Cranberry Bean, Magic Purple Bean, and Snap Pea Salad

14 August 2009 Filed In: beans, cranberry beans, Fall, green beans, Salad, salads, Side Dish, Summer





One thing that we have started doing recently at our weekly Greenmarket is letting each family member choose a “secret ingredient”. That means that you can pick anything-anything-that you are drawn to for any reason. When we get home, we discuss the special foods that we chose and start thinking about how we might make a meal with them*.
This week, I chose a very special ingredient: cranberry beans. Who couldn’t be intrigued by their mottled pinkish-purplish markings? We had family friends coming over for dinner, and they called to let us know that they were bringing their own special ingredient, magic beans…magic purple beans.
I have fond memories of shelling beans and peas on Georgia days-not with my own grandmother but with my cousin’s grandmother, the appropriately named Mrs. P. We would all sit on her back steps and shell away in the shade. Since my own family bought things only at the supermarkets, getting to shell and hang out talking about food and hearing stories from Mrs. P about her youth, about her children, about a time gone by was something I longed for more in my life. It was quite a gift that she gave both me and my cousin, this time together just sitting and shelling.
When our guests arrived on Wednesday, we set them right to work, shelling these heirloom beans with Mama Kristen. After they shelled them, the children took their commission, a few cranberry beans to load up in the back of their trucks, zoom around, and dump out of the back. Sound effect: explosive laughter. Every single time.
Cranberry Bean, Magic Purple Bean, and Snap Pea Salad

For the dressing:
* one small shallot, minced
*the juice of one lemon
*1 T. honey
*1 T. balsamic vinegar (red or white wine vinegar would be nice, too)
*1/2 c. extra virgin olive oil
*pinch of salt
*freshly ground black pepper, to taste

For the salad:

*2 c. fresh cranberry beans (about 2 lbs. beans in the pod)
*1 c. magic purple beans (or regular green or wax beans)
*1 c. snap peas
*one small shallot, minced
*2 cloves garlic, minced
*1 T olive oil
*1 T. butter
*one head of butter lettuce, washed and patted dry

To make the dressing, have your mini-chef pour all of the ingredients into a jar. Secure the lid and shake shake shake. Shake again just before dressing the salad.

Shell all the cranberry beans and snap the little ends off of the purple beans and the snap peas.

Big Person: In a small saucepan, bring some water to a boil. Add the cranberry beans and simmer for a few minutes till al dente. Drain the beans and set aside.

Warm the butter and olive oil over medium heat. Saute the cranberry beans, snap peas, purple beans, shallots, and a small pinch of salt and a few grinds of pepper together. Add the garlic and saute another minute. Remove from the heat, and immediately slide into a bowl or onto a plate. Toss with half of the dressing.

To serve over the butter lettuce, pour the rest of dressing over the lettuce, top with the bean mixture, and toss. (We served the bean mixture without the butter lettuce to the children, and the entire salad to the adults.)
*The kids chose apples and apricots this week. We put together a special crumble to serve to our guests with these ingredients plus some peaches that we had left over from making jam.

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Chickpea Flour

12 August 2009 Filed In: beauty, chickpeas

Ok, so we’re back from NoCal, the equivalent of a blogging black hole for me. Last week our family spent some time with my parents and younger brother in Cali while my husband gave a speech in San Francisco. It’s not that we didn’t cook, or that we didn’t eat just sickly amazing food, it’s that, while I’m there, things seem to turn completely inward, and I cannot get anything particularly productive done. So, here I am again, very refreshed after seeing parents/grandparents, godparents, brothers/uncles and friends-including, a delightful new friend, 7 week old Maryem, the daughter of my friend Catrina.

We hung out a lot in the sunshine and had to apply oodles of sunscreen since all of us were not blessed with a Mediterranean complexion. (re: We’re serious whities.) All of that slathering reminded me to share a trick we have to get any lingering sunscreen off and to exfoliate very gently in the process by using chickpea flour. It’s very safe for children and you can make a lot of chickpea flour for hardly any money at all.
This is not a recipe, per se, but here is what you do. Help your Yummy measure out 2 cups of dry chickpeas. Pour the chickpeas into your food processor*** with the blade attachment and process until you have a powdery flour, about 5-10 minutes.
To use on your face, take a teaspoon for children or a tablespoon of the chickpea flour for Big People and mix it in a small bowl with an equal amount of water. Wet your skin, and rub the chickpea flour around in little circular motions, avoiding the eye area. Rinse off with warm water. For the rest of your body, apply the flour to a wet washcloth and then to the skin in circular motions.

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Gingery Pickled Peaches

03 August 2009 Filed In: Dairy-free, ginger, Gluten-free, greenmarket, peach, pickled, Side Dish, Soy-free, Summer, Vegan, Vegetarian


Several calls and emails came in last week. The gist was this: Cate, I have all of these peaches. Help!?!?!

My response: Love them now and love them in the middle of February.

Gingery Pickled Peaches

*8 c. peaches, peeled and pitted***
*2 c. honey
*1 1/4 c. white vinegar
*1 1/4 c. water
*2 cinnamon sticks, broken in half
*3 whole cloves
*3 one-quarter-inch slices of fresh ginger, peeled

In a saucepan, combine everything except for the peaches. Over medium high heat bring everything to a boil. Stirring frequently, let the mixture boil for about 10 minutes. Add the peaches, and cook another 3-5 minutes, until the peaches are somewhat tender but not falling apart.

