Viva La Lasagna remix!

I forgot to update about last week's class!

Last week (week 2), we had 10 of the 15 initial participants to return (YAY!). They even brought their reusable grocery bags so that they could receive their produce for the week, in order to help recreate the present class's recipe.  There was one participant, though, who came in when most of the prep work for the lasagna was done...*sigh* She is also the one who tends to make the "we're black" or "'cause I'm black" comments...since I am the only black chef in the classroom (but not the only black person on staff, as one of the class assistants is black and the translator is half black/half Mexican). She makes these statements in an attempt at solidarity (along with truth-said-in-jest offers for me to come and cook for her and her kids), but it gets a bit irksome at times. The class is evenly divided between black and Hispanic/Latino participants, so the solidarity thing is a bit redundant. Alas...

Anyway...we made tortilla lasagna, which turned out pretty well! It was a meatless dish in which the traditional lasagna noodles are replaced with whole-wheat or corn tortillas. We also paired it with a jicama corn salsa...YUM!

Guess you want the recipes now, huh? :D

Tortilla lasagna (yield: 8 servings)

1 medium onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 lb. mushrooms, sliced
1 medium green bell pepper, cut into thin strips
 (**I personally like to use red or yellow bell peppers**)
1 medium yam or sweet potato, peeled and grated/shredded
1 tablespoon canola oil
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 28-oz. can of crushed tomatoes (with juice)
1 bay leaf
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
10 oz. cheese blend (mix or match: Feta, Queso Fresco, Monterey Jack, cheddar, Mexican blend)
12 corn or whole-wheat tortillas (5-in size)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F
2. Heat large pan over medium heat. Add oil and onions and cook until transparent (5-7 minutes).
3. Add garlic, mushrooms, bell pepper, and oregano. Cook for 5 more minutes
4. Add grated yam/sweet potato and continue cooking till all vegetables are soft (approx. another 10 minutes)
5. Stir in tomatoes and bay leaf. Bring mixture to a boil.
6. Reduce heat and simmer mixture for 20 min.
7. Remove bay leaf and stir in salt and pepper. Remove from heat.
8. Cover bottom of a 9x13 baking dish (or whatever size you deem appropriate) with the vegetable sauce. Layer four tortillas over the sauce. Sprinkle 1/3 of the cheese over the tortillas. 
9. Repeat layers 2 more times
10. Spray a piece of aluminum foil with nonstick cooking spray, or oil with any type of vegetable oil. Cover baking dish with foil, oiled side down.
11. Bake for 20 minutes, then remove foil. Continue baking for another 10 min or until the cheese on top is lightly browned.
12. Remove from oven and let sit for 5-10 minutes before serving.

Jicama corn salsa

Two medium jicama, peeled and diced
1 bag frozen corn
2 medium limes OR 3 small limes
1 bunch fresh cilantro OR 2 T. dried cilantro
Salt and pepper to taste

1. Heat oven in microwave for 2 min.
2. In a bowl, mix jicama, corn, cilantro, salt and pepper
3. Add juice of limes
4. Mix everything together and refrigerate for at least one hour (to let the flavors meld properly).

Let me know if you try either of these recipes at home! As always, thanks for stopping by.

T.

'Tis the season: Butternut Squash!

By popular demand, I will be posting weekly with information on seasonal produce, what to do with it, and cool recipes for you to try at home and dazzle your friends. :D

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Just in time for the Thanksgiving holidays!


WHAT's GOOD (what's in season)? Butternut squash is a big thing this time of the year. It looks like an overgrown peanut, but the flesh is a deep golden yellow (almost orange) and is slightly sweet.

WHAT DO I DO WITH IT? Butternut squash is good roasted alone, or incorporated into stuffing (recipe below). It's also excellent as a soup or a sauce (if you want the recipe, PM me).


