Al Dente

Hot Lips Fruit Sodas

I needed something sweet and cold and bubbly to wash down sandwiches on a hot afternoon, so I pulled out Hot Lips strawberry soda from the fridge. I discovered these marvelously fruity carbonated drinks at the Portland Farmers Market and lugged a few home for a better taste. You can try a flight of sodas in a whole host of flavors at the market, but the real test, in the end, is how they perform on a hot day. And that strawberry thirst-quencher won me over.

From the great-looking labels to the pure cane sugar to the fresh Oregon fruit cooked in old-fashioned kettles, Hot Lips sodas offer up the real deal. Taking a page from the best wineries, Hot Lips has even created a single varietal blackberry soda, made entirely from the Chester blackberries grown in Gaston, Oregon at Ayers Creek Farm.

I just learned that I can buy Hot Lips soda, both in Seattle and online (simply call or email Hot Lips), so I plan to have a stash on hand for those hot summer days when a cold drink is like a gift. I wonder what the strawberry tastes like with a scoop of vanilla ice cream?

--Tracy Schneider

A Salad of Sunflower Greens with Sidra

Salad was the heart of this delicious lunch I had just over a week ago in Washington D.C. with Sidra Forman. Sidra has a way with greens, be it growing them, arranging them or cooking them, and among her many accomplishments is her work with Bob Greene on The Best Life Diet Cookbook.

Sunflower greens made up the backbone of Sidra's salad, and I was smitten with these large crunchy sprouts which she mixed with thinly sliced radishes, raw baby turnips and Jerusalem artichokes, freshly shelled fava beans and a whole host of herbs gathered directly from her garden.

I found sunflower greens the next day at Greener Pastures, which sells both sunflower and buckwheat greens along with wheat grass and cat grass from a yellow school bus at the Union Square Greenmarket in New York City. There I learned I could eat them sprinkled with fresh chopped garlic, olive oil, salt and pepper, for a quick healthy snack instead of, say, potato chips.

I'm making salads with sunflower greens every chance I get. I've tried them with blanched asparagus, cubed tomatoes, and always thinly sliced radishes. This may be the year I break down and buy a mandoline.

Sunflower greens are packed with nutrients, so however you eat them--in a salad, as a snack, or on a sandwich--be sure not to miss them! In Seattle you can find sunflower greens at farmers markets in Ballard, the University District, and West Seattle.

--Tracy Schneider

Friday Afternoon Internet Happy Hour: Foodie Links Worth a Click

It's Friday again! Here are a few tasty links the Al Dente editors obsessed about this week:

• Get your sugar high on: Butterscotch Budino with Caramel Sauce.
• Just one more reason to move to New York (or feel lucky you already live there): Cupcakes on wheels!
• Make your own cheese.
  
• Cakespy unveils a "triple threat": The Cookie Cake Pie. Genius.
• Another pie idea: Spaghetti Pie.
• Twisted bacon--a new trick for Sunday brunch!
• A new way to get your daily s'mores fix (I'm not the only one, right?): ovenbaked s'mores cookies.
• Homemade Nutella--and it's vegan too!
• Sigh. Ricotta-Parmesan Gnocchi with Brown Butter Herb Sauce.
• Paige's Pantry whips up a cute birthday cake sure to please any candy lover:

 
Photo courtesy of Paige's Pantry.

Hot on the heels of new Al Dente bloggers Leslie Kelly and Melissa A. Trainer, we welcomed Tracy Schneider into our hallowed halls this week. Tracy was formerly a columnist for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and is quite the world traveler (WT, as my dad used to say), having lived in Paris, Bologna, and New York, among other places! Don't miss her first posts:

• Donna Hay's Rosemary Lamb Shanks
• Gifts from the Kitchen: Juana's Roasted Garlic in Oil
• Oregon Spring White Truffles

Did I miss a not-to-be-missed foodie link from this past week? Add a comment or tweet at me!

Have a great weekend!

--KitchenMaus

Creamy Polenta and Roasted Asparagus

I entertain much more easily these days, thanks to my cooking repertoire, a collection of tried and true dishes I have made so many times, I can almost do them without a glance at the recipes themselves. My go-to meal in the spring is Donna Hay's rosemary lamb shanks served with creamy, oven-baked polenta and crispy, roasted asparagus. The sides, which I cook in the oven at the same time, are simple to prepare, making the dinner party itself just that much easier to pull off. Even on a week night!

I found the oven-baked polenta recipe in Martha Stewart's Everyday Food magazine. Polenta's more traditional stove-top recipe requires constant stirring, so the oven-baked option a no-brainer. Ina Garten introduced me, by way of her many cookbooks, to the concept of roasting vegetables, which I now do for everything from Brussels sprouts to fennel to eggplant. Her asparagus recipe is almost too simple to even be called a recipe.

