Hidden Falls Regional Park in Auburn

I'm quite pleased that I have been making progress on my "30 Before 30" list despite being a week away from 6 months pregnant. I've been fortunate to enjoy good health and decent energy levels so far. It turns out that my list, instead of being a distraction from preparing for the baby, has been a great way for us to make the most of our time together before the baby comes.

When I was making the list, I remembered a friend several years back telling me about a hike up in Auburn that ended in a waterfall. Since I had always wanted to go, I thought I'd throw that on my list.

This weekend the weather was to be gorgeous with highs in the low 70s, and I knew this was our chance to get outside and enjoy it. The drive up to Auburn took about an hour from Sacramento and took us through some pretty ranches and this hill covered in daffodils:

 

The hike itself took us through rolling green hills that contrasted with red soil trails and early spring wildflowers:

About 45 minutes into our hike, we arrived at a nice overlook on the hidden falls. It overflowed into a rather still wading pool area that looked like, come summertime, it would be a fun place for kids to splash around in.

Just in case you suspected me of handing my camera off to a more vigorous hiker to get the previous shot, here is another one proving I actually did hike my own self in and back:

After the hike was over, we stopped for lunch at Tsuda's Eatery in Downtown Auburn, which boasted great sandwiches and nice ambiance.

I'd like to return and explore of downtown Auburn. I'm fascinating by towns with history behind them. Walking to the cafe, we passed what looked like the beautiful remains of a decaying cellar.

And one of the best parts about Northern California in early March is seeing cherry trees in blossom. Tell me, is there a more stunning sight than a tree covered in those pale pink blossoms? Here's to early springs and lots of hiking in the future!

Sour Cherry Pie

Something exciting happened at my house in the past week: my first harvest from the garden. I got lots of snap peas and English peas, plus buttercrunch lettuce and Nantes carrots (shown above). These are a French heirloom carrot that do well in heavier clay soils because they stay short and compact.

I also made a sour cherry pie, which I haven't made since I took a college cooking class and dubbed this pie the Platonic Ideal of a Cherry Pie. You can make cherry pie with the sweet cherries we find here in California, but it is a very different thing from this pie. You have to find sour cherries, which I found at Whole Foods in the frozen aisle. They don't sell them fresh out here because sour cherry trees grow where the weather gets much colder than in our temperate climate.

But the search for sour cherries, even if frozen, is totally worth the trouble. This pie has that complex sweet/art classic cherry pie flavor, but a homemade pie texture that makes all of those glooey Hostess Cherry Pies I ate as a child hang their heads in shame (or would if pies had heads).

I use tapioca instead of cornstarch because I L-O-V-E the texture of tapioca in pies, but you are welcome to follow the recipe as is. I use the Perfect Pie Crust recipe posted here, brush the lattice top with egg white and sprinkle with coarse sugar before baking. Serve with vanilla ice cream and you'll be in heaven.

Sour Cherry Pie

1 recipe Perfect Pie Crust
3 1/3 c. fresh or frozen sour cherries
1 c. sugar
1/4 c. + 1 T. Thickgel OR cornstarch
1 1/3 c. water or juice from cherries
1/4 tsp. almond extract
1 T. + 1 tsp. fresh lemon juice

Rinse and pit fresh cherries or thaw frozen cherries. Combine sugar and thickening agent in a large pot with water or juice from cherries. If desired, add almond extract. Stir mixture and cook over medium heat until mixture thickens and begins to bubble. Add lemon juice and boil 1 minute, stirring constantly. Fold in cherries. Cool before filling prepared pie crust. Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes, then reduce heat to 350 degrees for 30-40 minutes until golden brown on top and the filling is bubbling. Cool on a wire rack before cutting.

Real Strawberry Shortcake

 Last year, I read a delightful memoir called Little Heathens: Hard Times and High Spirits on an Iowa Farm During the Great Depression. The author, Mildred Armstrong Kalish, relates lots of wonderful stories and makes you feel like you're sitting down for a chat with your own grandmother. Mildred's youth was filled to the brim with danger, inconvenience, hard work, strict and cheerless relatives, wonder, and simple pleasures.

Her book also delivers straight-forward, unadorned recipes for simple and delicious farm food, like how to prepare morel mushrooms or bake an applesauce cake. I made a copy of one recipe in particular, so as to be sure to make it the following spring. You see, I had never actually made a genuine strawberry shortcake until tonight- at least not the shortcake part. My mom's version of this American classic was a lower-fat version that substituted angel food cake and Cool Whip, but for some reason retained the same name.

I just fell in love with the real thing after making Mildred's recipe, which was a sort of subtly sweet biscuit with a crunchy top and heartiness that makes angel food cake pale in comparison. I hope that you will enjoy this dish too, while strawberries are still at their very best. Here are the instructions, in the author's own words. (For my personal notes, I made the dough with butter and almond milk.)

