most Americans are familiar with so it is a great starting point for exploring the world of Indian spices, but again I suggest you do a little research and come up with your own blend that suits your tastes.

Garam Masala

2 Tbsp. coriander seeds
2 Tbsp. cumin seeds
1 Tbsp. whole clove
2 Tbsp. black peppercorns
1/4 cup green cardamon, in the pod
1 1/2 sticks cinnamon

Place all the spices in a saute pan and set over medium high heat. Heat the spices, stirring and tossing often until the spices release their aromas and start to brown.

Immediately remove from the pan (so it doesn’t burn) and allow to cool completely. Grind the spices in either a mortar and pestle or in an electric coffee grinder that is used exclusively for grinding spices and not coffee. Sift through a fine mesh strainer, grind again and sift again. Placed in an airtight jar this spice mixture will stay good for 2-3 months, although I like to make sure I use it up within a month or so.

Now that the garam masala is made it’s time to make the cheese (paneer). Don’t worry. It’s not difficult. In fact making a fresh cheese like this can’t get much more simple. Basically all we have to do is boil some milk, add an acid and then collect and drain the curds that form. Sure it won’t be a beautiful aged cheddar or blue cheese, but its cheese none the less and tasty, if not a bit bland, in its own right.

Paneer
will yield between 6-9oz. depending on your milk

1/2 gallon whole milk (do not use anything other than whole milk-no 2%, 1% or skim)
3-4 Tbsp. lemon or lime juice (or you can even use white vinegar)

In a large pot bring the milk to a boil. Add the lemon juice and remove from heat. Let sit for 5 minutes, gently stirring every minute or so. The curds should separate, leaving behind a clearish, greenish liquid (the whey). Strain the curds through a triple layer of cheese cloth and allow to drain for about 5 minutes. Gently squeeze out more of the whey then wrap the cheese in the cheesecloth, place in a pie pan and press it with a plate on top weighed down about 1 or 2 cans of canned vegetables. The cheese will be ready to use in about 1 hour although I like to make it the day before and chill it overnight to firm it up before cutting it.

The final thing that you will want to have on hand is ghee. Ghee is nothing more than clarified butter. To make ghee, gently melt a pound of butter in a sauce pan. Leave the butter over medium low heat and slowly the the fat will clarify and rise to the surface, leaaving the milk solids behind. Be careful not to let the milk solids burn as they have a tendency to stick to the bottom of the pan. Remove any foam from the surface and carefully pour off the butterfat, leaving the solids and any milky whey behind.

Now we are finally ready to make the Saag Paneer. It seems like its taken a lot of work to get to this point but the garam masala and the ghee you can use for many other dishes. So really the only thing we’ve had to do so far, for this dish alone, is make the paneer, which was pretty simple.

Doing research for this recipe, I had always expected that yogurt was used to give this dish its creamy texture, and while I found many recipes that used yogurt, I was surprised by the number of recipes I found that used 1/2 and 1/2 so that is what I have used here.

Saag Paneer
serves 4-6 as a side dish or 2 as a vegetarian main course

8oz. paneer, diced
2 packs (10oz each) frozen spinach,thawed
1 medium onion, peeled and chopped
4 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
1 1inch piece ginger, peeled and sliced
2 Tbsp. ghee, or butter
1 Tbsp. garam masala
1/4 cup 1/2 and 1/2
Salt

Place the onion, garlic and ginger in a food processor and process to a fine paste. You don’t have to puree it but it should be a very fine paste. Meanwhile melt the butter or ghee, in a large saute pan, over high heat. Add the onion mixture and cook for 3-4 minutes.

While that is cooking put the spinach in the processor and process until the spinach is finely chopped. Add the garam masala to the onion mixture and cook for 3 minutes longer. Add the spinach, lower the heat to medium and cook for 10 minutes.

Add the 1/2 and 1/2, allow to heat through and finally fold in the diced paneer. Heat 3-5 minutes longer to heat the paneer then serve. While this can be a main course, I like to serve it as side dish to accompany a spicy lamb dish such as Vindaloo.

When it comes to Thanksgiving, I am very much a “traditionalist.” I like my roasted or grilled turkey, the stuffing, the mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, pumpkin pie, etc. I don’t have nearly that same feeling about Christmas dinner. Sure, I am happy with a repeat of Thanksgiving, which often happens in my family, but I am also very happy to change it up. My wife’s family often follows a more European tradition and serves goose, with all the trimmings. Since her father is from Hungary that usually means an Eastern European flair to the meal with lots of sweet and sour dishes, plenty of starches, the giblets showing up in numerous recipes, and wonderful, earthy rye bread.

