This was way easier when I was 30

We're rehabbing my husband's home office. For some reason, this room didn't even get painted when we moved in nearly 30 years ago. It's pretty much the room that you close the door on when guests are over.

Since the kids moved out, our rehab mantra has been "do it right." This means proper wall prep, replacing warped moldings, and No More Paint On Wood, i.e. strip the woodwork.

This is the job that I got, while DH worked on the walls.

Think 12 hours over 3 days holding a heavy heat gun at about shoulder height or higher. Pain.

After finishing the main part of this task on Monday night, I was done in, but hungry. Almost almost ordered pizza, but I had these gorgeous 1/2 pound portabellos in the larder, so I made the following casserole, and I am very glad I did, because it was just what the doctor ordered. Flavorful and stick-to-your-ribs. Since I made this up as I went along, and I was way too tired to right it down at the time, I hope I can reconstruct now!

Mushroom casserole
2 large portabello mushrooms, diced
2-3 T butter (for vegan, substitute oil)
juice of 1/4 lemon
1 medium onion, diced
garlic, too taste, pressed
about 1/4 cup celeriac, diced very fine
3 T flour

2-3 cups Half & half, milk, or stock (vegetable or chicken)
1 cup noodles (I used penne, but egg noodles, elbow macaroni or your favorite shape are all fine)
2 medium potatoes, diced
something green- spinach, beans, peas, chard

Boil water for the noodles and potatoes (put the potatoes in first, as they take a little longer than the noodles). Once these are cooked, drain and set aside (or time it so everything is done at once). If you're using peas or beans for your greens, add them about 5 minutes before the noodles are done. Leafy greens can just be added to the casserole and don't need to be precooked.

Melt the butter in a large saucepan, and add the mushrooms. Stir until all the butter is absorbed by the mushrooms, then add the lemon juice. This will release liquid from the mushrooms and give your casserole a wonderful mushroom flavor. If you are using milk, it will not curdle the milk, don't worry. Add the celeriac and onions; you may need to add a little more butter to saute them. Once the celeriac is soft, dredge with flour and saute for 2 minutes. While you are sauteeing, scald the liquid; you'll want it very very hot.

Add a little of the scalded liquid to the vegetables; it will immediately form a thick paste. Continuing adding liquid and stirring until you have a creamy sauce. Prepare a glass or ceramic casserole dish (spray or oil), and add all ingredients together, mixing thoroughly. Sprinkle the top with breadcrumbs and a little cheese (vegans--what would you use instead of cheese to make a nice melty crust?).

Bake at 350F/175C for about 25 minutes or until the top is melted and lightly brown.

Why people are afraid to cook

I love the web. Open up a search engine, type in "green beans, chard, beets, carrots" and out comes a recipe. Amazing.

Except when you try to make it.

"roast chard in oven until crispy, but not burnt" How long will that take? What will it look like? Should I do anything with it while it's in there?
"slowly drizzle in the oil to emulsify into vinaigrette" Do I just pour it, or do I have to mix it? How hard? How slow is a drizzle? How can I tell it's emulsified? What in the world does that even mean?
" Lay out prepped beets and carrots on a sheet pan and roast in same 400°F oven as the chard until nicely roasted" Again, how long? What constitutes "nicely roasted?"

So there we were with pan-fried mushrooms and green beans, steamed carrots and beets, and sorta kinda crispy chard. Annoyed with the recipe, we turned it into the Nelson Chin test kitchen and came up with:

Scalloped August veggies

2 large Carrots cut length-wise and then into wedges (I never peel carrots, but feel free)
5 Med.-Lrg. mixed Beets cut into wedges and peeled
Today's green bean harvest (we had about a pint), cleaned (i.e., cut the ends off)
1 large portobello mushroom, sliced
3 larges cloves of garlic, smashed and diced

30 large chard leaves, washed and stems removed
olive oil

Preheat oven to 400F/190C

Remove the stems, then clean and chop the chard. Toss in a large bowl with a couple tablespoons olive oil. Spread thinly on a baking sheet (one with raised edges works best) and roast about 25 minutes, or until it is crispy but not burnt (after 15 minutes, start checking it every 5 minutes). Remove from oven and set aside. Turn off oven and allow it to cool down a little.

Prepare a casserole with cooking spray. Scald 1 1/2 cups of milk (4-6 minutes on high in the microwave)

Steam, braise, or roast the beets and carrots until just tender. Saute the green beans, mushrooms and garlic in a little olive oil. Turn the oven back on, at 350F/175C. Put the two veggie mixes into the casserole in two layers. Each layer should be dotted with 1 tablespoon of butter, and dredged with 2 tablespoons of flour. Pour the hot milk over this, cover and bake for 30 minutes.

Serve over fettucini.

Letting the garden call the shots

One of the things that gardening teaches you is how to let go. Every gardener starts the season with a plan-- the lettuce gives way to the peas which lead to the chard, then switch over to beans, after which the broccoli starts bearing. Mother nature is extremely clever this way.

