Category — Food & Wine

Understanding cooking as a communal act is a central premise in Patricia Tanumihardja’s The Asian Grandmothers Cookbook. That’s why when I first decided to tackle making a dim-sum favorite from scratch, I didn’t attempt it alone. I asked my friend and neighbor, Jeanette, someone more experienced in the art of Asian cooking than I, to join me.

Jeanette is also the one responsible for my newfound love of the 99 Ranch Market. Mark my words. Do not be intimidated by your local Asian grocery. Explore. Enjoy. If your trips are anything like mine, they will undoubtedly yield simple treasures (pristine portobello mushrooms for significantly less money than seems reasonable) and unexpected delights (red bean ice cream!—who knew?). The Asian Grandmothers Cookbook is also an informative resource for those who are unfamiliar with the staples of Asian cooking. Hint: White pepper and sesame oil are versatile must-haves for your pantry!

So after rigging a makeshift steaming operation using a mismatched skillet/basket/lid and investing some time prodding and primping the skins . . . the gloriously authentic result is pictured here: Our shiu mai was a hit!

Though my grandmother happened to be Norwegian and not Asian, I know she would be proud of our accomplishment. Like many of the women who inspired Tanumihardja’s collection, my grandmother knew the value of a well-cooked meal and wasn’t afraid to spend extra time and effort making something special to nourish her family. Maybe your grandma taught you how to make Norwegian rømmegrøt, or oyako donburi, or nothing at all. Regardless, The Asian Grandmothers Cookbook offers a wealth of ethnic specialties that are accessible to the modern home cook. And whether they’re of Chinese, Japanese, Indonesian, Vietnamese, or Indian descent, it’s clear that all of these Asian grandmothers have something delicious to add to the mix. So follow their lead: Take some time to slow down and savor the legacy of another generation’s or another culture’s culinary favorites. You won’t regret it!

Shiu Mai (Pork and Shrimp Cups)
Dried black mushrooms give these tidbits an earthy flavor while water chestnuts add crunch. And this dim sum staple is easier to make than you may think. Look for fresh or frozen round shiu mai skins in Asian markets—the thinner the better. If you can’t find shiu mai skins, thicker gyoza or wonton skins (trim off square corners before using) will do. The skins come in packs of about 50.

Time: 2 1/2 hours
Makes: 3 dozen (10 to 12 servings)

1 pound ground pork
6 medium dried black mushrooms, rehydrated and finely chopped (1/2 cup)
8 ounces shrimp, peeled, deveined, and chopped with a food processor or cleaver
1/3 cup finely chopped water chestnuts (about 5 canned pieces or 3 peeled fresh pieces)
1/4 cup finely chopped green onions, white and green parts (4 stalks)
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1 teaspoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon Shaoxing rice wine
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground white pepper
12-ounce package dumpling skins

In a large bowl, combine the pork, mushrooms, shrimp, water chestnuts, green onions, cornstarch, sesame oil, soy sauce, rice wine, sugar, salt, and pepper.

Set the dumpling skins on a floured work surface and cover with a damp towel. Make a circle with your left thumb and index finger (right if you’re left handed). Place a dumpling skin over the circle and scoop 1 tablespoon filling into it. Let the filling drop halfway through the hole and gently squeeze your hand to shape it into a cup, leaving the top open. Put the dumpling on the work surface and gather the edges of the skin around the filling, pleating the edges to form petals. The top should remain open. Stand the dumplings upright 1/2 inch apart on a greased plate that will fit in your steamer. (The size of your steamer will determine how many dumplings you can steam at a time.) Repeat until all the filling is used up. Brush the tops of dumplings with oil.

Set up your steamer.

Fill the steamer pan half full of water and bring to a rolling boil over high heat. Reduce the heat to medium until you are ready to steam.

Return the water in the steamer to a rolling boil. Set one plate of the dumplings in the steamer basket or rack. Cover and steam over high heat for 15 minutes, or until the pork is no longer pink. Pierce a dumpling with a sharp knife to check doneness. Turn off the heat and wait for the steam to subside before lifting the lid. Lift it away from you to prevent scalding yourself and to keep condensation from dripping onto the dumplings. Carefully remove the basket or plate and set the dumplings aside to cool. Repeat as many times as necessary.

