Tapas in Georgetown

A weekend visit to Washington D.C. always means good food. Friday night was dinner at Lauriol in Dupont Circle. Saturday was tapas at Bodega's in Georgetown. It was good food with good company. Definitely good memories.

Green Goodness

My Saturday visits to the Farmer's Market have given me the opportunity to try a couple of new items. I have cooked with kale before but never Russian Kale. The picture to the left is a simple sauté of kale, mushrooms, shallots and a little fresh garlic. I made my husband eat some and to my astonishment, he liked it. Kale is one of the super foods and we should eat it more often. I like kale, but I don't like all the prep needed to get it clean and ready to cook. This kale was well worth the effort.

The other green I tried this weekend was arugula. I have had it in bags of lettuce blends but have never been able to distinguish the arugula from the rest of the greens. The arugula I got at the farmers market was big and flavorful. I now know what the cooking show chefs mean when they say it has a peppery bite. It is a big, bold flavor. I look forward to a few more weeks of arugula availability.

More Market Freshness

On my weekend visit to the Farmers Market I was excited to find Carolina Dirt Farmers. This weekend they had a variety of garlic to sell. I walked past their booth before it hit me that they were selling something no other vendor had. I turned around knowing I was going home with fresh garlic. I chose three varieties, Spanish Roja, Purple Galzor and Corz Italian. There is just no comparison between this fresh and the not so fresh supermarket garlic I usually buy. I can't imagine cooking with this quality of food all the time.

Farmers Market Freshness

I rarely get time during the summer to visit the Farmers Market. I more than make up for it in the fall. It is such a lovely time of year. We woke up to chilly weather this morning. I call it pumpkin patch weather. Off to the market I went and here is one of the spectacular display of fresh peppers I cam across. I rarely get such a variety to pick from. I picked up a few of the regulars plus a couple I hand never tried like the Chinese sweet pepper. They are the dark red peppers located midway down the table. I'm not yet sure what I will do with them, but believe me, they won't go to waste.

Eat It While It's Warm Apple Crisp

Comfort food for me is not usually in the sweet category. I'm usually looking for salty fat rather than sugary fat. Being the recipient of someone else's apple surplus, I went on a hunt for an apple desert recipe. I was happy to find this apple crisp r on Joy the Baker's website. I altered it only slightly because you shouldn't mess with perfection. It was warm and comforting even with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on the side.

Here is the recipe that I borrowed from Joy (with a few changes).

Filling:

5 to 6 medium-size apples, peeled, cored and cut into 1/4-inch slices. I used a mixture of Fuji, Granny Smith and Golden Delicious.

3 tbsp granulated sugar

2 tsp cinnamon

Topping:

1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/3 cups lightly packed brown sugar

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1 stick unsalted butter, well-softened

2/3 cup finely chopped pecans ( I like my pecans toasted)

1/3 cup quick oats

Preheat the oven to 350. Generously grease an 8x8 baking pan with butter.

Place a layer of apple slices in the bottom of the pan and sprinkle on the sugar/cinnamon mixture. Continue layering apples and sprinkling with cinnamon/sugar until everything is used. Toss the apple mixture with the cinnamon sugar. The apples should be to the top of the pan. They will cook down.

For the topping, place the flour, brown sugar, nuts, cinnamon and oats in a large bowl and stir well with a wooden spoon. Work the butter into the mixture - pinching between fingertips. Take a full handful of the topping and mix it into the sugared apple mixture. Spread the rest of the topping evenly over the apples.

Bake the crisp in the dish on a baking sheet on the center oven rack until the topping is crunchy and the apples are bubbling, 55-60 minutes.

Serve hot but if you are eating it with ice cream you need to let it cool a bit or you won't have ice cream for long.

Good Thing

It's a good thing I don't live closer to Farmers Market. My vegetable bin isn't big enough to hold everything that catches my eye. The pictured here are the cucumbers, avocados, cilantro, and peaches. The cucumbers and avocados are going into a chilled soup. the cilantro will get together with some toasted pecans, and garlic and become a delicious pesto. Who needs meat when you have vegetables.

Leftovers Galore

Faced with the propagation of plastic containers in my refrigerator, it was time for creative cooking. Here's what I had:

chicken, grilled and sliced

sliced sweet peppers, cucumbers, oinions

cooked brown rice

black beans

tortillas

You probably don't have to go much further to guess that I threw it all together into an enchilada-like casserole.

I opened a can of diced tomatoes and heated them together with dried ancho chilies (diced), cumin, and coriander.

I heated the tortillas on the gas burner.

I topped the tortilla with some shredded cheese, grilled chicken, black beans, rice and the sliced peppers and onions.

Leftovers all wrapped up, topped with the sauce and some more cheese.

Since most of the ingredients were warmed before being wrapped, the enchiladas did take long to bake in the oven... maybe 20 minutes. The end result was a good dinner with leftovers for lunch. Leftover leftovers...that's funny.