The Naptime Chef

I was raised by two gardening fanatics. From a very early age I can remember my parent’s spending hours rambling about our backyard pruning roses, staking peonies and scattering organic fertilizer in the ferns. When I was young I really didn’t care much about their gardening activities, preferring instead to play on the swing-set next to the lilac tree. But now that I am older, and am feeding a family of my own, I have become more interested in their favorite pastime. When we visit my parent’s nowadays my daughter and I spend time in their garden, walking between the flowers and vegetables pointing at curiosities like bumble bees and hummingbirds. Together we carefully clip flowers for the vases in the dining room and harvest sun-ripened heirloom tomatoes and peas for dinner. These seemingly mundane activities are fascinating for both of us, we simply stand in awe of the tasty delicacies that can be harvested in our own backyard. Naturally, as a result, after these trips I return to our apartment fantasizing about my dream garden. In my imagination I have already determined that I will grow zucchini, peas, carrots, tomatoes, sweet onions and eggplant. But, above all, I will grow my favorite, rhubarb.

My parent’s have always had an enormous rhubarb patch in their garden. When we were young my mother made delicious baked goods from the fresh stalks almost weekly, priming our palates for a lifelong love of the vegetable. Our family’s favorite was rhubarb fool, but we also adored her rhubarb crisp, rhubarb preserves, and, of course, strawberry-rhubarb pie. Luckily for me, a few years ago my mother gave me these recipes, along with her helpful notes in the margins. Since then I have made them all dozens of times, yet, despite my impressive cache of rhubarb recipes, I am always on the hunt for more.

My friend, and fellow rhubarb-addict, Barbara knew my history and guessed correctly that I would like this recipe for Rhubarb Almond Cake. It is has a delicious flavor, is child-friendly and takes a very short time to prepare. In fact, the preparation is so efficient that yesterday I Naptime Chef-ed the batter in just 5 minutes(!), leaving me the remaining two hours of my daughter’s naptime to tackle other projects. I love this cake because the delicate almond flavor couples so nicely with the sweet-tart rhubarb. It has a tender, moist crumb and is perfect for pairing with a big scoop of vanilla ice cream, or, even better, fresh whipped cream. The best part is that this recipe is so flexible it defies seasonality. When rhubarb is not in season (or if you plain don’t like it), you can substitute almost any chopped fresh fruit you want. In the past I have used apples, cranberries, blueberries, peaches, plums and blackberries. It is virtually fool-proof, you can’t go wrong as long as you make sure the fruit isn’t too watery, so it doesn’t dilute the batter. Luckily for me I’ll be heading back home soon to cut some more rhubarb from my parent’s garden. I can hardly wait to get my hands on it, and to grow my own as well.

Growing up one of my favorite activities was baking with my mother. Together we would bake everything ranging from cookies and brownies, to scones and cranberry muffins. We mostly preferred to bake for our own enjoyment, though, on occasion, we were persuaded to bake en masse, once producing over 600 molasses cookies for my babysitter’s wedding. Under Mom’s expert tutelage I learned all of the important lessons about baking including the difference between baking soda and baking powder, the importance of sifting flour, and how to remove cookies from the oven at just the right time. I adored our hours together mixing batter with the old KitchenAid, watching it rise in the oven – almost magically – to become a moist, delicious treat. In those days learning how to bake at my mother’s knee was one of the most fun activities I could imagine, and, frankly, it still is.

Last week I took my daughter to visit my parent’s (her doting grandparents) in Cooperstown for a few days. I was excited to get there, I couldn’t wait to load up on spring vegetables at my favorite farm stands and clip fragrant purple lilacs from the trees in my parent’s garden. But, above all, I couldn’t wait to get home and bake in my mother’s kitchen. When I arrived she had already prepared a pyrex glass filled with two cups of grated organic zucchini along with two greased loaf pans. From the set-up of equipment on the counter it was obvious she wanted me to make our family’s favorite zucchini bread. And, naturally, I got started the minute my daughter went down for her nap.

Since my parent’s have lived in their house since I was eight, navigating the kitchen for this baking quest was not a problem. I pulled the mixing bowls off the same shelf where they have been kept for over twenty years, fetched the cinnamon from the spice rack next to Dad’s canning supplies and tossed the egg shells in the long-established backyard compost heap. The rhythm of sifting, stirring and pouring on the rainy afternoon in my childhood home was warm and familiar, a feeling of comfort for me that is almost unmatched anywhere else. As with most baked goods, preparing the bread while my daughter napped was a cinch. Mixing the batter was simply a matter of carefully adding the ingredients and making sure they were fully combined before pouring it into the loaf pans. While I followed the recipe I was reminded of one of my mother’s favorite calorie-reducing baking techniques and substituted applesauce for some of the vegetable oil. I know that to some this sounds unusual, but please don’t fret, having tasted zucchini bread that has been baked with the full amount of oil I can honestly say that the applesauce version is better. It is more flavorful and moist, but is considerably less greasy and doesn’t leave any residue on my fingers.

