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Here are some snapshots and notes about recent good eats.  Like many of you I’m sure, I’ve been busy in the kitchen.  I’ve already made, or have promised to make some family favorites.  Last year, after reading a great tip on the 101 Cookbooks blog, I committed to a tradition of serving on Christmas morning the Swedish Sweet Rolls that Scott grew up eating.  It’s a worthwhile project and one I’m looking forward to tackling today.  A similar tip from Heidi Swanson of 101 Cookbooks will have me preparing and freezing uncooked gougères, and popping them in the oven when company comes.  Can’t wait to try that this weekend. (update:  I’m also consulting David Lebovitz’s version — and given the timing of our Christmas Eve event, I’ll bake off and reheat, but I’ll try the freeze and bake method next week).

make cinnamon or swedish rolls in advance, freeze, defrost and let rise overnight and pop in the oven Christmas morning!

Swedish sweet roll...New Orleans coffee...Martha heaven!

I think flavored yogurt is pretty awful so I like to flavor it myself.  My current favorite is decadently creamy Greek Gods yogurt topped with a mixture of fruity olive oil (just a drizzle), orange zest and chopped pecans.  This came about by hazard — I had put aside some zest and olive oil to use for a salad dressing, but put it on my yogurt instead.  Oranges and pecans scream Christmas to me, and I love the way citrus zest brightens the meal and the mood.

I gave all our Scott Paul team members a jar of raspberry sauce — not too sweet — that is fabulous on yogurt too.

I used raspberries that Pirrie and I picked with summer, made my usual skillet preserves, and then pushed through a sieve to remove seeds. The result is thick and concentrated. A little bit will flavor a huge bowl of yogurt or turn whipped cream to a gorgeous hot pink hue. And great on biscuits or crepes!

Here’s the basic skillet jam recipe that I used to make the raspberry sauce and some notes from a previous blog post (from that link, scroll down to get to the skillet jam part).

Then, our annual Scott Paul holiday celebration with our team members and families found Swedish meatballs on offer….

Other items that were most popular among the offerings for our Scott Paul party were Dear Lord Spinach/Artichoke Dip; Blue Cheese Ricotta spread (mash together to taste blue cheese, ricotta, finely ground pecans, splash pear brandy and chopped chives, or email me for the recipe); pork rillettes from Olympic Provision; and maybe most of all, homemade toffee topped with Valrhona chocolate.  (no nuts, no bacon this year.  Bacon on everything? – that was so last year!).  The toffee a simple recipe that yields enough to serve and to gift.  Huge crowd pleaser this year.  And a tip regarding the hot spinach artichoke dip:  make a batch for your party and put most of it in a microwave safe dish to heat up later, while saving a small portion of it to stir into the spinach that remains after making the recipe — a delicious side dish you’ll be glad to have stashed away in the fridge or freezer.

Can’t wait to enjoy more food and wine adventures with you in the year to come!  Cheers!

Do you ever think about the fact that, once you pop the cork on a bottle of Champagne, you could serve it along with a piece of buttered toast and it would still be the height of elegance?  This is but one of the charms of Champagne.  While time-intensive and capital-intensive for its producers, it is EASY for the rest of us.  Here’s the best part…it’s ready to drink — always!  If the producer released it, it is perfectly ready to drink now.  No guesswork or cellaring required.  Easy.

I want Champagne with my turkey sandwich the day after Thanksgiving.  I want to sip Champagne and clink glasses while we trim the tree and listen to Harry Connick Jr’s and Rebirth Brass Band’s Christmas albums.  I don’t know how you could celebrate the return of light (Solstice) without “liquid light in a glass” — Champagne!  We’ll be drinking Champagne when we ring in the New Year and when we toast the Superbowl winners.  We’ll be drinking Champagne alongside a meal of my mother-in-law’s Swedish Meatballs, or a bowl of clam chowder.

I feel blessed when I get to pour a flight of grower Champagne for visitors in our tasting room because it makes people happy…I mean…really happy.  Grower Champagnes are made in small quantities by small family producers, all from their own vineyards, most often organic vineyards, resulting in personality-driven, terroir-driven, unique Champagnes.  And they cost less than most mass-produced big house Champagnes!