When the dumplings are cool, transfer to a serving platter and serve immediately.

Instead of going out for Valentine’s Day, create an intimate evening for two with recipes from the Best Places to Kiss Cookbook. Romance your special someone with something sweet!

Decadent Chocolate Mousse

8 servings

This is a great company dessert because it looks elegant, everyone loves chocolate, and you can make it ahead. Think of fun ways to serve it-funky tea cups, martini glasses, or long-stemmed wine glasses with iced tea spoons!

Ingredients:
12 ounces semisweet chocolate, broken into 1-inch pieces
2 3/4 cups heavy cream
3 eggs, at room temperature
2 egg yolks, at room temperature
1⁄2 cup sugar
Whipped cream for garnish (optional)
Fresh raspberries (optional)
Chocolate curls (optional)

1. Melt the chocolate in a double boiler; set aside. In a separate bowl, whip the cream to medium stiff peaks; set aside.

2. In a large stainless steel bowl, combine the eggs, egg yolks, and sugar. Place the bowl over a hot water bath and whisk until the mixture reaches 140°F; remove from heat. With an electric mixer, whip the heated mixture on high speed until cool, about 3 minutes. Whisk in the melted chocolate. Gently fold in the whipped cream. Pour the mousse into 8 individual serving cups (about 5 ounces). Chill until set, about 1 hour.

3. To serve, garnish with a dollop of whipped cream, raspberries, or chocolate curls.

Planning a special evening with your honey? Inspire amore with this romantic recipe for Dungeness Crab Mac & Cheese from the Best Places to Kiss Cookbook and let us know what you think!

Dungeness Crab Mac and Cheese with Hazelnut Crust

4 servings

This takes comfort food to a new level! The flavor is awesome and
the presentation is beautiful, especially if you opt to bake it in real crab
shells (see the variation below). Either way, this is a delicious and fun way to enjoy Dungeness crabmeat.

Ingredients

2 1/2 cups uncooked penne pasta
2 cups heavy cream
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 cup grated white cheddar cheese
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1/2 pound Dungeness crabmeat (from a 2-pound crab)
Dash of Tabasco
1 teaspoon salt
Freshly ground white pepper
1/2 cup hazelnuts, roasted and finely chopped
Lemon wedges (optional)

1. Preheat the oven to 400. Cook the pasta in boiling water, following
package directions, until it is not quite al dente. Drain and let cool.

2. In a medium saucepan, bring the cream to a boil over high heat. As
soon as the cream boils, add the cooked pasta. Bring back to a boil
and stir in the cheeses and mustard. Bring the mixture back to a
boil and add the crabmeat, Tabasco, and salt. Remove from heat and
season to taste with pepper.

3. Put the crab-pasta mixture in a greased casserole dish and sprinkle
with the hazelnuts. Bake until hot and bubbly, 15 to 20 minutes.

Variation For an attractive presentation, bake the crab macaroni and cheese in clean crab shells. Ask your neighborhood fishmonger to save four crab shells for you to clean and bake in. Preheat the oven to 400¯F. Place the shells on a baking sheet, carefully fill with the
crab-pasta mixture, and sprinkle with the hazelnuts. Bake until hot
and bubbly, 15 to 20 minutes.

Last week I met up with my good friend Amy at the Flying Apron Bakery. We got together to chat and catch up, and Flying Apron is a good midpoint between our houses. But really, the thing that brought us together on that rainy Saturday afternoon was the thought of treats . . . baked yummy treats. We knew that Flying Apron would be making delicious autumn goodies, and for both Amy and I, the magic of walking into a bakery and knowing that we can eat anything in it is something neither of us ever gets over.

Flying Apron Bakery in the Fremont neighborhood of Seattle

Amy has celiac disease, which means that her body reacts to the protein in wheat, barley, and rye (gluten) with inflammation and damage to the small intestine. This damage leads to malabsorption of nutrients, which can lead to a whole host of problems from anemia to skin problems to abdominal issues. The only treatment for celiac disease is a gluten-free diet.