(The view from mom’s kitchen)

The bread baked for almost an hour in the oven and, once I removed it, I exercised an amazing amount of willpower, letting it cool completely until the evening. Then, finally, after clearing my family’s dishes from the dinner table – a habit held over from my grade school days when it was one of my most dredded chores – I cut pieces from a loaf for dessert. As I watched my daughter enjoy her first slice, eyes wide with delight at the tasty treat, I got excited realizing that the day will soon come when we can bake together. She will bake at my knee, learn the rhythm and language of our own family kitchen, and I will teach her everything I know about baking, too.

By all accounts my grandmother Harriet was a remarkable woman. She could recite the Lord’s prayer in her sleep, crochet a baby blanket with one hand, and play poker for hours on end. She also wholeheartedly embraced her community, delivering meals to housebound elderly from the trunk of her Ford Thunderbird, regularly being issued speeding tickets along her route. In short, she was a woman of contradictions and we loved her for it. Many people attributed her near-century of volunteer activity and good health to “solid genes” and a healthy joie de vivre, but I am pretty sure her secret was eating artichokes.

Artichokes are often referred to as the “nutritional powerhouse” of vegetables and, given Harriet’s long life, I wonder if she was on to something. She preferred artichokes over every other vegetable, consuming one daily and serving them to us whenever we visited. She favored eating them boiled until soft, except in the warm weather when we all wanted relief from hot foods. In the summer Harriet would dream up new ways to serve us her favorite veggie, often incorporating them into green salads, serving them cold alongside grilled chicken and adding them to quiches. Her imagination served her well and all of her meals were delicious, but, above all, my favorite was her “famous” artichoke heart pasta salad. Unfortunately, though she made this salad for me dozens of times, she never wrote down the recipe, so last summer I had to rely on my memories to write a new one.

My goal in recreating this dish was to make a salad that replicated hers in both texture and flavor, and was able to last in the fridge without getting gummy. I tried a few different combination’s of pasta shapes and vinegars until, at the end of last summer, I managed to create a flavor medley that evoked the memories of my grandmother’s version. The taste of my final recipe differs slightly from the original. It maintains the core flavors of artichoke hearts and sweet tomatoes wrapped in a tangy vinaigrette, but I revised her formula by adding toasted pine nuts for crunch, as well as some lemon juice to crank up the flavor. I also chose to use orzo instead of fusilli because I find that orzo is less starchy and holds up better when chilled. Since completing this Naptime Chef recipe challenge I have made this salad at least a dozen times. In doing so I discovered that, in addition being great to serve my family, it is a tasty side dish to serve at luncheons and makes a nice addition to any buffet table. Everyone who has eaten it raves about the taste, including my husband and daughter. I have to admit, I was initially surprised that my daughter liked artichoke hearts, until I realized I hadn’t considered her artichoke-obsessed lineage. I mean, after all, she is Harriet’s great-granddaughter, and that explains it all.

Spoiler Alert: Stay tuned tomorrow when I will be revealing the details of The Naptime Chef’s exciting extracurricular summer project, “The Naptime Chef Great Ice-Cream Festival of 2009.”

I am such a devoted lover of brownies, that, I swear, if someone sewed a brownie on a flag I would hang it on my front porch and, hand on my heart, pledge allegiance to it every morning. Last week my kitchen turned into a one-person brownie factory. I am not entirely sure what prompted my out-of-control brownie baking, but once I started, I could not stop. What began as one batch with simple peanut butter swirl, quickly became several batches with variations on swirl flavors, toppings and baking chocolates. In fact, halfway through the week my husband branded this baking crusade “The Naptime Chef Great Brownie Festival of 2009,” gently insinuating I had crossed the line from leisurely baking to serious brownie production. By the end of the week I had made at least five different brownie flavors, three of which were delicious, and one of which was just so-so. Thankfully, I sent the vast majority of the completed batches to my husband’s office (much to the appreciation of his colleagues), sparing me the prospect of spending the entire summer wearing a muu-muu. I did, however, taste test everything before it left the house and am excited to share my favorite results with you.

