RecipeMuncher

I’ve got to agree with Lisa over at What We Eat… bagna cauda (or “magna carta” as we often jokingly refer to it) is one of our very favorite things off of the Omnivore’s 100. But, our love for bagna cauda was initially a bit of a surprise.

And yes, you do feel a story coming on.

It all started on a Saturday night in May — Memorial Day weekend of 2005, I think. We decided to have what we call a “cooking night” — which means we spend the entire evening cooking together, making little plates of this and that, noshing and enjoying the whole experience. This is usually the sort of night when we come up with our best ideas for the “Burp” menu.

On this particular evening, we shopped and settled on some tasty dry-packed scallops (this was our first time buying these, and we are converts!), some fresh spinach, a nice loaf of French bread, some fr…

Ah, corn on the cob… and all the mixed feelings it stirs within my loins by the end of August!

Don’t get me wrong. I think sweet summer corn is one of the best things around. And I’m a firm believer in getting as much of something as I possibly can while it’s in season. But, I have to admit that I grow tired of eating corn the same old way, week after week, in the heat of summer.

So, we try to find ways to change it up a bit.
When the first corn on the cob is available, we grab three or four ears at a time and make it into a meal. We grill it. And when we tire of grilling it, we steam it. When steaming it grows old, we cut it off the cob and throw it into our pasta. And our rice. And our eggs. And when we tire of doing that… we bake it.

Yup. Baked corn.
Can’t beat it.

First, you need some primo corn on the cob. Shuck it and make it all pretty.
<a href=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_EEAm3fp4UBM/SLH5qwmMR9I/AAAAAAAAA58/bQCV…

Sometimes I’m extremely cogniscent of where I came from. This is one of those times.

One of the very vivid memories I have of my childhood takes place during the weekends of deer season. For the kids, these weekends marked a time to get together and play. But, the adults had more serious tasks in mind — namely putting up venison meat for the winter! The men handled the dirty work, taking care of the hides and the bones. The women handled the finer details of chopping up the venison into steaks and chops.

In addition to the sights and smells (some of which taught me candid lessons about the circle of life), I remember my father carrying on about the extraordinary merits of the venison tenderloin — the tenderness of it. The way that you could tell what sort of life the deer had by the flavor of this delicate piece of meat. I was always astounded by his ability to take so much from something that I saw as just another piece of meat.

So, when he brough…

I never mind when there are leftover grilled vegetables in the refrigerator. To me, they always portend something wonderful in the making.

This week, the grilled veggies included zucchini, eggplant, onions, peppers, and corn.
The something wonderful, as you will soon see, is enchiladas.

Now, don’t go getting on my case here. I know that these are a fairly big departure from anything truly authentic. But, I also don’t care. Because they’re downright delicious.

First, we chopped up the vegetables. Not too finely — but enough that they’d behave properly when wrapped. Then, we tossed them with a bit of chipotle powder and a hint of salt. Now, I understand that this looks like a veritable mess right now. But, trust me. Eventually it turns into something wonderful.
<img style=”center” alt=”" src=”http://www.recipemuncher.com/wp-content/plugins/w…

We’ve been touring farmer’s markets this year… bopping over to this one one week, and another the next. It’s been scads of fun. And we like the variety of vendors we get to visit. This past week, we visited the East Town Market at Cathedral Square Park. This market is open on Saturdays from 8am-12pm.

This is a lovely, urban market, just east of the center of downtown Milwaukee. It attracts a pretty diverse crowd — eager east-siders looking for farm-fresh delights, downtown apartment-dwellers craving their morning coffee, and folks like us who tooled over from the northwest side of town to take a gander at all that’s fresh and frivolous.

Before we started our escapade, we couldn’t resist grabbing an iced coffee from Stone Creek, a local coffee roaster who has a tent at the market.
Next stop, the artisan bread baked by Wild Flour Bakery. These guys make the best sourdough breads around. My favorite is a whole wheat sourdough with sunflo…

We have a tendency to spend our Friday evenings making homemade pizza. Carry out pizza is awesome for when we’re super busy. But, there’s something about the taste of homemade that can’t be duplicated.

Which brings me to yet another handy use for my sourdough starter… pizza dough.

Unlike a sourdough loaf, which requires a longer, slower rise than ordinary bread dough, sourdough pizza dough actually requires far less rising time than average. What this means is that, if I’ve thought far enough ahead to feed my starter, I can have pizza dough in less than an hour.