When we want to give a gift that is thoroughly unique AND will delight, it’s hard to think of something that better fits the bill than grower Champagne.  That’s EASY.  Here are recipes for Cheese Puffs and Smoked Trout Spread that I like to serve with Champagne.  Or try the simple buttered toast idea!  Cheers!

This is what we did last year with leftover Halloween candy.  Basic chocolate chip cookie dough, with chopped up candy subbing for the morsels.  De-lish!

Now, the trick…

The golden contents of this little jar guarantees good eating for the family all week.  It’s a cooking catalyst.  And it takes one minute to make it.

Just chop one head of peeled garlic in a mini-chop, cover it with extra virgin olive oil and seal it in a jar with a tight fitting lid.  Maybe a purist will say that garlic needs to be chopped fresh that minute or it’s no good, but since I started doing this, I’ve made some very popular garlic bread on very short notice.  Before that, I never made garlic bread.  In one week, it helps me whip up Shrimp and Andouille with Grits, Pesto Garlic bread, Bon Ton Salad Dressing, Pasta Salad with Lemon & Garlic White Beans & Tuna for the kid’s school lunch, Wicked Good Seared Greens with capers and chopped Castelvetrano green olives, and a Roasted Pork Tenderloin with Garlic & Rosemary.  (Oh, and make enough of the Pesto Garlic Bread to cut up leftovers, and crisp up in a skillet for croutons that are heavenly on a bowl of tomato soup).

Enjoy your tricks & treats!

I get breathy and excited just thinking about my summer loves…my favorite bites of the season.  Here are some that you should be making…now!

I love this Fresh Fruit Custard Tart and so does everyone that I’ve made it for.  I tried to convince you to make it two years ago when I wrote this in my blog. “Speaking of berries, I have to pass this on, while the recipe (Fresh Fruit Custard Tart) is still linked over at the Oregonian’s Food Day.  I enjoy making desserts, but have no discipline or aptitude for fussy ones.  I love winging it when it comes to cooking, and in general, desserts don’t like this, since baking can be more of an exact science than other dishes.  But not so this one!  You’ve just got to make this.  It could not be any easier.  This recipe should be called Liar Tart.  Because you’ll swear to your guests that you’re really not much of a baker, not much of a dessert maker, and they will swear that you are lying!  Or it could be called Domestic Goddess Pie, because that is what you’ll appear to be.  And still not content to just let a recipe be, I added some lemon zest and some lavender to the custard.  (I pulse 1 tsp of lavender with the remaining sugar before dumping into the cuisinart with the sour cream and eggs).

Update: I’ve taken to adding lavender to the crust instead of the custard.  This can easily be made by a child.  Pirrie decorated this one.

Do you have basil?  I love Ina Garten’s Basil Green Goddess dressing.  It’s a dressing, it’s a dip, it’s my favorite accompaniment for slow-roasted salmon with couscous or quinoa.  I cut back on the mayo and sour cream and sub in some plain whole milk yogurt.  I also confess that I’ve never added the anchovy paste.

Got zucchini or other summer squash?  This gratin from 101 Cookbooks is fabulous!

Before going in the baking dish and into the oven, zucchini slices plus potato slices are tossed with toasted buttered breadcrumbs, shredded, gruyere cheese, herb olive oil and lemon zest,

Make some fruit preserves…in 15 minutes!  See my previous posts (and fears) about canning.  This is a simple, no-hassle style of preserves, and it’s so easy and delicious.  Since I’m not interested in a pantry full of jelly, and two small jars at a time is more than enough, this “un-canny” method works well for me.  Using the large open skillet speeds up the jelling so you don’t need pectin.  You also use much less sugar than what most recipes call for (and I use even a tiny bit less than what this recipe calls for).  The most recent batch was a mix of what I had on hand…some blackcap raspberries, some red raspberries, and a random half a peach that someone neglected at breakfast.

Since raspberries and blackberries can have more and tougher seeds, I pushed the jam through a sieve using a ladle, although you don’t have to do this, and it is completely unnecessary with less seedy fruit.

