Mixed Plate: Getting In the Season of Ingredients With a New Cookbook

Blame it on the Spring, but the excitement of seasonal cooking is most definitely in the air. Social media feeds are being filled with blooming tulips and gardening photos of early herbs and awakening greens. It was fitting that I received a copy of acclaimed Seattle chef Greg Atkinson's new book, In Season (Sasquatch Books), right as our own garden started to come back to life.

Sous vide Halibut with Rhubarb Ginger Butter Sauce, from Greg Atkinson's In Season - Photo by Wasabi Prime

Mixed Plate: Keep Calm and Bake a Crostata

No offense to May, there were some really fantastic things going on, like fun restaurant meetups, mixing art and food, and yes, even a television appearance! But I have to say, May, I'm through with you. I'm dumping all your stuff out of that extra drawer and you'd better take that prized anthology of Police Academy DVDs with you on your way out. Thankfully it has nothing to do with food or restaurants, it's just the tough, sinewy gristle of Life that really made for some extra drama that nobody needs. So All Hail June, and may you be boring and drama-free!

Even the crostata couldn't keep itself from falling apart from all the craziness afoot - Photo by Wasabi Prime

May started out quietly enough, but it brought the hammer down with a couple of Whammies about midway through, when we had a total freak accident happen to the house, and then we took the dog, aka Miss Indiana Jones, for a routine teeth cleaning that got all Bat Country on us. One sandtrap at a time, I know -- as to the house, or the garage to be more specific, it kind of had the opposite of an organ prolapse. As in, hey lookie - the outsides are now on the inside! It was an accident, plain and simple, but a big industrial lawn mower went out of control and sorta crashed into our garage -- with the door still closed. It felt like a meteor hit the house, everything shook. The force of the impact blew the lower half of the garage outside-in, which is rather impressive considering the door is attached with springs that have enough torque to take your head off if you were messing with them. The mower is about the size of a small car, and luckily neither of our cars were damaged -- Brock was at work and mine was miraculously shielded by a support beam, which got Streetfighter-smackdowned by the mower. Ouch. 

What your garage should not look like, fyi - Photos by Wasabi Prime

I totally expected the Mayhem character from the Allstate ads to show up in his bedraggled black suit, covered in band-aids and do a little jig amid the chaos of spinning blades and wet grass spattered everywhere. The main thing is, no one was hurt, the landscape company that we've been with for years and are very good, were equally very good about taking care of things. Sometimes poop happens.  I admit, my brain was in a haze for a while and it was hard to focus that week, trying to deal with getting that sorted along with the daily work. End-of-day cocktails were a must, and I imbibed with gusto and unholy passion.

Don't mess with the Cone of Shame - Photos by Wasabi Prime

Our next doozy was Indy-related. She's getting older -- she's over 7 years, which is semi-ancient in dog years -- so that means dental care is more of a priority. It's not like we're shoving candy bars and ice cream her way, not that she'd complain, but plaque builds up and dogs can't brush and floss on their own; once teeth go bad, it's like with people -- it's painful and you're more prone to infection. We scheduled Indy's teeth cleaning, which means they have to put the animal under anesthesia. Knowing we're having to pay for the total knock-out, we got other stuff taken care of -- surgical shopping spree! She had a tiny, benign little bump on the edge of her eyelid that had the potential to grow and bother her eye later, so we had it removed. This is all with good intentions of course -- professional teeth cleaning, weirdo growth removals -- but we wind up looking like total dog owner monsters because I brought home a completely stoned Indy with a shaved eye, having to wear The Cone of Shame for two weeks until her eye could heal and the stitch was removed. She looked like a really crappy pirate, minus the eye patch. And the Cone only added insult to injury. We "leveled up" her hard plastic Cone of Shame with a soft but sturdy nylon version, which was easier to get on and off with velcro. This led to Indy being velcroed to the carpet a few times after a nap, which I admit, is kinda funny. Zero peripheral vision, a much wider turn radius, and many collisions with furniture and our legs, it's been an awesome couple of weeks.

Stay calm, Cone Dog, dessert is on the way - Photos by Wasabi Prime

Which finally leads me to the food part -- sure, they say it's not healthy to cushion the sting of whatever emotional slings and arrows with food, but dessert sure helps. I had a frozen pie crust at the ready, which I think everyone should have in their freezers -- there's no evil that can't be undone with a fresh baked pie. The CSA delivery brought us fresh strawberries and rhubarb, and making a crostata, a rustic, flat version of a pie, is probably one of the best things you can do in a pinch. You can fill this flat pie with anything, really -- sweet and savory alike. I actually cushioned those emotional slings and arrows with several different foods, but this dessert is one that can be made in record time, if you have the basics at hand. And even if you don't, store bought pie dough works in a pinch. It's a crisis man, we require dessert triage! Let the blog title ring true, when trouble sets in, simply keep calm and bake a crostata.