Oven-Baked Creamy Polenta

Ingredients:
3 cups water
3/4 cup cornmeal
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper
1/4 cup milk
2 tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon fresh marjoram or (1/4 teaspoon dried)

Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. In a lidded baking dish, whisk together water and cornmeal, salt and pepper. Cover and bake 30 minutes, stirring halfway through.

2. Remove from oven and add milk, butter and fresh or dried marjoram and whisk briskly until smooth. Serve immediately.

Serves 4
Everyday Food, Issue #3, May/June 2003

Cook's note: I double this recipe to serve 6-8 people and typically omit the marjoram when I serve it with rosemary lamb shanks.

Parmesan Roasted Asparagus

Ingredients:
2 1/2 pounds fresh asparagus (about 30 large)
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
2 lemons cut in wedges, for serving

Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. If the stalks of the asparagus are thick, peel the bottom half of each. lay them in a single layer on a sheet pan and drizzle with olive oil. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Roast for 12 to 20 minutes, until tender.

2. Sprinkle with the Parmesan and return to the oven for another minute. Serve with lemon wedges.

Serves 6
Barefoot Contessa Family Style, Ina Garten, Clarkson Potter, 2002

Cooks note: When I roast asparagus in the oven, I choose thick stalks over thinner ones. (I like the thinner stalks for barbecuing outside on the grill.) I never peel the asparagus, just snap off the tough ends. I typically use more olive oil than suggested, moving the stalks back and forth on the pan to make sure that they are thoroughly covered in oil. When I serve the asparagus with the lamb shanks, I omit the Parmesan and the lemon wedges. If I am cooking this dish together with the oven-baked polenta, above, I put the asparagus into the 425-degree oven after I've stir the polenta, 15 minutes into its cooking. When I take the polenta out of the oven to add the recipe's last few ingredients, I turn the oven down to 350 degrees and let the asparagus cook another 5 minutes, if necessary.

--Tracy Schneider

Al Dente Sweepstakes: Win an Anolon Cookware Set--Ends May 29!

Our current Al Dente sweepstakes ends in just 24 hours! If you haven't already entered, be sure to put your name in by noon Pacific time tomorrow, May 29. You can win a 10-piece Anolon Ultra Clad cookware set, worth $399.99. Enter here.

Entering the sweepstakes will also sign you up for our daily email digest. You'll get our most current blog posts sent directly to your inbox. Already an email subscriber? Just make sure to use the same e-mail address in the sweepstakes form as you used when you signed up previously for the digest.

Want to know more about the Anolon Ultra Clad set? Here are a few key features:

• Set includes 1-1/2- and 3-quart covered saucepans, 8-quart covered stockpot, 3-quart covered sauté pan with helper handle, and 8- and 10-inch open skillets
• Stylish exterior combines polished stainless steel with a classic black nonstick band
• Crafted from three layers of metals--two layers of stainless steel sandwiching a layer of heat-conducting aluminum
• Professional-quality, domed stainless-steel lids lock in moisture and flavor
• Comfortable silicone rubber handles for a cool touch
• Dishwasher-safe
• Oven-safe to 400 degrees F
• Limited lifetime warranty

Read more about the Anolon Ultra Clad 10-piece set.

Sign up and read the official sweepstakes rules. No purchase necessary. Enter by 11:59:59 a.m. (PT) May 29, 2009. See official rules for details.

See you in your inbox!

--The Amazon Al Dente editors  

Almost Edible Photo: Risotto Giallo Asparagi e Brie

You can tell it’s almost noon here at Al Dente HQ, cause I’m dreaming of lunch again--specifically, today I’m dreaming of the restaurant PerBacco, in Anghiari. Anghiari’s an ancient Italian village perched on a hillside’s edge not too far from Citta di Castello, just on the Tuscan side of the northern Tuscany/Umbria border. PerBacco has a delish line up of food and wine, friendly staff, and is open on Mondays (which is nice). When I was there, I feasted on Frittata al Formaggio e Pinzimonio Tiepido (a perfectly balanced frittata over blanched veggies and topped with cheese), Patate Salata al Rosmarino, and Tagiatelle con Verdure e Pecorino Toscano, which was excellent homemade pasta with veggies and cheese, but wife Natalie scored even higher with her Risotto Giallo Asparagi e Brie (risotto with asparagus and brie). Absolutely amazing, with the risotto boasting just the right amount of chewy, small chunks of brie showing up when you least expect them, and the asparagus ruling the roost. Sorry if I’m making you hungry (but I figure if I am, you should be too).

