Cooking San Francisco

Collard Greens with Bacon and Garlic

This collard greens recipe inspired us to develop the San Francisco Southern Menu. These greens have a heartier, chewier leaf than spinach and require a longer cooking time though this sauté/steam method takes only 15 minutes. We used about 10 large collard leaves from the garden and that was plenty to feed a small family of two adults and two small children. You can adjust any of the ingredient amounts below to suit your taste, including omitting the bacon and adding more garlic.

1  teaspoon extra-virgin olive oil
2  ounces slab bacon or pancetta, chopped into small pieces
4  garlic cloves, thinly sliced
 pinch to 1/2 teaspoon crushed red-pepper flakes (to taste)
1 head collard greens (about 1 pound), tough stems and ribs removed, leaves coarsely chopped
1 teaspoon sea salt
1/2  cup water

Heat oil in a large saute pan over medium heat. Add bacon and sauté until browned and starting to crisp. Add garlic and cook, stirring often, until lightly browned, about 1 minute. Stir in red-pepper flakes, and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Stir in collard greens and 1 teaspoon salt.

Reduce heat to medium-low. Add water, and steam, covered, until greens are just tender and water evaporates, about 10 minutes. If greens are ready but there is still water in the pan, raise heat to medium-high, and cook, uncovered, until completely evaporated.

Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 15 minutes
Total Time: 30 minutes

Serves 4

 

Potato and Swiss Chard Gratin with Gruyere

 

This recipe was born out of sheer necessity.  One day after Star Apple's monthly garden maintenance visit, I arrived home to find a bountiful harvest of chard on my kitchen counter. The vibrant rainbow chard that accents my garden had really taken to the San Francisco fog and now it was time to figure out how to prepare it.

Kerrie and I immediately thought of a favorite gratin recipe from Bellweather Farms (Petaluma, CA) and adapted it to include the chard. This combination of creamy potatoes, lively greens, and sharp, nutty gruyere cheese makes for a comforting side dish that goes nicely with roast turkey, or it can be served as a vegetarian entrée with a wild greens salad.

-Daphne

Cooks notes:
-A pasta pot with a strainer insert works nicely for boiling the potatoes and chard.
-You can adjust the quantities of potatoes and chard according to personal taste

1 clove garlic, peeled and sliced in half
1 tablespoon unsalted butter, softened
1 large slice of onion
1 1/2 pounds yellow potatoes, ideally Yukon gold, thinly sliced
1 bunch Swiss chard, leaves cut from the ribs, leaves cut into 1/2 inch ribbons and ribs cut into 1/2 inch pieces
8 ounces crème fraiche
1 1/2 cups of Gruyere cheese, grated
salt
freshly ground black pepper

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Rub the inside of a medium-sized gratin or baking dish with both halves of the garlic clove (reserve garlic clove). Smear butter inside the dish, making sure to coat the bottom and sides.

2. Bring 4 quarts of water to a boil. Carefully drop the sliced potatoes in the water along with the onion slice and reserved garlic clove and boil for 5 minutes. Remove the potatoes from the water with a strainer, but leave the water in the pot.  Put potatoes in a bowl and set aside.

3. Return the pot water to a boil and add the chard leaves and stems. Boil chard for 5 minutes. Remove chard from water, then drain on a paper towels (you can discard the water this time). Set aside.

4. Layer half of the potatoes in the gratin dish. Evenly distribute chard on top of potatoes. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Top with 4 ounces of crème fraiche and  _ cup of cheese. Layer the rest of the potatoes followed by remaining crème fraiche and cheese.

5. Bake for 40 minutes or until cheese is browned on top and gratin is bubbling and heated through.

Serves 8, as a side dish

Prep Time 20 minutes
Cook Time 40 minutes
Total Time 1 hour

How Does Your Garden Grow?

This past May, I decided that I’d finally had it with my scraggly, neglected backyard and there was no question in my mind that I wanted a garden full of edibles, though I was skeptical that much would grow in my small, foggy, windswept space. My singular gardening achievement to this point had been keeping alive one Meyer lemon tree (and I barely did that), so I knew that I could not proceed without professional help.

Enter Leslie, Sai and Fishtea from Star Apple Edible Gardens. They installed a much broader array of plants and herbs than I ever imagined possible. Artichokes, asparagus, strawberries, Swiss chard, kale, potatoes, blueberries, radishes, rhubarb, carrots, beets, to name quite a few. The most transformational and prolific crops so far have been the greens: red leaf lettuce, frisée, spinach among others. I haven’t had to buy lettuce for 2 months and I only pick as much as I need for that day’s or lunch or dinner. It is delicious, inexpensive and efficient. (Our Wild Greens Salad tastes even better when the greens have been picked just moments before.) Even more important, my children love the garden and are now excited to make and eat their own salad. Being able to grow even a small part of our diet is truly a gift when living in an urban environment.

