get in on it

Well, it’s almost the end of March and I feel like Roasted Vegetable Season is practically over without so much as one giant snowstorm. I should say that whispering, under my basement stairs and then instantly turn around three times, mark an X on a dead frog and spit on it to prevent a jinx. We are, after all, still in New England.



But last week we had temperatures in the 70s and 80s as a sort of terrifyingly odd stretch of unseasonably warm March weather. All I heard around me all day was people wondering if we would “pay for it.” We are such a bunch of cynics here, especially when it comes to brutal weather, so I guess until we’ve gotten through August without a summer snow squall, we’ll be waiting for the other shoe to drop.



Weather aside, I’m still roasting vegetables, because well, it’s easy and it usually means I only have to clean one pan. I had some girlfriends over for lunch a few weeks ago and I made a simple salad that was remarkably delicious thanks to these mustard roasted mushrooms. I also made some fresh baked scones that we had with butter and honey and cinnamon tea. This is the kind of thing I make me ladies for lunch when I have Tuesdays off. You should quit your job and get in on this.



MUSTARD ROASTED MUSHROOMS

1 lb. cremini, shitake or button mushrooms (or a mix)
1-2 tbs. whole grain mustard
2 tbs. Sherry vinegar
¼ cup olive oil
1 tsp. honey



To clean mushrooms, wipe any dirt off with a damp kitchen towel. Cut into quarters or strips. In a large bowl combine mustard, honey, and vinegar; whisk in the oil to combine thoroughly. Toss the mushrooms in the marinade and refrigerate for 1 hour, or several; tossing every so often if you think of it.



Heat oven to 400. Pour mushrooms and marinade onto a baking sheet and roast, stirring once or twice, for 45 minutes. Mushrooms tend to purge a lot of liquid and because they are mixed with a marinade here, mine were a little too wet. About halfway through cooking, I took the pan out and drained off just a bit of the liquid and sent them back into the oven.



When the mushrooms are finished, toss them- still warm- with arugula, chopped pistachios and crumbled goat cheese for a dynamite salad. For the dressing, I used a roasted shallot vinaigrette, using my standard formula for salad dressing, I used a split roasted shallot as the basis for the dressing.



ROASTED SHALLOT VINAIGRETTE

One large shallot, split and peeled
Walnut oil (or olive oil)

2 tbs. sherry vinegar
½ tsp. honey
½ tsp. whole grain mustard
4 tbs. olive oil



Split shallot down the middle, leaving the root end intact. Peel the skin off and drizzle a bit of oil over, toss to coat. Because I was nearly out of olive oil I had to use some walnut oil and it was one of those cases where the substitution was a really happy accident. Roast the shallot in a small baking dish for an hour, until it’s falling apart.



In a blender or food processor combine the roasted shallot with the mustard, honey and vinegar. Blend to combine completely and then stream in olive oil to complete the dressing.

Season to taste with salt, pepper and if needed, a pinch of sugar.

This dressing would be great on a salad with marinated peaches or ripe slices or pear. And it would also make a great marinade for chicken or steak.

my wheelhouse

I have officially lost my mind. I would like to think that I’m a pretty chill bride by most standards. I have been actively trying to not obsess or stress, I’ve been trying to get things done in little spurts and have thus far limited any bridal meltdowns to few and far between and for Paul’s ears only (he is SO lucky). However, that being said I am currently completely obsessed with finding the perfect thing for my sister to wear and also obsessed with my tablescapes. I just actually typed that word. I also just emailed my caterer and wrote a three paragraph email about the availability and existence of zig zag patterned napkins. Call the turnip truck and tell them to pick me up because I have officially FALLEN OFF.



And so with that bridal rant over and done with I can move on to more normal pastures. My “wheelhouse” as they say. Let’s talk about LUNCH! It will be so nice for me to talk about something that doesn’t make me want to kill myself while the words spill from my fingers. So what I’ve got for you this week is a nice little Farro Salad.



