Swiss Chard

Swiss Chard is my new green friend. My new favorite sandwich is stir fried swiss chard...olive oil in the second biggest frying pan, red pepper chopped and then when wilted, and a fried egg.... served on 7 grain , toasted with a bit a mayo and ooooo so delicious....

I love my sea salt and miss fresh ground pepper.... but use the big rough ground black pepper....

Now swiss chard is new to me and it offers both the green and the delicious translucent crunchy stem.... yum....

$5 MACE

ARgh! It cost $5 for a tiny little container of mace! and $5 for a tiny little container of cloves. So for those who still have money to invest, perhaps they should invest in spices, because the prices are like those from when the world
was thought to be flat!

Recipe Exchange: Apple Torte

This Apple Torte is dedicated to my memory of the Peacock Cafe on Greenwich in
the village. Walnuts are a nice addition to the crumble.


Apple torte
2 pounds Total
of three different kinds of apples
: gala, pinklady and empire
is what i like also golden delicious,macintosh and rome

1 tblsp Cinnamon
1 teaspoon Nutmeg
1/2tsp mace
1/2 tsp Ginger
1.5 cups sugar
1 tblsp Molasses
1 cup flour ( i like oat or pastry flour for this)
1 cup oatmeal
1/3 cup butter, softened

Mix sugar and spices
cut molasses in until crumbly
and evenly brown

Thin slice apples
chop apples
Mix 1/2 of sugar-spice mixture with apples
put in 2 quart baking dish

Cream butter and sugar.
Mix flour and oatmeal
Add flour-oatmeal to butter-sugar mixture

Sprinkle this over apples.
Bake at 350 for about 45 minutes or until apples are tender
and top is golden


serve with whipped cream or ice cream topping
or as i do, with vanilla soygurt.

Now what i left out of the recipe exchange, what i think makes it special is fresh grated ginger root, mixed in with the apples, and of course this must be peeled, fresh, juicy ginger root,,,, but just a bit and added similarly to the sugar mixture... the fresh melds in, does something special to all this.... the reason north americans squeeze lemon, but better, to my tastes than lemon on apples is ginger

Akua Lezli Hope

Goat Cheese for Lactose Intolerant

ahhh how fortuitous to discover goat cheese.

Now in mimicry of another ancient taste I have goat cheese cheddar and goat cheese feta. I pair these with fresh baked multi-grained currant bread. It makes a hearty breakfast or brunch. Many complimetary tastes in the mouth with the seed, and the sweet currants and the sharp or salty cheese , the wheat, and not that i have a tiny expresso pot I can have coffee brewed to a ripeness of flavor.

and that with very vanilla soymikl is sheer delight.

so simple. so good

what am i reinventing and remembering. My mother taking me to chock full of Nuts on 34 street an Broadway across the street form Macy's in the 1950s and me smelling her coffee and eating datenut or raisin bread with cream cheese. I miss you, mommy.

Saturday Brunch

I slept late. Moved slow. the rhythm of a fall arriving late, the sweet confusion of the day abloom ablaze and warm
where afternoon quickly cools, darkens moody. A day for brunch, brunching, grazing.


Last night I baked the plantains that took two weeks to ripen nto fragrance. I munched one for a foody desert.
I heated the other in the frying pan after frying a beautiful egg.

Why are the brown eggs so much more... flavorfull and shimmering than the white ones? The difference is like that of summer tomatoes vs. shipped from wherever tomatoes. I used to think I needed a juimbo egg to feel satiated. one of these samll brown eggs fills me, teaching again the lesson that it is not size it is quality and intensity of the experience that counts.

I boiled quatered red potatoes last night, using the fresh basil stems and less prstine leaves in the water, along with sea salt, and parsley. I seldom use plai water for anything.

Boiling is an opportunity to introduce and infuse flavor. These potatoes were so delicious that I munched a couple of quarters while I made my cheap and delicious coffee. I amend Bustelo with cinnamon. The result is not cinnamon flaovered coffeee but a smoothening and warming. I mix the cinnamon in the the fine grounds and pour boiling water over the grounds in the filter--- for a real but "ionnstant" coffee.

This I sipped black for a bit and then addedd a dash of very vanilla soy milk. Sweet yum without sugar.

So what else? The whole grain cinnamon rais bread, heated in the oven, layered with apple butter, and the prebaked palntain, warmed in the fying pan after the fried egg.

Great, Saturday, brunch.

Low Gourmet

Wherein I celebrate good cheap tastes as I concoct and discover them. Low vs High on the hog. Champagne
tastes on the water budget. It came to me today with the sublime open faced sandwich which comprised dinner.

Tandoori Nan
Goat Cheese crumbles
Grape tomatoes room temperature
Fresh Basil
Anchovies
Drizzle of Artichoke Hearts


I warmed the nan to just before crisping in a 400 degree oven. I removed it and then placed a few fresh basil leaves on it and then sprinkled goat cheese crumbles, and shredded several anchovies to tiny bits. I put it back in the
oven and then dropped the tiniest of the room temperature grape tomatoes on it. I drizzled a bit of the artichoke heart juice on it, and made sure most bites had a bit of tomato and a tiny spark of anchovie.

This was delectable!

The fresh basil was part of the weekly give away, cast away from the gorcery store.
It was whiel regarding the Caponata and having a fabulous conversation about it with a woman with an italian accent!!!! a beauttiful moment in the grocery store where she shared her recipe and comeenet on each ingredient in the jar!... Anyway I saw the goy artichoke hearts in a jar and was moved to buy it mainly because it was far less expensive than the caponata!

The artichoke hearts didn't last the afternoon I bought them but the liquid in the jar seemed delicious and
I mixed it with the oil of the anchovies.

I considered making pesto of the basil and still may, but i wasn't motivated to pull out the blender