Choppin' Broc-o-lay

A sure sign that you experienced 1980s popular culture is if you sing Dana Carvey's "Choppin' Broccoli" song from Saturday Night Live whenever you bring home a stalk of broccoli. I am so there! "My lady, she went down town....she bought some broccoli....she brought it hoooooome." Well, we got a lot of really, really nice broccoli in our CSA box this week, and I've been "choppin' broc-o-lay" to my heart's content.

Another broccoli-related blast from years ago is that salad that used to show up at all the pot-lucks and family dinners. It was made of broccoli florets, bacon and raisins drenched in a kind of sweet, creamy dressing that must have had mayonnaise in it. I never learned to make it, so I can't be sure, but I always loved it. Some years ago, I found a significantly lightened version with no mayonnaise, but all the best flavor elements of that original salad.

I've adapted that recipe, probably making it more caloric, but with only a teeny bit of mayonnaise. You'll hardly know it's there, but the dressing has a little more body to it than a vinaigrette. I also swapped out the raisins for dried cranberries, which we love around here. They make the salad less sweet and a little more perky and their chewiness contrasts with the crunchy broccoli. The smoky, salty bacon rounds out the cast. Everything is better with bacon. (Leave it out if you don't "do" bacon. The salad will still be great.)

Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got a couple more broccoli recipes to try. I'm choppin' broc-o-lay, choppin' broc-o-lay...

Sweet and Tart Broccoli Salad
Adapted from Cooking Light magazine

2 slices bacon
1/4 cup chopped almonds
2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon mayonnaise
4 cups broccoli florets
¼ cup thinly-sliced red onion
1/3 cup dried cranberries
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper


1. Cook bacon until crisp. Drain and cool. Crumble or chop.

2. Place the almonds in a small pan on medium-low heat. Shake the pan or stir frequently until the nuts are beginning to brown, 3-5 minutes (but watch carefully, since they can burn quickly). Remove from heat and cool

3. Combine vinegar, sugar, and mayonnaise in a large bowl. Whisk very well to blend completely.
4. Add the remaining ingredients to the bowl and toss well to coat.

Makes about 4 servings

A Carb-Carrying Member

I love bread. So, needless to say, I did not jump on the low-carb bandwagon that began touring the nation years ago. Americans, in a move that frankly baffled me, ditched ages-old foods like bread and noodles, declaring them suddenly unhealthy. Bakeries and pasta manufacturers went out of business while sales of no-carb pork rinds and cholesterol medications skyrocketed. Sure, lots of people lost weight and some even kept it off. Fine, whatever works for you works for you, but I’m going to keep my homemade bread. It’s made with real ingredients, no preservatives, and hardly any pork rinds.

Not too long ago, a bread-baking book got my attention. It’s called Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day and was written by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois (you can get it here or here). I was intrigued, but felt a little like this should be advertised by a shouty salesman, like Billy Mays or the Sham Wow guy. “Five minutes a day! You’ll never be hungry again! Just pay processing and handling!” I assumed the process would involve special equipment or delicate yeast starters and such things, but then, the book’s authors were guests on The Splendid Table, a radio show about food on NPR. Lynne Rossetto Kasper, the show’s charming hostess, tasted the bread right in front of the microphone, and I could hear her crunching the crust and mmmmming as she chewed. This might just be worth a try.

The whole thing got even better when I learned that The Splendid Table website had posted the basic recipe. I printed it out in early April, lost it at least three times, put “try Artisan Bread recipe” on several to-do lists, and finally, this weekend, when it was beginning to get disgustingly hot outside and it would practically be an act of self-immolation to turn on the oven, I got around to trying this bread. (Perhaps it’s not very “green” to run the oven and the air conditioner at the same time, but…all in the name of good bread.)