You can find books and charts and advice that will give you a perfect succession of veggies so that you have your own fresh farmer's market out back all summer, with something new just about to ripen every week.

And then the rabbits eat all the beans. And the slugs get the broccoli. Because, as every gardener knows, Mother Nature, while extremely clever, is the original Bitch Goddess.

You can be a gardener all your life and still get caught flat-footed by each year's special problem. Last year-no tomatoes. This year the carrots were slow and the rabbits prolific. I decided to try pole beans this year, just because I never have, and turns out I hate growing them. They're slow and ugly and don't bear very well. But the space is committed. So between them and the rabbits, no beans this year.

On the other hand, the swiss chard took off like a rocket, and has continued to bear and bear and bear through storms, cold, heat, drought and critters. So I've adapted my expectations, and my menu. You can plant whatever you like, but the garden is in charge.

Portobello-stuffed swiss chard leaves

20 large Swiss chard leaves
2-3 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil *
1 shallot or onion,diced
3 Portobello mushrooms diced
2-3 Tbsp soy sauce
1 cup rice*, cooked
3 Tbsp crushed walnuts*
herbs, dried or fresh, to taste (I used tarragon)
1/4 cup chicken or vegetable stock

bowl of ice water

Preheat oven to 350°F (180°C).

Wash chard and cut stems from leaves. Dice stems very fine and saute in the soy sauce until the liquid is gone. Set aside in a large mixing bowl.

In a pot of boiling water, blanch chard leaves for 1 minute, then immerse immediately in a bowl of ice water, drain and set aside. (This will stop them from continuing to cook).

In a skillet over medium heat, saute onion in olive oil until just going soft, add mushrooms, and cook 3 - 4 minutes until all oil and liquid is absorbed. Mix with chopped chard stems, walnuts and cooked rice. Add seasonings.

Carefully lay out chard leaves-- lay one leaf then place a second one across it in the middle at right angle s(so you have a chard "X"). In the centre spoon some stuffing, then fold over the crossed leaf, tuck in the corners, and fold the bottom leaf to create a flat pocket. Place the stuffed leaves in a lightly greased 9x9" baking dish with stock in the bottom.

Cover and bake 15 - 20 minutes. Makes 10 child-fist sized wraps.

Join Hipster Supported Agriculture

We often see and talk about getting kids to garden. From Alice Water's take over of the Berkeley Public School System, to school gardens all over the place; from Michelle Obama's White House garden to the new Kinder Gardens project at the Inadvertent Farmer.

But there's a missing generation here, of urban and suburban young people whose parents didn't garden, but who are entering adulthood with an urgent need to have this skill.

I decided the Kinder Gardens project needs a companion project for young adults-- why wait 20 years for the newest generation to have gardens of their own, when there's an entire cadre of cynical Millennials who need to get their faces in the sun and their hands in the earth. (That's a couple of them enjoying the garden without doing any work.)

Despite our large sunny yard in the middle of Illinois farm country, my own mother never gardened. With the exception of an uncle who owned a Christmas tree farm, in fact, I come from five, yes five, generations of urban dwellers, as does my husband. We are that rare family with no farmers in our ancestry well past living memory. When I started gardening, I did it all from books and trial-and-error. I had no mentors, and started gardening when the internet was still Al Gore's wet dream and social media wasn't even a twinkle in his eye.

So, introducing the HSA-- Hipster Supported Agriculture (thanks to IceMom for the naming idea).

I've begun inviting my twenty-something friends, plus my own kids, and their friends, to come garden with me one or two days a month-- if there are no garden tasks, or the weather is against us, I'll bring them into the kitchen and we'll cook something. In exchange for the labor, and the companionship, I'll send them home with fresh produce or baked goods.

Update: HSA Schedule
Today (4/18): bed prep and bread making
April 26: snow pea 2nd planting, plant out dill
April 30: greens and roots,
May 14- cucurbits, if warm enough, beans
May 30- plant out ornamentals
June 6- solanums, herbs
mid June, TBD- first harvest (snow peas, lettuce, chard, spinach, radishes)
June 27- garden maintenance, harvest

Cooking days: May 2, May 16, June 13, June 27

I hope we can make things like this, my first garden meal of the year:

Pasta in mushroom sauce with winter turnips and new greens
1 pound turnips, diced, plus their greens
8 oz. fresh spinach
8 oz. mushrooms
1 cup half and half, plus 1 cup vegetable stock (for vegan, use vegetable stock only)
1 teaspoon lemon juice
2 T butter (for vegan, use a light oil, like safflower or canola)
parsley, salt, white pepper
your pasta of choice (1.5 cups dry for each diner)

Start the water for the pasta, when it boils use it to lightly blanche the turnips (about 5 minutes, until just soft--they'll cook the rest of the way with the sauce) then the greens (2 minutes). DO NOT DUMP THE WATER. You're going to cook the pasta in it. Scoop out the veggies and set them aside. Keep the water at a light simmer for now, you'll put the pasta in presently.

