Founding Farmer?

The air was hot and hard to breathe when we—my family, Spyros, his parents, and I—arrived at George Washington’s Distillery and Gristmill.  I suppose we should have known better.  D.C. weather in July  is notorious for its muggy heat  but we couldn’t miss the opportunity to take my in-laws-to-be—who made the trip from Greece—to a reconstructed eighteenth-century gristmill and whiskey distillery just fifteen miles south of Washington D. C. and three miles from the first president’s estate, Mount Vernon.
  Our tour guide, dressed in heavy eighteenth century garb, collected us under a cherry tree before we entered the mill.

 “Above all,” he said, “George Washington considered himself a farmer.  He believed it was the most important of his contributions.  And Mount Vernon was not just a country estate, it was a business.  Milling flour and distilling whiskey were ways of adding value to his wheat, ways of maximizing his return. ”    

Our guide further explained that when Washington was home (he was sometimes absent for long periods doing things like, well, fighting the British) Mount Vernon always made a profit.  The General went to great lengths to insure his plantation’s success.  For instance, when he observed tobacco crops ruining Mount Vernon’s soil, he terminated its cultivation.  Washington switched to wheat as a cash crop and experimented with composting, crop rotation, and fertilization, ground-breaking methods at the time.

Built of heavy stone, the mill was a cool shelter that afternoon.  The current mill is a replica of the one Washington erected in 1771 which became one of Mount Vernon’s most successful ventures.  Today the replica mill stands in the same location as the original and produces cornmeal for Mount Vernon’s restaurant, The Mount Vernon Inn, where cooks boil it with milk for grits or stir it into batter for cornbread. Local restaurants use it in their baked goods and the gift shop on-site stocks it for purchase, packaged in adorable little cloth sacks.  Each bundle comes with a recipe for hoe cakes, a dish Washington enjoyed for breakfast, drenched in butter and honey. 

The miller opened a flood gate, allowing the waterwheel’s troughs to fill with water from a nearby stream.  The building shook and creaked.  The grist stones rotated and crushed dried corn into meal. Spyros’ father Dimitris lit up—thrilled to see Americans appreciating a restored watermill and he fell into conversation with the miller.  Dimitris and his wife Christina have lovingly restored two beautiful watermills in Greece, something I might have mentioned before.  You can check them out here.  Despite the hot weather, I think they enjoyed Washington’s mill and seeing people like themselves, people interested in preserving their country’s foodways for future generations.

Back in Pittsburgh, I wanted to commemorate the trip.  And when I want to commemorate something, I usually end up in the kitchen.  So I whipped up a batch of hoe cakes, Washington’s breakfast staple, following a recipe I found while researching a project in my food writing class.  When eating hoe cakes, douse them with butter and honey while they are hot, the way the General liked them best.

Whole Grain Hoecakes

adapted from Paula Deen’s Hoecake recipe on www.thefoodnetwork.com

1 cup white whole wheat flour

1 cup cornmeal

2 teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon sea salt

1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon sugar

2 eggs

¾ cup buttermilk or sour milk

1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon water

¼ cup canola oil

Combine all the dry ingredients in a large bowl with a wire whisk.  Add the dry ingredients and stir until just combined.  Allow the mixture to rest for 15 minutes at room temperature.  Waiting a bit helps the baking powder activate, creating fluffier hoecakes

Drop batter by rounded tablespoons onto a large, sizzling skillet and cook for about 1 minute.  Flip hoecake with a turner when small bubbles form at the top and the sides appear cooked.  Cook for another 20-30 seconds and from the hoecake from the skillet to a warm plate.  

Serve the hoecakes warm with butter and honey.  I used a delicious honey with citrus and saffron made by Spyros’ mother.   

You Won't be Disapointed

In Greece I was fixated on pies. Savory, buttery ones, about 1,000 calories a pop I imagined.   Despite the obvious risk to my waistline, I indulged in one every Friday.  Procuring them was too easy. Corner bakeries exist wherever there are people in Greece—from remote mountain villages to lonesome beach towns and from suburban shopping malls to every street in the Athenian sprawl.  Golden and flaky, the pies are stuffed with cheese, meat vegetables, or all three then crafted into a variety of shapes: spirals, half circles, batons, circles, and triangles.  At 5:30 a.m. stout bakers arrange their creations in glass display cases and replenish them throughout the morning.  With practice, it is entirely possible to discern which are the freshest with a casual once-over.   You place your order with the tired but cheerful woman at the counter and she hands you your pie tucked into a white paper wrapper.  Its warmth and richness permeates the paper.  It’s best eaten in small, torn-off bits and chased with sips of frappe.