To make a short story that I’m making too long short again, I liked it. The recipe is super easy and the results tasted terrific. I followed the basic recipe, which you can get here, pretty much exactly. I used bread flour, but since the recipe just calls for “unbleached flour,” I think you could use all-purpose flour. Basically, you just mix up water, yeast, salt and flour and forget about it until you need it. (“And it’s just that easy!”) You can keep the dough in the refrigerator for a couple weeks and it supposedly develops in flavor over that time. All you do when you want to bake some bread is hack off a blob of dough, form it into a round loaf, let it sit, and bake it.

















The resulting bread is dense and chewy, and quite flavorful. I’ve been eating it alongside salads (of course), soup, and pasta. It’s also good thinly sliced, toasted and spread with jam or marmalade. You may want a softer sandwich loaf for something like a fluffer-nutter sandwich, but this bread is the kind of stuff you cut off a big chunk to use as an extra utensil with a rustic soup or pasta sauce.

The dough is wet, and did stick to my pizza peel when I used cornmeal between the dough and the peel. I had good results when using parchment paper instead. Also, I did need to bake the bread just a little longer than specified in the recipe. To check for doneness, I insert an instant-read thermometer into the bottom of the loaf. If the bread is about 200 F inside, I call it done. (You want the interior completely cooked, but don’t want all the moisture to steam away.)




I hope to try making other shapes, like baguettes and flatbreads with this dough (especially if I can use the grill…enough oven for a while!). I’ll try to keep you informed if the results are interesting. I may even actually buy the cookbook, and see what else the authors have to offer. It looks like this recipe, as easy and flavorful as it is, will help keep me a carb-carrying member of the breakfast, lunch and supper clubs for some time to come.

Salad for Breakfast

I feel like I have come to visit the Emerald City and have had a pair of green-tinged spectacles locked onto my face. There are edible green and reddish-green leaves everywhere, thanks to a great season at the CSA to which we subscribe. It has even prompted me to change the colors on this page. I had always intended to modify the colors of fonts and lines on The Messy Apron to reflect the season, since my cooking and food commentary have a decidedly seasonal theme. Just now, all green seemed more than appropriate.

I have to admit, though, there were a few meals over the last week that did not include a salad. Perhaps I put some lettuce on a hamburger or sprinkled some over a cornbread pizza with ground grass-fed beef. But only salad uses up lettuces in the volume I require, so I have some catching up to do. I’m expecting that any night now, I’ll be having a nightmare about an ever-growing head of lettuce in a “Little Shop of Horrors” role, but, in a Bizarro-like twist, it’s shouting “Eat Me!” rather than “Feed Me!”

There seemed to be only one way to get through all of this beautiful embarrassment of lettuce riches. I was going to have to start eating salad for breakfast.

Right away, I thought of modifying Eggs Benedict. I was surprised to find a recipe or two for an Eggs Benedict salad, or at least something similar, so I borrowed what I wanted, and simplified things a bit. I could easily make English muffins into croutons by just tearing them up and baking them. The rich Hollandaise sauce could easily double as a salad dressing, especially if I made it lemony and mustardy. I had some deli ham, which could stand in for Canadian bacon well enough for me. There was only one problem. I had never poached an egg in my life. Oh well, I’m not getting any younger and it’s never too late to learn (or, perhaps you can’t teach an old dog new tricks).

If you have a reliable Hollandaise sauce recipe, by all means use that here. I like this one because it’s easy and flavorful for a salad. If you already know how to poach an egg better than I do, which is likely, ignore my inexperienced instructions. When I put my eggs in the simmering water, they just sunk to the bottom of the pan and stuck there. Luckily, they were actually quite resilient, and I could salvage them pretty easily. You could also just fry eggs (I’ve done this before to make Eggs Benedict) or even use hard boiled eggs if you happen to have them. Just skip the ham or Canadian bacon, and this is vegetarian.

Eggs Benedict Salad
I’ve written this for 4 servings, because I could conveniently make 4 servings of Hollandaise.