UnRecipe: It's the End of the World as We Know It and I'll Have Pie

So, like everyone else, I was talking with some friends about the fever pitch over the Rapture that was supposed to have happened this past Saturday, and being a believer or not, is it really something newsworthy? I have little doubt that even if the holy heavens swept through to claim the faithful, I'd most certainly be left behind with my heathen ways, but I came to the conclusion that yes, the Rapture-fever is relevant, because then I can do a totally silly post about it. So there.

The almost-last supper - Photo by Wasabi Prime

While there's nothing particularly Biblical about a savory bread pudding, I did en-Rapture my arteries in a lot of cheese and bacon for this dish. During the week prior to the supposed End Times, I tried cleaning out my fridge like the world was gonna end, cooking with every random scrap of food we had sitting around. We always wind up with spare bits of stuff from previous dishes. I'd used some bacon for pork meatballs, bread for sandwiches, and random things that were impulse buys at the farmers market -- my fear of wasting food kicks in and then a whirlwind of cooking panic drives me to make something that uses as much of this stuff as possible. Compulsive cooking syndrome? There's a reality TV show waiting to happen there.

End of Days ain't so bad, there's dinner and cocktails involved - Photos by Wasabi Prime

As always, UnRecipe-ness rules supreme. See that random pile of ingredients? Just throw it together and hope for the best! In this case I felt fairly certain it would be a tasty pile of UnRecipe-ness. Chopped up bacon, rendered crisp with the fat reserved to saute leeks and some shallots until lightly caramelized. The leftover bread was just the stale heels from two loaves bought at the farmers market. This was a great way to use up the weird little pieces, as it's too small for a sandwich and while they would have made great croutons, their stale-ness made them extra thirsty to soak up the flavor of the bacon, leeks and creamy egg custard that brought the whole thing together. I had a little wedge of gouda, also from the farmers market (it was on sale, and I can't resist discount cheese), and the flavor is a bit pungent, so it's not something you just bite a hunk off. The cheese-wang was strong with this wedge, but crumbled and mixed into the egg batter, and it melted down in wonderful ways, seeping into the bread and making the whole thing savory and rich. The garden is finally yielding a healthy batch of herbs, so I was happy to sprinkle in handfuls of fresh parsley, sage, chives and thyme into the mix.

Savory bread pudding that just came together on its own - Photos by Wasabi Prime

You can't face your maker without dessert. Again, an impulse buy of rhubarb, likely from my impatience with our own rhubarb plant taking forever to grow edible-sized stalks, was cooked with strawberries and made into a pie. Nothing fussy with perfectly woven lattice-work, just a simple foldover of the excess dough and a sprinkle of sugary oat crumbles to make a crusty top. This was more like a "yay, the world didn't end" reward, as the day of the supposed Rapture had us getting gussied-up and going out with some friends for dinner and drinks. It wasn't to party-on through the reaping of souls, it was just good timing. But we raised our glasses after 6pm and said, yep, we're still here. And we had a strawberry rhubarb pie, with strawberry ice cream, to celebrate with on the following post-Rapture Sunday. Win-win, right?

Get fancy, have pie and ice cream, avoid the end of the world -- good weekend, no? - Photos by Wasabi Prime

OMG a Recipe - Get Hitched With the Newlywed Kitchen

There will be punch and pie. Wiser words never spoken, and thank you, South Park. Although for Mr. Wasabi's recent birthday, it was a half-truth, as there was pie, but no punch. Seeing as how it was his super-duper favorite pie -- strawberry rhubarb -- the serving of punch with pie seemed a non-issue. In other super-duper news, I was lucky to receive a copy of The Newlywed Kitchen: Delicious Meals for Couples Cooking Together, a new cookbook written by the fabulous talents of Lorna Yee and Ali Basye, beautifully photographed through the skilled lens of Kathryn Barnard. The strawberry rhubarb pie in the "Happily Ever After" dessert section of the book was too perfect not to make for my special sweetheart on his special day.