I have a gluten intolerance (also called a sensitivity or an allergy). I don’t react to gluten in the way that you traditionally think of as an allergic reaction—hives, swelling and trouble breathing—I just end up with a really bad stomachache for a couple of days. My reaction to gluten is strong enough that I find it entirely worth it to avoid gluten altogether.

Everything at the Flying Apron Bakery is gluten free, vegan, and made without soy or processed sweeteners. Having a restrictive diet, whether you’ve made the choice to cut out certain foods or because your body has made that choice for you, can be tough. It means that you have to read every label, interrogate every server, and field multiple calls from friends before going to their places for dinner. But it also means that you think about your food differently, you appreciate your food more, and you get a certain strength from making choices that you know will directly affect the way you feel.

I felt really lucky as I sat there with Amy and ate my cupcake. I felt lucky to have a friend to talk with endlessly about food . . . and we do talk endlessly about food. I felt lucky to be in a cozy bakery on a cold and wet day. And I felt lucky to work for the publisher that has teamed up with Jennifer Katzinger, founder of the Flying Apron Bakery, to create the beautiful Flying Apron’s Gluten-Free and Vegan Baking Book.

The book is filled with recipes for the delicious cookies, cakes, muffins, scones, breads, and pies that the Flying Apron Bakery makes for its customers. In addition, the first chapter is an informative introduction to cooking with the whole grains, natural sweeteners, and cold-pressed oils that are at the heart of the bakery’s food philosophy.

Here is the recipe for the maple bar that Amy had and that I stole several bites of—yum!

Maple “Butter” Bars

2 3/4 cups brown rice flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup coconut oil or palm oil
1 cup maple syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

Combine the brown rice flour and salt in a medium-size bowl. In the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the coconut oil, maple syrup, and vanilla until well mixed. With the mixer on low speed, add the flour mixture a little at a time until well mixed, about 3 minutes.

Spread the batter evenly into a parchment-lined 9- by 12-inch baking pan. Bake until edges harden slightly, about 15 minutes. While the dough is still hot, score it into 12 pieces with a knife. After it has cooled, slice it the rest of the way through and remove the bars from the pan.

Yield: 12 cookies

Bad Day: Gave Totally Wrong Gift

Good Drink: Lonely Night

3/4 ounce coffee liqueur
11/4 ounce Baileys or other Irish cream liqueur
11/4 ounce hazelnut liqueur
1 scoop vanilla ice cream
Whipped cream

I have always been someone who gets joy out of finding the perfect holiday gift for those I love. There is something about putting in the time and effort to make someone else smile that fills me with that warm-butterscotch feeling associated with the holidays. Thought goes into the wrappings, and my anticipation grows until I get to watch my loved one unwrap their gift. It is the season of giving, and I get something out of seeing other people happy. But not every gift can be a homerun, and I cannot help but be reminded of the not-so-jolly Christmas I received a blender.

That’s right, a blender.

Disclaimer: Men out there, you may be scratching your heads at this, but believe me; unless your main squeeze blatantly says “I want a blender,” do not get her one.

On Christmas Eve, as the Yule log burned cheerily in the fireplace and the tree glowed with hundreds of tiny twinkle lights, my boyfriend and I gathered to exchange presents as snow fell softly outside. All was right in the world. Or at least it was until I found the plastic Wal-Mart bag he had plopped down at my feet. As I looked in the bag, it was impossible for me to hide my disappointment. While I had been expecting something with a dash of romance, what I got was a blender. A blender? As I looked down the barrel of the blender, I saw a theoretical house in the ‘burbs and 2.7 kids waving at me from between the blades. Not only that, but he hadn’t even wrapped it. And I already had one at home.

Do you see the 2.7 kids down there? Look closer...

The commitment-phobe inside me shrieked with terror, and in a moment of speechlessness, I forced out what turned out to be a laugh. Note: If mistake #1 was the blender, mistake #2 was the laugh. No wait…mistake #1 was not even bothering to wrap the gift.