It’s delicious on toast or crepes, and we loved it folded into some fresh whipped cream, which I served alongside two cakes for dessert during a recent Champagne Brunch that raised money for Portland Children’s Museum.

Best Moist Yellow Cake, and Best Ever Flourless Chocolate with whipped cream with mixed berry jam folded in

Am now working on a fresh green pea dip for these sweeties.  So glad I planted them this year.  More soon.  In the meantime, go make something yummy that you love!

“If I died right now, it would be ok,” said one “camper” on our tour.  Another, in the midst of a happy sensory overload just gets quiet.  We’re all grinning…a lot.  And pinching ourselves.  We’re together for a week-long summer camp for adults – for Burg geeks specifically –led by Scott, in the hallowed appellations of Pouilly-Fuissé, Volnay, Pommard, Gevrey, Meursault, etc.  Our party of 14 includes fine folks from Virginia, Hawaii, Washington State, Texas and Oregon.  They are all what is called “amateurs” of Burgundy, meaning they are fans, they buy it and appreciate it.  But for many it is their first trip here (for some, it is their first trip to France or even Europe).  It’s a rocking good group of good-natured people.  We are hanging on the every word of some of the world’s top producers in intimate extended tours and tastings.  We are eating divine cuisine, both in restaurants, and from the hands of a private chef named Olivier.  We are drinking beautiful wines including many an older vintage — and this is just day two!!

I have to say that it just feels like a huge privilege to be a part of this experience.  I’m thrilled to be along for the ride as each one gets to the heart of the profound, heartbreakingly beautiful, poetic, geologic wonder that is Burgundy.  I appreciate their faith in Scott and Kim Gagné to create the perfect trip for them.

Meanwhile, a Parisian family is cooking for my girl, washing her clothes, and extending themselves to show her the most thrilling sights in the city of lights — let’s just say that there is a lot of good juju going on in my world right now.

enjoying a gougère and glass of Pouilly-Fuissé while waiting for lunch cooked by Chef Olivier at Chateau des Rontets

Fabio Montrasi, co-proprietor (along with his wife Claire) of Chateau des Rontets gives an excellent discourse on his vineyard practices, importance of pruning decisions and benefits of plowing

That pimente d'espelette showed up again! -- ( see previous post) -- in a butter sauce on poached cod with steamed vegetables. Delicious.

Gussie helped my mom cook and clean once a week for our family of eight when I was little.  If Gussie wasn’t impressed with something, she would simply say, “I wouldn’t write home about that!”  Here then is a smattering of things that I am impressed enough to write home about.  For a great overview of our locations and activities over the last view days, you might first read Scott’s blog.

I am on the lookout for some good Pimente d’Espelette.  Sold powdered from a pepper that was first grown in Mexico and South America, it is a specialty of the French Basque region, centered around the French town of Espelette.   I was first aware of it through a dinner in Portland at Kitchencru.  Then, in Champagne, our hostess Clotilde seasoned both the marvelous rabbit dish, and a zucchini gratin with this smokey, gently warming pepper.

Clotilde gets everything she cooks from neighbors, friends and farmers - local rabbit drizzled with olive oil, thyme and rosemary, pimente d'espelette and mustard, wrapped in bacon and baked.

The first night with Clotilde and Digger, to start, we ate white asparagus with a delicious dressing that Clo called “a mousseline” made by whipping egg whites, separately whisking the yolks with mustard and letting stand a few minutes so the mustard “cooks” the yolks, then whisking in chives, lots of garlic and good olive oil and gently folding in the whites. It was impossible to resist drizzling a little of this mousseline on the grilled charolait boeuf beef.

Scott and I had picked up from the bakery in Epernay some macarons and "biscuits de rose," a specialty of the region - very much like a lady finger and meant to accompany Champagne well.