My favorite pies are the crispy, triangle-shaped cheese pies and to my luck, Spyros’ mother Christina likes them too.  Just like here, they are small and dainty, lighter than the large bakery pies I devoured.  Tiropitakia,as they are called, are popular restaurant appetizers.  They also make great party food.  I made a batch last week for a pot-luck dinner of food writers and by the end of the night, my serving dish was empty.  A hint of lemon and a few tablespoons of chopped fresh mint in the filling evokes summer.  You won’t be disappointed.

Lemon-mint cheese pies
½ pound feta cheese
1 ½ cups ricotta cheese
11/2 cups grated four cheese blend, provolone, or gruyere
3 eggs, beaten
pepper to taste
zest of 1 lemon
¼ cup chopped fresh mint
1 lb. package frozen phyllo dough
unsalted butter, melted

Method:

Defrost the phyllo dough according to package directions. Prepare the cheese filling: crumble the feta in a large bowl with the back of a spoon, or pulse in a food processor until small crumb form.  In a large bowl stir together the feta, ricotta, grated cheese, lemon zest, pepper, chopped mint and eggs.  The mixture should be soft but not runny and a little lumpy.
Remove the phyllo dough from its package. Place it on a clean surface and cover it with a sheet of plastic wrap and put a damp towel on top to prevent the pastry from drying.  It will become unworkable and paper-like otherwise.

Assembly:
Remove 1 sheet of phyllo dough and place on a dry, clean surface.  Position the rectangle so that it faces you vertically.  Brush the pastry lightly with melted butter to moisten and place 1 heaping teaspoon of  cheese filling about three inches from the left side, in the center (see figure 1).
Fold the left side of the pastry over the cheese filling.  You should have about a three inch boarder (see figure 2) on the left side.  Next, fold the folded portion over to the left again.  Then fold the right side over to cover.  You should have a long, skinny rectangle of dough (see figure 3).
Press gently on the cheese mixture and try to move it towards the other side of the pastry.  It’s important to spread out the cheese so that it’s not in one place while baking.

  Now for the fun part.  Fold the bottom right corner toward the left side, making a triangle. Fold the rest of the pastry like you would a paper football.  Seal any over hang with butter or simply trim it off and brush the top of the pie with butter.  Repeat with the remaining filling and phyllo.  Place cheese pies on a cookie sheet lightly greased with cooking spray and bake in a 350 oven for 15 minutes.  The pies will be golden brown and crisp.

Summer in a Bowl

Certain dishes call to mind particular seasons.  For me, spring is tantamount to juicy strawberries sweetened with just a sprinkle of white sugar.  Fall is synonymous with pecan-studded pumpkin bread and winter means Christmas cookies, sprinkled with colored sugar, drenched in honey, or dipped in chocolate.   I am somewhat embarrassed to note that all my favorite seasonal foods appear to be sweets, foods I try to stay away from these days.  I have an incorrigible sweet-tooth.  The more I deny it, the more it rages.   

Summer, however, I associate with Tomato-Basil Risotto, a dish I started making last summer with Spyros’ Aunt Eleni’s homegrown tomatoes.  After handing me a plastic bag with about ten of them, she gave me specific instructions on how make an excellent fresh tomato sauce.  First, their skins must be removed.  Next they must be chopped and cooked in butter with a single pinch of sea salt, pepper to taste, and exactly 1 teaspoon of sugar. The sugar, she says, is important.  As she promised, the recipe yielded a large quantity of almost purple tomato sauce, with a concentrated, earthy taste. 

To put it all to use, I made a tomato basil risotto by cooking rice in a combination of the sauce and vegetable broth.  At the end, I threw in a handful of mozzarella cheese and sprigs of chopped fresh basil.  The al dente rice absorbs the tomato sauce like tiny gnocchis.  Very filling stuff, but somehow there’ always room for one more bite.  I made it last night for dinner but now that I’m 2,000 miles away from Spyros’ Aunt Eleni and her prize tomatoes, I made the risotto with canned whole tomatoes instead.  I think they made a fine substitute, but nothing compares to home-grown tomatoes.  Use those if you can.    