Later, when he was justifiably angry that I had laughed at his gift, I earnestly asked the boyfriend what had made him think I wanted a blender. This was his reply:

“You like smoothies. You can make smoothies.”

Needless to say, he is now my ex-boyfriend. And, to give credit where credit is due, that summer I did make a lot of smoothies.

And so, gentlemen, do not give your girlfriends a blender.

And ladies, try to mask your disappointment better that I did. Your love life will thank you.

We all know the holidays are tough, and thanks to Kerry Colburn’s new book, Good Drinks for Bad Days: Holiday Edition, there is a cure-all for every holiday cringe-worthy moment-from holiday travel woes, to being snowed in, to going stag on New Year’s Eve. For every bad holiday, there is a good drink to numb the pain!

Kerry will be appearing at a number of events this holiday season. Come by and get your “drink” on:

Tuesday, December 8th, 5pm-7pm
Holidate at University Village

Participants receive a free drink at Sonrisa Mexican Restaurant (ticket purchase required). Books will also be available for sale.

Wednesday, December 9th, 5pm-7pm
Happy Hour for Hope at Agua Verde

Support a great non-profit organization, enjoy discounted food and drink, and maybe even win a prize!

Saturday, December 19th, 4pm-5pm
Hotel 1000 presents 12 Days of Christmas Holiday Fireside Chat

This FREE event includes a drink demonstration.

I grew up in a household not unlike millions of others: one of a mixed-diet family. My mother cooked well-balanced meals with meat and vegetables nearly every evening, and my parents, sister, and I all ate together at the dinner table. However, by the time we were in our teens, my sister developed a dairy allergy and made the choice to be a vegetarian. This required my mother to prepare a larger portion of a main meat dish for three of us to eat while making an individual portion of more vegetables, tofu, or grains to feed my sister. It was a difficult transition-my mother had to entirely rethink how she approached the evening meal. The biggest headache was trying to time everything so the two meals were ready at the roughly same time, allowing us to continue eating as a family. Unfortunately there weren’t any cookbooks available that offered a selection of recipes starting with the same base ingredients and prepared all at once to accommodate both the omnivores and the vegetarian at the table.

I face the same challenge when my sister comes to visit for dinner every week or two, because even though I don’t need to have meat with every meal to feel satisfied, my husband does. I often adapt common vegetarian recipes and add grilled chicken or shrimp for him, or prepare a separate dish that tastes just as good with a pile of vegetables to offer my sister. But now I have a great resource at my fingertips that allows me to do double duty in the kitchen: Ivy Manning’s new release The Adaptable Feast: Satisfying Meals for the Vegetarians, Vegans, and Omnivores at Your Table.

Over the course of several years cooking for and with her vegetarian spouse, Ivy-an omnivore-compiled an impressive number of main dishes, sides, and staples that can be served in portions to satisfy all the vegetarians, vegans, and/or omnivores in your home. Just about every cuisine and type of dish is featured, and the full range of meats, alternative proteins, grains, and vegetables are covered. I have prepared several dishes already, including Kung Pao Chicken or Tofu; Stuffed Chicken Breasts and Portobello Mushrooms; and the delicious Moroccan Vegetables, Fish, and Couscous En Papillote. I look forward to making my way through many more.

One of my absolute favorites in the book is among the simplest (and so flavorful); I’ve made it many times already. Lazy Spanish Rice-which appears in Ivy’s Rizo Quesadillas with Creamy Avocado Dip and Lazy Spanish Rice recipe-is the perfect accompaniment to any Mexican main dish, though I also love to eat a bowlful as an entrée with a salad or quesadilla on the side. It’s prepared in a rice cooker or on the stovetop, takes only about 20 minutes, and is colorful, filling, and tasty (and can easily be made vegan).

Every guest at your table is sure to enjoy it, as I’m positive they will the other eighty recipes Ivy serves up in The Adaptable Feast.