Pack the fruit in sterilized jars, allowing 1/2 inch space at the top (no more and no less). Twist on the tops and bands and boil the jars for 10 minutes each. Using a can gripper (or tongs), take the jars out of the water and place them on a clean kitchen towel or a cooling rack. To have successfully canned them, their tops will become concave.

***To skin a peach, make a small “x” in the bottom of the fruit, and cook it in boiling water for 30 seconds to a minute, depending on the ripeness of the peach. Use tongs to pull it out of the boiling water and cool a moment on a clean kitchen towel. The skin should come off very easily.


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Sour Cherry Jam

30 July 2009 Filed In: cherry, Dairy-free, Gluten-free, greenmarket, jam, Side Dish, Soy-free, Summer, tribeca, Vegan, Vegetarian



When I did a jamming and preserving demo at the Greenmarket last Wednesday, I had a lot of people coming by and asking what the difference between a sour and a regular cherry was. We had some sour cherries out for the people passing by to see and taste if they wanted.

One neighborhood woman had never eaten a sour cherry and had question after question about the difference in flavors. I encouraged her to give the sour cherry a try. Unsuspectingly, she popped the glistening fruit into her mouth, puckered and writhed a bit, and then threw me a certain look: shock with a hint of ire. She could barely swallow it.
“Now,” I said, handing her a little dollop of my freshly made sour cherry jam perched atop a crusty piece of bread, “Try it like this.”
She took it from me, still eying me, betrayer. When she tasted the jam, her face changed from a pucker to relief and from relief to mild euphoria. Though this lady, poor thing, clearly did not seem to enjoy my little educational taste test, tasting, whenever you can, is so very important for your children and you to do. How else will you develop a palate? How else will you know that the taste of the rightfully-named sour cherry, when cooked or baked with a bit of sweetener, is exquisite and so much more complex than a sweet cherry?

So, huge apologies in the short hand, Neighbor Lady, but you are welcome in the long term, my friend. Happy Jamming!
Sour Cherry Jam
yields about 4-5 cups

*4 c. sour cherries, washed and pitted
*3/4-1 c. honey
*juice of half a lemon
*2t. pectin
*2 t. calcium water

Wash and drain your cherries with your mini-chef. Pull off all of the stems and begin to pit them. For this, a cherry pitter is nice, but if you do not have one, as we do not, you can use your hands. Be aware that this is a messy business but lots of fun, especially if you have many helpers. You can have a bowl for pits and stems and a bowl for the pitted cherries available for the pitting process.

Using your hands, smash the cherries and squish them a little bit. Pour in the honey and the lemon juice and stir everything together.

Big Person: Bring the cherry mixture to a boil and let bubble for about 5 minutes, stirring the whole time. Stir in the pectin and the calcium water, stirring vigorously, let cook a minute or two longer. Remove from the heat. Fill sterilized jars, leaving 1/4-inch room at the top. Screw on the lids and bands. Turn the jars over so that the hot jam coats the tops of the jars. Let sit a few minutes. When you turn the jars right side up again the tops will suck in, concave, for successful jarring magic to have happened.

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Chocolate Mousse Ice Cream Sundae (My Secrets Revealed)

29 July 2009 Filed In: all the rest, chocolate, corner view, Desserts, Fall, Gluten-free, ice cream, Soy-free, Spring, Summer, Vegetarian, Winter



Hi. My name is Tribeca Yummy Mummy, and I am an addict. An ice cream addict.

And a pusher with a long history. Aside from babysitting, my very first job was scooping ice cream at The Pink Dipper in North Augusta, SC. I traveled all the way over the bridge from Georgia for the pleasure. When I took the job, I thought: Yes! I will be so sick of ice cream that I will never want to eat it again.
It had an inverse effect. I tried every flavor, every combination, tried to dream up new ideas for sundaes and sodas.
Later on, my acupuncturist asked me to abstain from ice cream because I’m cold all the time. And, for the most part doctor’s orders are followed… but when it’s summertime and steamy, I fall off the wagon. Once an addict, always an addict.

(Pictures above are from an ice cream play date we had yesterday with my daughter’s friends M + S and their Super-Mom, Carrie)
Chocolate Mousse Ice Cream Sundae
adapted from Martha
*1 pint (2 c.) heavy cream
*8 egg yolks
*14 oz. bittersweet chocolate, the best you can afford, chopped
*2 1/2 c. sugar
*4 oz. white chocolate, chopped
Topping:
*1 c. heavy cream
*2 t. sugar or 1 t. agave
*1/2 t. vanilla
*several sweet cherries
Big Person: In a large heavy-bottom saucepan, bring the cream to a boil. Whisking, remove from the heat and set aside.
Together: Crack the eggs, reserving the white for another use, and place the yolks into a medium bowl. Pour the sugar in with the yolks and whisk them together well, till completely smooth. Slowly pour about 1/2 of the cream into the yolk mixture, whisking the entire time so that the yolks don’t cook and curdle. Then, pour the yolks into the rest of the cream mixture and whisk some more. Pour in the chocolate and continue to whisk till all the chocolate has melted and the mixture is smooth.
Fill a big bowl with ice and water. Place a slightly smaller bowl over the ice water and a fine mesh sieve over that bowl. Strain the chocolate mixture through the sieve and let cool over the ice bath. Pop it in the fridge till ready to use. Freeze according to your ice cream maker’s directions.
Beat the cream in an electric mixer using the whisk attachment till the cream holds its form a bit. Add the vanilla and the sugar or agave and beat a few seconds longer. Top each ice cream with whipped cream and a beautiful cherry.
Other secrets being revealed around the world:


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