Cooking the Tree of Life

Long time no see! Miss me? Sorry for the extended absence, December was a rough month Chez Yarnlibrarian and I'm just getting back into the swing of things. So I've got a lot of upcoming posts. First, an amazing program at the New York State Museum for Darwin's 200th birthday.

They call it Cooking the Tree of Life - four cooking demonstrations that highlight the evolutionary history of the meals' main ingredients, teaming up a local chef with a biologist. Each week covers a different branch of the Tree of Life: vertebrates, invertebrates, plants, and fungi.

Last week was vertebrates. Chef Tony Destratis of the Lake George Club cooked while Dr. Roland Kays, curator of mammals at the museum, handled the science end of things.

I forgot my camera, so I just have one from my phone

It's a birthday cake for Darwin with an illustration from his notebook in his hand with a sketch of the Tree of Life. And it was yummy as well.

The vertebrate menu included: Braised Oxtail; Swamp Gumbo (alligator and frogs legs); Atlantic Salmon as gravlox, poached with white wine and leeks, and as fried nuggets; and a special request from the biologist - an "Evolution Omelet" combining the three "major advances in vertebrate reproductive adaptations". Um, yeah. I'm not a science person but those are apparantly: amniotic eggs (caviar); cleidoic eggs (chicken eggs); and lactation (milk). That's an omelet, alright. So no sampling for me last week.

Tonight was Plants! I had high hopes of being able to try all the samples but these chefs do like to throw meat stock into otherwise vegetarian things. sigh. Tonight's chef was Timothy Warnock, corporate chef for U.S. Foodservice, and the biologist was Dr. George Robinson, a professor at UAlbany. George also entertained us with his guitar. :-)

Chef Tim made a lot of amazing things tonight. First, we had a smoothie - Jungle Juice

Looks gross, but it was tasty! It smelled like kiwi to me, but it didn't have any in it. It was pear, mango, grapefruit juice, and spinach. While it was passed around George serenaded us with "The Lion Sleeps Tonight." ;-) (I don't care what they say about scientists, both biologists have been funny! After singing George said "I'm a botanist actually, which is a good thing for the music world."

Next they made a Hunter-Gatherer Salad. This was wonderful, both delicious and gorgeous with all kinds of pretty things in it.

You are looking at:
chopped smoked almonds
spring mix
orchids, pansies, amaranth, baby sunflowers, marigolds, and other flowers
borage
basil flowers
microgreens (baby swiss chard and lavender buds)
chili peppers
organic blueberries, golden raspberries, red raspberries, black raspberries
crumbled goat cheese
and an Herb Balsamic Dressing
I already said amazing too many times, but, it was amazing!

Next was a chili of garlic, chili peppers, kidney beans, tomato, lavender buds, basil flowers, and pork stock.

George said "Darwin was an outlaw" and sang a birthday song to him including lyrics on the big screen with a bouncing Darwin head!

Next on the menu was a polenta with jalapenos and Speck ham (smoked, similar to prosciutto it seems). There was a multibean salad with kidney beans, white kidney beans, three kinds of lentils, onion, and chilis. This was served with grilled elk so I just tried a few uncontaminated beans. It was spicy!

There was a Quinoa Salad with quinoa, bulghur wheat, lemon & orange, and pork stock (grr!). And red couscous with blood orange zest and juice, onion, garlic, white wine, pomegranate... something (it was oil or essence or something like that in a small bottle), and the couscous - a frozen flash cooked kind with peas and red peppers already in it. This was very good! Sometimes I don't even like couscous, but this was good. I would totally buy the flash cooked/frozen couscous but unfortunately it is a restaurant only product.


Then it was on to dessert! Thank goodness chocolate comes from a plant. There were chocolate drizzled strawberries (a really good strawberry even this time of year!),

cookies
this looked like some sort of brownie cookie, maybe. Then I bit into it and discovered...
a macaroon inside! It was great.

There was Mayan hot chocolate, but it was waaaay too spicey for me. I took one sip and had to move on to the birthday cake to fix my poor mouth. I don't do smoked chipotle, apparently.

This was this week's birthday cake: You've got to love Darwin in a birthday hat!
I'm so glad I found these great (and free!) programs.

Summer Salad Sampler

I really wanted bread salad for dinner tonight so I stopped at the store on the way home. I saw some nice fruit and decided to make a few different salads for dinner tonight and tomorrow night.

Here's the bread salad, modeled after Panera's - good bread chunked up (this one is called Peasant bread), fresh mozzarella, good tomatoes (from the garden/farmers market when its that time, these are $4 a pint "Splendido" extra sweet grape tomatoes), and honey balsamic dressing It turned out great, yum!

My favorite summer salad is a green salad with lots of fruit on top - whatever your favorites are - my standard is a melon (watermelon), berry, and one or more of: peach, nectarine, plum. This time there is a bit more with: peach, apricot, red grapes, cherries, and plum along with the romaine, mushrooms, tomato, and european cucumber. I like this one with a balsamic dressing too, or, raspberry vinaigrette or something of the sort.