Tomato Basil Risotto

1 large onion, finely chopped

3 tablespoons olive oil

Pinch of salt and pepper

1 ½ cup Arborio or other short grain rice

¼ cup white wine

1 28 oz. can whole tomatoes

1 lt. low sodium vegetable broth

1 large handful fresh basils leaves, coarsely chopped

½ cup shredded mozzarella or 4 cheese Italian mix

Method:

Purée the whole tomatoes in a food processor until smooth. 

Heat the olive oil in a wide saucepan over medium heat and add the onions.   Season the onions with salt and pepper and cook until translucent, about 5-10 minutes.   Add the rice and cook for 1-2 minutes, stirring constantly, until rice is opaque and smells nutty. Stir in the wine and cook for 1 minute until the liquid is absorbed.  

Ladle 1 cup of the puréed tomatoes and about ¼ cup of the vegetable stock and stir into the rice.  Cook the mixture, stirring constantly, until the rice absorbs most of the liquid.   Repeat this process until you’ve added about 3 1/2 cups of the vegetable stock and all but ½ cup of the purée.  The risotto is ready when the mixture is creamy and the rice grains are cooked on the edges but still firm in the center, about 20-25 minutes.  Keep testing the rice to be sure you don’t overcook it.  When the risotto has reached this stage, remove the pan from the heat .

Having my Cake and Baking it too...

Sometimes there’s nothing better than a humble, old-fashioned cake.  The kind your grandmother made in a sheet-pan for an onslaught of grandchildren, or the spice cake your mother pulled from the oven the moment you arrived home from school.  A rustic, dense cake, every crumb coated in a robe of oil or butter with chunks of dried fruit or chocolate interspersed throughout.  The exterior had a definite crust and the interior sort of melted in your mouth.
I suppose I’m in a cake mood this week.  For my food writing class, we read an essay by Diane Roberts called “People of the Cake” where she depicts cake’s importance in her family’s traditions.  She describes her grandmother’s coconut cake as, “…white and shining as a debutante’s gown, covered in hand-shredded coconut, fuzzy as a French poodle.”  Lane cake she calls, “…a cocktail in baked form.” So funny.  I love her writing and the essay made me hungry, as intended.

Adding fuel to the situation was a birthday party I attended last weekend.  The birthday girl baked a carrot Bundt cake, un-iced, un-powdered—a carrot cake pure and simple, bursting with cinnamon, nuts, and fruit.  I couldn't push it aside any longer, I had to bake a cake.  My friend made her carrot cake, she said, following an old recipe of her mother’s, a famous baker in their southern hometown.  If there’s anything southerners are famous for, it’s their cakes so I rummaged through my mother’s old copies of Southern Living, determined to find a recipe similar to my friend’s.  I found one, but being me, I changed it. 
The resulting cake got great reviews from my parents and younger sister, bona fide carrot cake fanatics.  “What, no cream cheese icing, no coconut?” my dad said, his eyebrows raised as I placed the bundt pan in the oven.  The recipe made him a believer.  This cake is perfect for breakfast, as a snack with a mid-afternoon tea or coffee, and for dessert with a spoonful of vanilla ice-cream or a dollop of whipped cream.  As carrot cakes go, this one is on the healthier side.  I eliminated ½ cup of oil from the original recipe and used agave nectar in place of 2 cups of white sugar. I also incorporated a bit of whole wheat flour. It’s sweet, but not too sweet and packed with dried fruits and toasted pecans.  It's a recipe I plan on making over and over again. 

Carrot Bundt Cake

1 ½  cup whole wheat flour

1 ½  cup all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon cinnamon

2/3 cup agave nectar

½ cup granulated sugar
4 large eggs
1 cup canola oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup unsweetened applesauce
2 ½  packed cups shredded carrot
1 cup chopped pecans, toasted
3/4 cup plump raisins

1/3 cup dried cherries

Method:

Preheat the oven to 350^o and spray a 10-inch non-stick Bundt pan with cooking spray.  If the pan is not non-stick, play it safe and butter and flour it generously. 

In a medium bowl, combine flours, baking soda, salt and cinnamon in a medium bowl with a wire whisk.

