eat the weeds

Before we begin, I just want to say that I absolutely have not forgotten our pie crust adventures! There are certainly a list of things that are going undone at the moment. but the pie crust will not end up along side the sweeping of the stairs and the organizing of the mudroom. Today, I will replenish our dwindled butter supply, and then there is no stopping me. Just so you know what you are in for, I am planning on three posts over the next week or two: pie crust in a mixer, pie crust in a food processor, and pie crust by hand. Like I said before, I'm hoping for some help on this one, and, if you are willing, you can start by letting me know particular frustrations or tricks that you have with pie crust. A few have already come in on the comments, and I'm hoping to address and integrate them in the posts, so that we can all help each other out.

You may have noticed, however, that I've been gearing up a little for this pie party. If you have been cooking with me for the last couple of weeks, you've been warming up your rolling pin. You've been practicing cutting in the butter, and you've been pressing dough into discs. Whether it was the spinach ricotta pie, the pop tarts, or today's little tart, we're already there!

Yes, you heard me right. Today, a tart!
I've been spending a lot of time in the garden this week. I've been spending time that I should be spending doing other things, but I can't help myself. I've been out there until I can't see a thing in the dark, and Joey has been very forgiving when I have had to sing the girls to sleep through their window because I want to stay outside.

We grow a lot less of our own food than people have in the past. And there is a long list of things that I think we have lost in that process, to be sure. But one of them is, and stay with me here, the opportunity to use the garden as a metaphor for, well, everything, and to learn from it.
The garden is just the garden, and that is good enough for me, but it is also hard not to apply the principles that rule there to other arenas.
Lay the groundwork correctly. Don't take yourself too seriously. Know that it will take years to learn. Get dirty. Take out the weeds entirely, as opposed to just the top. Roll up your sleeves and put your hands right into it. Share with your neighbors. The list just goes on and on.

Make use of everything that you can.

Do you have nettles or spiny sowthistle growing in your yard? This is spiny sowthistle, and it can be used similarly to the nettle, which might also be taking over your spring garden. The young spiny sowthistle (thanks Laurel!) looks like this:

Young nettles look similar, but like this. They mostly grown wetter climates, like New England and the Pacific Northwest. In these places, they grow everywhere. In dryer climates, like New Mexico, they actually grown them on purpose, and hungry foodies pay good money for them at the farmer's market. But spiny sowthistles are my weed of plenty.

Both of these delicious weeds are sharp as hell. They will even give you a rash on top of the initial prick. It is hard to imagine putting one in your mouth.

But trust me on this one. Put on your gloves- the thick kind, and pull them out. Keep your gloves on and snip off the root. Soak the tops of the plants. Right now is the best time to eat them, because the top is all there is. Take off the root, and use the rest.

After they've released most of their dirt, throw them in a pot of boiling water for about two minutes. Drain, and then they are safe to touch. Those spikes are nothing now- you have conquered the spiny weed! Give them another rinse now that you can actually touch them.

It is just deeply satisfying to eat a weed, I think.

Chop them up, and set them aside. Now it's time to make the tart.

I have actually written about this tart in a slightly different incarnation before. It is the first time that I've repeated a recipe, but this one is special, and especially good for right now when you might have little bits of herbs starting to poke up. The crust is an olive oil crust, and is maybe the easiest thing to roll out, ever. So get out your rolling pin, and have no fear.

Ricotta Leek Tart with fresh Weeds
adapted from David Lebovitz, who adapted it from Deborah Madison

1 recipe of Clotilde's olive oil crust (with a pinch of dried thyme as the herb)
8 ounces ricotta cheese
1 large egg
1 cup whole milk (you can sub 1/2 cup heavy cream or creme fraiche for added richness)
2 cups chopped leeks
1 tablespoon butter
6-8 ounces nettle tops or spiny sowthistle tops, cleaned, blanched, and chopped as above
3 tablespoons fresh herbs- whatever you've got- I used oregano, tarragon and chives
salt and freshly ground pepper

Prepare the crust, and put it into a rectangular or circular tart pan If you have extra, you can save it for decoration. Refrigerate for 30 minutes. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Poke holes in the tart crust, and bake for 10 minutes. Leave the oven at 400 degrees.
Melt the butter in a medium skillet. Add the leeks, and cook, stirring often, for about 5 minutes. Add the nettles or spiny sowthistle and cook for an additional minute. Season with salt and pepper. Set aside and let cool a bit.
In a medium bowl, combine the ricotta, egg, herbs, and cooled leek mixture. Stir until fairly uniform. Spread into the pre-baked crust and bake for 25-30 minutes, or until slightly puffed and golden. Allow to cool for 15 minutes before serving.

spinach ricotta pie

For some reason, pie crust has been coming up a lot lately.
"I just can't do pie crust!"
I kid you not. I have heard this four times in the last week.

