Egg & Kale Sauté

I've been part of a CSA before and I loved it - the interaction with the farmers, the surprise of the contents each week, and the delicious produce.  However, I found that I could never keep up with what I received and wound up wasting food each week (freezer space is not always readily available).  Enter In Season Local Market located in the Highlands and in Louisville where you can purchase only Colorado made or grown goods like at a farmer's market or through a CSA, but you only buy what you need.  They carry some of my favorite local products (e.g., ice cream from Little Man, habanero pickles from Colorado Country Kitchen) and there are always surprising finds.

Chicken eggs on the left, duck eggs on the right

Over the weekend, I was lucky to snatch up a half dozen duck eggs from Mini Moos and Kids Too, a farm in Canon City, Colorado.  I've had their goat cheese before but never their eggs and the owner of the farm was at In Season making a delivery and talked me into half a dozen.  They are larger than chicken eggs and the yolk to white ratio weighs more heavily toward yolk.  Most importantly, duck eggs are delicious!

I'll eat a fried egg or two on top of most anything - pasta, salad, steak, whatever!  Today I went had two bunches of kale on hand, and so I sautéed kale and topped it off with duck eggs.  It was the perfect lunch - healthy and delicious.  Note that this kale dish makes an excellent side (and serves approximately 6 people), but I think it really shines when complemented by an egg.  If you serve this as a side dish, omit the 4 eggs and stop after the first instruction below.

Egg & Kale Sauté
Yield = 2 servings (as a main dish)
Adapted from Bon Appétit

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 cup thinly sliced onion
• 2 garlic cloves, finely diced
• 1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes 
• 1 3/4 pounds kale, stems removed and leaves roughly chopped (I used two bunches)
• 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• Kosher salt, freshly ground pepper
• 4 eggs

Preparation

• Heat oil in a large heavy pot over medium heat.  Add onions and garlic.  Cook, stirring often, until soft, about 5 minutes.  Add red pepper flakes; stir 1 minute. Add kale and sauté for approximately 5 minutes, until crisp-tender.  Stir in the apple cider vinegar.  Add butter; toss until melted.  Season with salt and pepper.
• As the kale is cooking, fry four eggs over easy so the yolk does not solidify.  Serve 2 eggs over a bed of kale and season with salt and pepper.

Look at those orange yolks!

Buttercup Squash Soup & the Boulder Farmer's Market

What makes you giddy?  This question was posed after several bottles of wine and many microbrews at a recent dinner party.  And if you know me, it won't come as a surprise that my response was the farmer's market!  I am sure Rob rolled his eyes, but it is true - there is just something about the stacks of vegetables, the flowers, the Colorado-made pasta, hummus, cheese and burritos, and the joy of wandering around, watching the other market-goers.  In the case of last weekend you can also add sunshine and the rainbow of fall colors to that list.  The Saturday Boulder Farmer's Market and fall in Colorado is not to be missed.

The fall weather continues to inspire my cooking and since my parents left for vacation and bequeathed the remaining squash in their garden to me, I am inundated with buttercup, acorn and butternut squash.  No complaints here!  The original recipe for this soup called for a mix of butternut and acorn squash (4 cups of each).  I made it instead with 8 cups of buttercup squash and it was creamy and smooth (without any cream, I might add) and the flavor was intense.  If you can't find buttercup squash, I am sure this will be equally as good with acorn, butternut, or whatever you can find at the market.  The original recipe also called for adding 1/4 cup of whipping cream and sugar.  If you taste the soup and think it needs to be sweetened, go for it.

I garnished mine with a dollop of Homemade Ricotta.  I made a second batch of the ricotta and conducted an experiment.  Instead of using 4 cups of whole milk, I used 2 cups of skim milk and 2 cups of whole milk.  Truthfully, there was no perceptible change... and I feel a little less guilty adding it to, literally, everything that I eat.

Buttercup Squash Soup
Yield = 8 servings
Adapted from December 1996 Bon Appétit 

Ingredients

1/4 cup ( 1/2 stick) butter

1 large onion, finely chopped

4 large garlic cloves, chopped

3 14 1/2-ounce cans low-salt chicken broth (about 6 cups)

8 cups 1-inch pieces peeled buttercup squash (about 3 pounds)

1 1/4 teaspoons minced fresh thyme

1 1/4 teaspoons minced fresh sage

Preparation

Melt butter in large pot over medium heat. Add onion and garlic and sauté until tender, about 10 minutes.  Add broth, all squash and herbs; bring to boil.  Reduce heat, cover and simmer until squash is very tender, about 20 minutes.

Working in batches, puree soup in blender or with an immersion blender.  Return soup to same pot and bring to a simmer.  Season with salt and pepper.  The soup can be made 1 day ahead.  Chill.  Rewarm over medium heat before serving.

Plum Crumble with Cinnamon-Nutmeg Crème Fraîche

Baking with plums is new territory for me. I love plums, but in my book they are for snacking not for baking. However, I read this post on House to Haus last week and thought that perhaps I was being shortsighted. It was time to try a plum dessert.

I am thrilled to report that the experiment was a huge success. Rob referred to the plum crumble tonight as "plum crack". It is THAT good. I'm not sure I can give the plums full credit - the topping is crunchy and sweet and perfectly complements the plums - but certainly the tart plums help to really set this crumble apart. I've actually made this twice (in the past week). The first tart was made with plums from the grocery store. The second tart was made with plums from my friend Doug's plum tree, which he let me raid while we were over for a barbecue on Saturday. With the number of plums I picked, I could make 10 crumbles but I'll try to resist my gluttonous urges and do something healthier with the remaining plums. You, however, should find some plums and make this crumble!

