Cauliflower Brain Bake

photo by Renee Anjanette Kalmar


My sister and I used to call cauliflower Brain Plant and fancied ourselves zombies when forced to eat it.    Turns out this veg doesn't reanimate dead human flesh on it's own, but it CAN make a nifty model of a brain as detailed here.  These days I generally just grill it up and eat it, no persuasion required.

When I found these orange beauties at the farmer's market, I couldn't resist.  I roasted them up with some stuff we had lying around the studio.  Simple and delicious.

Simple Roasted Cauliflower

1 pound cauliflower

3 tablespoons olive oil

2 teaspoons cumin seed

1 cup raw cashews, coarsely chopped

1/2 cup dried cranberries, coarsely chopped

Sea salt to taste

Heat oven to 450 degrees.  Mix first five ingredients in a medium bowl and toss to combine.  Spread on a baking sheet and bake for 10 minutes.  Add cranberries and roast for an additional 8-10 minutes.  

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Radical Radicchio

photo by Renee Anjanette Kalmar

Ok. this stuff really blew me away when I stumbled across it at the Farmer's Market last week.  I am more accustomed to the wilty round balls of radicchio that are usually hanging around in dejected looking clumps of 3 or 4 at the grocery store.  They resemble teenagers hanging out in a 7-11 parking lot, all sullen and bitter.  These varieties were so incredibly beautiful I couldn't resist them.  Renee and I scooped them up, took them back to the studio and shot them right away.  Then I developed this little recipe for lunch time.

photo by Renee Anjanette Kalmar

Radicchio can be slightly tough and bitter raw.  I slice it pretty thin and wilted it with olive oil to cut the bitterness and help with the texture.  The result was awesome!

Radicchio Tangerine Salad

Salad:

2-3 heads of Radicchio, sliced thin

1 tablespoon olive oil

6 ounces sheep's milk gouda, shaved

4 tangerines, supremed

Dressing:

Juice of two tangerines

1tablespoon olive oil

1 tablespoon white wine vinegar

1 teaspoon honey

pinch sea salt

pinch fresh ground pepper

Preparation

For Dressing:

Whisk all ingredients in a small bowl until thoroughly incorporated

For Salad:

Heat olive oil in a medium skillet of medium high heat.  Add radicchio and toss constantly with tongs for about a minute or until slightly wilted.  Remove raddiccio from heat and toss in a large bowl with remaining ingredients and dressing.  

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Fancy jujube Financier

photo by Renee Anjanette Kalmar

Again, I found these in the market in November but have been otherwise engaged so they are only showing up in these pages now.  However, I did just see them again in Wednesday's market so I guess they are still in season somewhere in this insanely fertile state of ours.  Seriously, California is almost season-less naturally.  Add some plastic sheeting and a grow lamp and you've got heirloom lettuces in January.  But I digress. I stumbled upon a little cake called the Financier at this delish little French joint in Hollywood called The Mercantile.  I grew up in Hollywood and I remember a time when there was nary a wine bar to be found in the whole of the region.  Just transvestite ladies of the night and used needles as far as the eye could see.  Those days are over.  Now you can have a new and amazing culinary experience on every corner of Hollywood Blvd. without bumping some working girl off her favorite pitch point.   I decided to take a crack at a jujube version of the financier myself and this was the result:

photo by Renee Anjanette Kalmar

The Jujube Financier

12 tablespoons unsalted butter (one and a half sticks)
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups dry toasted almonds
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1 cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar
1/4 pound jujubes, pits removed, sliced into eights
4 egg whites
1/2 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Butter six 4-inch mini cake pans or one 9-inch cake pan.  In a small sauce pan, melt butter.  Stir in vanilla, sugar and jujubes.  Cook over medium heat until fruit has softened and sugar is dissolved, about 8 minutes.  In a food processor combine almonds and flour.  Pulse until almonds are coarsely ground.  In a large bowl, beat egg whites with an electric mixer until stiff peaks form.  Fold almond mixture and butter mixture into egg whites (they will deflate a bit.)  Pour batter into pans and bake for 20 minutes or until pick comes out clean.  Serve with whipped cream.

