Marionberry Rhubarb with CashewNut Cream

Last Friday I mentioned a friend had arrived for a visit. And with her, she brought a bag of goodies including a jar of Oregon marionberry spread.

As it turned out, I didn't open the spread while she was here. Instead, this morning I plucked some stems of green rhubarb from the garden, stewed them, adding the marionberry spread to create a beautiful, ruby-red compote for breakfast.

The green variety of rhubarb stays green upon cooking, in fact, a rather unappetizing green so the addition of the dark burgundy berry spread added desirable color.

While at Whole Foods a few days ago, I noticed locally grown, organic red rhubarb in the produce section. At $6.99 lb it was priced high -- a luxury item for most.

I haven't compared that price to our local farmer's market, but if you're looking for rhubarb, that might be a more budget-friendly option.

The marionberry spread had no added sugar and like the rhubarb it's tart (though the green variety of rhubarb is actually a bit sweeter than the red varietal).

Rather than add sugar to my compote, I tossed in chunks of apple for sweetness and topped the lot with cashew nut cream and swirls of honey.

Marionberry Rhubarb with CashewNut Cream
1) Wash and peel 4 stalks of rhubarb. When I peel the stalks, I just remove the most fibrous sinews. If you remove all the outer fiber from the stalks, there's not much left, so go easy with the peeling.
2) Chop rhubarb into chunks, toss into a pot, and add just enough water to cover the rhubarb.
3) Simmer over low heat for about 10 mins.
4) Add either a cup of your favorite fresh or frozen summer berries, i.e. blueberries, raspberries, strawberries or a heaped tablespoon of a dark fruit, sugarless spread. Stir the fruit or spread through the rhubarb until it's well blended.
5) Remove pot from the stove and add chopped chunks of apple.

CashewNut Cream
1) Toss a large handful of raw cashew nuts into a blender. Add hot filtered water, just enough to cover the nuts.
2) Blend the nuts and water until creamy. Add more water if you'd prefer a smoother cream.
3) Taste test. If you like the flavor as is, great, and if you'd prefer an enhanced flavor consider adding a dash of vanilla or some cinnamon or a slug of maple syrup.
Note: Simply by adding water and blending, cashew nuts turn incredibly creamy. Other nuts don't blend to the same smooth consistency, but don't let that stop you swapping out cashew nuts for say, pecans or almonds.

To Serve: Ladle a portion of the fruit compote into a bowl. Top with a heaped spoonful of the cashew nut cream and swirls of honey or maple syrup.

If you're eating this for breakfast, as I did, and you'd prefer a heartier start to your day, spoon the fruit compote, nut cream and honey over a bowl of hot oatmeal and finish it with some whole, raw cashews.

Meatless Monday

One thing that happens when you have access to a garden filled with a selection of spring greens, herbs, and onions is innovation in the kitchen.

Though the garden I'm tending while house sitting doesn't have basil growing, it does have parsley, spinach (and lots of other leafy greens) plus a selection of onions, including garlic.

The garlic, busily forming underground into the bulb we recognize, is also sprouting long green shoots above ground. These green shoots grow into curly tendrils that look quite exotic (see slide show below).

And what I discovered via a Facebook friend is that those exotic-looking tendrils are called garlic scapes and they're delicious cooked or eaten raw in say, a pesto.

The scape's flavor is a cross between garlic and the purple spring onions I posted about last Friday.

Because I find raw garlic highly pungent, when I blended the scapes into the pesto sauce I made yesterday, I added equal portions of both spinach and parsley.

Whenever I make traditional pesto with basil, garlic, Parmesan and nuts, I toss in a handful of parsley. The chlorophyll in the parsley helps counteract the heat of the garlic and it balances out the highly aromatic basil.

And having made a batch of garlic scape pesto, naturally it lent itself to a Meatless Monday pasta dish!

If you want to try your hand at today's meatless meal, and you don't have garlic scapes in your veggie garden, look for them at your local farmer's market.