Farro, if you’ve never heard of it (and most people haven’t) is a whole grain which is part or whole of a wheat plant. I don’t quite know. It’s confusing, even to Wikipedia and those dudes know everything. It, to me, is a bit like barley in looks but has more of a denseness and chew to it. It’s a terrific texture, is a great blank canvas for dressings or pestos and is very healthy and filling. It’s also hard to find. I mean, when I can’t find, as my friend Matt would say while good naturedly making fun of me an: “insert pretentious sounding grain here” at Whole Foods, you know it’s random. And I’m of course obsessed with it. I guess in this way, farro is the zig zag napkin of my lunch menu. Seriously, welcome to my brain right now, I’m so sorry that you’re here.



THAT BEING SAID, this salad would also be terrific with quinoa, wild rice, bulgur wheat...pretty much any pretentious sounding grain you can get your hands on. The dressing has a little kick which works really well with the tartness of the dried cherries and the rich, toasty hazelnuts. I made it a full lunch by piling a scoop on some arugula and topping it with a poached egg; but it would also be great as a side with grilled chicken, salmon or shrimp or by itself cold, straight out of the fridge, which is how I ate the rest of it.



FARRO SALAD with DRIED CHERRIES, HAZELNUTS and FETA

1 cup dried farro, prepared according to package instructions
¼ cup dried cherries, chopped
¼ cup hazelnuts, toasted and chopped
1 tbs. fresh mint, chopped (approximately)
2 tbs. fresh flat leaf parsley, chopped (approximately)
Crumbled feta cheese (about ¼ cup)
¼ small red onion, finely chopped

1 tbs. honey
Scant 2 tsp. Sriracha hot sauce
¼ cup olive oil
2 tbs. sherry vinegar



Prepare the farro according to package directions. My farro was “pearled” and only had to cook between 12-18 minutes, but I have read other recipes for farro that had it cooking for 50 minutes, so I am guessing that in my particular case “pearled” meant “instant” or, as instant as this ancient grain could be. Regardless, the way to cook it is to boil it in salted water. Unlike rice or pasta, you don’t have to wait for the water to boil before adding the grain, you just dump it in right from the get go.



While the farro cooks, toast the nuts in a small skillet until fragrant and chop the onion, cherries, parsley and mint. In a large bowl combine Sriracha, honey and vinegar and whisk together briskly while streaming in the olive oil.



Drain the hot farro and toss in the bowl with the dressing, add all other ingredients, a touch of salt and pepper and enjoy. Delicious warm, room temp. or chilled.

in my whole entire life

I have documented my tried and tested granola recipe on here before. But it was several years ago and whenever I go back and look at old posts I want to die a little. The photos (or lack thereof) and wordiness of the writing is akin to stumbling upon poetry and journals from my formative years. True story: when I was moving out of my childhood home going through stuff, my friend Erica and I found a “newspaper” that my friend Alicia and I had published when we were probably 11 (yes, in our spare time we wrote a newspaper- can someone say "Nerd Alert!"?). Anyways, we didn’t work very hard on it and it wasn’t very good. The big scoops I covered were Gossip and Sports. In Gossip News, my sister had been in trouble with my parents and in Sports News I had “gone to my first Red Sox game and eaten the best hotdog I’ve ever eaten in my whole entire life”.



That is what I covered for sports news: what I ate at the game. Sounds about right! Anyways, Erica and I laughed until we practically cried over that “best hotdog” newsflash but still…coming across your old documents is always embarrassing, whether it’s the spelling or the content or the handwriting itself. That’s how I feel with some old posts and I’m sure I’ll feel that way about some of these current day posts some day as well. Regardless of that, I made enough updates to my old go-to granola to post the new and improved version here today.



I have been itching to combine peanut butter, honey and granola since some time last year when I made a failed batch of a peanut honey granola using a recipe that I found online. It burned to a crisp in about 10 minutes. This time around I decided that I would make a simply spiced, nut-based granola with a touch of flaked coconut and that after it was done I would mix in the peanut butter and honey (because it was the honey I believe that burned). Let me just tell you: I’m sorry it took me so long to get around to this, because I just ate the tastiest granola parfait in recent memory; maybe in my whole entire life.