We are so happy for our friends Thiébault and Marielle who have purchased a gorgeous “clos” or enclosed parcel of vineyard, that is directly across the tiny road from their house.  It is encircled by an ancient stone wall and you access it through an old, wooden door that is locked.  Besides the vines that have gorgeous exposure to the sun, there are wild raspberries and strawberries, a huge cherry tree with delicious red cherries ripe right now, peach and apple trees, and a kitchen garden that Thiebault has planted to potatoes and tomatoes.  Their four children are apparently as enchanted with this magical little Eden as I am.  They’ve built a tree house and have caught trout in a rivulet that runs alongside the stone wall.

Perhaps the only monopole (single-owner) vineyard inside the prestigious village of Pommard that also boasts a treehouse?

What has impressed me most is the sincere generosity of our producers, who have become our friends.  Disgorging a bottle of 1990 Champagne for our apero (aperatif)….going in to town early to get the best croissants for us…serving a vertical of L’Homme Mort Chablis…putting us up in their home and cooking dinner on a school night, two nights in a row…putting us up in their gorgeous apartment…or putting us up in their historic house/crush pad (the Germans even occupied it during the war).  Merci mille fois!!

Before we head off to Burgundy where I’ll report periodically on the delicious food we’ll be lucky enough to enjoy at the homes of our producers, I wanted to leave you with two things to try now.

Slow-roasted salmon has been a revelation. Most recipes call for baking fish at higher temperatures, so I was intrigued with an idea shared in a recent Bon Appetit Magazine. They suggested rubbing a salmon fillet with little olive oil, lemon zest and chopped herbs (thyme worked well – I’ll also try chives), and then roasting at 250 for about 15 minutes. After discovering how moist and easy this is, you’ll never cook salmon at a higher temperature. Catch the salmon when it is still rare and translucent. Serve this with kale salad and quinoa and you’ve got an unbelievably yummy meal that would make your cardiologist proud (or put him/her out of business). If there is any left-over salmon, mash it with softened butter and chopped shallot and lemon zest for an absolutely delicious spread on homemade crostini. This reminds me of something we used to eat years ago called Salmon Rillettes at Thomas Keller’s Buchon in Yountville.

And I made a mighty mean batch of Emeril’s shrimp and grits recently. Gracious, is this good!  Happy, happy, as Emeril would say.  Beautiful stepdaughter Ally wanted the recipe (I hope she’ll make her friends in DC think she slaved but it’s really a total snap).  Scott proclaimed it best…dish…ever (ok, so he is known for his superlatives).  It went over so well and was a great way to showcase the terrific andouille made by our friends at Olympic Provisions. I didn’t make his version of grits. I just make grits and add chopped garlic and cheese. His version calls for a lot of cream and a lot more time. This would be delicious served over rice too.  Stay tuned, because I’ll have lots of good eats and photos to share in the coming weeks.

Family affair working in the tasting room before a dinner of shrimp and grits!

A seasoned gardening veteran, giving up on planting a garden for the first time in 20 years?!  That’s what he told me last year in our tasting room, due to our miserably late and cool spring.  He just didn’t think it would be worth it.  And here we are again, with possibly an even later start to the growing season (just ask the grape vines!).  But don’t despair.  Don’t give up on your kitchen garden!  Despite the fact that I’m going to be away for a month, and despite the fact that my garden is attached to a house that is for sale, it’s still more than worth my while to put a few things in the ground.  I’ll recoup the costs with the first harvest of greens and it’s just good for the soul to get your hands in the dirt.

Here are a couple of shots to show you that even with a slow start like last year, it is always worth planting!

And I don’t know about you, but it’s also the time of year here in the Willamette Valley that I get what I call the “garden woes.”  I’m not as organized as I was last year, when I poured over seed catalogs.  I’m later than I was last year.  My little garden feels more haphazard than last year.  Let go of the woes, plant a few things, and you’ll have forgotten all about these misgivings in July and August when you are eating your crops night after night.  Promise!  There is sunshine (finally) on tap for the weekend, so get planting.

Here then are my tips for the easiest, most productive and rewarding vegetables for our climate.

