My Food Geek

Look at all the corn! The CSA told us to take the whole bag and there must be about thirty ears. I’m putting on a large pot of water right now so I can start eating it. YUM!

It’s been a little bit hectic in the geek household and our blogging has suffered.

We’ve been enjoying the CSA but haven’t made anything I would deem picture worthy. My fridge is full of food yet we’re going to a friend’s to eat. I guess this isn’t prime blogging season or something.

I fully intended to participate in this month’s Daring Bakers event and even made the cake, but alas I did not frost or fill the cake and so it lives in the freezer until I get the motivation.

I’ll leave you with a quick shot of my fridge all full of food I probably won’t turn into anything interesting.

I know what you’re thinking, “but don’t you get farm-fresh veggies delivered by your CSA each and every week?” Yes, I do but what can I say, I’m a greedy geek. Sometimes the CSA just doesn’t provide everything I want to eat each week. I know this may come as a shock, but what else can I say. Each and every Tuesday I drive out to Lexington for this wonderful farmer’s market. I’m addicted and I’m not ashamed.

How could I resist this? Flowers, fruits, vegetables, breads, fresh meats - my head usually explodes when I get there. Strangely, I don’t end up leaving with much at all.

This stall is pretty much the reason why I make the trek to Lexington each week: Local, grass-fed beef. Yes, it is more expensive, but happy local cows are worth my hard-earned dough. It really does taste better and I hear it’s supposed to be better for you, too! I’m working my way through the list, I’ve tried: rib-eye, sandwich steak, london broil, ground beef, kabobs, and the short ribs. I’m not sure I’ll ever make it to the tongue or the liver.

Perennials for sale? Are you kidding me? This place really does have everything!

I couldn’t pass up the table of berries. Say goodbye to strawberry season and hello to raspberry and blueberry time! I walked away with one of each here. This guy was even selling sour cherries, something I’ve never seen sold in a New England supermarket.

The market is quickly changing over to summertime staples like tomatoes and corn while the spring greens are slowly on their way out. The market really helps to show you what’s in season (and what isn’t in season but being sold at the grocery store anyways).

If you’re interested in checking this place out, all of their information (including who’s going to be there) is located on their website: www.lexingtonfarmersmarket.org

Is it Tuesday yet?

So it’s Daring Bakers time again, and wouldn’t you know it, I’m a day late again.

This time around the challenge was a rich laminated yeast dough: The Danish Pastry braid. I’ve made both croissants and danish years ago in pastry school, but I’ve always shied away from making these at home. You see, laminated doughs and me are good friends, but once yeast joins the party and starts puffing things up in my warm kitchen, all bets are off. Adding yeast to these doughs, I’m told, makes laminating them easier. Personally I don’t find this the case and would rather do double turns of puff pastry dough until my hands fall off…but the mice are gone and I haven’t been the most productive Daring Baker so I soldiered on.

We were given some leeway with the fillings of our braid. The challenge provided a recipe for an apple filling but we were allowed to substitute anything we could think of if we wanted. Since apples are a fall fruit and it’s now just summer, I decided to come up with my own filling - blueberries and frangiapanne.

The recipe we used was pretty spot on and typical for a laminated dough. There’s lots of down-time in this recipe, but if you know what’s going on, you can cheat the rest times and save yourself at least an hour or so. I decided to make the dough and complete all the turns one day and shape, proof, and bake the braid on the following day.

It was quite surprising to see how much the dough expanded during the overnight rest in the refrigerator; it probably doubled in size. Before I rolled the dough out to its final size, I gently flattened the dough down to a more manageable size. Once it was flattened, it easily rolled out into a very large thin sheet.

The full sized braid just barely fit on my half sheet pan, but it at least fit. I was slightly worried that after proofing it would overhand the sides, but that never happened. Even with this large sized braid, I had enough scraps leftover to make a few small round danish. The scraps were cut into long, thin strips, twisted, and then coiled into circles. I made indentations in the center of each so there would be room for filling after they baked.

Both pastries proofed quickly in the early summer heat, probably less than an hour and they were doubled in size. The small danish baked off rather quick, about 10 minutes while the braid probably only took 15-18 minutes, tops.

After baking I lightly iced both pastries and filled the small danish with a strawberry compote. The recipe was pretty good. There’s a bit too much stuff in it for my liking - cardamom, orange zest, orange juice, vanilla bean, vanilla extract…One or two of these are a nice addition, but all of these together seemed to have gotten lost. I even skipped on the oranges and I still thought it was too much stuff. Overall things turned out well; if I made this again, I’d make some adjustments to the recipe - double turns to save some time, less stuff, and probably more shapes. The braid is nice but I’m a real sucker for the small, individual pastries.

Once again I feel like the Iron Chef; I get secret ingredients each week and I get to come up with new and (hopefully) innovative dishes to tempt the taste buds and please the eater. Did I mention I’ve missed getting CSA veggies yet?

This week’s secret ingredients were spring greens — lots of them. Spinach, mizuna, field greens, bib lettuce, and leaf lettuce. I came up with three dishes that captured the essence of spring: Baby Mizuna Salad with Miso Vinaigrette, Sesame-Spinach Maki, and a Baby Field Green Salad with Strawberries, Chevre Feta, and Balsamic Vinaigrette.

Here’s my Asian inspird creations. The salad was pretty basic: baby mizuna (Japanese mustard greens) with a dressing of miso, shoyu, rice vinegar, and oil. I topped it off with a tamago-style rolled omelet. The maki rolls are the run-of-the-mill inside out rolls with a sesame-spinach mixture on the inside. The spinach was blanched and squeezed dry. The dressing of the mixture is made by toasting sesame seeds and then grinding them in a Japanese mortar (suribachi) until they release their oils. I then added shoyu and additional sesame oil to the mixture and combine that with the spinach. I unofficially dub this dish the Koga Delight after my friend’s dad Kogasan who taught me how to make both the maki rolls and the rolled omelets.

The baby field green salad was just another excuse for me to get strawberries in another dish. The season’s first berries are always so sweet that I just had to find another way to eat them up. A balsamic and strawberry dressing along with crumbled feta and more strawberries completed this salad. Strawberries are the star of this dish but the tender baby greens held their own. This was so good I had to make it again for the eater to sample as well.

Luckily the Iron Chef experience only included the creation part of these dishes. There were no cameras, challengers, or electrical malfunctions shocking me in my personal kitchen stadium. Tasting and judging went quite well, as usual I won.