Mildred's Strawberry Shortcake

First, pick, wash, and hull two quarts of dead-ripe strawberries.

Sprinkle half a cup of sugar over the berries and set them aside while you make the dough.

In a bowl place two cups of flour, two tablespoons of sugar, one teaspoon of salt and one tablespoon of baking powder. (Grandma swore by Calumet!)

Cut in half a cup of white lard, butter, or Crisco. Use that gadget that looks a bit like a stirrup made of wires; it was designed for cutting shortening into flour. The mixture should look like very coarse cornmeal.

Add one beaten egg to two thirds cup of whole milk. Now add this to the flour in the bowl all at once and stir with a fork until the mixture is just barely moistened. This is the crucial instruction for flaky shortcake. You will ruin the whole thing if you mix thoroughly.

Using a fork, openly spread this dough into a greased eight-by-eight inch pan. Bake for sixteen minutes in a 450 degree oven until nicely browned. Remove from the oven, cool in the pan for about ten minutes and, with a fork, carefully split the shortcake horizontally.

Divide the strawberries between the layer and over the top. Slosh with great gobs of not-too-stiffly-beaten whipped cream and enjoy.

Potatoes, Favas and Garlic - Oh My!

Welcome to the experiment of my backyard garden, where I am growing a series of new plants just to see what will grow well where I live.

Exhibit #1: Potatoes gone wild!
See all of those containers? Every one of them contains potatoes! These have been growing since February and contain 3 varieties: Yukon Gold, Purple, and Fingerlings. After learning one year ago that potato plants will die once the temperature reaches 80 degrees, I have moved them into the shade in anticipation of this weekend's heat wave (high 80's for Sacramento). I hope by taking this precaution to extend their growing season and get some decent sized tubers this year... A lot of them!

Exhibit #2: Fava beans!
My Portuguese grandma gave me these seeds, and this is my first time growing them. I am surprised by how lovely the flowers are, and happy that favas will fix nitrogen in my soil so future plants growing in those spots can be happier.

Exhibit #3: Green Garlic! I planted elephant garlic last fall, and where I live, last fall's garlic is ready for harvest around summer or late summer. That's if you want the bulb kind you can store. Or, for the impatient or curious ones, you can pull up your garlic in spring before the bulbs form and enjoy green garlic. I couldn't resist this experiment this week, and here is what my green garlic looked like:
Close up on those just-starting-to-form bulbs. Cool!
As for the taste, green garlic is softer and milder than regular garlic. It's certainly worth trying!

The Groundhog Was Wrong

There is so much I love about life in general. Every month of the year, there is something I look forward to for the rest of the year and relish when it finally happens.

Early spring carries so many wonders with it.

This is my neighbor's cherry tree - is there a sight in the world more gorgeous than this? And it's right out my front door! I feel right indeed.
My grandma gave me some fava beans she had saved to plant in my own yard. I planted them and they are growing amazingly well so far, with almost no effort on my part. Aren't those kinds of plants the best?
Sometimes you wonder if the frost killed your plants for good or if they might come back. Looks like my Russian sage is up for another year!

My purple hyacinth bulbs are finally shooting up their conical blooms all over the place. So glad I put in the effort to plant them last fall!
My dormant blueberry plant is sprouting leaves. It lives! Hooray!

White-Chocolate-Dipped Stawberries with Citrus Sugar

I have altered the recipe below slightly. One change of note was that the original recipe calls for "good-quality chocolate". For some reason, I find it vaguely insulting to a recipe reader when it commands one to use "good-quality" of anything. I imagine some sort of Julia Child-like cook wagging a finger at me and reprimanding, "You uncivilized brute - drop that bar of Alpine White I know you were thinking of using in this distinguished recipe which is FAR too good to include a Nestle product!" I will put more trust in you than that. I will assume that you can discern the value of good white chocolate.

That said, at first glance I wasn't sure that I'd care for this recipe because let's face it - if I had the choice of whatever Sheri's Berry I wanted, it's got to be dark chocolate all the way. Still, the idea of citrus sugar intrigued me, and that's what convinced me to try this method. The first bite of my "test strawberry" was surprising - the fragrance and bright flavor of the citrus sugar was an excellent match for the mild white chocolate and the sweet berry. I never thought I would love a white strawberry as much as I did a dark one, but this is one delicious recipe, and perfect for spring.

White Chocolate Dipped Strawberries with Citrus Sugar
From Bon Appetit

2 T. sugar
1/2 tsp finely grated orange peel
1/2 tsp. finely grated lemon peel
6 oz. white chocolate, chopped
16 large ripe strawberries (washed and patted completely dry)

Line baking sheet with waxed paper. Using fingertips, mix sugar and citrus peels in a small bowl until sugar is moist. Stir chocolate in a small bowl set over a saucepan of barely simmering water until melted and smooth. Remove from over water.

