The path to this salad began a decade ago at Fish La Boissonnerie, a lovely little bistro on Rue de Seine in Paris. Featuring baby arugula, shavings of Parmesan cheese and sliced dates, the peppery green, sweet and salty salad charmed us greatly, and we took the idea back with us to Gourmandistan. There, like many things, the salad began to adapt. Desiring a more nutty flavor, we began using a walnut oil vinaigrette. Later, for even more punch, we started sugar-toasting walnuts and adding some chili flakes for extra kick, which led to orange slices to tone down the heat.  We began to use watercress, finding it less peppery and more tender than the original arugula, and soon the salad became not from Fish, but from ourselves. Add a bit of Blue Dog baguette and it’s a dinner in Gourmandistan by way of Paris, a pleasant journey we can’t seem to get enough of.

WALNUT VINAIGRETTE

(adapted from Myra Goodman’s Food to Live By: The Earthbound Farm Organic Cookbook) (makes about 1 cup)

Place all ingredients in a glass jar with lid tightly sealed.  Shake to combine.

The truth is this recipe is quite good. We think it adds a new dimension to lemon squares, even though we’re usually quite fond of the traditional puckery-sweet bars. By adding a bit of apricot jam, however, Medrich softens the sour and creates a creamy bite with the color of butterscotch, making lemon bars even more beautiful to any Gourmandistani’s sweet tooth. Many of Medrich’s earlier books appear to be out of print, but are still available from various sellers on Amazon and elsewhere. We encourage you to check out her latest and see what sweet treasures you may uncover.

APRICOT LEMON BARS

(“adapted,” in the loosest possible meaning of the word, from Alice Medrich’s Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy Melt-In-Your-Mouth Cookies)

Position an oven rack in the lower part of the oven.  Preheat to 350°.  Line an 8 x 8″ pan with foil.

Make crust as follows:  Place flour, sugar, salt and nuts in a food processor.  Pulse until nuts are finely ground, then add melted butter and vanilla.  Continue pulsing until mixture begins to form clumps. Remove dough and press evenly over the bottom of the prepared pan.

Bake crust for 25-30 minutes, until golden brown.  Remove from oven and reduce heat to 300°.

While crust is baking, mix sugar and flour together in a large bowl.  Then, stir in eggs.  Add jam, then lemon juice.

Pour filling over crust.  Return to oven.  Bake for 20-25 minutes longer, until filling is set.

Cool completely in pan on a cooling rack.  Then, lift out using the foil liner.  Cut into squares.  Sift powdered sugar over.

While desperately awaiting the arrival of local spring greens, we’ve been buying broccoli rabe at our Whole Foods because Michelle can no longer tolerate the taste of the usual bland broccoli flown in all winter from god knows where. The stuff comes in giant bunches, and we were faced with a pile perilously close to becoming chicken food. Thinking about the rabe’s bitter green flavor and seeking a simpler way to get the potato-like taste she got from Jerusalem artichokes in her recent effort, Michelle suggested a rabe-and-choke pizza. It has, in the last couple of weeks, become our favorite combination. The blanched, bitter greens and florets stand up well to a 500° oven, and the potato-y sunchokes add a touch of astringency under a blanket of mozzarella cheese.

Tomorrow we’ll put down the money for this year’s farm share, and given the creepily warm winter we may see local green stuff soon. And if there’s anything broccoli-like in our basket at all, we will want to make this pizza again—and will lay waste to its deliciousness once more.

BROCCOLI RABE AND SUNCHOKE PIZZA

(for one 12-inch pizza)

Preheat oven to 500°, preferably with a pizza stone placed in the lower part of the oven.

Sauté onion slices in olive oil in a skillet until caramelized.  Add garlic slices near end of cooking time.  Set aside.

Boil sunchoke slices in salted water until tender.  Drain.  Dry on paper towels.

Blanch broccoli rabe in salted boiling water.  Drain in a colander, rinsing with cold water.  Sauté in olive oil along with some red pepper flakes.  Splash on some balsamic vinegar.

Roll out pizza dough.  Place on a sheet of parchment paper.  (Or directly into a pizza pan if you don’t have a stone and/or a peel.)  Fold over edges of dough and brush them with olive oil.  Poke crust with tines of fork. Sprinkle some Parmesan cheese over.