HOMEMADE COCONUT ALMOND GRANOLA

1 cup rolled oats
½ cup steel cut oats
½ cup raw almonds, coarsely chopped
½ shelled roasted peanuts, coarsely chopped
¾ cup flaked coconut (sweetened is fine that’s what I used)
¼ cup wheat germ (optional)
2 tsp. cinnamon
1 ½ tsp. ground ginger
Pinch salt
¼ cup dark brown sugar
¼ cup honey
¾ cup applesauce



Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Combine all of the dry ingredients (up to the brown sugar) in a large bowl. Stir together thoroughly. In a medium sized bowl stir together the honey and applesauce. Pour over the dry ingredients and stir together completely to coat.



Bake granola on parchment paper lined baking sheets for 50 minutes to an hour. Turn the pans and stir the granola every ten minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool entirely on pans. It will crisp up more as it cools.



This makes a mammoth amount of granola. And it keeps foreevvver if stored in an air tight bag or Tupperware. You can eat it simply like a cereal with milk or by the handful as a snack. Here’s how I’m using most of it up:



PEANUT BUTTER and HONEY GRANOLA PARFAITS

Dollop Greek yogurt into a bowl or glass jar. Add a scoop of Coconut Almond Granola, a tablespoon of peanut butter (preferably all natural) and top with a drizzle of honey. Include a banana if you have one around, it would be stellar in this. I didn’t have any bananas on hand, but this was delicious nonetheless.



It’s so good it felt like I was eating a loaded Pinkberry treat. Nutty, sweet, salty and tangy. I can’t WAIT until breakfast tomorrow when I can have another one.



This hearty breakfast treat would travel well: simply prepare it in a jar with a screw on lid, like a mason jar or even a recycled sauce jar.



Clamp the lid on and roll to work, eat it when you get there to start the day off on a high note.

a different kind of treat

Well, well, well….what do we have here? Some savory cookies are what we’ve got. Yeah you heard me cookies that are salty, not sweet. Oatmeal based with the tiniest bit of sugar, these hearty little nuggets are packed with salty parmesan and a little hint of rosemary.



I read this recipe one morning a little while back and within 30 minutes these were coming out of the oven. They are so easy to make and so different and delicious I was glad to have found this recipe and I think these will be holding a spot in my repertoire for a while.



ROSEMARY PARMESAN OATMEAL COOKIES
(from the kitchn.com)

1 cup old-fashioned oats
¼ cup warm water
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
¼ cup lightly packed light brown sugar
1 large egg, beaten
1 cup sifted unbleached all purpose flour
½ tsp. fine sea salt
¼ tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. chopped rosemary
¼ tsp. freshly cracked black pepper
1 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
flakey sea salt or kosher salt



Preheat the oven to 350° F.



Place the oats in a large mixing bowl and sprinkle the water over them.



In a small bowl, mix the olive oil, brown sugar and egg. Pour this mixture over the oats, stir to combine, and set aside.



In another mixing bowl, combine the flour, fine sea salt, baking soda, rosemary, and black pepper. Whisk to combine well. Stir in the Parmesan.



Gradually sprinkle the flour mixture over the oat mixture, stirring until combined. For me, at this stage it was very helpful to get my hands into the dough and work it together.



Form tablespoon sized scoops of batter and place, evenly spaced on a baking sheet lined with parchment or a Silpat liner. Flatten out each piece slightly so they’re about ¼ to ½ inch thick and is an evenly shaped disk.



Sprinkle a pinch of salt on top of each. I used some nice flaky grey salt I have and I have no idea what to do with it. Maybe I should ask Michael Chiarello, since homeboy puts that stuff in err’thing.



Bake for 15-17 minutes, until the edges are slightly darkened.



Remove to a cooling rack. Serve alone as a savory snack or with cheese and crackers. The original serving suggestion with this recipe was to smear soft cheese on these and I think that does NOT sound like a bad idea at all. Though I ate most of mine straight up and they didn’t last long.



Makes a little over one dozen cookies.