Category Archives: appetizer

Tomato & basil toasts

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The sky is flat, dark, slate grey, gathering over the roofs and trees to the southwest. The sky is bright on the other side of the horizon, but the rooms of our house are becoming dusky-dark. The bright green leaves are showing their pale undersides, and a spattering rain is edging over the house. The wind smells remarkable – cool and green and sharp, after a day of damp and heavy air. A storm is coming! I’m a little phobic about storms. It’s tedious for my family. I won’t leave the house if a storm is predicted. Well – that’s not quite true any more, because they predict storms every day from May to September in this day and age, and I do leave the house in every once in a while during those months. The truth is, though, that I love a good storm, if all of my people are safe and sheltered. Storms seem to capture so many seasons and hours of the day in their cycle of anticipation and relief. The heavy stillness that precedes them, which you can feel weighing you down; the drama of the storm itself; the clearness of the world when it’s all over. And storms are creatures of the summertime, of course. Warm and ripe and bursting – like summer tomatoes. We don’t have any summer tomatoes, yet, but we do have lots of basil! And half a ciabatta baguette to use up! So I made these tomato basil toasts. This could probably be called bruscetta, actually. And it’s one of those things that’s so simple, you feel silly posting a recipe. But it’s perfectly delicious. I add capers and roasted garlic, to the trinity of tomatoes, basil, and mozzarella. The juice of the tomatoes mingles with a bit of olive oil and balsamic to create a lovely juicy sauce to dip your bread in. And that’s about it!

Here’s The Storms are on the Ocean by The Carter Family. I really love this song! It’s so driving, in their understated way.
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Deconstructed tapenade (With castelvetrano olives and french feta)

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Deconstructed tapenade

Malcolm has standardized testing all week. These last few weeks he’s been working on essay composition. I decided to write this using the methods he’s been taught. Here we go…
“My goodness, look at those!” She cried, jumping back in surprise. [Narrative grabber] “Castelvetrano olives! I never thought I’d find them in a market so close to my home.” She bought as many as she could afford, and then her eye was caught by a creamy white cheese. “What’s that?” she queried. [Try not to use the words “said” or “asked”]
“Well,” responded the vendor, a short, pleasant woman with dark brown hair, [describe all the characters in detail], “It’s French feta cheese. Would you like a taste?”
It was the most delicious thing she’d ever eaten. [hyperbole] Creamy and juicy, with a nice salty edge, but much milder than Greek feta. She counted out her coins and bought a small slice.

There are several reasons I like castelvetrano olives. One is that they’re very pretty. They’re as green as serpents, as bright as spring grass, and as shiny as emeralds. [similes!] They taste so good, too. They’re have a very vegetable-y taste, they’re fresh and buttery and mildly salty. [List reasons and support with details and examples] I thought the feta would go very well with them, and as I drove home with little packets of each on the seat next to me, my mind whirred with the possibilities. I wanted to make a tapenade, but not puréed – I wanted to retain the taste and texture and pretty colors of the olives. I thought of all the things I could add. Tart cherries would add a touch of sweetness, chopped hazelnuts would add a bit of crunch, and tarragon and chervil would lend their intriguing lemon/anise zing. Plus they’re half of that band “Les fines herbes.” They’re the bassist and the drummer, I think.

To conclude, I love castelvetrano olives, and I was surprised to find them at a market near my home. I made them into a chunky sort of tapenade that had a lovely mix of flavors and textures. It was delicious on small toasted pieces of baguette. We ate every little bit, and I was tempted to lick the bowl! Who knows what we’ll have for dinner tonight? [The conclusion should restate what’s already been said, in a slightly different way, but try to leave the reader wanting more with a takeaway ending.]

Here’s Chunky but Funky by Heavy D, to listen to while you chop olives for your chunky tapenade.
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Pear, spinach, rosemary, bleu cheese galettes

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Bleu cheese, rosemary, pear and spinach galettes

Maybe spring is to blame, but I feel as though I’m bursting with recipes I want to share, and recipes I want to make. I have about five things I’ve recently made that I want to tell you about. I’d save them up and tell you about one each day, but I also have about five things buzzing around in my head that I can’t wait to cook! It’s gotten really bad, I tell you! So I apologize in advance for posting more than once a day. As ever, feel free to ignore it all!!

I live in a sleepy little city on the Delaware. I’m no town historian, but our house is from 1850, and it feels as though most of the rest of the town was built up at that time. Lots of brick row houses. Narrow streets and small yards. More antique stores and art galleries than we know what to do with. (Delightfully so!)

One weekend of the year our quiet little town becomes crazy crowded – we have a street festival! Roads are blocked off, booths are erected. Hundreds of people walk by each day. We can watch it all from our store – just on the edge of the action. Our store is small and has a huge window in front, so we feel like we’re in a fishbowl, watching the crowds go by. It’s oddly quiet, despite the sudden population increase. Maybe from the lack of cars. Maybe with the hush that crowds sometimes have, when everybody seems to adjust the volume of their voices to form, all together, a low, incoherent rumble. It’s mesmerizing to watch everybody passing by, at a stately, regular pace. FIrst one way, then crossing back, in tempo, returning the other.