If you are interested is starting an edible garden of your own, do contact Leslie at Star Apple Edible Gardens, http://starappleediblegardens.com/.

-Daphne

Strawberry Season

You may have noticed recently that the grocery stores are filled with strawberries. Due to the freeze in Florida this winter, the Florida crops are coming on the market at the same time as the California crops, so the market is awash in strawberries

This great news for strawberry lovers because not only are the berries fragrant and juicy, but they are also inexpensive. (We just found organic strawberries at $3.00 for a pound.) While this situation is not ideal for the farmers, it is a good opportunity for us fragariaphiles - who are anxiously waiting for any sign of Spring to emerge - to fill our re-usable shopping bags with these delicious treasures. 

By the way, strawberries are one of the fruits listed on the Environmental Working Group's "Dirty Dozen" list. The following produce items are the most likely to absorb pesticides, so if you prioritize your organic shopping list definitely start here:

The Dirty Dozen

Peaches
Apples
Sweet bell peppers
Celery
Nectarines
Strawberries
Cherries
Lettuce/Spinach
Grapes
Pears
Potatoes
Carrots

Created by the Environmental Working Group.

For a complete list and health ranking, visit www.foodnews.org

  

Asparagus with Parmesan Breadcrumbs

We've just bought our first asparagus of the season and it's great to have you back, old friend!  Our favorite preparation method of the moment is broiling. It produces the same depth of flavor as roasting but in much less time. It's just important that you keep a close eye on the oven, as the high temperature will turn your tender green stalks to charcoal sticks if you aren't paying attention. (Honestly, for attention-challenged people like ourselves, this is the hardest part of this recipe). We think freshly made breadcrumbs work best for the topping. We put two pieces of sourdough bread in the food processor and ground them to the desired crumb size then added the cheese, zest, salt and pepper. If you already have bread crumbs, it's fine to toss everything together as the recipe states.

1/2 cup fresh bread crumbs
1/4 cup finely grated Parmesan cheese
2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil, divided
1/2 tsp grated lemon zest
2 pounds asparagus, tough ends snapped off

1. Adjust oven rack so that it sits 6 inches below heating element and heat broiler. Toss breadcrumbs, Parmesan cheese and lemon zest with 1 tablespoon olive oil in bowl. Season with salt and pepper.

2. Toss asparagus with remaining 1 tablespoon olive oil on large rimmed baking sheet and season well with salt and pepper. Spread asparagus in single layer on baking sheet and broil, shaking pan halfway through, until asparagus is tender and lightly browned, 6 to 8 minutes.

3. Transfer asparagus to broiler-safe baking dish. Spoon breadcrumb mixture over asparagus and broil until lightly browned, 30 to 60 seconds, watching carefully. Serve.

Serves 4

Prep Time: 10 min
Cook Time: 8 min
Total Time: 18 min

Crispy Carrot Fries

The carrot, while available all year round, is a quintessential October vegetable with its vivid orange color and earthy taste. In our case, it's an ideal vegetable to push on family members before the full force of Halloween snacks and candies descend upon us. We love this dish because it couldn't be more simple to prepare, and the roasting transforms this ordinary snack vegetable into a sweet and smoky side dish. Even though the roasted carrots are quite sweet by themselves, a small drizzle of honey adds a nice depth of flavor.

1 1/2 pounds carrots (10 medium)
2 Tbsp olive oil
1/2  tsp salt
pinch of ground pepper
honey

1.  Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

2. Cut away the tips and ends of each carrot and peel.
Cut each carrot in half and then cut in quarters,
place on a rimmed baking sheet.

3. In a mixing bowl, combine the carrot sticks, olive oil, salt, and pepper.  Coat the carrots evenly.

4. Roast for 15 minutes and toss once. Continue cooking until the carrots are tender and well browned, about 5 minutes more.  Remove carrots from oven and drizzle with honey, if desired. Serve the carrot fries hot or at room temperature.

Serves: 4

Prep Time: 5 minutes
Cook Time: 20 minutes
Total Time: 25 minutes

Chopped Chicken Salad

Here in the City, while we don't always get to enjoy the hot, dry weather of the surrounding farm areas, we certainly do enjoy their bounty at our farmer's markets and local stores. This salad is particularly exuberant in late summer and early fall, when nearly all the ingredients are in season and available locally. We love the cool crunchiness of the cucumber, onions and corn as they meld with the creaminess of the avocado and tomatoes. Lemon is an essential ingredient. We've written the recipe using lemon juice, but we also tried it with a lemon champagne vinegar which is lovely as well. As you can imagine, this salad scales very well and is ripe for variations and substitutions. If you'd like to make the salad ahead of serving, you can chop everything except the avocados and tomatoes and store in separate containers in the refrigerator.