This week, we made one of our absolute favorite pizzas, the artichoke à la mode. We first tasted this pizza at the Pizza Man in Milwaukee. And we decided that we had to figure out a way to make it at home. The biggest pitfall seemed to be the fresh artichokes, since we can only get those a few times a year when they’re in season. However, thanks to the discovery of fresh frozen artichokes …

This marks a slight departure from my sourdough series, but I think it’s for good reason. The bounty has started to fly in from our backyard garden. And I’m in HEAVEN.

I am a huge fan of cherry tomatoes. I love their bright color, their petite size, and their early harvest date. I love the way they explode in my mouth, releasing a mixture of sweet, tangy, seedy delight.

In fact, to me the only thing better than a cherry tomato fresh from the garden is one that’s been tortured in the oven for a little while, until it collapses into a little pile of ultra-sweet caramelized tomato-ness. In fact, that’s exactly what I did with the very first batch of cherry tomatoes from our garden.

The process is far from difficult, and it has any number of variations. This is what I did this week.

I took the tomatoes and tossed them with some pummeled garlic cloves, some olive oil, a bit of salt, and a sprinkle of red pepper flakes.
Then I threw them on a parchment lined jelly roll pan, and …

Now that I’ve been blabbering on about the story of my sourdough, you’re probably wondering what he’s good for.

Well, I have used him to make the occasional loaf of bread. But, good loaves of sourdough bread require quite a bit of patience… and very long rising times (which requires dedication and planning — two things I tend to be short of lately). So, by and large, I have a tendency to use him for other things.

What other things?
Well, how about some waffles? Better yet, how about waffles chocked full of bacon and cheese?
I’m drooling just thinking about them.

These are really one of the simplest ways to use sourdough.
You just take about a cup of the starter, mix it with eggs, flour, oil, and your typical waffle ingredients.
<img style=”pointer;” src=”http://www.recipemuncher.com/wp-content/plugins/wp-o-matic/cache/e25e8_I…

If you guessed that the bubbling batter in the last photo was sourdough, you were correct.

I’ve had a batch of starter taking up the back corner of my refrigerator for a number of years now. Initially, it came from my friend Rebecca, whose mother in law bequeathed her with a starter from King Arthur flour. When she passed it along to me, it had already lived through a couple of moves (through Iowa and Minnesota) and countless batches of sourdough bread. And I was a little bit nervous that I might kill it.

Turns out, he wasn’t really so difficult to take care of. I just keep him in a wide mouthed jar, like so.
This photo is of some starter that was fed fairly recently, but you’ll notice that it’s already developed some “sourdough liquor” (that’s the brownish-black liquid collecting along the edge there). As the sourdough ages, it accumulates more and more liquor. Some people drain this off when they feed their starter, but I keep most of mine and simply incorporate it back into…

If you’ve been wondering where I’ve been for the past few days, I’ll share.
The past few days have been filled with a copious amount of studying (I’m going to be taking the GRE again on Monday — for the second time in 11 years). Not my idea of fun.

However, we also managed to make it to the Wisconsin State Fair. Which turned out to be VERY fun. We had a great time with the animals (read more on that here), but we also sampled a slew of classic Wisconsin fair foods. And, of course, for those of you who have never been to this glorious feast of food, we took our camera along so that we could share the wealth.

First, it is the WISCONSIN state fair, so there is no shortage of cheese.
Our first indulgence was a Wisconsin specialty — the oh-so-delectable fried cheese curds.
After that, we stopped off for some home-made Wisconsin potato chips with bleu cheese (you can tell how healthy our eating was already, can’t you?)
We start…

Sometimes good food isn’t the prettiest food.

I can be sure of that every time I make one of my summer standards, squash rice casserole. The final product never seems to look nearly as delicious as it tastes, and I often find myself apologising for its appearance.

Originally, this recipe was a simple Italian-inspired dish with sauteed zucchini or summer squash, parmesan cheese, and rice. But, every time I haul out the recipe, I seem to be inspired to make some sort of change. The other night, I decided on a Mexican twist.

It’s been fairly warm here in Wisconsin (yes, it does get warm here in the summer, People!), and I’m a big fan of smoky sweet vegetables. So, we hauled out the grill to cook the summer squash.

I had pattypan squash on hand from the farmer’s market.
<img style=”center” alt=”" src=”http://www.recipemuncher.c…