Holding 1 strawberry by stem end, dip 2/3 of berry into chocolate; shake excess back into bowl. Turn berry dipped end up and sprinkle with citrus sugar. Place on prepared sheet. Repeat with remaining berries, chocolate, and sugar. Chill until chocolate sets, about 30 minutes.

Alice Waters' Cherry Clafoutis

We never seem to get sour cherries in my neck of the states, but sweet cherries are being sold like crazy in streetside stands and markets everywhere this time of year. I bought a big bag yesterday that were cheap and looked nice, but it turned out they weren't too sweet, so I decided to bake with them.

For help, I turned to Alice Waters, the queen of regional fruit desserts. Decidedly French in spirit if not nationality, Waters' desserts are consistently subtle, light, and almost always feature the very best in fresh fruit.

Well, my fruit wasn't the very best, but when used in a cherry clafoutis, you could hardly tell. This traditional French dessert is sometimes very custardy and rich, but this version is more of a light cake topping over baked sweet cherries. The reserved cherry juice is thickened into a sweet-tart syrup that only heightens the flavor.

WARNING: If you are averse to the idea of perfuming your entire kitchen and the surrounding areas with the heavenly scent of cherry, almond, and lemon, this might not be the dish for you. However, if you are a fan of aroma therapy, by all means make this cherry clafoutis. The smell is to die for, not to mention the taste.

Cherry Clafoutis
From Chez Panisse Cafe Cookbook by Alice Waters

1 lb. sweet cherries, washed and pitted (I halved mine)
2 tsp. fresh lemon juice
1/4 tsp. grated lemon zest
A pinch ground cinnamon
1/3 c. sugar (or more, depending on the sweetness of the cherries)
2 eggs, separated
3 T. sugar
2 T. flour
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/4 tsp. almond extract
1/3 c. cream
A pinch salt
Powdered sugar

Preheat the oven to 350F. Lightly butter a baking pan large enough to hold the cherries loosely in a single layer. Prepare the cherries and arrange them in the pan. Sprinkle with the lemon juice, zest, cinnamon, and sugar. Bake until the fruit is tender, about 15 minutes, stirring once or twice.

Raise the oven temperature to 375F. butter another dish large enough to hold the cherries in a single layer (I used a medium rectangular Pyrex). Drain the cooked cherries, reserving their juice in a small saucepan. Arrange the cherries in the bottom of your baking dish. Beat together the egg yolks and sugar until well blended. Beat in the flour, vanilla, almond extract, and cream.

Beat the egg white with a pinch of salt until they form soft peaks. Stir a little of the whites into the batter, and then carefully fold in the rest. Pour the batter over the fruit in the baking dish, letting a little fruit show through the top.

Bake in the upper third of the oven for about 20 minutes, until the batter has puffed and browned. While the clafoutis is baking, reduce the fruit juices to a thin syrup. When the clafoutis is done, dust it with powdered sugar and serve warm with a drizzle of the syrup.

First Harvest: Potatoes and Radishes

Recently, Sacramento went through a heat wave and the temperature soared to 88 degrees. I noticed that my container potato plants, which had been towering green stalks, promptly began to wilt, then wither, turn brown, and die. I later learned that potato plants stop growing when the soil temperature reaches 80 degrees.

I was all ready to call it a failure for the year and went out this morning to clear my pots of the carnage. As I dug through the pots however, I was tickled pink to discover small red baby potatoes in each container, some tiny as the head of a nail, others medium sized. The heat may have cut short the growing season, but I still think these tender babies will do well drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with fresh garden rosemary, roasted to a crisp.


The garden at my parent's yard appears to be doing well after a month today, although the onslaught of weeds requires constant attention. We made our first harvest there of ruby red radishes. Now we just have to figure out a good recipe to use them!

A Visit to the UC Davis Arboretum

A week from Friday, May 6th, is National Public Garden Day. Last weekend, we went out to explore the lovely arboretum at UC Davis campus. We began with a picnic to fortify us in our explorations:

The wonderful UC Davis gardens showcase a variety of themed landscaping based on water conserving plant varieties. The garden collections include Native California, California Foothills, Mediterranean, Australian, South African, East Asian, Southwest/Mexican, and North Coast. Each landscape was unique and beautiful in its own way, and we loved learning about the many diverse kinds of plants, trees and flowers:




We were also able to see some of the wildlife that has made a home at the gardens:



But one of my favorite spots was behind the Food Science buildings, where there was an edible garden picture perfect enough to make my mouth drool. Check out the artichokes reaching for the sky and the bright red stalks of chard:
The perfect rows of carrots, radishes and lettuce:

Who knew that cauliflower heads could pop up out of the earth like bright roses? A well-kept garden is a pleasure to behold. I read that this one is called the Good Life Garden and is periodically open to students to come and harvest! All of these gardens are free, so if you live nearby, be sure to stop by UC Davis and walk the grounds. If not, find a public garden near you and savor the sight of spring.