1/2 English cucumber, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
1 heirloom tomato, chopped into 1/2 inch cubes
1 cob of corn, cooked, or 3/4 cup of frozen corn, defrosted
1/8 medium red onion chopped in 1/2 inch cubes
1 avocado, chopped in 1/2 inch cubes
1 chicken breast, cooked
juice of 1 large lemon
olive oil
sea salt and freshly ground pepper
1 Tbsp fresh basil, julienned

 

 

1. Layer all ingredients on a large plate or small platter.

2. Drizzle salad with lemon juice and olive oil to taste. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Lightly toss and serve.

Serves 2

Total Prep Time: About 15 min

Grilled Peaches with Pecorino and Prosciutto

 

We choose this fruity and fragrant appetizer from Bon Appetit’s August 2006 issue to start off our dinner in the vineyards. As Italians and lovers of Italian food everywhere know, salty prosciutto and juicy summer fruit, (especially melon, though we've also encountered pears and kiwi, too) is a natural and popular combination. The slices of Pecorino Romano, a hard sheep's milk cheese similar to Parmigiano-Reggiano, melt into the caramelized peaches and chewy prosciutto, adding a sharp saltiness to each bite. We do love our Italian meats and therefore used more prosciutto than called for in the original recipe.   According to CUESA's fruit chart, peaches are available into October, so there's still plenty of time to enjoy this incredibly easy dish. We recommend using yellow peach varieties as we tried a few white peaches but found that their more delicate flavor didn’t stand up to the cheese and meat as well.

Nonstick vegetable or olive oil spray
4 firm but ripe large peaches, halved, pitted
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
salt and pepper
8 thin slices Pecorino Romano cheese
8 thin slices prosciutto

1. Prepare barbecue or grill pan. (Gas grills should be turned to high and briquettes in charcoal grills should be very hot. Grill or pan should be covered with cooking spray or brushed with olive oil.)

2. Brush peach halves with oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Grill peaches until lightly charred and caramelized, about 2 minutes per side.

 

3. Place peaches on large serving platter, skin side down; Top each with cheese slice and drape with prosciutto. Drizzle all peach halves with a bit more olive oil. Serve immediately.

Serves 4-6

Prep time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 5 minutes
Total time: 15 minutes

Honeyed Oranges

We found this very simple recipe in The Jungle Effect written by San Francisco doctor, Daphne Miller. We are particularly thrilled with this one since it takes 5 minutes to prepare and our children readily accept this dish as "dessert." There are so few ingredients that it's important to use juicy, in-season oranges and good-quality honey. We're still seeing blood oranges and other varietals at the local supermarkets, so now is a perfect time!

By the way, The Jungle Effect is a must-read for anyone who is interested in the relationship between food and health. Dr. Miller has traveled the world to study indigenous diets and her book reads much more like a travelogue than a dry medical book.

4 navel or blood oranges, seedless (or seeds removed)
Cinnamon
Honey, good quality

1. Remove peel and pith from oranges with a paring knife and cut into slices or sections.

2. Sprinkle with cinnamon to taste and drizzle with honey.

Variations: This is also great with a dollop of Greek yogurt.

Serves: 4

Prep Time: 5 minutes
Cook Time: 0 minutes

Orange-Scented Sweet Potatoes

We love the flavor, color and texture of this delightful root vegetable. The addition of orange juice makes for a brighter-tasting dish and adds a hint of sweetness. We tried two cooking methods for the potatoes: boiling in water, and steaming in a small amount of milk. We preferred the boiling method you see here since it was faster (who has an extra 20 minutes?) and produced a brighter color. More important, there was no discernible difference in taste. If you happen to have carrot juice on hand, you can add use that instead of the milk.

3 large sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into 2-inch chunks
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup good quality or freshly squeezed orange juice
1 tsp orange zest
2 Tbsp butter
Coarse salt and freshly ground pepper

1. In a large saucepan, cover potatoes with water. Bring to a boil; cook until tender when pierced with the tip of a paring knife, 15 to 20 minutes.

2. Drain potatoes and transfer to large serving bowl and mash with a potato masher. Alternatively, you can put the cooked potatoes through a ricer or puree in food processor for a smoother texture.

3. Add milk, orange juice, orange zest and butter.

4. Season with salt and pepper.

Serves: 4

Prep Time: 10
Cook Time: 20
Total Time: 30