HOW DO I KEEP IT? You can store unpeeled, uncut butternut squash at slightly cooler room temperatures (55-60 degress). If you cut it and don't use it all, you have two options: 1) wrap the peeled, raw, unused squash tightly in plastic wrap (or place in an airtight container) and refrigerate. It will keep up to 7 days.
2) cut up the peeled squash and either simmer on the stove until soft (about 20-30 min), or roast in the oven at 350 degrees until soft (about 45 min). Let cool, then place in a freezer bag and freeze. It will keep in the freezer up to 6 months.

HOW DO I COOK IT?

Roasted butternut squash (suggested method):

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Oil the bottom of a pan large enough to fit the squash; you can use olive oil, vegetable oil, canola oil--whatever you have on hand. Peel and cut the squash lengthwise and place the amount you want to cook, cut-side down, in the oiled pan. Bake for 30-45 min or until soft. Let cool, then cut up and add salt and pepper to taste before serving.



Butternut Cranberry Stuffing (yield: 6 servings, 1/4 cup per serving)

Ingredients:

3 tablespoons butter or margarine
1/3 cup finely chopped onion
1 cup raw chopped butternut squash (about 1/3 lb; use what you need and store the rest as noted above)
2/3 cup dried cranberries (can substitute raisins or currants)
2 teaspoons dried rosemary or ground/rubbed sage
3 tablespoons dry bread crumbs
3 tablespoons chicken or vegetable broth
Salt and pepper to taste

1. In a large pot, melt butter over medium-high heat.
2. Add onion and squash. Cook for 3-4 minutes or until squash is semi-soft.
3. Add cranberries/raisins/currants and rosemary/sage
4. Continue cooking until the squash is completely soft.
5. Stir in bread crumbs and mix thoroughly
6. Add broth, one tablespoon at a time, until mixture is at preferred moisture level
7. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve warm.

RECIPE OPTIONS:
--Need that pork flavor? Saute three chopped-up strips of bacon in the pot before adding butter, onion, and squash.
--Feeling fancy? Substitute chopped dried figs, apricots, or persimmons (also in season)
--Got nuts? Add 2 T. chopped toasted walnuts or almonds when you add the bread crumbs.


Let me know how this worked for you! Hit me up with your questions and comments.

As always, thanks for stopping by. -- T.

Cooking Matters!

Last night, I taught my first adult cooking class, and it was fun!

For those of you not in the know, I used to teach children's nutritional cooking classes at area farmer's markets in upstate NY, through Cooking Matters (formerly Operation Frontline). This is an organization that is funded by Share Our Strengths, which is committed to fighting hunger in children.

The classes are for low-income people and its purpose is to encourage them to eat healthier, as we all know that it is very expensive to eat healthy (but that's a whole 'nother blog entry altogether).
Each class takes place once a week, for two hours,  for the next 6 weeks. in each class we provide nutritional education (done by a nutritionist), then cooking, food safety, and food budgeting. We cook (as a class) recipes that incorporate a lot of whole grains, legumes, fruits and vegetables, and at the end of each class, each participant is given a bag of fresh produce and a copy of the recipe to take home, so that they can recreate the recipe in their own kitchens. Each class will cook more complex recipes, so that the participants can really get into cooking different things, and also eating different things.

(I didnt' see this done in NY but, then again, San FRancisco has year-round food markets plus the SF Food Bank, which gives out fresh produce. But I digress).

Last night  we had 15 people show up: mostly women (though two men were there), and some had their children there. The class was bilingual (had to dig my college Spanish out of the mothballs), but most spoke English. The first class, we just introduced ourselves, our respective roles in the class, and what they could expect in the class. Then the nutritionist did her thing, talking about the Food Pyramid (it changed! Who knew?). I then talked about knife and kitchen safety while my co-chef instructor talked about hand washing.  While all this was going on, our class assistants were washing vegetables and getting the take-home bags together. 