A Healthier Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp

There seem to be two camps when it comes to rhubarb: the anti-rhubarbites and the rhubarb fanatics. As for me, I worship the pie plant as an unparalleled rite of spring.

Around the same time each year, the little strawberry stand down the street from my parents' house opens for business, proffering their ruby gems that outshine anything found in the grocery stores. I can’t imagine any better welcome to spring than the tart firmness of rhubarb mingled with sweet soft berries in a warm crisp.

The strawberry-rhubarb recipe I have often relied upon, tempting though it was, seemed a little heavy this year. It called for two layers of white flour-based crisp, and the filling called for a mind-boggling amount of white sugar. I have been trying to reduce my sugar and refined carb intake where possible, and was sure that I could come up with a more healthy version that I would still enjoy.

A homey dish like a fruit crisp lends itself well to whole grain flours, and I felt that whole wheat and oat flours worked marvelously for the topping. For the filling, I replaced the white sugar with a little honey, some lemon zest to brighten the flavors, and some vanilla for fragrance. I added a little cornstarch for thickening, but not enough to make the texture gloppy. The resulting crisp was delightful. Instead of masking the natural flavors of the fruit with an excess sweetness, the flavors shone through. If you're a rhubarb lover, I hope you enjoy the season as much as I am right now!

A Healthier Strawberry-Rhubarb Crisp

Topping:

½ cup whole wheat flour
1/3 cup oat flour
2/3 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup rolled oats
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ tsp. kosher salt
5 T. unsalted butter

Filling:

4 stalks rhubarb, trimmed and cut into 1/2 inch slices
1 pint strawberries, trimmed and quartered
2 T. honey
1 tablespoons cornstarch
1 teaspoon lemon or orange zest
1 tsp. vanilla extract

1. Preheat the oven to 375°.

2. In a medium bowl, combine the flours, brown sugar, oats, cinnamon and kosher salt. Cut in the 5 tablespoons chilled, diced butter using a pastry blender (or, if you don’t have one, rub the butter in with your fingers). Place the mixture in the refrigerator.

3. Grease a 9×9-inch pan. Set aside.

4. In another medium bowl, combine the rhubarb, strawberries, honey, cornstarch, zest, and vanilla. Spoon the mixture into the buttered dish or dishes. Blanket the strawberry-rhubarb mixture with the chilled topping. Bake for 40 minutes or until bubbling underneath and brown on top.

Welcoming Spring

"May scorched and withered; March was restless, and could be hard and cold in its brightness; but April came along softly like a blessing, and if it were a fine April it was so beautiful that it was impossible not to feel different, not to feel stirred and touched."

-Enchanted April, Elizabeth Von Arnim



This weekend has been a glorious spring one, when everyone and everything in the world seemed to be waking up to warmth and the possibility of growth. I spent some time at my parents' place admiring apple blossoms, hummingbirds, the pastoral sheep, and fertilizing fruit trees. But I spent most of my time pulling weeds and preparing what I hope will be a good summer garden. Here's the before picture - not so hot:

After several years of neglect, I have been adding in fertilizer (thanks, sheep and goat), leaf mold, and other organic matter. Though the space was full of weeds when we began on Saturday, those weeds have now been removed, revealing some promising rich black soil underneath.

Next step: rent a rototiller, set up a sprinkler, and plant some seeds! I wanted to do all of this much earlier, but the terrible amount of rain we have received in Northern California lately made it quite difficult to do. We will keep you posted on the results. Happy spring to you!

Early Spring Planting Complete

I think I've finished my first spring planting. And I wish the apartment management would stop reminding people not to use their patios for storage. It makes me sad to think that they might mean me. It's not storage, it's a homemade composter, people!

To date, the most vigorous plants have been the potatoes. We planted some seed red potatoes and they are exploding almost faster than I can cover them with additional mounds of soil. The garlic is also doing well. The empty pot is Swiss chard, which I read can be very slow to germinate. I just hope it gets there eventually!

Herb-wise, my thyme, rosemary and basil didn't like being moved inside and had to be replaced. Sage, parsley and mint all pulled through like champs. I'm also trying to grow dill from seed. The iris in the back will hopefully bloom in April. Iris is my all-time favorite flower, and girl is allowed a bit of luxury right?

Mixed greens, arugula, spinach and carrots are slowly sprouting, and I have great hopes for our little garden this year! Even if I can barely walk out on our patio.