In a stand-up mixer with the paddle attachment, mix together the eggs, oil, agave nectar, sugar, and vanilla on low speed until well combined.  Slowly add in the dry ingredients.  When well-mixed, stir in the carrots, applesauce, pecans, raisins, and dried cherries.   

Pour batter into prepared Bundt pan and smooth with a butter knife or rubber spatula.  Bake for 1 hour and 20 minutes.  The cake is ready when the house is fragrant, the top is brown as molasses and a knife comes out clean.  Cool 10 minutes in the pan on a wire rack before inverting. 

Onions Everywhere

On Tuesday afternoons I volunteer at Chatham University’s Eden Hall work and pick program.  My fellow volunteers and I have spent the past three Tuesdays moving the likes of Swiss chard, tomatoes, eggplants, tomatillos, sweet potatoes etc. from a rickety greenhouse to their new beds in a tilled plot just outside.  The farm’s hilly lawn stretches for half a mile in the distance, and offers a vista of fields and clusters of boundary trees.  As the afternoon fades into night, the horizon turns a pretty coral shade.  No cars pass, the only sounds are our conversations, the hum of honey bees and the screeches of flies and mosquitos.  The weather is humid, sweat trickles down my back and I’ve got dirt caked on my knees, under my fingernails, and on my face.  But wouldn’t you know, I enjoy it?  Me, Miss Air-Conditioning  and certified indoor-gal loves to garden.  Planting vegetables and herbs relaxes me and at the risk of sounding cliché, makes me feel more connected to the land.  There’s something wonderful about working outdoors with your hands and getting dirty.  The bugs may attack and the skies may threaten rain but it’s okay, I’m planting something. 

Part of the bargain of working for free is volunteers get a bag of vegetables after each session.  For now,  it’s too early for many vegetables to be picked, so we’ve received a lot of green onions.  Bags of them.  Desperate for a way to use them, I made a green onion quiche with some other ingredients I had on hand: cheddar cheese, eggs, fat free Greek yogurt, chopped canned whole tomatoes and fresh tarragon.  In one of my old cookbooks, I found an ingenious recipe for a whole wheat pie crust made with vinegar.  Vinegar in a pie crust?  I had never tried it but it sounded scrumptious and the results were addicting.  The filling was quite tasty too but since I didn’t heed my measurements, I've written a recipe for the crust only which would work well with any kind of quiche.  Quiche makes nice, impromptu dinner perfect for putting to use any stray cheese or eggs in the refrigerator.   If anyone has other ideas on how I might use a plethora of green onions, please don’t hesitate.

Whole Wheat Pie Crust

11/3 cup whole wheat flour

½ cup unsalted butter, cut into pieces

½ teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon vinegar

1 tablespoon cold water

1 egg

Method:

Place the flour and butter in a food processor and pulse until mixture resembles small crumbs. 

In a medium bowl, whisk together the egg, water, salt, and vinegar.  Pour in the flour/butter mixture and stir with a fork.  When the mixture becomes too difficult to stir, knead with your hands a few times on a floured surface. 

Sprinkle dough with flour and roll into a circle.  Place in a 10-inch pie plate and flute the edges.  Bake at 475 for five minutes.

 Pour desired filling into crust.  Cooking times will depend on your recipe.  I baked mine at 375 for thirty minutes. 

Pizzas and Stones

Ever wished you could reproduce the chewy, crusty texture of a pizzeria pizza crust in your own home oven?  For me, a pizza addict (I could easily eat it three times a day), the answer is a resounding yes.  The solution, I found, is a pizza stone.  I’d first heard of baking with a stone from a professor at my Alma Mater who, like Spyros and I, is a philhellene and passionate about Greek bread.  “I like my bread to have a crust…” I remember him saying, “so I bake my bread on a pizza stone.  It also makes great pizza.”   Following his recommendation, I too bought a pizza stone.

Pizza stones can be tricky.  Most directions instruct you to preheat the stone in a hot oven for fifteen minutes, sprinkle it with cornmeal, and slide the pie onto it with a peel.   When I dusted my preheated stone with cornmeal last September, the grains began to smoke, which set off my fire alarm and led to, I was sure, months bad karma between my new neighbors and I.  Worse, the dough stuck to the stone and melted before I even placed it in the oven.  We threw the disastrous pizza in the trash, and went out to eat.  Regaining my courage with the stone took time, but I confronted my fears last Tuesday out of necessity—I didn’t have a baking sheet large enough for the pizza I wanted to make, so I had to pull out the old stone.  I’m glad I did.  This time I stretched a portion of prepared pizza dough (I like to make my own, but in a pinch frozen pizza dough works well), with my hands until very thin and set it on a cold pizza stone dusted with cornmeal.  Spyros and I topped the dough with a homemade sauce, some sautéed sliced zucchinis, heirloom cherry tomatoes, and four cheeses.    