In my family, when we move away from turkey, we sometimes do a standing rib roast (aka Prime Rib), one of my favorites, but in recent years we have done a lot of pork, usually in the form of a Crown Roast. It usually gets filled with a stuffing of cornbread, sausage, dried cherries and pecans. This has become a favorite of ours and looks quite festive and elegant gracing our holiday table. Unfortunately, if you want to do a crown roast you either need to be feeding an army or be prepared for plenty of leftovers as these things are quite large. Luckily pork is very versatile and there are numerous, smaller cuts that can be turned into an elegant centerpiece for your Christmas dinner.

Pork loin is an obvious choice for a holiday dinner. Roasted, it makes a beautiful looking focal point to the holiday groaning board. It can be purchased is any size from 1 pound to about 8 or 9 pounds, making it a great choice for just about any size get together. Pork also goes well with many of the dishes people serve at Christmas time, many of which mirror people’s Thanksgiving spreads. To make it even more of a standout, I like to stuff it “pinwheel” style. Sliced and laid out on a platter, surrounded by Rosemary Roasted Potatoes and a few sprigs of fresh herbs, you have a dish that will wow friends and family alike. (continue reading…)

Late Harvest (or Fall) raspberries are just starting to make their appearances here in Wisconsin. If you’ve been following my blog, you know that I love raspberries and the fact that they are harvested twice a year thrills me. While the nights are getting cool, days can still be warm so I still, occasionally, enjoy an entree salad for dinner. This salad is bright, refreshing, and a great reminder that summer isn’t over just yet.

Spinach & Raspberry Salad

1 1 1/2 pounds Baby Spinach
6 slices Bacon, thick cut, diced
2 each Chicken breast, cut into strips
1 each Leek, white and light green parts only
3/4 cup Raspberries
1/3 cup Raspberry Vinegar
1/2 cup Vegetable Oil
Freshly Ground Black Pepper
1/4 cup Pecans, toasted and chopped

If spinach is large, remove the stems. If it is tender baby spinach you can leave the stems intact. Place spinach in a large bowl. Place bacon in a saute pan and cook over medium high heat until rendered and crisp. Remove from pan, pour off all but 1 Tbsp. of bacon fat and and saute the leeks over medium heat until tender and just slightly browned around the edges. Remove leeks from pan and add the chicken. Again saute until until done then remove from pan. Add the raspberry vinegar to deglaze the pan, scraping up all the browned bits stuck to the bottom of the pan. Turn off heat and stir in the vegetable oil. Season with a few grinds of black pepper. Add the bacon, leeks, and chicken to the spinach and drizzle with the warmed raspberry vinaigrette (you may not need all of the vinaigrette). Toss to mix and divide among 2 plates. Garnish with the fresh raspberries and toasted pecans.

Last Saturday while shopping at the Fond du Lac farmer’s market I came across the first beets of the season. Well, at least the first beets to arrive at the market. Excitedly, I grabbed up a couple of bunches, just thinking of all the possibilities. Life interjected and we got busy with visiting friends, work, and the daily grind. I forgot all about them. This evening as I was driving home from work, in 90 degree weather, with no AC (I know you probably don’t care, but I thought I’d share my misery with you), I remembered buying them along with some beautiful baby spinach. Being hot out, salad sounded good so I threw this salad together for a refreshing late night dinner.

Beet and Spinach Salad
2 bunches Baby Beets, tops removed (if fresh you can add the tops to the salad)
2 pounds Baby Spinach
6 slices Bacon, thick cut
4-6 oz. Blue Cheese, crumbled
1/2 cup Pistachios, shelled
1 can French Fried Onion Rings
1/3 cup Maple Syrup
1/4 cup Malt Vinegar
1/2 cup Vegetable oil (any neutral flavored oil will work)
Salt
Pepper, freshly ground

Place the beets in a saucepan and cover with water. Bring to a boil and cook until a paring knife, when inserted into the beet, encounters little resistance. For baby beets, this should take about 12-14 minutes, depending on their size. When done, remove from heat and run under cold water to cool them. Peel and quarter the beets. The skins should slip off relatively easily. Meanwhile chop the bacon and cook, in a saute pan until crisp. Remove the bacon, leaving the bacon fat in the pan. Add the maple syrup and vinegar. Scrape up an bits stuck to the bottom of the saute pan and cook 1 minute. Add the oil, salt and pepper, tasting and adjusting the seasoning as needed. Remove from heat. Combine the spinach, beets, and bacon in a large bowl. Add the warm, not hot, dressing to the salad and toss to coat. Add the blue cheese and toss again. Taste and season with more salt and pepper, if necessary. Divide among 4 large plates and sprinkle with the pistachios. Place a small mound of the onion rings on top. This recipe serves 4 as an entree salad or 8 as a first course.