LAZY SPANISH RICE

Serves 4 as a side dish

This easy side dish is cooked with pantry staples in a rice cooker, so it is as easy as flipping a switch. The secret is a good-quality salsa and a slightly spicy chipotle bouillon cube, available at some grocery stores and Latin markets. You can use canned chipotle chiles instead if you can’t find the chipotle cubes.

1-1/2 cups long-grain white or brown rice
5 tablespoons mild or medium salsa
1 Knorr chipotle bouillon cube, crumbled,
or 2 teaspoons chopped canned chipotle chiles
2-3/4 cups water
1 tablespoon butter
2 tablespoons sliced black olives
2 green onions, chopped

Combine the rice, salsa, bouillon cube, water, and butter in a rice cooker. Cook until the rice is tender. Fluff with a fork and fold in the olives and green onions.

Vegan Variation: Use olive oil instead of butter.

Love your local taco truck? Have a camera? Then you are all set to enter in to the taco truck photography contest. Cyrus Farivar, freelance journalist and editor of CaliforniaTacoTrucks.com has called on taco truck photographers to enter their taco truck photos in a contest that ends on Nov 4th. The top prize is a signed copy of Tacos: Authentic, Festive & Flavorful by Sasquatch author Scott Wilson. Any photo at all that captures the taco truck experience, and is from California, is welcome to enter.

We caught up with Scott at his mountain redoubt in Oregon to see what he has to say:

“I’m super psyched to have the book Tacos associated with such a wieldy team as CaliforniaTacoTrucks.com. My adult taco life began at the trucks in Redwood City so it’s cool to see this contest form within the taco truck rubric of the entire Bear Flag Republic.”

For more information, see www.CaliforniaTacoTrucks.com. For more taco philosohy, see www.TacoMatrix.com.

Growing up on a small Vermont homestead, I was often put to work harvesting and preserving the seasonal bounty. We had a two-acre garden and miles of wild fruits and berries to sustain our family of six. I helped fill five-gallon buckets with blueberries and wheelbarrows with cucumbers, and took hikes through the woods with my dad to find hidden apple trees. After the harvest, I would help my mom fill row after row of mason jar with tomatoes, dilly beans, raspberry jam, apple butter, and cucumbers, just to name a few. Months later, with our home covered in snow, we’d fill our bellies with the fruits of our labor.

Though I no longer live in the country, I’m often reminded of that life when the plum trees of Seattle are overflowing with fruit. A few weeks ago, a friend and I biked to the house of a neighbor, who had more plums then he knew what to do with, and picked about twelve pounds worth. We then sat around chatting while we pitted the plums, cooked, and filled jars with sweet, velvety plum jam.

If you know where to look and what to pick, a country life can be found, even in a bustling metropolis.

Here’s a recipe for plum jelly from Canning & Preserving Your Own Harvest, a handy offshoot of The Encyclopedia of Country Living.

Plum Jelly

Most old neighborhoods seem to have at least one ancient plum tree, buzzing with yellow jackets and laden with fruit that goes unpicked. Don a protective long-sleeved shirt and brave the wasps for the makings of this beautiful jewel-toned jelly. Different varieties of plums will yield slightly different results as their natural pectin levels vary. Damson plums are very tart with acidic skins and are much higher in pectin than other plums, for example.

Season: Mid- to late summer
Yield: 6 cups
Store: Cool, dark pantry

4 pounds Italian prune plums, halved and pitted (at least
1/4 of which should be barely ripe)
2 cups water
3 to 4 cups sugar
3 to 5 tablespoons lemon juice
Place the plums and water in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Simmer until the fruit is very soft, 15 to 20 minutes.

Transfer the fruit to a dampened jelly bag or cheesecloth-lined colander suspended over a bowl. Drain for several hours to fully extract the juices. The yield will be about 4 cups. Do not press on the fruit, squeeze the bag, or try to hurry the process in any way—if you do, you will cloud what should be a rosy-golden, crystal-clear juice.

Measure the strained juice into a preserving pan and add 1 cup of sugar for every cup of plum juice; taste, adding lemon juice to make the fruit pleasantly tart.