Slice and saute the mushrooms in the butter until all the butter is absorbed. Then add the lemon juice and saute until the mushrooms release their moisture. Add the parsley, salt and pepper and saute for another minute or so. Add a little more butter/oil if it starts to dry out. Add the cream and reduce it to a thick sauce (about 5 minutes), then add the stock and the veggies. Continue adding stock to keep the sauce at a consistency that you like.

Cook the pasta, spoon it up.

Where are all the vegetables?

The first thing that hit me when I walked into the Chicago Flower and Garden show, through the back entrance, was the smell of dirt.

Wonderful.

It's a scent that gardeners crave, and the more delightful for being oddly unexpected in this gigantic forum of fake gardens.

After that it was a little downhill for me. I'm not sure exactly what I thought it would be like, having never gone before, but certainly more variety in garden design. There were very clever themes to be sure, and the overall theme of musical theater was near and dear to my heart. But taken as a whole, there was a depressing sameness to the layouts, despite clever corners and pretty plants.

But what disappointed me most of all was the utter neglect of food gardens. There was one tiny farm illustrating the tale of the Three Little Pigs, and liberal use of lettuce as an ornamental. The American Girls booth had a pizza garden for one of the dolls (not kidding). And that was it. There are seminars on edible gardening. There are back to back cooking demonstrations. But not a single display focused on edible gardening. One display, in fact, didn't even focus on plants. The central feature of Kia's "The Street Where You Live" suburban garden was a huge SUV taking up at least a third of the booth's square footage.


Flickr set here.

And because I promised always to include a recipe, a wonderful recipe from Epicurious/Bon Apetit

Artichoke, Potato, and Portobello Mushroom Casserole
Bon Appétit | April 2006

4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 large artichokes (I didn't have any, so I subbed celery and broccoli)
1 pound Yukon Gold potatoes, thinly sliced
2 large portobello mushroom caps, thinly sliced
small soft fresh goat cheese
1-2 garlic cloves, minced
3 tablespoons freshly grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 cup dry white wine (didn't have any, so I used sherry)

Preheat oven to 425°F. Brush 2-qt casserole with 1 tablespoon oil. To trim artichoke, add the juice from half a lemon to a large bowl of cold water. Cut off the artichoke's stem; rub cut surface with the other lemon half. Peel off all the leaves. Cut off top one inch of artichoke. Using a spoon with a serrated edge, scrape out the fibrous choke from the center. Rub the artichoke all over with lemon and drop it into lemon water. Drain before using.

Slice artichoke hearts. Arrange half of potatoes in dish, covering bottom completely. Top with half of artichoke hearts and half of mushrooms. Coarsely crumble half of goat cheese over. Sprinkle with half of garlic, salt, and pepper, then 1 tablespoon Parmesan. Drizzle with 1 tablespoon oil. Cover with remaining mushrooms, then artichokes, goat cheese, garlic, 1 tablespoon Parmesan, and 1 tablespoon oil. Top with remaining potatoes. Pour wine over; drizzle with remaining 1 tablespoon oil. Cover dish with foil. Bake 40 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 400°F. Sprinkle top with remaining 1 tablespoon Parmesan. Bake uncovered until potatoes are tender and top is brown, about 25 minutes. Cool slightly and serve.

This was incredibly delicious. Wonder if they'll make it at the garden show?

A shortcut through mushrooms

You are officially a geek if you get the title reference.

Credit for this one to Julia Child, from whom I learned about using lemon juice to get flavor out of mushrooms.

Cream of mushroom soup
2 pints of mushrooms (just mushrooms. Don't get fancy on me)
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon dried tarragon
1/2 teaspoon ground white pepper
salt to taste
1 T flour
1 1/2 cups milk, scalded
1 cup heavy cream
1 cup white wine

Melt the butter in a sauce pan (i.e. a soup pot). Keep it at a low simmer (don't let it brown) until the center clarifies; all the foam should be at the edges. While you are doing this, heat the milk to just boiling (about 4 minutes in the microwave). Throw all the mushrooms into the clarified butter at once and toss them until they've absorbed all the butter. This will take seconds.

Pour in the lemon juice and simmer until the mushrooms have released a lot of liquid (picture). This is a cooking miracle, and it's how you get your mushroom soup to taste like mushrooms, and not like cream with mushrooms in it. Add tarragon, salt, pepper; toss. Dredge with the flour (use more flour if you like thicker soup) and toss until the mixture has no flour lumps in it.

Now the next cooking miracle: Pour the scalded milk, still hot, onto the mushrooms. For some reason it will not curdle. Please talk to Julia about this, I have no idea why this works. Stir until liquid is smooth. Add the cream and the white wine. Serve with a slice of home made bread and the rest of the wine in a glass. (Never use wine for cooking that you wouldn't drink.)

I buy the sliced mushrooms which cost the same as the whole ones and will save you a lot of work