Bush beans!  Plant these from seeds and they will pop up as quickly as the next week.  They’ll get about a foot or 18 inches high and need no trellising and they are great producers.  I’ve enjoyed a Burgundy Bush Bean variety that was stringless.  Plant some green beans too, next to a trellis or tomato cage.  I’ve planted several varieties of Blue Lake, from organic plant starts purchased at the Farmers Market.  Very productive.  If you end up with more beans than you need, just freeze them.  Maybe blanch them in boiling salted water for less than a minute, shock them in cold water, let dry on paper towels and then freeze.

Purchase organic Kale and Chard plant starts.  Plant about 4 of each, and you’ll keep your family in greens, just harvesting the outer leaves and letting the plants continue to grow all summer.   I have photos that show I was still harvesting kale mid-September!  So many recipes for kale are for braises or gratins.  But here is a recipe for a family favorite, a bright, fresh kale salad enriched with a sprinkling of pine nuts, that will convert even those who claim to detest it. With excess kale, I quickly blanch leaves in salted water, drain, then roughly chop, then freeze.  Great for vegetable galettes, or to top pizza or in pasta or mixed into mashed potatoes or minestrone.  I just used up the last of my freezer supply a few weeks ago in a savory bread pudding with mushrooms and gruyere.

Lettuce!  Plant from organic starts.  A 4-pack of little starts might cost $2.50 and you’ll recoup that in a few weeks, the very first time you harvest the outer leaves.  If you’re buying pre-washed organic lettuce in bags, you’re paying $9-12/pound for lettuce so this is one of the number one crops to save you money.  You can grow lettuce anywhere!

Cherry tomatoes…yes, one plant, but nothing bigger.  Tomato bullies might try to make you feel that you’re not a real man/gardener/foodie unless you plant heirlooms and lots of them.  But from my experience, tomato plants are space and nutrition hogs.  To add insult to injury, in this climate, by September, you’ve got to scramble to find a recipe for Green Tomato Jam.  Instead, find a buddy with lots of land and sunshine (ie Eastern Oregon), and trade them their tomaotoes for your prodigious greens and beans!  Yikes, look how just one cherry tomato plant took over!  This was taken mid-August, and it is just beginning to flower, so quite a ways from ripe cherry tomatoes.

Potatoes!  Easy, and an extra-fun treasure hunt for kids when digging them up.  Bonus for me — I apparently didn’t dig up all of them out of the raised bed last year, so I’ve got volunteers this year.  Take organic potatoes and cut them into quarters, so that each quarter has an eye or more.  Before you plant them, let the pieces dry, indoors or in the sun, so that the cut sides are dried.  Push them into the dirt and wait for the green vines to emerge.  When you see flowers, see photo, you’ve got baby potatoes.  When the vines start to flop over and dry out, you’ve got big potatoes.  You can dig them up at any stage, as you need them.

These are just my top picks for hassle-free crops that give many pounds of production per square foot.  Email me your best bets.  Happy gardening.  We WILL have sun and growth eventually!

This is a great cake for Mom!  You will make her very happy.  It is delicious as a citrus cake, but it is great on its own or you could serve it with berries and whipped cream.  As you’ll see from my previous post, I’ve made it several times, differently each time.  I’ve made it a couple more times since that last post.  It’s your basic, delicious, moist cake that is quicker to make than running to the store for a boxed mix.  I’ve swapped out the regular oil for a fruity olive oil; I’ve made it with citrus zest and without; I’ve swapped out a third of the flour for ground almond meal (delicious); I’ve topped it with citrus glaze and left it plain.  This next time, I’m going for the version with ground almond flour, and I’m going to double the recipe so that I can make a two layer cake.  I’ll top it with whipped cream, flavored with orange zest (hmmm…or you could do lavender – decisions, decisions – either way, I think I’d pulse a little white sugar with either orange zest or lavender, sift out any solids, and then add the flavored sugar to heavy cream and whip).

That brings me to a tip of the week.  I have so many recipes that call for lemon juice.  It finally hit me one day what a waste it was to not zest the lemon first, before juicing it.  Now I just put the zest on a small piece of waxed paper and wrap it and pop it in the fridge or freezer.  Zest is great to have on hand for salad dressings, or for tossing with sliced strawberries, or to add to homemade scones or to a fruit cobbler, or sprinkled over sautéed spinach with a handful of pinenuts and capers.  The zest is handy to have for cocktails, for an aioli, and definitely for whipped cream.