And I also whipped up a macaroni salad.

elbow macaroni with ranch dressing, baco bits, and burgundy olives. Not too attractive since the baco bits and burgundy olives are the same color basically so it is monochromatic, but it tastes great! I was going to use green olives but the jar didn't pop right when I opened it so... I've never bought these burgundy olives before but they grabbed my attention in the store a few weeks ago and I picked them up. They're good! The flavor is different than a plain black olive, and the color is... a bit off putting actually. According to the can they have olive oil and vinegar in them (Burgundy wine vinegar apparently) and according to the website, they come in flavors as well. These were Classic Italian which is the "plain" variety it seems.

And... another baby hat. I finished the Pink Petal hat (Upside-Down Daisy), now hopefully somebody has a girl!

note: In case anyone was unclear, I'm only obsessed with baby hats, not babies. None of these baby hats are for me. ;-)

Fall into Autumn post of the week

This week's posting theme from the "Fall into Autumn" swap...

Are there any recipes you especially enjoy having in the Fall? Any foods that are seasonal that you especially enjoy? Feel free to share recipes with us too!

I do a lot of crockpot cooking in the Fall and Winter... also soups and hearty things in general.

This is one of my favorite soup recipes, a variation on a recipe from Fresh from the Vegetarian Slow Cooker

Pesto Minestrone
1/4 lb fresh green beans, trimmed and cut up
1 can white kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1 can diced tomatoes with juice
1 regular or 2 small potatoes, diced (helps to precook partly by
microwaving for a few minutes after cutting up)
1/2 medium/1 small zucchini, diced
1/2 medium/1 small yellow squash, diced
optional: diced celery, carrot, onion (in recipe, I include each only depending on what I have each time)
at least 6 cups vegetable broth (3 cans) (that's all that will fit in my crock pot. I start with that then add another can or so after some of the soup is eaten and it is very thick and needs more broth)
Cook 7-8 hours in crockpot (6 quart size needed for this quantity) on low or cook on stove until tender
add your favoirte cooked pasta before serving, or add 1 cup of the tiny stars (my favorite)
(pastina?) the last half hour or so of cooking the soup and they will cook quickly
When soup is ready, stir in approx 1/4 cup of prepared pesto and serve with yummy bread!

And this, is another of my favorite recipes. This one is based on a recipe from Boca Foods

Barbecue Beans
(can be done in a crockpot or on top of the stove)
4 15 oz cans of your choice of beans, rinsed and drained (recipe calls
for butter, pinto, black, and white but I've used any sort of
combination of what I had/liked - I don't like black so I never use those)
1 12 oz fake burger (or other size equivalent to 1 pound burger) or, you meat eaters can use real burger, I suppose ;-)
1 cup chopped onion (I don't use)
1 bottle bbq sauce (Sweet Baby Ray's is our favorite)
1 15 oz can diced tomatoes, drained

Bring all to a boil on med high heat; reduce heat to med low, cover, simmer 30 minutes stirring occasionally. Remove lid and simmer another 5 minutes. Enjoy! Good with cornbread, is also good served right over a piece of cornbread or a biscuit.

Making Pancakes like... Hotcakes

This has unintentionally turned out to be the summer of the pancake in my house. When we realized how many pancake varieties we've already tried we decided to make it official and keep it up with the pancakes. Pancakes make a good quick Friday night supper. And so, I blog them to spread the pancake wealth. Unfortunately I don't have any photos of any we've made so far - some of them looked pretty good. I'll blog each recipe separately - so far we've had Sweet Potato Pancakes, Banana Pancakes (these were a breakfast), and Cottage Cheese Apple Pancakes. Up to bat next is Zucchini Feta Pancakes. Then, who knows.... the search for other crazy pancakes begins.

Jam on biscuits, jam on toast, jam is the thing that I like most!

Title courtesy of Frances, of course. ;-) Just a post of the jams I have made this summer so I can keep track to know how much to make next year.

Strawberry: 13 jelly jars (2 batches certo & 1 smaller batch?)

Cherry: 15 jelly jars (2 Sour Cherry, 3 Sour Cherry Almond, 2 Sweet Cherry Vanilla, 3 Sweet Cherry, 5 Sweet & Sour Cherry) (3 batches)

Black Raspberry: 11 jelly jars (2 batches)

Update: Blueberry: 7 jelly jars (1 batch) (not local berries)

Gooseberry: 1 batch (farmer's market berries)
Red Currant: 1 batch (farmer's market berries)
Peach: 2 or 3 batches (fresh picked)

notes: the certo set up better than the surejell; don't make cherry vanilla again, Sour cherry almond is the favorite cherry

updating 2007 just in time for 2008 ;-)