Finally, we were ready to cook the evening's recipes. Since it was the first class, the recipes were easy: Blackeye Pea Chili and Green Salad with vinaigrette dressing. Before the class began I noticed that the recipe would not make enough to feed so many people (the recipe, as it was, only fed 4), and that we would need to double it. Of course, we barely had enough to do so, which was a good teaching opportunity to demonstrate how recipes could be stretched by adding extra vegetables. :D Unfortunately, we had to use canned beans (fresh are always preferred, but blackeye peas are out of season, and it would have taken too long to use frozen), and we explained why canned beans were not the best to use.

I demonstrated how to cut certain items as the recipe called for them (such as diced, half-moon, etc.), and the participants really got into the cooking aspect. I especially took time to show the safe way to chop carrots (hint: cut carrots in half, then make sure the flat side is on the cutting surface).Some chopped onions, some mushrooms, some cilantro, some zucchini. The rainbow chard used in the recipe caused a lot of buzz, and I explained how it was similar to collard greens except they cook much faster and the stems are edible and not as tough as collard stems.

Making a vinagrette was also exciting for the class, as they were amazed at how simple it was to make salad dressing at home.

In the end, the chili turned out really well. The participants were pleasantly surprised at how good it tasted, and how filling. Some already talked about how they would tweak the recipe when they got home. We'll get field reports next week.

I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed teaching. This is going to be a good thing.

Thanks for stopping by.

Back in the saddle...

Hi all,


I know it's been a long time since I blogged. After culinary school and my internship, I pretty much lost all the joy of cooking. Dont' get it twisted, the experience was good, and I learned a lot. But it was also reiterated that everything ain't for everybody, and cooking at a certain level most definitely isn't for me. It's only been recently that I rediscovered that joy, and I'm doing my own thing: catering tea service for small groups! Since I can't seem to work for anyone else, and I like learning on my own time, it's the best thing for me.

Building a business from the ground up is time-consuming and expensive, but I've done it before and can do it again. Of course, being the creative sort, I have more than one creative iron in the fire...but you can read about that here.



I'll check in more frequently as time goes on. As always, thanks for stopping by.



T.

Daytime in the Garden of Food and Children

Today my externship continued as I visited the Edible Schoolyard at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Middle School in Berkeley, CA. The Edible Schoolyard is a national pet project of the Chez Panisse Foundation (which has a mission to basically bring quality, nutritious, fresh foods to school lunches).

Early-morning view of the Edible Schoolyard (herb garden in the front!)

The garden contains a pond, a compost pile, a chicken coop (which I found out about later that afternoon), a greenhouse, and solar panels to (presumably) provide light in the evenings.

Edible Schoolyard pond (solar panel visible in upper right corner!)

Kids get to take a class once a week in either the garden (where food is grown for the kids to cook and eat) or the kitchen (where the kids cook recipes that include the food they grew). I got to sit in and participate in both types of classes. Woohoo!

The kitchen class was first: as I said, produce from the garden is used to prepare basic recipes. The kids (6th and 7th graders) do most of the prep work with real knives (which aren't that sharp) and other kitchen utensils, and follow the recipes (with assistance from the teachers and volunteers) while cooking on a nearby 2-burner electric stove. (Gas is always better to cook with, but God forbid if some overzealous or inattentive child accidentally sets him or herself on fire from the flames).

Edible Schoolyard kitchen classroom

Today we cooked vegetable fried rice, which included Napa cabbage, carrots, scallions, garlic, ginger, eggs, and Tokyo turnips (little white, round turnips)--everything but the ginger and the cooked brown rice was from the school garden.

(yes, brown rice...this was Berkeley, y'all).

The first class was a group of ELL (English Language Learner) students. The group was broken up into three sub-groups, each of which made their own batch of rice. Our particular subgroup was a mini-UN: students from Algeria, France, India, Norway, Eritrea, Peru, Dominican Republic. Most spoke English enough to get by, but one boy clearly told me (in response to a question) "I don't speak English." He was cooking his little heart out, though, language barriers be damned. They even set the table with napkins tri-folded in the water glasses...yes, I see a future in fine dining for this group!