My crumbles, like my pies, err on the side of more fruit. I prefer a high fruit to crumble ratio, so keep that in mind if you make this. The original recipe called for 12 plums; I used 16 when I made it with grocery store plums and about 20 when I used plums from Doug's tree (they were a bit smaller than the store-bought plums). The original recipe also calls for candied ginger. I love ginger in many forms, but I just don't like candied ginger, so I omitted it. Check out the original recipe here if you like it and want to include it - I am sure it is delicious! That said, without the candied ginger, this was divine. If you are convinced that you won't like baked plums, make this with whatever fruit you do like. The topping is perfection.

I always like a little dollop of something on my baked fruit desserts. If you have vanilla ice cream or whipped cream, either would be a nice compliment. If you want to make something special, I'd recommend homemade crème fraîche with a little taste of fall (see below for what I added). The dominant flavor is still the tanginess of the crème fraîche, but the cinnamon and nutmeg complement the crumble well.

Plum Crumble
Adapted from the NY Times 
Total time: 50 minutes
Yield: 6 to 8 servings 

2 tablespoons brown sugar
1½ tablespoons plus 1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
¼ plus ½ teaspoon cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ground ginger
16-20 purple Italian or prune plums, cut in half and pitted
¾ cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
1 well beaten egg
½ cup unsalted butter, melted

1. Heat oven to 375 degrees, with rack in center.

2. Thoroughly mix brown sugar, 1½ tablespoons flour, ¼ teaspoon cinnamon and ground ginger. Add to plums and mix well. Arrange, skin side up, in ungreased, deep 9-inch pie plate.

3. Combine remaining sugar, baking powder, flour, cinnamon and salt. Mix well. Stir in egg. Then, using hands, mix thoroughly to produce little particles. Sprinkle over plums.

4. Slowly drizzle butter evenly over crumb mixture. The butter has a tendency to roll down the topping and over the rim of the pie dish, so do this step carefully. Bake the crumble for 30 to 35 minutes. The crumble is done when top is browned and plums yield easily when pricked with cake tester. Remove from oven and cool.

5. Serve warm or refrigerate for up to two days or freeze well covered. If reheating, bring to room temperature then warm at 300 degrees. If desired, serve with ice cream, whipped cream or the cinnamon-nutmeg crème fraîche.

Cinnamon-Nutmeg Crème Fraîche

1 cup of crème fraîche (so easy to make at home using this recipe)
1 tsp freshly-ground nutmeg
1 tsp cinnamon

Combine the spices with the crème fraîche and adjust to your liking!

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins

Our vacation last week kicked off in Aspen with an all-day trail run/hike around the Maroon Bells.  The views are dramatic and the peaks are steep... and we learned a lesson the hard way about winging it when trail running in the mountains and ended up on an adventure that lasted three times as long as we originally planned.

Thankfully, I had greedily stashed a delicious and filling pumpkin chocolate chip muffin in my backpack from the Aspen Farmer's Market earlier that morning.  The plan was to just peruse the market rather than to buy, but I couldn't resist the table of muffins and pastries.  I think about about hour four of running, Rob wished he hadn't resisted (don't worry, I set aside my only child tendencies and shared the muffin).

Pumpkin is one of my favorite foods.  I look forward to fall each year - pumpkin soup, pumpkin bread, pumpkin lattés.  After savoring the muffin on our Aspen adventure, I had to try my hand an recreating the muffins at home.  The recipe I used comes from the Baking from the Heart cookbook and the contributor of this particular recipe is Joanna Chang of Flour Cafe & Bakery in Boston fame (I've posted about her banana bread here).  These take a matter of minutes to put together and make a great treat for breakfast (yes, I'll eat a muffin which chocolate chips for breakfast... I can tell you are judging).

The only significant change I made to the recipe was inspired by this month's Fine Cooking magazine, which included an article on baking with olive oil.  While the magazine cautions against substituting olive oil for butter when the butter is to be creamed, I found that it worked extremely well in this instance - the resulting muffins were surprisingly light and flavorful.  If you'd prefer to only use butter, the original recipe called for only 1/2 cup.  Happy fall!

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins
Adapted from Baking from the Heart
Yield = 1 dozen muffins 

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon freshly-ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 cup (200 grams) granulated white sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
3/4 cup solid packed, canned pumpkin puree (1 15-ounce can)
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.   Place rack in the middle of the oven. Line 12 muffin cups with paper liners or spray each cup with a non-stick vegetable spray.

In a large bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, ground spices, and salt.

In the bowl of your electric mixer, or with a hand mixer, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.  Beat in the vanilla extract.  Scrape down the sides of the bowl.  With the mixer on low speed, alternately add the flour mixture and pumpkin puree in three additions, beginning with the flour mixture.  Fold in the chocolate chips.  

Fill the muffin cups evenly with the batter using two spoons or an ice cream scoop.  Place muffins in the oven and bake for about 18 -20 minutes, or until firm to the touch and a toothpick inserted in the center of one of the muffins comes out clean.  Place the muffins on a wire rack to cool.

Meadow Lark Farm Dinner

Have I mentioned that I have the best husband?  I have wanted to attend a farm-to-table dinner since first reading about the concept in Condé Nast Traveler's profile of Outstanding in the Field... and apparently Rob was paying attention!

Last weekend, Rob surprised me with a Meadow Lark Farm Dinner at the Red Wagon Organic Farm.  The evening was magical!  We ate dinner on antique china under a white tent draped with festive lights and at a table decorated with wildflowers and colorful glasses.  The dinner was vegetarian, which highlighted the fresh ingredients that came directly from the farm, and we had pleasant, interesting company and shared a bottle of one of our favorite beers (Saison Dupont Vieille Provision from Belgium).  The evening kicked off with a tour of the farm and then we were seated for dinner.  My description can't do the dinner justice, so hopefully my photos give you a taste of what the evening was like.  Enjoy!