Spread white sauce over bottom of crust.  Top with sunchoke slices, then with onions and garlic, then with mozzarella cheese, then with broccoli rabe.  Sprinkle with more Parmesan cheese.

Use a peel to place the pizza (with the parchment paper still under it) onto the heated stone.  Bake for 10 to 15 minutes until crust and cheese are browned.

Readers will be unsurprised to find Michelle less than moved by Hulk Hogan, preferring to find her inspiration in a recent book by our friend, Rona Roberts.  Sweet, Sweet Sorghum: Kentucky’s Golden Wonder is a paean to the sticky grain-based syrup that accompanies these pancakes. (Use maple syrup if you must. We won’t think less of you. But for god’s sake, don’t try using the sugar cane syrup that folks outside the southern U.S. call “molasses.”)

Yesterday, while baking something else, Michelle threw a giant sweet potato in the oven to roast. The mashed orange flesh was left in the ‘fridge overnight before being pulled out for what became a wonderful breakfast. We didn’t use as much spice as the original recipe called for (due to Steve’s most likely un-American aversion to “Christmas flavors”), but enjoyed the moist, firm cakes as a departure from the more traditional batter. Heated grassy-sweet sorghum, some butter and a glass of fresh-squeezed juice rounded out a real “red, white and blue” experience that you’ll most likely find much more pleasant than this one. Are you listening, Nikolai Volkoff?

SWEET POTATO PANCAKES WITH SORGHUM SYRUP

(adapted, only barely, from Cheryl Alters Jamison & Bill Jamison’s A Real American Breakfast) (serves at least 4)

Mix dry ingredients in a large bowl.

Whisk eggs, buttermilk and vanilla in a medium bowl.  Add sweet potatoes and stir until incorporated.

Pour egg mixture into dry ingredients.  Mix until combined.  Add water as needed to make batter just short of runny.  (It took almost 5 TB of water for us before the batter was right, but may take less depending on how dry the roasted potato is.)

Cook pancakes on both sides in an oiled skillet or griddle over medium heat.  1/4 cup of batter will make a 4″ cake.  Watch the cakes carefully, as the sugar in the sweet potatoes makes them burn quickly.

Serve with butter and sorghum syrup.

Looking for another way to use the tasty tubers, Michelle discovered a tart recipe in Ottolenghi: The Cookbook and decided we could wing it with the chokes and some ingredients we had on hand. Steve made another one of his buttery pie crusts, and Michelle busied herself peeling, cubing and boiling the chokes along with shredding cheese, chiffonading kale and making a creamy egg filling. The Jerusalem artichokes baked up better than potato, with a creamy yet sturdy texture. And, though the original recipe called for blander Swiss chard and tangier goat cheese, we thought the chokes went particularly well with our substituted slightly bitter Lacinato kale and a rich, salty Gruyère.

While it was delicious, Michelle thought the work put this tart slightly on the wrong side of the “ass pain/amazing taste” meter.  But while he’s agreeable to returning to the sauté pan, Steve hopes she finds the energy to make this one again.

JERUSALEM ARTICHOKE TART

(adapted from Ottolenghi: The Cookbook) (makes a 9″ tart)

Roll out the crust and place in a 9″ tart pan with a removable bottom.  Prick the bottom with a fork.  Put in the refrigerator for at least half an hour (or for a shorter period in the freezer).

Blind-bake the crust in a 340° oven for 30 minutes.  Remove the weights and bake for 10 minutes more.  Remove from the oven and cool on a wire rack.

Meanwhile, peel the Jerusalem artichokes and cut them into 1/2″ to 3/4″ cubes.  Cover with salted water in a small saucepan and bring to a boil, then simmer for about 15 minutes until tender.  Drain, rinse with cold water, then leave in a strainer to dry.

Remove the stems from the kale and chiffonade the leaves.  Heat the oil in a skillet.  Add the kale.  Cook until soft, tossing frequently.  Splash on some water if the kale seems to be getting too dry.  Season with salt and pepper.  Near end of cooking time, add the rosemary and garlic. Add lemon juice, then set aside to cool.

Whisk the cream, crème fraîche and eggs together, along with a bit of salt and pepper, in a bowl.