Brownies are perfect for Naptime Chef-ing on many levels. The ingredients are simple, the batter is very easy to prepare and the baking time is less than an hour. Last week’s baking endeavor began when, using my favorite recipe for moist chocolate brownies, I swirled in some peanut butter. I love this combination because the brownies end up tasting like rich chocolate peanut butter cups, one of my favorite desserts. Inspired by this decadent treat I decided there was no time like the present to experiment with additional swirls like cream cheese and marmalade, flavors I had been meaning to try for a long time. The marmalade swirl idea originated with a recent Giada at Home episode where she swirls in raspberry jam with her brownies. Since I am a huge fan of the choco-orange flavor combination I figured I would add orange marmalade to see if I could recreate the flavor of a chocolate dipped orange peel, while adding slivered almonds for extra texture. The result was nothing short of heavenly, a moist chewy brownie imbued with a light orange flavor and a sweet nutty crunch.

I will spare you the details of the last two brownie experiments, let’s just say they weren’t up to snuff. I promise to share them with you eventually though, once I have worked on perfecting them. In the mean time, here are last week’s “Festival” highlights for you all to enjoy. Rest assured, there are many more brownie flavor variations I adore (mint icing! caramel layers!) but I had to draw the line at some point. Perhaps, when my brownie cravings get the better of me again, I will commence “The Great Brownie Festival of 2010”, but, until then, this is a great start.

Spring cleaning began late this year. The warm weather arrived in the northeast later than planned, leaving me with less time to get through my spring chore list. You see, spring is a critical season for me, without it I would never be prepared for the arrival of summer. When the thermometer finally creeps north of sixty degrees it is like someone zaps me with a defibrillator. Every morning the early sunlight and fresh breezes blast me out of bed, sending me racing through my day, to-do lists in hand, preparing for the hot summer ahead. In the past week I have tackled my important seasonal chores like swapping winter sweaters for summer blouses, cleaning the winter grime off our windows and removing the fleece foot muff from my daughter’s stroller. It is not unusual that, while I am sprucing up my household, I take time to spruce up my recipes as well. After all it is not just my closets that need spring cleaning, my kitchen does, too.

One of my favorite ways to liven up spring menus is by adding lots of fresh greens obtained at our local farmer’s market or gourmet food store. Last week, while I was shopping, I encountered my very first bundle of local asparagus. It was pencil thin, bright green and begging for me to take it home. Naturally, I was thrilled that one of my favorite vegetables was finally available again and promptly added it to my basket. Now, just so everyone knows, I wasn’t always good at preparing asparagus. My first few attempts at replicating my mother’s blanched asparagus with herbed butter were disastrous. I boiled the asparagus until it was as limp as a spaghetti noodle, dunked it in ice water to no effect and essentially served myself a tasteless, murky green vegetable. The good news, however, is that over time my techniques have much improved and my asparagus preparation, though simple, is delicious. So, to kick off the asparagus season this year, I decided to start with a recipe I had saved to celebrate the occasion.

I originally encountered the idea for this recipe when reading Cooking for Mr. Latte, by Amanda Hesser. I loved the idea of a citrus vinaigrette contrasting the flavors of the peppery arugula. I have made this salad a few times in the past ten days and it has gotten better and better each time. I have even experimented with a few substitutions, adding lemon juice instead of orange juice to the dressing, and adding cherry tomatoes for additional color and flavor. Every experiment has yielded excellent results, proving that this recipe is quite flexible. The best part is that most of it can be prepared during naptime. Simply cook the asparagus, cut it into one inch pieces and let it cool. Then, prepare the vinaigrette and leave it, covered, in the fridge. At dinner time you merely have to assemble the salad by putting the ingredients together in a bowl and giving it a good toss, a procedure you could probably do in your sleep. We found that each bite of this salad contains many layers of flavors along with a satisfying crunch from the asparagus shoots. Yesterday, after finishing our last helping, my husband remarked that this is his favorite spring salad yet. I was, of course, thrilled to hear this and will definitely be adding this salad to my to-do list tomorrow.

Summer is right around the corner and I can hardly contain myself. Over the next few months farm fields in the northeast will yield copious amounts of produce just begging to be made into fresh, delicious meals. I can’t wait to rip open my summer recipe file and start making my favorite warm weather foods including green salads, fresh pesto in pasta, roasted tomatoes and rhubarb tarts. When I really think about it, the number of recipes I have that are dedicated to foods available in June, July and August is simply staggering, and I can’t wait to share them all with you. This week, during a freakish ninety degree heatwave, I decided to kick-off my warm weather cooking with one of my favorite light summer dinners. This recipe isn’t necessarily made with fresh food from the farmer’s market, but it is lighter fare made without any of the common heavy ingredients (i.e. cream and gruyere) I usually cook with during the winter season. For this reason, the dish is lighter in taste and weight, making it easier to stomach during the warmer months when I don’t want to eat heavy foods.