Follow the slide show and method recipe below to make:

Pasta with Garlic Scape Pesto

1) Wash about 4-6 scapes, and a small handful each of spinach and parsley. Drain.
2) Put scapes and greens into a blender with about 3/4 of a cup of olive oil.
3) Pulse until the oil and greens and blended, then add several tablespoons of grated Parmesan and pulse again.
4) Taste test. Add salt and pepper if you wish, and a splash of lemon or lime juice.
Optional: Rather than salt the pesto, you could add a squirt of anchovy paste or even several anchovy fillets and a bit of the oil from the tin.
5) Boil your choice of pasta. Drain, and then run colander under the hot water tap and flush out starchy water. Return pasta pot the stove, stir for a minute over low heat to dry pasta.
6) Away from the hot plate, stir pesto through pasta.

To Serve: Pour pesto pasta into a large serving bowl. Decorate the top with black olives. I garnished the edge of the bowl with snap-pea greens and the white, edible flowers attached to the greens.

With the pasta, I served a large garden salad, the one I posted last week, though I omitted the garlic from the dressing since the garlic scapes in the pesto was sufficient garlic for one meal.

Tumeric Chicken with Purple Spring Onion

One of the joys of having friends to stay, especially friends who enjoy pottering about in the kitchen, is the likelihood of eating a meal they've prepared.

And that's just what happened last night, when a friend of mine flew in from out of town for a visit.

Judi, who lives in the northwest, arrived with a bag of locally-grown goodies: Seattle's very own organic and fair trade Theo Chocolate, wild king salmon, that she'd bought direct from the fisherman who'd smoked it with wine and maple, and Misty Meadows Marionberry Spread.

I've never had marionberries. According to Misty Meadow's website, marrionberries are from the Willematte Valley in Oregon, and they're of the "cane berry family" and have a "clear fruity flavor."

Apparently, marrionberry pie is an Oregon favorite, as is warming the jam and pouring it over ice cream. I'm excited to smother the jam over a chunk of my DuckEgg Cornbread, which I plan to make for our breakfast this weekend.

I thought we might have the wild king salmon for dinner. Wrapped in it's cryovac pack, the exquisite color of the salmon, it's obvious succulence, and the wine and maple smoking veritably screamed out to me: eat me now!

However, Judi insisted that I keep it for later; she'd picked up some "natural" chicken (there's that nebulous labeling again) and had an idea for cooking it up with vegetables from the garden.

Of course any ideas she had for cooking dinner were fine with me, since I was thrilled at the prospect of eating a meal prepared by someone other than myself!

I let her fossick in the veggie garden and after a while she came in with purple spring onions, which once washed, peeled and trimmed are really quite beautiful (pic to left).

She'd also collected kale and turnips (both of which are abundant right now and thus they've been appearing in all my blog meals of late), and cilantro and parsley.

I was interested to see what Judi would create with ingredients I've been cooking with these last couple of weeks.

Here is what I observed, and then ate with gusto:

Turmeric Chicken with Purple Spring Onion
1) Wash, peel, trim and cut into pieces one large purple spring onion. (You'll be able to find these at your local farmer's market.)
2) Toss spring onion in a skillet with some oil; saute gently on low until transparent.
3) Add about a teaspoon of turmeric; stir into onion.
4) Over the turmeric onions lay several boned chicken thighs; stir about so that the meat is well coated with turmeric.
5) Having washed and coarsely chopped a handful each of parsley and cilantro sprinkle over the chicken (pic at top).
6) Squeeze the juice of half a lemon over the lot, place the lid on the skillet and with the heat still on low; allow the chicken to gently cook in its own juices for about 15 or so mins.

To Serve: We had our turmeric chicken over a bed of sauteed turnips, turnip greens, kale and carrots (pic to left and below).

Judi did what I've doing with the garden greens and simply washed, drained and chopped the vegetables, tossing them into a second skillet with peeled and chopped fresh ginger and olive oil.