All vegetable scraps were saved for the compost pile in the school garden, and kids were encouraged to clean as they went along (which is very important in any culinary career). While they took turns cooking, other members of the group set the table for the meal. The rice turned out very well (we ate with chopsticks), and leftovers were sent home in little Chinese takeout-style boxes.

We attended a school play that highlighted the importance of dreaming your reality. The script was a collaboration among the students in a drama class, and the teacher simply wrote the students's ideas in a script format, which they performed in full costume, and with a rather professional-looking set (which, I later found out, was lovingly done by the drama teacher's wife, who is an artist). The kids really got into the performance, although the jumble of ideas sometimes led to things being lost in translation. I had a flash of that scene in the Eddie Murphy movie Boomerang, where he visits a children's art class and thanks one girl for her interpretation of her collage (which he didn't understand at all). LOL

After the play, I sat in on a garden class. The garden was a hodgepodge of different fruits (including lemons, persimmons, figs), vegetables (including kale, chard, artichokes [!!!]), and herbs (including garlic, rosemary, sage). The colorful signs--some of which were bilingual were made by the kids to identify different plantings, and the whole garden showed signs of being cared for.

Sign for the garlic patch (the long shoots are garlic plants)

Bilingual (English/Chinese) garden sign

Today's class began with a lesson on mushrooms (I did not know that those little fuzzy white patches in dirt were actually pre-mushrooms: they give rise to the capped mushrooms that we know and (sometimes) love!) before they were divided into groups to perform various garden maintenance tasks: replanting seedlings in the green house; properly connecting the solar panel to the pond, and chopping fennel; weeding the herb garden; threshing and milling millet. I was in the herb garden group, and we pulled weeds from a stand of rosemary and a patch of various sage plants. While doing this, I heard some of the most interesting conversations. The most memorable was this:

Girl 1: A spider! Eww! I'm arachnaphobic!
Girl 2: I didn't know you were arachnaphobic.
Girl 1: Well, it may not be that serious, but I am afraid of spiders.

(yes...sixth grade, y'all. LOL).

I freely admit that I chuckled at this conversation.

After the garden class was over and tools were returned, chickens returned to the coop (yes, there is a chicken coop, and chickens are allowed to roam free during garden maintenance; most like to hang out around the compost area, and some of the kids pick the chickens up and carry them around as if they were cats or dogs...and the chickens let them. Wow.). The kids then returned back to the ramada (the main, round meeting area--it's visible in the garden picture posted earlier in this entry) for a rousing game of Garden Jeopardy. Team 1 managed to rack up 40 points to Team 2's 20 points before the bell rang for them to return to class.

I returned to the kitchen for the afternoon's class, which was also making vegetable fried rice. This particular group (and my subsequent subgroup) were smaller due to some kids attending a party for another student, so I did more hands-on prep than I normally would. The rice turned out very well for this group, and they had more leftovers to take home for the weekend since there wasn't enough people to eat it all in one sitting. I like the kitchen classes better than the garden ones because I get more one-on-one interaction times with the kids.

Because this garden is open to the public yet is for the children, people have to be admonished not to take things from the garden (you'd be surprised how many people feel that they can, because the garden is so accessible to the public).

"Do Not Pick" signs hanging on various plants and trees

Still, it's a nice place to see and it's even better when one can experience the kids really taking an interest in gardening and cooking, and getting the connection of where their food comes from before it gets to their plates.


It was a truly rewarding experience that nourished my spirit; I'd forgotten how much I missed teaching kids in that type of setting. I am definitely going back to volunteer there on one of my days off.

Thanks for stopping by.

T.

Old [MacDonald] Had a Farm...

Author's note: due to increasing busyness, pictures of meals and desserts may be sporadic. Thx for your understanding! -- T.

Hello all!