The resulting pizza was a perfect balance of salty and sweet, crispy and soft.  Biting into it you hear a low, satisfying crunch and consider snatching another piece or two—like I did.  The multi-colored tomatoes nestled in the white cheese are shinny and taste sweet and tart.  It’s a nice, solid pizza recipe, and the leftovers are great for lunch the next day.

Heirloom Cherry Tomato Pizza
1 portion frozen pizza dough (enough for a 12-inch pizza), thawed

1 small zucchini, thinly sliced

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 cups multi-colored cherry tomatoes, cut in half

1 cup canned whole tomatoes

¼ teaspoon sugar

3 cups four-cheese Italian mix

5 sprigs fresh basil leaves, chopped

cornmeal for dusting

salt and pepper to taste

Method:

1.      Heat oven to 450^oF.  Sauté the sliced zucchini in a medium saucepan with two tablespoons olive oil.  Season with salt and pepper and cook until lightly browned.  Remove from heat.

2.      Prepare sauce: purée the whole tomatoes with the sugar in a food processor until smooth
.

3.      Dust the pizza stone lightly with cornmeal.  Sprinkle pizza dough with a little flour and stretch or roll on a floured surface until it’s about 12-inches in diameter and has a thickness of about ¼ inch.  Transfer to the pizza stone and make sure it moves.  Add more cornmeal if necessary.

4.      Spread puréed tomatoes evenly over pizza dough with a spoon and sprinkle the chopped basil over the sauce.  Cover sauce and basil with half the cheese.  Arrange zucchini slices and cherry tomato halves on pizza and cover with the remaining cheese. Season with a little pepper.  Bake for 15-20 minutes on the oven’s middle rack.   

Spring Macaroni and Cheese

                      

My grandmother and I made macaroni and cheese from scratch when I was seven.  We stood at her stove while she stirred a white béchamel sauce with a wooden spoon, her age-spotted hand rotating and rotating.   The kitchen was small, full of pots and pans and utensils from QVC, but grandma didn’t mind.  A former GNC merchandise packer, grandma could fit anything in her tiny kitchen.  She could have stuffed an elephant under her sink, walled him in with bottles of disinfectant and floor polish and she still would have chirped, "Oh Honey, there's plenty of space." 

“Grandma this isn’t macaroni and cheese,” I said frowning.  “Macaroni and cheese is supposed to be yellow.”

“Honey,” she said smoothing my hair, “it will be yellow, a light yellow, once I add the cheese.” 

I was unsure.  All the macaroni I’d eaten came from a blue box and was bright orange—how could grandma make it?  The stuff she was stirring was white and gloopy, something I couldn’t imagine over pasta.  Then she added handfuls of grated American cheese—my favorite—and the sauce became a pastel yellow, just like she said.  She extinguished the gas burner and poured the cheesy sauce over cooked macaroni. 

“There we are Sweetheart.  It’s ready.” She said, spooning her creation into two blue bowls. 

I was still suspicious.  Sure, the sauce was yellow, but not yellow verging on neon orange I was used to.  What if it didn’t taste good?  I put some noodles on my fork and put it in my mouth.  I liked it.  It was saucy, soft and creamy.  Not hard and salty like Kraft macaroni sometimes was.  After that, I became a kind of mac and cheese connoisseur, if there is such a thing.  To my mother’s despair, I would no longer eat her in-a-minute boxed version.  I had to have grandma’s mac and cheese.  Looking back on it, I see what a simple recipe it was—a béchamel sauce seasoned with one, not very sharp, cheese.  No bread crumb topping and no fancy caramelized such-and-such add-ins.  Delicious, uncomplicated comfort food.