She then allowed the veggies to wilt over a med-to-low heat, adding a dash of rice wine vinegar at the last minute to bring out the natural flavor of the vegetables.

Because the color of the turmeric chicken was a rich yellow, sitting atop an ample portion of the wilted greens, turnip and carrot, the variegation of colors in the meal was quite spectacular.

To finish, Judi sprinkled some chopped, raw almonds over the chicken and this added crunch and texture.

You might prefer to serve your turmeric chicken with the Garlic-Dressed Salad Greens I posted recently; this would be a lighter though equally satisfying meal.

FYI: I posted a note on Facebook regarding my lack of success sourcing organic and free-range chicken meat in Boulder County. In response, Edible Front Range directed me to their online resource page.

I checked it out, and indeed, they've put together an extensive list of all that's locally grown, including poultry that's organic, truly free-range and humanely farmed.

Edible is published regionally, so check out your local publication for links and connections to the best locally grown produce, meat, dairy, poultry and eggs.

Salmon with Steamed Cucumber & Turnips

I have this nifty way of cooking fish on top of the stove so that there is minimal fuss and mess and no fishy smell.

As you may be aware, reading my posts, I do a lot of stove-top cooking, sauteing and steaming meals in an iron skillet.

I prefer my cast iron skillet over other fry pans because it's solid and versatile.

And since iron skillets are absent plastic handles and heat-sensitive non-stick surfaces, they can go from the top of the stove into the oven with ease.

A couple of weeks ago, I posted a recipe for DuckEgg Cornbread, which I baked in the oven in a skillet lined with foil.

The salmon in today's meal idea is also cooked in foil in a skillet (with lid on), but on top of the stove rather than in the oven.

The fish gently steam cooks in its marinade (pic to left), and because it's enclosed in foil, I can toss vegetables around the skillet and they'll cook separately but at the same time (pic below).

The beauty of this method is that I can prepare a complete meal (for two) in one pan, without the fish flavor and smells permeating the vegetables, the pan and the kitchen!

I chose to make this dish with wild-caught Sockeye salmon, which I'd bought frozen -- two fillets to a pack.

The frozen variety is economical, yet the flavor is not always great, so I usually marinade previously frozen fish.

For the vegetables, I picked turnips and their leafy-green tops from the garden, some organic carrots at the bottom of the fridge, and an organic cucumber I'd picked up on sale at the market.

Salmon with Steamed Cucumber & Turnips
1) Place your choice of fish on top of a piece of foil (enough to wrap around the fish).
2) Over the fish drizzle some olive oil, Braggs Liquid Aminos or Tamari or Soy Sauce.
3) Add to that a chunk of peeled and chopped ginger root, and the same of garlic or green onions or shallots. And you might like to also add a splash of orange or lemon juice.
4) Allow the fish to sit in the marinade in the foil for at least 30 mins.
5) Meanwhile, wash and chop a selection of vegetables. As I mention above, I used baby turnips, and their green tops, carrot, and cucumber.
Note: We think of cucumber as a salad vegetable, but it's wonderful cooked; it turns transparent, soft and juicy, while still maintaining its distinct cucumber flavor.
6) Now turn the fish over in the foil a few times, coating it with the marinade. Fold the foil over the fish, creating a sealed packet (see pic above), and then place the foil pack in the center of the skillet.
7) Scatter the chopped veggies around the fish, and if you have any more ginger bits, scatter those over the vegetables; drizzle a couple tablespoons water and oil over the veggies too.
7) Put a lid on the skillet and turn the stove-top heat to low and allow the fish and veggies to gently steam for about 10-15 mins.

To Serve: Onto a plate or large bowl, spoon a portion of vegetables. Unwrap the foil, gently lift the fish out with an egg lifter and place it over the veggies. Pour the juice, ginger and garlic bits from the foil over the fish. Garnish with chives or green onions or parsley or dill.