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Persimmon Perfection

photo by Renee Anjanette Kalmar

So I'm a little behind on my farmer's market project, these bad boys were supposed to be on deck in November.  I've never known quite what to do with these beauties, but that is the whole point of my farmer's market project.  My days of fruit intimidation are OVER.  No fruit will ever look down it's nose at me again!  I figure I did enough cowering in high school.  It's not very attractive for a grown woman to allow herself to be pushed around by a plant ovary.  And that's what fruit is after all.  The lovely girl parts pictured above are Hachiya persimmons which have a very bitter taste if they are not eaten ripe.  Below is a recipe using Fuyu persimmons which can be eaten crisp, like an apple.

photo by Renee Anjanette Kalmar

Persimmon Appetizers

3 Fuyu persimmons, peeled and sliced into 1/4 inch thick rounds

6 ounces blue cheese

12 slices bacon, baked or pan fried until very crisp

2 tablespoons honey

3 tablespoons lemon juice

Whisk honey and lemon juice together until well combined.  Stack the cheese and bacon on top of the persimmon slices and drizzle with honey lemon mixture.  mmmmmm.  again with the bacon!!  It's such a cheap trick, but the pig is so TASTY! 

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Pickled Peppers

As the pace of my life has slowed from frenetic to busy I have become aware of a slight dissatisfaction with the food styling biz that is turning into full-blown guilt.  I’m starting to be a bit uncomfortable with my occasional role in making very bad for you food LOOK very good.  There was a time when I was snarfing down nachos bell grande with the best of them.  I used to be in a band and after our first week of serious touring I realized I would have to give the fast food a rest, because my tongue had swollen up to the size of a gym sock and taken on a blackish hue.  All that to say I am not a purist or a natural born foodie.  Unlike many of my friends, I woke up to the organic, fresh, local, mostly vegetarian-better-for-you-better-for-the-planet trend a little bit late.  It’s not that I don’t get it.  I really WANT to be a better consumer and I’m endlessly fascinated by other people’s quests and discoveries in this realm.  A few weeks ago I was reading Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal Vegetable Miracle in bed flanked by a bag of extra cheesy Doritos and white “cheddar” encrusted popcorn.  I was rapt!  

“Oh Barbara!  Will the disappearing heirloom breed of turkeys you so carefully raised from tiny peeping chicks be able to reproduce on their own????  WILL the eggs hatch into new precious babies that you can harvest next Thanksgiving?  And tell me again about making your own cheese!!”  

I can do that I thought to myself, between alternating handfuls of fake cheese bliss…..I WILL do that.  

It’s just that I’m lazy and afraid of change.  Maybe turkey rearing is too much to take on as my first act of eating responsibly?  So much can go wrong in even the smallest attempts.  What if I pick the one tomato in the farmer’s market that’s not organic?  What if someone offers me a piece of feedlot beef at a BBQ and it smells really really good?  What if I have an insatiable PMS related craving for cheese “flavored” food rather than cheese I’ve lovingly hand crafted from raw milk?  

What I CAN do is go to a Farmer's Market once a week and purchase fresh local fare and cook with it.  Simple enough.  Here is my first attempt, beautiful sweet peppers.

photo by Renee Anjanette Kalmar

I made a quick pickle out of these beauties, then ate them all week long on sandwiches and in salads.  So good!

Pickled Peppers

Ingredients

1 1/2 pounds sweet peppers, thinly sliced

4 shallots,  thinly sliced

3 cups white wine vinegar

3/4 cups sugar

10 sprigs fresh thyme

8 garlic cloves, thinly sliced

1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper

1/2 teaspoon salt

Preparation

Toss peppers and shallots together in a medium bowl, set aside.  In a small saucepan, combine vinegar, sugar, thyme, garlic, crushed pepper, and salt.  Over medium heat, stir mixture until sugar and salt dissolve.  Pour hot brine over peppers and shallots and cover for ten minutes.  Uncover and cool to room temperature.  Divide evenly among four 16 ounce jars, adding a little water if necessary to cover peppers completely.  Chill in fridge for five hours before first use.  Can be kept in fridge up to ten days.

 photo by Renee Anjanette Kalmar

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