Salmon with marmalade marinade

It seems like everyone I know is making marmalade. I myself have a treeful of oranges and one of lemons, but I haven't jumped on the marmalade bandwagon quite yet. For one thing, Veronica gave me a full pint of her seville orange marmalade in exchange for a baby spider plant!

I really don't need more marmalade...but who am I kidding? I'll probably end up making at least a small batch in the near future. I think I want to try this lemon marmalade with tea.

In the meantime, I do have an entire pint of marmalade to use for whatever nefarious purpose I choose. So why not mix the marmalade with some soy sauce, ginger, and sesame oil, spread it on a piece of salmon, and bake it?

Baking fish may not be quite as easy as poaching--you can, in fact, burn fish if you bake it, while it's awfully difficult to do so if it's submerged in water--but it's still very easy. I think the only real danger is letting the fish get dry. By using an oily fish like salmon and covering it with marinade, you can take a few steps back from that likelihood.

Baked salmon with marmalade glaze

salmon fillet
marmalade
soy sauce
sesame oil
sambal oelek
olive oil

First, make your marinade. In a small bowl, mix together a spoonful of marmalade, several good shakes apiece of soy sauce and sesame oil, and a small spoonful of sambal oelek or other chili paste. The proportions are really up to your tastes. Obviously, I like spice; if you don't, feel free to reduce the chili amount. You could also add a variety of other things to your marinade--rice wine vinegar, mirin, garlic, salt and pepper, or shredded herbs come to mind. I personally wish I'd thought to add some seriously minced and pulverized fresh ginger.

I considered briefly precooking the marinade so the marmalade would melt, but decided not to. This worked out fine.

Lightly oil the skin side of your salmon, so it won't stick. If your fillet is skinless, or you want to skin it first, that's fine. I did find that after cooking, the skin separated from the fillet of its own volition, so I don't think skinning is necessary. In any case, spread your marinade over the other side of the fillet.

Let your fish marinate for at least a half hour, so the marinade has a chance to soak in. Put it in the refrigerator if you're going to marinate it any longer.

When you're ready to cook, preheat your oven to 425F and take your salmon out to come to room temperature. Put your fish on a piece of parchment paper in a baking dish, so the sugar won't make your pan impossible to clean later. Bake for about ten minutes, or until the fish is cooked through and its flesh flakes easily. You may need a couple more minutes if you have a particularly thick fillet. Mine took about twelve minutes total.

After baking, your salmon will look like this. Hooray! That parchment paper was definitely a good idea, right?

Since salmon and marmalade both have very strong flavors, it's best to keep any additional vegetables simple. It would be great with a green salad, a whack of rice pilaf, or a bed of wilted spinach.

I liked this initial experiment, but I think I could make it even better. I definitely want to try spiking the marinade with ginger, for one thing. I also want to try using sea bass instead of salmon and lemon marmalade instead of orange. Ooh, I know--sea bass with lemon marmalade and fresh rosemary. There's the excuse I need to make lemon marmalade! Food tweaks FTW!

Homemade baked tortilla chips

This is the easiest trick ever when you're in need of delicious, delicious tortilla chips, but you don't want to leave the house. All you need are corn tortillas, oil, and salt.

Baked tortilla chips

corn tortillas
oil (I use olive)
salt
optional spices: paprika, cumin, etc.

Using a pastry brush (or just your fingers), brush a corn tortilla with a little oil. Flip and brush the other side. You don't have to saturate the tortilla with oil--just get a thin coating over the entire thing.

Repeat, making a stack of oiled tortillas, until you've oiled as many tortillas as you want to make into chips.

Use a knife to cut the entire stack of tortillas into sixths. Spread the resulting proto-chips in one layer on a cookie sheet or two. Sprinkle with an even layer of salt.

If you want to season your chips any other way, now is the time. I imagine that practically any spice that sounds appealing would work well here. I decided to add a little paprika to mine. If you end up with any big clumps of spice, just press the offending super-spiced chips against a few of the lonely unspiced ones, to transfer the extra spice from one to the other.