Heat the mixture over medium-high heat to bring it rapidly to a boil, stirring constantly until the sugar dissolves. Cook the jam until it reaches 220°F on a kitchen thermometer. Remove from heat.

Carefully ladle the hot jelly into hot, sterilized half-pint jars, allowing 1/4 inch headspace. Use a water-bath canning technique and process for 10 minutes.

Welcome to week two on the Sasquatch Books blog. We had a few technical difficulties with the Comments function, but it’s up and running now, so please join the conversation. We look forward to hearing from you!

I wanted to write today about Julie & Julia. OK, not really about the movie nor about the book, but about the discoveries that can be made within a wave of interest like the one that’s lifted Julie & Julia and the related books to the bestseller lists.

How cool is it to see Julia Child and her accomplishments so celebrated that Meryl Streep plays her in a top-flight Hollywood movie and people are racing to bookstores to pick up her classic tome Mastering the Art of French Cooking? (Also, don’t miss Julia’s fabulous memoir, My Life in France, on which much of the movie is based. Both of these books I devoured over the course of a great vacation some years ago.)

Here at Sasquatch we have just one or two degrees of separation from the amazing Miss Julia via a terrific cookbook we published last fall, Cooking with Les Dames d’Escoffier: At Home with the Women Who Shape the Way We Eat and Drink edited by Marcella Rosene with Pat Mozersky. Featuring an unpublished recipe from Julia Child, Cooking with Les Dames d’Escoffier is a treasure trove of 125 recipes, kitchen wisdom, and culinary talent from the many talented women inspired by Julia Child to make cooking their life’s work.

In the early ’70s, the irrepressible Carol Brock, then Sunday food editor at The New York Daily News spearheaded the formation of Les Dames d’Escoffier, the feminine counterpart to Les Amis d’Escoffier, an all-male organization of eminent chefs. Today Les Dames d’Escoffier boasts 26 chapters across the U.S. and Canada, and includes such legendary names like Alice Waters, Dorie Greenspan, Marcella Hazan, Lidia Bastianich, and many of today’s newest culinary stars.

This is one of my favorite cookbooks because reading it really is like having your kitchen full of these legendary cooks, sipping a little wine with you as you prepare another beautiful home-cooked meal. I imagine inviting Julia herself along with M. F. K. Fisher, Joyce Goldstein, Anne Willan, and many others into my kitchen as I make dinner.

And you can too! Why not let Alice Waters share with you how to make her divine Mushroom Ragù for Noodles (a personal favorite of mine). Like the best of recipes, it is simple, precise, and the resulting dish will melt in your mouth.

Mushroom Ragù for Noodles

This is not your typical pasta dish. Rather, it is an aromatic combination of minced vegetables and mushrooms simmered in just a bit of olive oil and cream, then spooned over buttered noodles. Simple to prepare yet highly flavorful, the dish is typical of those that have made its author, Alice Waters, a culinary icon of our times.

Prepare Ahead: The ragù can be made 1 or 2 days ahead, then briefly reheated to top the freshly cooked noodles.

1 tablespoon olive oil plus additional for sautéing
1/2 large onion, peeled and finely diced (about 1 cup)
1 carrot, peeled and finely diced (about 1/2 cup)
1 stalk celery, finely diced (about 2/3 cup)
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 sprigs thyme, leaves picked from stems
3 sprigs parsley, leaves only, chopped
1 small bay leaf
1/4 cup fresh tomato, finely diced
1 pound fresh mushrooms (choose a mixture of two or three types: chanterelles, black trumpets, hedgehogs, cultivated brown or white)
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature, plus additional for sautéing
1/4 cup heavy cream or crème fraîche
1/2 cup water or chicken broth (if not vegetarian)
8 ounces wide egg noodles (first choice is homemade fresh pappardelle, the classic accompaniment to such a ragù)
1/4 to 1/3 cup freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
Freshly chopped parsley

Heat the oil in a large, heavy skillet over medium heat. Add the onion, carrot, celery, and salt. Cook until very tender, but regulate heat to allow little or no browning. Add the thyme, parsley, and bay leaf. Cook for 1 minute and add tomatoes. Cook for another 5 minutes. Remove from the heat and reserve.