It's been what...a couple of weeks since I last wrote? *YIKES!* But between fighting a cold (courtesy of multiple someones who worked at the restaurant), extreme busyness due to people being out sick because of said cold, and a sudden toothache (darn fillings!), I haven't had much time to blog. Which perhaps is just as well because while the menu was starting to change a bit, the overall operations (and my progress) at Chez Panisse have not. The highlights of the past two weeks was the appearance of Yo-Yo Ma for dinner in the kitchen, and another Alice sighting; this time, she sought me out where I was making crabcakes, and asked for an unbreaded one. Woohoo!

(for those of you who don't know who Yo-Yo Ma is: if you've ever seen the movie Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and heard all those cellos playing in the background music--that was Yo-Yo Ma. He's an outstanding cellist! Google him if you want more information).

Today things got switched up a bit when I visited Cannard Farms in Sonoma, CA and Green String Farms in Petaluma, CA (about 10 minutes from Sonoma). These two farms, owned by Bob Cannard, provide a significant portion of the produce to Chez Panisse. So I got to see where the pre-magic happens!

I met Mr. Cannard, who gave me a tour of Cannard Farms. I got to also meet two of his interns, Oliver and Claudia, who were cleaning the leeks they'd recently picked. Cannard Farms covers about 25 acres and has been in existence since 1976. It grows everything from potatoes, to lemons and oranges, to leeks, to beets, to olives, to sage and rosemary...and everything in between.

Lemon and Mandarin orange trees on Cannard Farms

Produce is picked, sifted through for the best, then washed in a large, flat sink with attached hoses, to get most of the dirt off (they are washed again once they arrive at Chez Panisse, prior to preparation). Cannard Farms delivers to Chez Panisse about twice a week: the driver, Mr. Dhomhaup, drops off plastic flats filled with vegetables ("Farm boxes") that are used for meals in both the restaurant and the cafe.

Farm boxes of freshly picked produce--on it's way to Chez Panisse!

He also picks up vegetable peels and other produce by-products that go into the compost used at Cannard. This compost provides a lot of extra nutrients to the soil, which helps those amazing fruits and vegetables grow. (all those extra nutrients in the compost also make for a very...fragrant drive to the farm).

Part of Cannard Farms (freshly planted potatoes on the left; compost and soil mounds; kale and endive in the distance)

Green String Farms is a whole lot bigger than 25 acres; in fact, once you're on Green String property (at the main station, that is, where the public can buy fresh, seasonal produce on site, every day, 10am - 5pm), I was informed that Green String owns all of the land, as far as the eye could see...and that's a lot of green, rolling hills dotted with trees, grass, planted rows, and cows!

Part of Green String Farm property (as far as the eye can see!)

Cabbages, kale, and lettuces at Green String Farm

Green string also has chicken coops on site, with different types of chickens (one coop had these extremely fluffy-looking chickens, like their feathers had been groomed and teased with a blow dryer). There must have been some sort of timer or something inside the chicken coop, because there were actually roosters crowing "cock-a-doodle-doo!", which I thought was only done at dawn.

Various chicken types at Green String Farm

Finally, we made a stop at the Marin Farmers' Market at the Marin Fairgrounds in Marin, CA. This was one of the nicest farmers' markets I've ever seen...and I consider myself a farmers' market aficionada (so far, the one in Woodstock, NY comes a close second). The produce was off-the-hook good, and I'm not ashamed to say that I sampled my way through every booth (Asian pears, strawberries, samosas, a strange sort of spanakopita-type thing, and some homemade butter--YES! Not to mention the homemade chocolate peanut butter sorbet and the homemade espresso truffle chocolate. Mmm mmm GOOD!). One would be hard pressed to go home without an empty wallet; in fact, I saw a lot of people there on their lunch breaks (dressed in power suits, since the market closed at 1pm) and others, who were also getting things for tonight's dinner, or perhaps a snack later on.