--A.J. Rathbun

Corkeeper Offers Wine Lovers Neat Way To Preserve Memories

There are two types of people in this world: Those of us who collect sentimental keepsakes and the kill-joys who try and throw that stuff away. Like my ever-so-organized spouse.

Typical conversation when the mister is urging me to clean up the clutter, especially around my desk:

"Do you really need that 10-year-old napkin from Sardi's?" he said.

"Of course!" she said. In an effort to keep the clutter contained, there's one drawer in my kitchen where I toss corks that have special meaning, which is just fine and dandy until the drawer won't shut anymore.That's why I was tickled to find a new gizmo to help me hang onto those celebratory corks in a fairly tidy way. It's called Corkeeper and it was invented by a guy named Eddie Seckinger who owned an upscale restaurant in Milwaukee, where he encouraged guests to sign their corks to commemorate special occasions. He was inspired to take it a step beyond and came up with a nifty frame that has space for a photo and the cork. I can picture a gallery's worth hanging in my cubicle. (The one big bummer is there's no built-in hanger on the back of the Corkeeper. So, for now, it's leaning against one of my piles of more stuff.)My first work of Corkeeper art is a photo of the world's best bartender (my brother Chris, who shakes things up at Mala on Maui) and a cork extracted from one of my favorite Washington producers (Badger Mountain, which was organic way before it was cool to be green) on my birthday last fall. Every time I look at it, I'm warmed by the memory of that sun-soaked milestone.These keepsake keepers are around $14 online. Now, if only somebody could come up with a way to frame all those cocktail napkins...

--Leslie Kelly

Oregon Spring White Truffles

At the Portland Farmer's Market I was drawn to Springwater Farm's beautiful displays of just-picked morels and fiddlehead ferns, but ultimately it was the spring truffles that I couldn't leave behind.

These fresh truffles made me think of a passage in Kim Sunée's recent memoir, Trail of Crumbs, describing her friend Flora, who has just shown up for dinner:

She arrives carrying a basket of wild scarlet strawberries and black trompettes de la mort mushrooms....Then she holds out the palm of her hand and asks me to close my eyes. I smell something musty, irregular to the touch.

Une truffe. A summer truffle, she explains, marbled cream on the inside, not as pungent or prized as the black winter truffles. Olivier takes it from me, kisses Flora thanks, and places the gift in a jar of arborio rice.

At $10 an ounce, Oregon white truffles aren't as intimidating to me as pricier black truffles, so I bought five brown nuggets (just under an ounce) and grated the entire lot over buttered fettuccine for dinner. They brought me back to another time and another place, a trattoria in Rome I had visited almost a decade ago, for two nights running, because of their unforgettable pasta in truffle sauce.

Try them yourself shaved over hand-cut pasta or softly scrambled eggs for a simple yet decadent meal. With these truffles, you can make your own memories.

--Tracy Schneider

Gifts from the Kitchen: Juana's Roasted Garlic in Oil

The first time I met Juana we made Argentinian food in her kitchen, and she sent me home with two beautiful jars of roasted garlic in oil.

She makes the garlic in big batches, stopping at Costco to buy not one, but two of their huge sacks of garlic. First she cuts off the tops of each garlic bulb and puts the bulbs on a baking sheet, pouring a little olive oil over each one.

Then she bakes them in a 400 degree oven for about a half hour, until they are soft when speared with knife. Once they've cooled, she peels the garlic and drops the cloves into a huge jar, filling it with enough oil to cover them completely.

She stores the garlic in the fridge, where it will last for weeks, adding it to a myriad of dishes and giving it in small jars, with a sprig of rosemary and a dozen or so peppercorns, as gifts. (Juana told me to keep my jars in the fridge as well.)

A gift of food is a gift of love, and Juana's great dexterity in the kitchen is matched only by her generosity of spirit.

--Tracy Schneider

Birthday Trifle is My New Birthday Cake

In the great pie vs. cake debate, I'm firmly on the cake side. There's no pie in this world that tastes better than a good chocolate cake. And unless you're weird like my father, you don't celebrate your special day with birthday pie. I've had a cake on my birthday every year for as long as I can remember. Until this year.

This year my wife made me a birthday trifle. What I love about the trifle is that it's like a cake, but without all the rules. You just layer in whatever you like, scoop it out, and eat it out of a bowl. You could put in cake whole or broken up. Is the cake too dry? Who cares! The other stuff will moisten it up. You don't have to even have to worry about structural integrity. Your cake could topple or fall apart when you cut it, but as long as your trifle bowl holds everything, you're in super-sweet heaven.

This particular trifle didn't even contain cake. It had layers of Oreos, brownies, chocolate pudding, banana pudding, and Cool Whip. And therein lies the beauty of the trifle--no recipe required. You only need an ingredient list.

 

--Spanno