Carefully clean and slice the mushrooms, keeping each type separate. If they are very dirty, it will be necessary to wash them (crunching down on dirt and sand is very unpleasant). The mushrooms may take on some water, but it will be thrown off shortly after they hit the hot pan. Heat enough olive oil and butter to lightly coat a small skillet large enough to hold each batch of mushrooms. Sauté each type of mushroom separately. As they cook, the mushrooms will give off liquid; let the juices boil away or tip off the juices and set them aside (the reserved juices can be added back to the sauce later in place of some of the water or broth). Continue cooking the mushrooms until tender and lightly browned (you may need to add a little more oil or butter). Turn each batch of cooked mushrooms onto a cutting board, chop to the size of the cooked vegetables, and combine with the reserved vegetables and herbs in the larger skillet. Repeat this process for all the mushrooms. Then add the cream and water (here you can substitute reserved mushroom juices for any part of the liquid). Bring to a simmer and cook for 15 minutes. Taste for salt and add as needed. Moisten with more liquid if desired, though the ragù is not intended to be soupy. Remove from the heat and reserve.

When ready to serve, bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add the noodles and cook until barely tender. While the noodles cook, gently reheat the ragù. When the noodles are done cooking, drain, reserving about 1 cup of the cooking water. Return the noodles to the pot and toss with the butter and cheese and enough of the cooking water to keep the noodles separate and well-coated. Spoon the noodles onto a warm serving platter or 4 individual plates. Top generously with the ragù and a sprinkle of parsley. Serve immediately.

Makes 4 servings

Suggested Beverage: A California Pinot Noir from the Carneros district.

Set yourself free! This is the first post on the Sasquatch Books blog. We are a small press in Seattle with some cool authors writing about living large in the garden, getting the best room when you travel, and expressing your inner gourmet in the kitchen. Sasquatch has regional roots in the Pacific Northwest, and most of our authors come from the western states. Our authors have lots of different things to say, and we will be bringing those ideas to the fore in this blog.

So this is Gary; I’m the publisher here at Sasquatch. And I’m thinking about scallions, aka green onions. Simple, basic, easy to ignore. I have tended to think of them as parsley with a bit more flavor, sprinkled on top of some dishes. But in Georgeanne Brennan’s new cookbook, Gather, there’s a wonderful recipe for Creamy Polenta with White Cheddar and Green Onions.

Once you get over the fact that you have to stand at the stove and stir the polenta or it turns into something geologic, it’s easy. Georgeanne recommends bringing some reading material to the stove. I’ve been making this for breakfast, so I bring the newspaper (yes, that atavistic thing printed on big sheets of paper). Wow, maybe it’s the combo of sharp cheese and green onions or the fact that the onions are sautéed, but they become delicious green flavor buds in this comforting dish. Here’s the recipe:

Creamy Polenta with White Cheddar and Green Onions

1 bunch green onions
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, divided
6 to 7 cups water
1-1/2 cups polenta
1 teaspoon coarse sea salt or kosher salt
1/3 cup shredded white cheddar cheese or soft, fresh goat cheese
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground white pepper

Finely chop the green onions, using all but the upper third of the green stalk. Melt 1 tablespoon of the butter in a frying pan over medium heat. Add the green onions and let them “sweat,” cooking them through but not letting them brown, about 5 minutes. Remove them from the heat and set aside.

In a large saucepan over medium-high heat, bring 4 cups of the water to a boil. Add the polenta in a steady stream, whisking as you pour it into the pot. Whisk in the salt.

Reduce the heat to low and continue whisking until there are no lumps, about 5 minutes. Continue to cook until the polenta is soft, has thickened, and begins to pull away from the sides of the pan, about 20 minutes. (Add more water if the polenta gets thick before it is soft enough.) Stir in the remaining butter, the cheese, pepper, and green onions. Serve immediately.

Makes 8 servings