That was the last stop of the day and I was returned to the restaurant, then to home. Tomorrow, I get to visit the Edible Schoolyard (a pet project of the Chez Panisse Foundation) and check out the lay of the land there. Woohoo!

Thanks for stopping by. See you tomorrow!

T.

(Con)Fit to be tied...

Dinner 01-20-10 ($75/person)
Buckwheat blinis with Dungeness crab and watercress salad w/ creme fraiche
Rabbit ravioli with black trumpet, hedgehog, and chanterelle mushrooms
Grilled grouper with Meyer lemon and olive salsa, fried artichokes, and Savoy cabbage
Pink Lady apple puff pastry tartlet with Sicilian sabayon

Author's note: the batteries died in my camera, so no pics today! :( Not that I had time to take any, I was running around so. -- TMD

The day went fairly well today; started with cleaning chanterelle mushrooms for the ravioli, then moved to trimming sunchokes. Sunchokes are starchy root vegetables with a bunch of knobs all over; they are similar in consistency to a turnip, or an underripe potato. You can cook sunchokes much as you would a potato: fry it, mash it, puree it, etc. They taste a bit bland (like a potato). I also had to cut up artichokes (at least I didn't have to peel them! Woohoo!) and I look forward to next month or so, when they go out of season. :D

Later on, I picked Dungeness crab for the first course. The hors d'oeuvres were simple Lucques olives (big, oval, light- to medium-green colored ones) mixed with olive oil, red pepper flakes, thyme leaves, and lemon zest. These same olives were used in the olive salsa that accompanied the grilled grouper.

The highlight (?) of the evening was preparing duck legs for duck confit [pronounced "cone-FEE"], and butchering turkeys. A confit is when a meat or fruit is preserved in its own fat or juices; you can confit duck, lemons, etc. To confit the duck, the excess fat first had to be removed and the meat seasoned. Even all that fat is not enough to confit the meat (you need a LOT), and to this end packages of duck fat are sold separately. I roughly chopped five 1-lb. packages of duck fat for the confit; this fat was then rendered (melted slowly) in the oven. This melted fat was then poured over the seasoned meat and put in the walk-in to solidify. Confit is a preservation technique from back when people didn't have refrigerators, and needed to somehow keep their meats from spoiling.

(I have to send a thank-you to Heather, one of the evening's servers, who was nice enough to make me a cup of espresso with milk...to which I had to add sugar. :D I'm not normally a coffee drinker, but that espresso hit the spot, and didn't make my heart race like normal coffee does! Then again, espresso actually has LESS caffeine than regular coffee since they are roasted so darkly; the darker the roast (and the longer the roasting time), the less caffeine in the bean).

We also butchered 12 turkeys in preparation for tomorrow's meal. Just had to remove the legs, parts of the wings, and leave the breasts on the bone. Simple, right? NEGATIVE. Turkeys are big birds (and each of these turkeys weighed about 10-12 lbs. each), and their skeletons are a bit heavier and tougher than those of chickens. It took some extra muscle to push my knife through the rib cage to separate it from the breastbone. Plus, I kept struggling to find the sweet spot on the wings (it's that area on the "elbow" of the wing where there is cartilage between the two wing joints, and where it is easy to cut and separate the wing in that area). Anyway, I did have some help in getting them done, and the bones were roasted to make turkey stock (also for tomorrow's meal).

[sidebar: I felt like a turtle when the chef and another cook came to do some of the confit legs...they were churning out five duck legs to my one! And that same cook butchered four turkeys in the time it took me to get through one. *sigh*]

I rounded out the evening by preparing two containers of creme fraiche from scratch (approximately two gallons), doing the turkey stock, and doing a last-minute chicken stock. It doesn't sound like much, but I was running back and forth. I told y'all, the Restaurant Workout Plan is a winner!

That's about it for today. As soon as my laundry finishes, it's bedtime for Bonzo! Thanks for stopping by, and see you tomorrow.

T.