I wouldn't call myself a pie crust master (if only I were master of anything except this mess!), but I no longer get an anxious clench in my stomach when I pull out my rolling pin. And I'd say maybe 4 times out of 5, the crust is damn good. So, I'm getting there. Those other 1 out of 5 crusts are usually hard as a rock, but we won't talk about those, at least not today.

Some people who don't do the pie crust thing just avoid the whole topic altogether. They say they like frittatas better than quiches anyway, and they make crisps instead of pies. I have certainly gone this route, but, like I said, the rolling pin and I are getting to be better friends.

But then there is the other option. There is, ahem, the frozen pie crust.
As I've mentioned here before, this is the crust on which I was raised. My mother's brand of choice was, and still is, called Orenoke. To this day, I hand her a piece of pie made in my own crust, and the best I can get out of her is "yeah, it's pretty good."
I guess I can't really blame her. She just loves that Orenoke pie crust.


Honestly, I think if frozen pie crust is your thing, use it! I say that guilt and the kitchen don't mix. We do what we can, and if it works, then amen to that.
But for those of you who might like to try their hand at pie crust again, or for the first time, I'm thinking we should do a little work together here. Yeah? Maybe next week, after those peas are in the ground? It's supposed to rain a little bit here, and I'm thinking that will be a good time. I could use a date with that rolling pin.

I've got a couple of tricks, and I'm guessing you might too. Will you help out? Together, we might just master this thing.

So what do you think? Are you in? It might be good to get a handle on it before berry season comes around. When there are that many strawberries, it's good to have options.

Just to get started, I've got a pie for you today. This was one of my mother's favorites when I was growing up, and she brought it to every single potluck dinner that I can remember. Of course, the crust was always Orenoke. So, if you want to wait until our little pie crust session to get the rolling pin out, go ahead and use that frozen pie crust. My mother would say it's better that way, anyway.

Spinach Ricotta Pie
adapted from Mollie Katzen, Moosewood Cookbook

1 recipe all-butter pie crust, single crust, or a frozen pie crust, or what have you
1 pound ricotta cheese
3 beaten eggs
1/2 pound chopped spinach, fresh or frozen
1 small, diced onion
3 tablespoons flour
1/2 cup grated cheddar cheese
dash nutmeg
paprika, for the top
salt and pepper
1 tablespoon butter
1 cup sour cream

Prepare the pie crust and lay into a buttered 9-inch pie pan. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. In a small skillet or sautee pan, melt the butter. Add the onion. When the onion is translucent, add the spinach (if it is frozen, you can put it right in there). Cook for about 2 minutes over medium heat, stirring frequently. Add a pinch of salt and a dash of pepper. Remove from heat.
In a medium mixing bowl, combine the spinach mixture, ricotta, eggs, flour, cheese and nutmeg. Spread into unbaked pie shell.
Top with one cup sour cream, spread to the edges of the crust with a rubber spatula. Top with a generous sprinkling of paprika.

Bake for 40-50 minutes.

ricotta, again

Way back when, I made ricotta. I was working on a daring cooks challenge, at the last minute as usual, and I needed some ricotta fast. I followed that directions that Lisa Michele so lovingly passed along, and all I got was milk mixed with lemon juice.
I googled frantically. Ricotta! Homemade! Now!
I came to a new mixture, and google told me to use white vinegar, and to stir, stir, stir.
I did so, and was triumphant. I told you all about it.
Remember?
OK, fast forward to a day in our more recent past. I am making ricotta again, and a new friend walks into my kitchen and says,
Oh! You're the one with the blog. I made ricotta!
Oh, happiness. Any cheese making from which I have planted the seed is ecstasy for me.
But then she goes back and plants a new seed.
"So this ricotta, you make... it's drier than what you buy at the store."
She is very right. In fact, it's downright squeaky.
"Do you know how to make a creamier ricotta, more like store bought?"
And I did not. This ricotta was very good for several things, chocolate ricotta mousse, for example, and decent for lasagne. But she had a very good point; this is not a ricotta that you'd want to drizzle with honey and eat with a spoon.
Well, you know how I am when I get a challenge.
I'm a little nuts until I find the solution.
Remember that whole gingerbread thing?

So, a few weeks later, I've got it. I found the answer in a place I would have never looked had I not installed it on my counter this past week, The Splendid Table. Tucked in the midst of the Chestnut keeping cakes and semifreddos was a little page just for me. There it was, Fresh Ricotta. I have seen many recipes for ricotta, but Ms. Kasper seemed to have my number.
You see, the vinegar inspired ricotta has a very large curd, it is really more like straight cheese curds. But she told me something new, that "slowly heating the milk mixture develops a soft ricotta curd. Fast heating hardens the curd, producing a very different cheese."
That very different cheese would be the one in my refrigerator.
So, I followed her recipe, and there it was, creamy, sweet, small curd ricotta.
So no more waiting... here it is.