I always find crowds of people strangely moving. I don’t always love humanity in the abstract, but masses of people make me feel oddly affectionate towards us as a species. Small moments of human drama in the sea of people feel so poignant. A child who is over-stimulated and over-tired, with a crumpled, crying face that just happens to be painted like a happy tiger. Eccentric looking couples that seem so happy together, and make you happy that they met each other, even though you don’t know them at all. Straggling groups of teenagers wearing giant 70s sunglasses, who can’t suppress how excited they feel to be wandering without parents at the festival.

Anyway. We had some food in our store, for anybody that was brave enough to come in off the street. I made three kinds of savory pastries. And I’m going to tell you about all of them!! One at a time!! They all turned out really good!! Or so I think!! The nice thing about savory pastries (I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again) is that although they’re probably best hot out of the oven, they’re also very tasty at room temperature. So they’re nice for parties, or picnics, or art openings, or to offer at street festivals. They’re easy to pick up and carry around, and they combine lots of good flavors in a manageable package.

The first I’ll tell you about is this little galette. It’s got a toasted oatmeal black pepper crust. It’s got fresh baby spinach, ripe pears, bleu cheese and rosemary. It’s very tasty!

I’ve got the Tom Waits song 9th and Hennepin stuck in my head, so I’ll post that here. Not because it describes my town, thank heavens, but because he’s watching people through windows, just like we were, and he’s rambling on to anyone who will listen. Just like I do!

And you spill out over the side to anyone who will listen…
And I’ve seen it all, I’ve seen it all
Through the yellow windows of the evening train…

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Broccoli and kale paté

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broccoli and kale paté

Brassicaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! This paté brings the sexy back to your brassica. Yes, they smell funny when you cook them. Yes, they’re good for you. Yes, when overcooked they’re stodgy and horrible. But brassica can be really delightful – bright, green, flavorful, juicy! That’s how we find them in this delicious and simple paté. My sister-in-law, Christy, was over for dinner the night I made these. She doesn’t like kale or broccoli (I know, I’m a very considerate hostess!) but she asked for two helpings of this! We ate this on thinly sliced toasted whole grain bread with a bowl of soup, and it made an easy, satisfying meal. It would make an elegant appetizer, as well, or snack for a party.

Here’s Beirut’s brassy Gulag Orkestar to listen to while you boil your brassica.
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Spinach pesto croquettes

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pesto croquettes

You know what I love about these very green croquettes? They combine something very wintery (mashed potatoes leftover from Christmas dinner) with something very summery (pesto I made back when basil was abundant, and have stashed in my freezer for just such an occasion.) At the end of the summer I gathered armfuls of basil, and as I turned it into pesto, I imagined myself on a cold winter’s day, after the festivities of Christmas, with nothing but months of bleak winter ahead…sniff…sob…taking out spoonful of pesto and being reminded of a glowing late-summer day.

Other than that, though, these are uncomplicated, comforting war-ration-we-can’t-afford-any-meat fare. I tried to make them very simple, so that my sons would eat them, so it’s just potatoes, breadcrumbs, pesto, and mozzarella. But there’s nothing in it that you don’t like!!

These are easy, pretty, and very green. A good way to use up leftover mashed potatoes! I served them with a bright red simple tomato sauce, that I made quite smoky and spicy with paprika and red pepper flakes.

Here’s Blackalicious’ Green Light, Now Begin.
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Flavored flat breads

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flavored flat breads

Once upon a time, I was scared to experiment with yeasted dough. I believed that if you didn’t follow the recipe exactly (resting time, kneading time, temperatures, rising time, oh my!) The whole project would fall flat. Well, it turns out that’s not exactly true. And now I have a lot of fun trying out different sorts of breads and yeasted crusts. It doesn’t always work, of course – it’s all part of the learning process.

One revelation for me, was that you don’t have to use the whole small packet of yeast in every recipe! It’s true! I like yeast to do its magical job in raising my dough, but I don’t want to taste the yeast. So I use less. Which also means that you don’t have to use pounds and pounds of flour.

These flatbreads are crispy on the outside and light and layered on the inside. You can flavor them with anything you like. I did one with herbed butter and green peppercorns. And for the other I used smoked gouda and sage. But you can use any combination of herbs and spices that you like. You could use finely chopped nuts. You could use most cheeses. You could add olives or capers. You don’t want anything too bulky, because you’re going to incorporate the flavoring element between layers, and try to roll it out as thin as you can. (Hence making the flatbread flat!). We had these with a bowl of soup, but they’d be good with pasta, or any sort of stew. Or cut into slices as an appetizer. Like all yeasted things, they took quite a few hours, but they don’t need too much attention.

Here’s Blind Willie McTell with This is Not the Stove to Brown Your Bread. I love this song!
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