Bake at 400F for approximately 5 to 8 minutes, or until just golden brown and crisp. You may want to rotate the cookie sheet during cooking, so the chips bake evenly.

When your chips are done, take them out of the oven and let them cool just a touch before you start dipping them in salsa or guacamole or chili and cramming them in your mouth. Hooray, homemade tortilla chips!

The edible spring garden

It's officially spring! Now I can show you all my delicious plants that have suddenly started to heave themselves out of the ground, produce leaves, and suck up the copious rain we've been getting here in California.

The clear winner of the "who can grow biggest, fastest, and best" category is this guy: lemon balm. Yes, I know it looks like standard mint, but I can assure you that it is not at all minty and is instead super-lemony. Most of the leaves are already full-sized, which is to say two to three inches long. They are totally dwarfing everything else in the herb bed.

Of course, they won't be dwarfing everything else for long, because the spearmint is also emerging.

Take note: you don't want to plant mint in the actual ground unless you want it to spread everywhere as quickly as possible. This mint was already planted when we moved in--which is why there's a gigantic carpet of it firmly entrenched and growing like wildfire. It's going to be tough to establish new plants in the front bed.

But then, this also means we have plenty of mint to harvest for tea, spring rolls, and Thai curries, so I obviously can't complain too much.

Our chives have also reemerged within the last month or so, and are growing at an astonishing rate. They have flower buds already, and it's not even April!

Chives are by far the most versatile herb in the front bed, but they get some stiff competition from the parsley growing beside our garage.

This is the only herb I actually had to establish myself; everything else was already planted when we moved in. It's been in the ground for about six months, has weathered the winter (such as it is in California), and is clearly thriving. I'm excited to see what happens this summer--hopefully we'll establish a self-seeding cycle for delicious parsley with little to no maintenance required.

That takes care of the herbs--let's move around to the main bed.

About a month ago, I discovered that half a bag of fingerling potatoes had sprouted in our kitchen cupboard and tendrils were beginning to fly in all directions. I promptly decided that I would plant them instead of throwing them out or composting them. Why not?

And lo, check it out: we now have a bunch of little potato plants emerging from the carpet of leaf mulch. Hooray! I'm especially excited to see how these do, since I've never grown potatoes before.

Since there is no winter to speak of in California--it's more like early spring for the duration--I left a handful of plants in the bed to overwinter.

The star of the bed is probably the red chard. It's a good foot and a half tall, though it doesn't look it in this picture. Huge, I tell you, HUGE! Check out the beet leaf in the upper left corner for scale.

The chard leaves are all super shiny and healthy and delicious, with sturdy bright pink stems. Now you know why chard is such a constant ingredient at our house.

Besides the chard, we have two ancient bolting radishes, a few tufts of carrot greens, one or two emerging sprouts of garlic, and a scattered handful of beets. Pretty soon I'll have to pull some of these for a batch of pickled beets and a stir-fry of beet greens. I should probably plant some spinach or other early greens as well--maybe when I pull the radishes. Of course, until then we have not only chard but also copious radish greens to eat.

Needless to say, I am very excited to see my plants thriving! What are you growing in your spring garden?

Three quinoa lunches

What can you make with leftover quinoa in the refrigerator?

Well, you could make fried not-rice by sautéing green onion, mushrooms, and green beans with quinoa, seasoning with red pepper flake, salt, and pepper, adding a handful of greens, and cracking an egg or two into the pan. Scramble to your liking and eat with a handful of torn parsley.

Or you could mix cold quinoa with quartered cooked beets, salad greens, chunks of goat or cream cheese, and lots of black pepper. Voilà: a tasty and practically instant salad. It's a clear winner in the "looks a mess; is delightful" category.