The Newlywed Kitchen by Lorna Yee and photographed by Ali Basye - Photo by Wasabi Prime

Martha Stewart is gnashing her teeth in envy for not making something as freakin' sweet and personable as The Newlywed Kitchen. But I'm sure she swims in a Scrooge McDuck-like chamber full of money to assuage whatever feelings of "dang, yo, why didn't my minions get on top of this first?!" Maybe she doesn't say that, but I can only imagine what happens in her grosgrain-beribboned Fortress of Solitude. Interestingly enough, I don't own any Martha Stewart cookbooks because for the most part, her recipes are just that, a list of things to make, and with the in-tar-webs, you can get a basic recipe for a roast chicken anywhere. Most cookbooks in general will have easy-to-follow recipes and have beautiful production values in the presentation of the food, but for the most part, there's really no connection of the food with the people who are eating it. I like The Newlywed Kitchen because you see the people who helped compile this collection of recipes, you read their stories, and you have a sense of why Lorna Yee and Ali Basye wrote this book -- it's a sweet love letter for those who have been fortunate to find that special someone, and it's also for anyone who just understands the magical quality of food to encourage togetherness, and how making a meal builds memories.

There's a nice, friendly sense of humor about The Newlywed Kitchen -- it's like that friend you have that just encourages you through something you're not sure about, letting you make mistakes and just reminding you along the way that, "hey, it's just food, it doesn't have to be perfect, and I'm sure it'll be tasty, so it's all good." I have to remind myself how lucky we all are to be living in an area that is so in-tune with preparing meals at home, and how there are many more who are terrified of the kitchen, so having this book be that little bit of encouragement to get cooking is a very good thing. The book includes recipes for all meals (breakfast, lunch/brunch, dinner), a variety of occasions (cooking for in-laws, yikes!), and of course desserts.

Springtime birthday with strawberries and rhubarb - Photos by Wasabi Prime

Even though Mr. Wasabi and I aren't technically marriage-ified, and ten years together does not a newlywed make, I still zoned-in on the strawberry rhubarb pie recipe on page 208 for Brock's birthday. It's his favorite, plus strawberries and rhubarb are in season. Double whammy! I followed the recipe, save for the swap-out of leaf lard with shortening for the crust. I know leaf lard is the bomb-diggity, it makes pie crusts venture into another dimension of flaky texture that defies the known universe, but I just didn't have a chance to track it down prior to making the dough. That being said, the crust still came out beautifully, so have no shame over swap-outs because life happens and that house isn't going to clean itself. I liked the inclusion of sour cream, as it kept the dough moist, and I'm sure some other Alton Brown food science went on, but by golly, it was just flaky, crispy goodness.

I'm not great with pie-making, but trying to improve upon this skill for no other reason than a Mt. Everest-scaling-like reason of, because it's there. I'm keen on finding crust recipes -- my mother uses vinegar for hers, much like some use neutral spirits like vodka to keep the dough moist, and ensuring flaky crust nirvana. That crispness is the tricky thing, especially with fruit pies, as the fruit will of course release quite a bit of moisture and often results in a soggy, baked mess -- that's usually my end game with pies and why I've thrown out many a ruined, doughy mess in tearful frustration. I goofed on making the rhubarb/strawberry filling by overcooking it a bit, making it more moist than chunky, but the crust saved my bacon as it were, by staying flaky and keeping the filling nicely contained. For my pie-n00b-ness, I find that crusts are my saving grace, as they often hide most sins and keep everything looking ship-shape. The Newlywed Kitchen's recipe was great, as it gave a lot of leeway for dessert klutzes like myself, and it resulted in a delicious birthday dessert. Sadly, I don't have a photo of a slice of the pie with vanilla ice cream, because while we still have a few slices left, they never survive long enough on the plate for me to snap a quick photo. Even with crust ingredient swap-outs and overcooking the filling, it's plenty delicious, and like a paparazzi-stalked starlet, unable to be photographed, as it's just that awesome.

Wedding season is upon us, so if you're looking for an appropriate gift for a soon-to-wed couple, or just want a lovely cookbook for yourself and your sweetheart, grab up a copy of The Newlywed Cookbook. You don't have to be like Beyonce and put a ring on it, just to enjoy a home cooked meal with loved ones.

Love is a strawberry and rhubarb pie - Photos by Wasabi Prime

Much Wasabi Thanks to Lorna Yee and the team at Sasquatch Books for a copy of the cookbook; looking forward to cooking my way through it and most likely making another pie that will probably be just as underphotographed due to its om-nom-nom-ness.