Hide the cheese

Baked Potatoes with Cilantro Pesto

We have been reading our way through Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House books.  The stories are beautifully written and transport me to a time and place that I will never know.  And the children are so well behaved.  The wonder and gratitude that they express when they receive an orange or a peppermint stick for Christmas makes me yearn for those simpler days. 

Wilder wrote those books well into her adult years (prompted by her daughter), but her attention to detail is amazing.  I really thought I might be able to build a log cabin after reading her description of Pa making one.  We had to take a breather after The Long Winter, though.  It is a phenomenal story of resilience and survival, but living in a wood cabin with blizzard winds whipping through the cracks and months of intense snow storms makes me happy to live in the age of brick, insulation, and furnaces. 

And, of course, there is the problem of the food.  At the beginning of the winter, the family's staples were bread, baked potatoes, and butter.  First the butter runs out, then the potatoes.  By the end, they were dipping into next year's seed wheat to make bread to survive.  Rough times.

Since we read that book, though, baked potatoes have become a regular item in our dinner rotation.  We have such a rich range of choices for toppings, but this pesto offers a taste of green spring, which I welcome after our own long winter.

Baked Potatoes with Cilantro Sauce

Serves 6
15 minutes preparation time
About 45 minutes baking time

6 large baking potatoes, scrubbed and rinsed
1 teaspoon cumin
1 cup parsley
1 cup cilantro
1/4 cup olive oil, preferably Spanish
a few generous pinches of sea salt
a couple of grinds of fresh pepper

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. 

Using a fork, poke a few holes in each potato.  Place the potatoes directly on the oven rack and bake until they are tender, about 45 minutes, depending on the size of the potatoes.

In a frying pan, toast the cumin over medium heat just until it is fragrant, about 1 minute.

Blend all of the remaining ingredients with the cumin in a food processor.  Taste and adjust seasoning as desired.  When the potatoes are done, split them open, smear them with the pesto, and dig in.

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Recipe Day

I definitely subscribe to theory that the more involved children are in the growing, buying, and preparing of food, the more likely they are to try and enjoy something new.

So I was thrilled when a few months ago, Olivia pulled out all of the Real Food magazines that had been squirreled away in our cupboard and suggested that each of us choose a dish to make for the week.  The kids went through the magazines page by page and tagged things that they wanted to try.  I can't remember now what they all chose, although I'll bet Olivia does.

What I do remember is that they were very invested in the process and willing to try the product, even if it was something they wouldn't usually be inclined to try.  Last weekend, we did the same thing again, this time using some of our favorite cookbooks, including Biba Caggiano's Trattoria Cooking, The Silver Spoon, the Vegetarian Times's Vegetarian Entertaining (especially good for Chloe because it has pictures), Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian, and the cookbook that we made for our preschool, Welcome to Our Table: Seasonal Recipes from Acorn Hill (scroll down on the linked page to a link to the inside of the cookbook).

Not all of the recipes were successes, but we had fun cooking, and the children were very enthusiastic about trying the results.  This process has one additional benefit.  If you find yourself in a food rut, cooking the same dishes over and over, there is no better way to shake things up than to leave the choice of dinner to a child.

Second Helpings (from the archives): Roasted Shallot and Buttercup Squash Soup and Suppli

Roses des Sables

 
In addition to the crêpes, Ophélie taught us how to make this treat, known as Roses des Sables.  She told me that they were made with chocolate and cornflakes, and I have to admit that I was a bit skeptical at first.  But if you think of them as a chocolatey riff on rice crispy treats, they sound much better, don't they?

And they taste fantastic, with their delightful chocolatey crunch.  They are a fun treat for children to make, and could be eaten either for a snack or dessert.

 
Roses des Sables translate as Desert Roses, which are mineral deposits that form when salty bodies of water evaporate.  They're quite beautiful, and this dessert does look like them.  (Wow, I hope that I spell "dessert" and "desert" correctly throughout this post, a challenge even when I'm not writing about Desert Roses). 

Merci, Ophélie!

 

Roses des Sables

10 tablespoons butter
6 ounces dark chocolate
3/4 cup confectioners sugar
approximately 2 cups cornflakes

Clear out a space in your refrigerator that is big enough to hold a cookie sheet.  Line the cookie sheet with parchment paper and set it aside.

Melt the butter in a small saucepan over medium heat.  Add the chocolate and heat it, stirring occasionally.  Add the sugar and mix thoroughly.  Add about half of the cornflakes and stir until the flakes are completely coated.  Continue adding the cornflakes bit by bit and stirring them until they are completely covered with chocolate.  You may not need all of the cornflakes at first. 