The other little shortcut I took this week was to pulse several cloves of garlic in the mini-chop, and put it in a glass jar along with some nice olive oil, and store it in the fridge.  It has been awesome to dig in, spoonful by spoonful, this week for a salad dressing, for an aioli with grilled steak, for a chipotle chicken dish, and for a garlicky flat bread.

Here’s another gift that keeps on giving, for Mom…a living, organic salad bowl!

When I haven’t posted for a while, it is never for want of something to say.  It is because there is too much inspiration and too much good eating going on, and I simply don’t know how to condense and share it. (I was going to say “digest and share it,” but in the context of a food blog, that’s…well, gross).

I’ve been holding out on you with this recipe discovery.  I’ve promised good eats and help increasing your life’s YUM index. (By the way, I was just in my hometown of New Orleans for a reunion, and it is perfectly acceptable there to translate that as Eat Mo’ Betta.  Really, there is even a popular gardening series called Grow Mo’ Betta.  But that’s New Orleans, where it’s ok to take a lot of grammatical license and to have a sense of humor).   Anyway, back to the recipe.  When Scott heated up leftovers at work, a member of our team called out, “whoever made that should open a restaurant, because that smells delicious.”  (Did I mention that I really, really like Robin, our bookkeeper?!).  And you can see in the photo that when I served this recipe with a side dish of white beans with lemon, shallot and parsley, that our daughter awarded me the honored Fleur de Lis, which we recently began shifting around the table each night to recognize something well-done that day.

Now you won’t believe that these accolades are associated with a recipe from a tin can.  But in fact, the main ingredient is canned tuna.  The recipe is called Buchons Au Thon (or tuna corks) and comes from Molly Wizenberg’s blog Orangette and was included in her wonderful book, A Homemade Life.  (I “borrowed” this book from a friend, and have conveniently forgotten to return it because I keep returning to the recipes).

The name “tuna cork” and the idea of cooking dinner in a muffin tin is both repulsive and comical at the same time, but you just have to trust me that this is absolutely delicious.  It tastes like a crustless quiche, with the taste of tuna tamed with the rich creme fraiche and the hit of tomato paste.  I have made it several times now, and keep meaning to try a version of it with the addition of black olives or capers and make it more Provencal.  We recently enjoyed this dish with a Pouilly-Fuissé from Chateau des Rontets, but just about any of our wonderful white burgs would be terrific.

I prefer our local Oregon albacore tuna as a matter of state pride, but was recently reminded that it also has much less worrisome mercury than other tunas, due to the age of the fish caught. Plus it just tastes better.  This recipe gives amount of tuna in grams, but corresponds to a 6 oz can.

While I’m on my Molly Wizenberg kick, I’ve also made her  Yogurt Cake with Lemon Glaze about five times in the past two months.  (With the grey weather we’re enjoying in Oregon, I think lemons and a microplane are survival essentials!)  I’ve swapped in orange zest (but prefer the lemon), once used a few tablespoons of the preciously guarded Oregon Olive Mill Lemon Olive Oil gifted to me by our Scott Paul Wines team, and another time omitted the lemon and topped it with a caramel frosting.

The yogurt cake is a staple in France.  Typically, their yogurt comes in little 125 g jars and their version of this cake reads like our 1-2-3 cakes, ie 1 jar yogurt, 2 jars sugar, 3 jars flour, etc.  At our daughter’s French-immersion school, the children began making this cake in preschool.  This summer in France, I’ll be looking to our producer families for their recipes.  As much as I adore Molly Wizenberg and admire her writing, I’d rather hang another name on this cake, such as Clothilde’s or Estelle’s Gateau au Yaourt, etc.  While I’m tracking down a version from one of our very own, you should not waste anytime in making this delightful, everyday, eminently adaptable, snacking cake.

And I have a new author crush.  I’ll be back soon with more about Amy Pennington and her wonderful Urban Pantry.  I’m very inspired.