Fresh Ricotta
from Lynne Rossetto Kasper, The Splendid Table

makes about 1 pound
2 1/2 quarts whole milk
1/4 cup less 1 tablespoon heavy cream (not ultrapasteurized) (I left this out, as I was using cream on top raw milk)
5 Tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
1/8 teaspoon salt

Stir together all of the ingredients except the salt in a heavy saucepan with a nonreactive interior. Set the pan over low heat. Cook 40 minutes, or until the milk reaches 170 on a candy thermometer. (Use the thermometer! It's a really good idea) Keep the heat at low, and do not stir more than three or four times. As the milk comes closer to 170, the curds will be about the size of uncooked lentils. When the temperature reaches 170, turn the heat up to medium. Do not stir. Take six to eight minutes to bring the temperature up to 205 or 208. The liquid will be on the verge of boiling, with the surface looking like it about to erupt. Turn off the heat and let the pot stand for 10 minutes.
Line a colander with a double thickness of moistened cheesecloth. Turn the mixture into it, and let it drain for 15 minutes. Use the whey for bread or soups, and put the cheese into a storage container, adding salt at this point.

Curds and Whey

I'm a little off my game the last few days. I'll blame it on the kitchen cabinet concussion. Last night I was closing up after a dance rehearsal, and for the first time in my life, I locked my keys in my car. That was me, standing alone in a dark parking lot in a leotard and leggings, talking to my car. "No. No. Come on. You're not locked. This door's open right?" But alas, the car wouldn't accept my sweet murmurings of feigned love, and it was definitely locked. Luckily I was able to let myself back into the studio and call Joey, who promptly called our neighbor, borrowed her car so that he could bring me the extra key, and borrowed her daughter so that she could babysit while he drove to my rescue. Have you ever heard of a lamer reason to hire a babysitter? We were going to try to hit her up for a night this week so that we could see Star Trek, but we blew our babysitting currency on my little incident.
Good thing I made bread earlier in the day. Although I've often aspired to be, I'm not a regular bread maker. I go through waves, where I make several loaves of decent albeit yeasty tasting dense bread. But I made this bread because a few days earlier I made ricotta cheese, and I had a lot of whey in my fridge, desperately looking for a purpose (well maybe it was me desperately looking for a purpose, but you get my meaning). So I made English Muffin Bread, made with whey, and it was pretty tasty. Excellent toast. And I had an extra loaf to send home to my heroic neighbor. Oh Hannah, words cannot express...
So I'm going to tell you about both the ricotta and the bread today. The ricotta is so easy, it's almost criminal, and you'll make it and then you'll have whey, desperately looking for a purpose. Then, you make bread.
The fabulous Lisa Michele inspired me with a chronicle of her homemade ricotta, and I couldn't wait to start. I poured my milk, I heated, I squeezed my lemon juice. But contrary to what was supposed to happen, the milk wouldn't curdle. I have no doubt that her instructions would work for anyone who is not off her game for a few days, but the lemon juice didn't do the trick for me. So I went searching and found that vinegar can also be used, and the milk curdled beautifully.

Homemade Ricotta
makes 2 cups

8 cups whole milk
1 cup heavy cream
1/3 cup white vinegar
salt to taste

Heat the milk and cream together until it comes to a boil, then take off the heat. Add the vinegar and stir for one minute. The mixture will curdle immediately. Cover with dish towel and let sit for at least two hours.
Then line a colander with cheese cloth. Pour the curds and whey into the colander, making sure that you have a pot or bowl underneath to catch the whey.

Refrigerate the whey. Put the colander with the curds, along with the bowl, into the fridge to drain for up to 24 hours, depending on how dry you want your ricotta. Salt to taste.


English Muffin Bread with Whey
from Home Cheese Making by Ricki Carroll

Makes 4 loaves

2 T sugar
1 1/3 cups warm water
4 packages or 4 T active dry yeast
cornmeal, for sprinkling
12 cups sifted all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
4 cups whey (milk will work too)
4 tsp salt

Dissolve the sugar in the water.
Pour the yeast into a large bowl. Add the sugar water and let sit for ten minutes.
Grease four loaf pans and sprinkle with cornmeal.
In a large bowl, combine six cups of the flour with the baking soda.
In a medium sized saucepan, combine the whey and salt and warm over low heat until lukewarm.
Stir the yeast mixture, then pour the warm whey into it. Stir to combine.
Pour the yeast mixture into the flour mixture and stir. Add the remaining flour and combine. Keep stirring until all the flour is absorbed.
Spoon the batter into the prepared pans. Sprinkle the tops with cornmeal. Let rise until the center is 1 1/2 inches above the rim of the pan.
Bake for 30 minutes.