I first encountered this recipe when I cut it out from an old issue of Self magazine. The original recipe was written by Jennifer Garner, who was on the cover that month. I don’t know Jennifer but she seems like a really cool Hollywood mommy, a person I would like to invite over for dinner and a playdate with the kids. Given that she is a cool working mom, and the fact that I see her cooking awesome things with Martha Stewart on a somewhat regular basis, I surmised that her recipe was worth a try. After all, right off the bat I could tell that it was a simple recipe based on quality flavors, perfect for Naptime Chef-ing.

Needless to say, her recipe was an immediate hit with the whole family, although I did have to make some initial adaptations to suit our tastes. The first, and most drastic, change I made to the recipe was switching the main ingredient of shrimp to chicken. I cut out the shrimp due to my extreme aversion to the sea creature. (I will spare you the details regarding why I don’t eat it, because, trust me, you really don’t want to know.) In any event, my daughter prefers chicken over shrimp as well, so this substitution made the most sense for us. Also, since I usually make this in the spring and summer, I had a lot of fun adapting the seasonings to play with the flavor. Naturally, the fresher the herbs I have on hand, the better the overall flavor of the dish becomes.

Preparing this dish during naptime is quite easy and I recommend doing it if you want to save time in the evening. However, if you don’t walk in the door until six-o’clock you’ll have no trouble having dinner on the table by six-thirty. The best part about this meal, apart from the simplicity in it’s preparation, is the delicious flavor. When we eat it we find that each bite bursts with a rich tomato flavor which is absorbed beautifully by the orzo. The tomatoes are brightened nicely with the fresh herbs and salty feta, giving it a warm salty/sweet taste. I have thought about trying it with different pastas, but I think that might overwhelm the sauce, making it seem more like a spaghetti meal. Best of all, when there are leftovers I eat them cold with a fresh crumbling of feta for lunch the next day. I often feed it this way to my daughter as well, which she loves. I suppose if I knew Jennifer Garner I would call her at this point and say thanks for the great recipe idea. But, since I don’t, I will just keep getting excited for the summer cooking ahead.

If you need advice on just about anything, ask a mother. Seriously, mothers are often the best resource when it comes to answering all sorts of practical questions like how to get a grass stain out of jeans, how to bring down a fever, and, of course, how to get your child to eat vegetables. I know lots of clever mommies these days, some I have met on the playground, and others I have known all my life. My friend Jenny is one of these clever moms. I first met her about ten years ago when she married one of my childhood friends and we have been friendly ever since. Jenny and I have a lot in common these days, most notably that we are both mothers of active and fun children.

Jenny’s son is about one year older than my daughter and we joke that they are already boyfriend-girlfriend. Her son takes my daughter on romantic races in his Little Tykes car, taking care that her feet are securely perched on the dashboard so that she won’t stub her toes. Then, post backyard grand-prix, they exchange strong hugs which slightly resemble football tackling moves. At meal time they sit together in pint-size chairs at a miniature table feeding each other bits of food off their trays. Last month, when we were at their house, Jenny’s son fed my daughter some pasta with homemade tomato sauce and she went wild, acting like it was the best thing she had ever tasted. To confirm her notion I tasted it myself, she was right, it was delicious. Noting my daughter’s glee over the tasty sauce I asked Jenny for her recipe. She was glad to share the basics of it, admitting she had never written it down since the ingredients change a little every time she makes it. Naturally, the lack of written notes did not deter me, in fact, I viewed it as the perfect Naptime Chef challenge.

Jenny devised her basic marinara recipe as a way to feed her son vegetables he would not eat in their raw state. I knew Jenny was smart, but upon hearing the basis of her recipe theory I realized that she is, actually, brilliant. Every other week Jenny makes a simple tomato sauce packed full of vegetables and freezes it in individual portions. Then, when mealtime arrives, she thaws the sauce and adds it to whatever pasta dish she is making. Taking her cue I quickly got to work, starting with a straightforward variety of vegetables I would like my daughter to consume: onion, garlic, red pepper, carrots and tomatoes. Making the sauce, following the instructions below, took a very short amount of time. When it was complete I poured individual portions into snack-size freezer bags and lined them up in my freezer. As expected, they froze beautifully and thawed well when it was time for dinner. Thankfully my daughter seemed to recall the taste of the sauce from her play-date, gobbling up a huge bowl of alphabet shaped pasta stirred with sauce and grated cheese. I immediately called Jenny to thank her for the great idea. She was thrilled to hear about my success in devising the recipe and agreed that it should be shared with all of you. So here it is, from one clever mommy to another.