Scoop the mixture out of the pot in heaping tablespoonfuls and arrange them on the parchment paper.  If there is chocolate left in the bottom of the pot as you scoop them out, you may want to add more cornflakes.  Let the Roses des Sables cool in the refrigerator until they are completely firm, several hours or overnight.  They will keep in an airtight container in the refrigerator for several days.

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Crêpes

 
Before Ophélie, the French teacher we hosted, came to visit, we were a bit apprehensive about feeding her.  When we had told her that we were vegetarians, her response was that she didn't like many vegetables. Uh-oh. 

I was determined to find a middle ground, though.  So on the first day of her stay with us, I quizzed her about what she liked.  We found a few common vegetables; lettuce and tomatoes were ok, green beans were tolerable.  But we found lots of overlap in the carbohydrate family.  Pasta, rice, and, of course, bread were on the list.  That gave us a good start.  And Ophélie told us that she likes to make (and eat) crêpes. 

 
Crêpes have the advantage of being one of those foods that can be paired with anything, which is great when you are eating with people with a range of tastes.  Each person can add his or her preferred filling.  We made a big pile of crêpes and put them on the table with shredded Gruyère, goat cheese, sautéed mushrooms, and sautéed spinach. And for dessert, we had them with sugar, sugar and lemon, jam, and Nutella.

 
Ophélie taught us her method of making crêpes, and we all helped.  Olivia and Oscar even took a turn at the stove and Olivia masterd the in-air flip.  The crêpes could be an appetizer, dinner or dessert.  This recipe makes enough to generously serve six for dinner and dessert.  I am looking forward to many more years of making and eating crêpes.  And when we make them, we will think of Ophélie.

 
Second Helping (from the archives): Sage Risotto with Wild Mushrooms

Crêpes

Makes 35-40 crêpes (count on 3 to 5 per person, for dinner and dessert)
15 minutes preparation time
30-60 minutes cooking time

For this number of crêpes, you will need about 4 cups of fillings, such as shredded cheese, goat cheese, sautéed mushrooms, sautéed spinach.  For dessert, consider using sugar alone, freshly squeezed lemon juice with sugar, jam, or Nutella.

4 1/2 cups flour
1 quart milk
10 eggs
canola oil for frying the crêpes

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, milk, and eggs.  Whisk vigorously until most of the lumps are out of the flour and the batter is fairly smooth.  Be patient and recruit helpers, as this will take a bit of time and energy.  Alternatively, you oculd use a blender or food processor, but you'll get much less exercise.

Heat a medium-sized frying pan over medium high heat.  If you have two frying pans, you may want to use both to decrease the cooking time.  And the best scenario is to find someone to work that second pan so you have a cooking partner.

Add about 2 teaspoons of canola oil to the frying pan and swirl it to coat the pan completely.  Add about a quarter of a cup of batter to the pan and immediately swirl it around the pan so that it leaves an even thin layer in the pan.  Cook until the crêpe lifts easily from the pan when you put the edge of a spatula underneath it.  Flip the crêpe and cook it on the other side until it is lightly browned, one to two minutes. 

Generally, the first crêpe will not come out well, but you may still find someone willing to eat it for you.

Repeat this process until you have cooked all of the crêpes.  You should not need to add more oil to the pan.  After you pour in the batter and swirl, it will initially seem that the crêpe will stick and will not come loose from the pan.  But after it cooks for a minute or two, you should be able to get a spatula underneath it and flip it.  For a thrill, loosen the crêpe with a spatula and try flipping it in the air.  The key is to have no fear.  You just have to go for it.

Keep the crêpes warm in the oven as you cook them.  When you are ready to serve, put them on the table alongside the fillings and let everyone build their own.

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Home Town Tourists

We have had the wonderful experience of hosting an intern teacher from France, Ophélie, for the past couple of weeks.  Due to our season of snow, she had a very stressful time getting here, including 3 days of flight delays, getting rerouted to Philadelphia, and what Gabe called "the scariest drive of my life" getting here from the train station.  She arrived on our doorstep just in time for a second blizzard and a week of closures.  She spent the first few days of her first trip to the U.S. getting to know the inside of our house, our three children, and our very large, not quite house mannered dog. 

To try to make things right, we took her out to see the sights of D.C. this past weekend.  It's always great to host someone from out of town because it gets us out to places we don't usually go.  It took me 43 years of on and off living in this area, but I finally made it to the top of the Washington Monument.  Throughout the weekend, we visited famous spots as well as some of our lesser known favorites.  Here are the snapshots.

Views from above


 
Words that inspire

 

Around the corner





 
 
On frozen pond

 

 
Powerful monuments