 In March I bought a box of elbow macaroni.  I was on a mission to recreate grandma’s recipe with a grown-up twist—with gruyère and chèvre, au gratin.  But mid-terms arrived.  Then we made Pastichio, a Greek pasta dish equal in richness (I’ll post our recipe soon).  After that, we made a thick spinach pie (which I will also post).  Next came Lent and, practicing it Greek style, we were vegans for a week. 

With school out, I had no excuse.  I had to make mac and cheese.  But the recent humid weather was no climate for a French macaroni au gratin.  Instead I made this version, similar to grandma’s original recipe only instead of American cheese, I used a combination of Cheddar and a four-cheese Italian mix, but it would probably work well with any cheese combination.  For a spring-like touch, I added chopped spinach and onions.   The crisped bacon is there because, well, it tastes good.  Which is really the reason one eats anything, isn’t it?

                     

Spring Macaroni and Cheese Au Gratin

4 slices smoked bacon, chopped

½ cup white onion, finely chopped

3 tablespoons unsalted butter

1/3 cup all-purpose flour

4 cups skim milk

1 cup grated sharp Cheddar cheese

1 cup grated 4-cheese Italian cheese mix (a blend of Mozzarella, Provolone, Romano and Parmesan)

1 lb. elbow macaroni, cooked

3 cups baby spinach, roughly chopped

Salt and pepper to taste

Bread Crumb topping:

½ cup plain white (or whole wheat) bread crumbs

1/3 cup cheddar cheese

1/3 cup 4-cheese Italian mix

Cook chopped bacon in a small frying pan over medium heat until browned and crispy.  Remove bacon from the pan with a slotted spoon and drain on paper towels.  Discard remaining grease.

In a large saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.  Add the onions, season with a little salt, and cook until golden brown, about 15 minutes.  Add the flour to the onions and stir until combined with a wire whisk.  The mixture may be clumpy but will dissolve once you add the milk.  Cook the mixture a minute or two until golden and bubbly, then stir in the milk.

Stir the sauce with a wooden spoon constantly until thick and reduced, about ten minutes.  Toss in the chopped spinach and cook until well wilted, about seven minutes, again stir constantly.  Lower heat.  Add the cheeses, cooked bacon, salt and pepper to taste until the sauce is smooth and creamy.  

Pour the cooked elbow macaroni into the sauce and stir to combine.


Spray a 9x11 casserole with cooking spray and spread the macaroni evenly inside. In a small bowl, combine bread crumb topping ingredients.  Sprinkle the topping over the macaroni and spray generously with canola oil cooking spray.  Bake casserole in a 375^o oven for 5 minutes, then place under the broiler for about 3-4 minutes, until the cheese has melted and the breadcrumbs have browned. 

                 

B-more

I love Baltimore’s Bolton Hill neighborhood. On an afternoon there you see students with feathers woven in their hair, toting art portfolios as they cross West Laffayette Avenue.  Others sport hats shaped like cupcakes and lug sculptures constructed from wire hangers.  The Maryland Institute College of Art, or MICA, is situated here and lends the area an artsy, alternative feel.  The streets are lined with nineteenth century rowhouses, some of which were home to the likes of Woodrow Wilson and Ottmor Mergenthaler.  It’s where Spyros, my parents, and I spent a weekend earlier this month, visiting my sister Jackie at school.

We wandered the streets looking for houses marked with Baltimore’s historic landmark plaques.  The former homes of Col. Charles Marshall, Robert E. Lee’s aide-de-camp and the Cone sisters were there.   We stumbled on another house, a tall but unassuming painted brick townhouse with one such plaque.  It was the home of F. Scott Fitzgerald.  I was speechless.  Just two feet in front of me was the residence of the man who wrote The Great Gatsby and This Side of Paradise !  If I wanted to, I could climb the steps right up to the front door, the same door through which Fitzgerald carried the final manuscript of Tender is the Night.  But I didn’t.  

But I’ve gotten side-tracked.  I wanted to tell you about a fantastic restaurant in the same area.  It’s called Brewer’s Art.  We went there on Jackie’s suggestion (she's an expert on trendy Baltimore eateries).  Set in an ornate townhouse with molded ceilings and paneled walls, Brewer’s Art has a1920’s speakeasy vibe.  Chef Dave Newman designs a seasonal menu and the restaurant brews its own beers on site.  My father ordered the Ozzy, with 7.25 % alcohol, which delivers quite a buzz for beer.  It was strong, dry and served in a smaller glass than the other beers, ostensibly because of its strength.  I think Dad could have handled the regular size though.  Jackie and I had the Dorthea which was similar to a Wiess beer with its light color, unctuous texture and herbal honey flavor. 