If the artichokes are damp, dry with paper towels.  Spread the artichokes and the kale on the partially-baked crust.  Sprinkle about 3/4 of the cheese over.  Pour the custard mixture over the vegetables and cheese, making sure not to fill too full.  (We ended up with a tablespoon or two more than we needed in our shallow tart pan.)  Sprinkle with remaining cheese.

Bake for 15 minutes uncovered.  Then, cover with foil (making sure not to let the foil touch the tart’s surface) and bake for 45 minutes more until filling is set.  If the top of the tart needs more browning (as ours did) at this point, remove the foil and bake for a few minutes more.

Cool on wire rack.  Remove sides of tart pan.  Serve warm or at room temperature.

Brownies with Caramel Icing

Michelle was unhappy; Steve, somewhat stuffed. Several weekends of new recipes resulting in miserable muffin failures had wasted many cups of our precious frozen blueberries as well as other Gourmandistan goods. The first batch of blueberry muffins was too bland with an unpleasant, gummy texture. The second, tasty but too heavy. (Steve, like some sort of scavenger bird, picked the fruit out of the batter and baked remains before feeding Michelle’s castoffs to the chickens.) A third attempt abandoned blueberries for pears, ginger and walnuts, resulting in a tasty bite that still did not meet the grade for Michelle-level muffins. Michelle was getting a bit tired of unsuccessful baking, and Steve was getting a bit tired of having perfectly good berries snatched away because they arrived in things that were “meh.” The solution? More baking of sweets—but this time, something guaranteed to turn out well.

Michelle has been making these brownies since she was a teen, if not even younger. Combining a “one-pan fudge cake” from Nashville’s Junior League with caramel icing from New Orleans’ Junior League turns out a sweet, fudgy and nuttily satisfying brownie every time. Someday Michelle will find a muffin that meets her standards. Until that day, Steve will have to live with these brownies.

“NASHVILLE’S ONE-PAN FUDGE CAKE”

(adapted from Nashville Seasons)

Melt butter, sugar and chocolate together in a medium saucepan over low heat, stirring occasionally.  Remove from heat.  Sift flour, baking powder and salt into the same pan.  Add eggs, vanilla and nuts.  Blend with a wooden spoon or spatula (working quickly so that eggs incorporate into batter rather than cook) and pour into a well-greased 8″ square baking pan.  Bake at 325° for 30 to 35 minutes.  Cool on a wire rack.

CARAMEL ICING

(adapted from The Plantation Cookbook)

Boil sugar, cream and butter to soft-ball stage (238°) in a small saucepan.  Remove from heat and add vanilla.  Beat until thick and cool enough to spread over brownies.

There is opera, and there is “Opry.” There is granola, and there is “Granola Revisited” from Lorna Sass’ Whole Grains Every Day Every Way.  We Gourmandistanis often find granola too sweet, too cinnamony or just too junked up. Carob chips are Satan’s chocolate and, being purists, we believe even Amedei chocolate would ruin a good granola (and vice versa).

This granola is simple, light and still plenty sweet—especially when you ramp up the coconut ration (perhaps, for example, after discovering an aging cache of the stuff hidden in your freezer). If you’re an opera fan, you could Melba it up with dried peaches. Opry fans could add sequins and little cowboy hats, or combine it with Greek yogurt and fruit like these guys and Steve do for a slightly less sugary alternative to breakfasting with Taylor Swift.

“GRANOLA REVISITED”

(adapted from Lorna Sass’ Whole Grains Every Day Every Way) (makes about 7 cups)

Preheat oven to 225°.

Mix syrup and oil in a small saucepan.  Cook over low heat, stirring frequently, until warm.  Add vanilla and remove from heat.

Mix together oats, optional wheat germ, coconut and nuts in a large bowl.  Add syrup mixture, stirring until the dry ingredients are evenly coated.

Spread mixture evenly onto a large rimmed baking sheet (i.e., a jelly roll pan).  Bake for about 90 minutes, stirring every 15 minutes with a flat spatula and rotating baking sheet occasionally so that the oats are evenly toasted.

Cool mixture on the baking sheet.  When cooled, sprinkle dried fruits over and toss a bit.  Store at room temperature in a covered container.