And of course, you could always use your quinoa for its intended purpose: as a base for a bowl of curry, stir-fry, or thick stew. I sautéed mine with sweet potato and lentil curry and a few leaves of chopped red chard.

Hooray! Quinoa wins!

Nontraditional pasta fagioli

Our pasta fagioli has never been particularly traditional--it's more like a marinara with a lot of white beans blended in than any bean-based brothy soup. I don't think I've ever made a pasta fagioli that could be considered a soup, actually, and I'm fine with that. It's still incredibly easy to cook, is made from the most affordable of ingredients, and can be done in a bare 20 minutes. Besides, it's delicious and filling! Here's the basic method.

Pasta fagioli

olive oil
onion
garlic
hot pepper of your choice
tomato purée
cooked white beans
oregano, basil, paprika, salt, pepper
fresh parsley
water, broth, or dry vermouth, for deglazing & thinning
pasta of your choice

Warm olive oil in a wide sauté pan while you peel and chop an onion and a handful of garlic cloves. Soften the onion and garlic over medium heat while you mince a jalapeño or other hot pepper of your choice. If you don't have a taste for spice, feel free to leave it out.

Add the peppers, season with oregano, basil, paprika, and a touch of salt, stir, and let cook. If you want to add any other sturdy vegetables, go ahead. I've used mushrooms, bell peppers, zucchini, olives, celery, and carrots, all to good effect. If you want to add greens, wait a little while--you can either melt them in just before puréeing, for a totally smooth sauce, or chop them and add them at the very end of cooking, to get big chunks of greens throughout.

Once your vegetables are soft and fragrant, deglaze the pan with a little vermouth or water (if needed) and add your tomato purée. You can, of course, use tomato sauce, paste plus broth or water, chopped fresh tomatoes--whatever you have around. Add your cooked white beans as well. I often use precooked white beans frozen in their broth, which I just chuck into the pot and let melt. If you aren't using broth, you may need to add some water to keep your sauce from scorching.

Taste and add salt and pepper as needed. Stir well, bring to a boil, lower the heat, and let simmer for at least five or ten minutes. This is a good time to put your pasta on to cook, if you haven't already done so. Chunky pasta works best.

Once your beans and tomatoes have had a chance to absorb all the herb-garlic-onion flavors, it's time to purée. It's easiest to just take the pan off the heat and purée the contents with an immersion blender. You could also use a blender or even a potato masher--whatever floats your boat.

Now, take a look at your sauce Is it too thin? Put it back on the heat and let it reduce. Is it too thick? Add some water or broth. Taste and correct seasonings here as well. If you want to make your sauce creamy, you can add some milk, cream, yogurt, or cream cheese at this point--just don't bring it to a boil again or the dairy will curdle.

When you're satisfied with your sauce, take it off the heat, add some chopped parsley, and mix it with your cooked, drained pasta. Voila! Pasta fagioli!


Okay. So what if you want to switch it up a little bit?

You could stir some spinach into your fagioli at the end of cooking and mix it with cooked Israeli couscous. This is not too far from the norm for pasta fagioli; after all, Israeli couscous is actually pasta, not grain.

I think this version would be especially good to feed kids--hey, miniature pasta is definitely more fun than plain macaroni!

You can mix your sauce with kale and cooked ziti, spread it in a gratin dish, top it with olive-oiled breadcrumbs and grated parmesan, asiago, or romaro cheese, and bake it at 350F until crispy and delightful. If you want to take it a step further, you can stir in chunks of mozzarella or goat cheese along with the kale and ziti. Pasta gratin is always a good plan--and pasta fagioli gratin is an even better one.

Or you can move entirely away from pasta and put your bean and tomato purée on something else. How about roasted cauliflower?

Just chop up a cauliflower, toss the florets with olive oil, salt, and pepper, and roast at 400F for about 25 minutes, or until golden brown and crispy. Serve the cauliflower with fagioli sauce and chopped parsley.

Clearly, pasta fagioli can take practically anything you can throw at it--what more could you ask?