 My sister, father, and I ordered the brined grilled rack of pork which amounted to two pork chops still on the bone, drizzled with rhubarb compote and served over cheesy grits.   It was a dynamite combination.  The salty brined pork and the sweet compote complemented the savory grits too well and soon became addicting.  It was filling, but so tasty I was compelled to eat every morsel.  Even Spyros reserved a few respectable bites on his plate but not me.  When I like a dish, I commit.

I couldn’t wait for my next trip to Baltimore to eat the dish again so I invented a similar recipe and made it for dinner last night.  I eliminated the rhubarb compote and instead brined the pork in hard apple cider for a fruity flavor.  Although the brine makes the recipe appear complicated, I was surprised how quickly it all came together.   Spyros, a discerning client, pronounced it “delicious” so I felt confident enough to share it with you. My apologies for the photo, this is a dish whose taste exceeds its appearance.

                                 

Cider Pork Chops with Escarole and Cheddar Grits

Cider Pork Chops

Brine:

2 cups hard-cider (available at most beer distributors)

1 cup water

3 tablespoons kosher salt

¼ cup honey

Pork Chops:

2 tablespoons canola oil

4 boneless pork chops, about 1 inch thick

herbs de provence

2 tablespoons butter

1 large onion sliced

12 oz. hard cider

1 small head escarole, roughly sliced

¼ cube chicken bouillon

Method:

Combine the brine ingredients in a medium saucepan over medium heat and stir until salt dissolves.  Cool in the refrigerator for 1 ½ -2 hours until the brine is cold.  Place the pork chops in a large Ziplock bag and pour over the brine.  Make sure each chop is submerged.  Let the meat brine in the refrigerator for 3-8 hours.

Remove the pork chops from the brine and pat dry with paper towels.  Season generously with pepper and herbs de provence.  Heat the canola oil in a wide, heavy bottom skillet over medium heat and cook the pork until browned, about three minutes on each side. 

Melt the butter in a wide skillet.  Cook the onions (if the butter is unsalted, season with a pinch of salt) until translucent and slightly browned.  Add the escarole and a drizzle of olive oil if pan becomes too dry.  Cook for about 1-2 minutes, until escarole has wilted.  Add the 12 oz. hard cider and chicken bouillon and cook over medium heat until escarole is soft and cider has slightly reduced, about 6 minutes.

Add the pork chops to the pan and cover with the mixture.  Cook over medium low until juices run clear, about 2-4 minutes.  Serve over cheesy grits. 

Cheesy Grits adapted from Alton Brown’s Cheese Grits recipe on thefoodnetwork.com

2 cups skim milk

2 cups water

1 ¼ teaspoon kosher salt

1 cup cornmeal

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

¾ cup sharp Cheddar, shredded

Combine the milk, water and salt in a large sauce pan and heat until foamy, stirring constantly.  Pour in the cornmeal gradually (to avoid lumps) while stirring with a whisk.

Once all the cornmeal has been added, reduce heat to low and cover.  Stir every 2-3 minutes for 20-25 minutes until cornmeal grains are soft.   Remove from heat and season with pepper to taste.  Stir in the butter, then the Cheddar. 

Lemon-Thyme Yogurt Muffins

Living with Spyros, I always have a few containers of Greek yogurt lurking in my refrigerator.   He stirs it into green beans cooked in tomato sauce, while I top it with fig jam for dessert.  We prefer Fage’s Total, the extra creamy 2% edition.  Every now and then we opt for the fat-free version, also quite thick, which lends itself well to baking.  We had one container this weekend.  It had sat in the refrigerator, wedged between the milk and eggs for four days, unopened, without any prospects of being opened and was starting to look a bit forlorn.  On Saturday, I took pity on it.  I’d had a hankering for muffins all week.  Some lemons were also nearing their expiration date and the potted thyme needed a trim.   Therein lay my inspiration for this recipe, Greekified lemon-yogurt muffins.  I added whole wheat flour for a little chewiness, extra virgin olive oil for richness, and I tossed in a few fresh thyme leaves for aromatics sake. After fifteen minutes of baking, the apartment smelled like a Yia Yia’s kitchen.


I boiled a syrup of sugar, lemon, water, and a sprig of thyme.  It thickened and tasted like lemon-thyme-aide.  When the muffins finished baking, I sloughed some syrup on the muffins’ tops with a brush, just like Greeks do with certain cookies.  It’s such a good idea really.  The syrup is absorbed by the warm baked good and ensures a nice, soft texture for days.  It also adds a glossy finish, a food stylist’s dream.

The resulting muffins were moist and yellow with a slight crunch brought on by the whole wheat flour.  The yogurt created a porous texture, like the inside of an English muffin, only softer.  And then there’s the flavor; a hit of lemon, heightened by the citric syrup, followed by a breath of thyme.  It was like a grown-up lemon drop.

At first I started with one...

                

After some reconsideration, I took another...


                

Protein and calcium packed, these puppies kept me going until well after lunch and I imagine, for more disciplined eaters than I, one muffin plus some fruit would suffice.  But I can’t say I condone that…

Lemon Thyme Yogurt Muffins 
1 cup whole wheat or white whole wheat flour

1 cup all-purpose flour

½ cup sugar

1 teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon baking soda

¼ teaspoon salt

11/2 cup Greek yogurt (both 2% and 0% work well)

3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

11/2  lemons, zested and juiced (about ¼ cup juice)

1/4 cup milk

4 sprigs chopped fresh thyme leaves

Syrup:

1/3 cup sugar
1 lemon, juiced and strained

¼ cup water

Method:

Preheat the oven to 375^o.  Lightly butter a muffin tin.

Stir together the dry ingredients; the flours, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, lemon zest, thyme, and salt in a large mixing bowl with a wooden spoon. In a medium bowl, combine the yogurt, extra virgin olive oil, and lemon juice with a spoon. 

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir until just combined.  If you find the mixture too dry, add more milk but not so much that the batter becomes runny.  You should be able to spoon it into the muffin tin.  Density is these muffins’ virtue.

Spoon batter into prepared muffin tins until almost full.  Don’t worry; they will not rise much.  Bake for 25-30 minutes until the muffin tops have browned and a toothpick comes out clean.

Meanwhile make the syrup. Combine the sugar, lemon juice, and thyme sprig in a small saucepan and bring to a boil.  Stir until sugar has dissolved and the thyme has infused.  Cool slightly.

Once the muffins have baked, remove from tins immediately.  Place on a large plate and brush the warm muffin tops with the glaze.  Serve. 

A New Start

Hello out there.

My name is Lauren and this is my blog, welcome. Having finished the first year of my Creative Writing MFA program, I’ve concluded that I need an outlet where I can publish my food, travel, and living abroad musings, recipe tinkerings, and book reviews unfettered. While I’ve always appreciated my professors’ kindhearted comments, advice, and writing rules, I’d like to participate in a publishing arena outside the classroom, one that I’ve created.  A place where I needn’t consider my grade or adhere to a reading list ( I’ll develop my own reading list—I hope you’ll find it interesting), a space where I can experiment with my voice and photography uninhibited.  I’m so thrilled with my new freedom, my stomach just did a little flip, the way it does when I’m riding a roller coaster.  Looks like a good sign.  I hope you’re excited too, dear reader.  At Laurenaki blogs we’ll travel, read books and cook, and cook some more.  This is how I envision Laurenaki Blogs.

Why Laurenaki Blogs?   You might ask.

Good question.  Any Greek noun with the suffix ‘-aki’ is a diminutive, affectionate term which means, in my case, ‘little Lauren’.  Greeks also add it to regular nouns like dress, dog or house meaning little dress, little dog, and little house.  It’s like saying Jacky instead of Jack.  When I hear Greeks make an ‘-aki’ of a word, I smile to myself.  It's sweet how they recognize the value of small things.  Three weeks into our relationship, Spyros (now my fiancé) christened me ‘Laurenaki’.  It was my first (and to this day only) pet name.   My mother and childhood friends sometimes called me Laur, and a few college classmates even tried Wadowsky, but nothing fit as well as Laurenaki. "It has a ring to it," Spyros says. The name stuck and Spyros, his family, and our Greek friends call me ‘Laurenaki.’  And I respond to it as though I were born with it.   And now Laurenaki blogs.  I hope you’ll stop back soon.

And we’re off!