For the Hollandaise sauce
2 egg yolks
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
4 tablespoons butter, cut into small pieces
1 tablespoon lemon juice
pinch of each salt and pepper


For the salad
2 English muffins
4 eggs
2 tablespoons white distilled vinegar
4 slices deli ham or Canadian bacon
4 cups salad greens

1. To make the croutons, preheat oven to 400 F. Tear the English muffins into bite-size pieces and place on a baking sheet. Bake at 400 F until golden brown and crunchy. During the last few minutes, place the ham or Canadian bacon on the baking sheet and warm through.

2. To make the Hollandaise sauce, whisk the egg yolks and mustard in a medium heat-proof bowl that will fit over a medium saucepan (to make a double boiler). Bring a few inches of water to a simmer in the saucepan. Place the bowl over the top. The steam from the simmering water should heat the bowl (do not boil the water hard), but the bowl should not touch the water. Whisk the butter into the egg yolk mixture one piece at a time until it melts into the mixture. Repeat with all remaining pieces of butter, whisking almost constantly. The result should be a thickened sauce that is paler in color than the egg yolks were. (If you are concerned about egg safety, test the sauce with a thermometer, and make sure it is heated to 140 F for at least 3 minutes.) Whisk in the lemon juice, salt and pepper. Keep sauce warm over the simmering water until needed.







3. To poach the eggs, bring a large pot or pan of water (4 inches deep or more) and the vinegar to a simmer. Do not boil hard. Carefully remove each egg from its shell and into a small container. Gently pour each egg into the simmering water. Simmer until the egg is opaque but still soft.

4. Place 1 cup salad greens onto each of four plates. Arrange ham and croutons on the greens. Carefully remove the poached eggs from the simmering water with a slotted spoon. Place one on each plate. Pour about 2 tablespoons Hollandaise sauce over each salad.

Serves 4

Lettuce Play

First of all, there’s a new blog you need to start reading. It’s Harry’s (my husband, in case you don’t know him). It’s not a food blog, but a super-cool astronomy and star-gazing blog. It’s called the Messier Pro (and if you know that Messier was French, you can see that he totally stole the title from The Messy Apron!). Anyway, it’s geared toward anyone who likes to look up at night with a goal of helping you get the most out of your telescope, pair of binoculars, or even your pair of eyes. Check it out here, or, I’ve added it to the Other Cool Stuff link list at the right. See you there!

Well, the lettuce is still looming large in quality and quantity in my refrigerator. In addition to the head of dark red leaf lettuce and the baby greens that we received in our CSA box last week, there was a very nice head of green butter lettuce. This stuff is perfect for wrapping around tasty cooked ground meats and flavorful condiments or vegetables. I think such lettuce wraps got a boost in popularity during the low-carb craze, since the lettuce acts as a small, practically calorie-free tortilla.

I’ve had a sort of flavor anticipation (like a craving only more sophisticated…or pretentious) of crunchy vegetables, diced and drowned in big, big flavors, like sour and spicy. I thought a lettuce wrap might just be a good way to turn this anticipation into reality (as well as use up some lettuce.)

This recipe has crunch and lots of Asian-inspired hot and sour flavor. It is very spicy thanks to the whole serrano chile pepper, and the juice of a whole lime brings on lots of sourness and acidity. I bumped up the sour even more with a secret ingredient: rhubarb, which is hard to distinguish from the celery as you’re crunching away, but provides another layer of depth to the sour flavors. Radishes and raw ginger and garlic just serve to make it even more bold, though still balanced. The ground pork makes this a main dish, but also tames the vegetables a bit. I just happened to have to pork in the freezer, but you could use ground turkey or chicken or crumbled tofu if you want, or just leave the protein out and serve the wraps as a side dish or appetizer.

I usually don’t test recipes extensively before posting them on The Messy Apron. That’s why it is a blog and not a cook book. As a result, I am guessing on the number of servings this recipe makes. I only had ½ pound of ground pork, but the veggies and sauce mixture that I put together was enough to serve with twice that amount. The ½ pound was enough to feed 4 people 2-3 lettuce wraps. I served these with a side of basmati rice flavored with ginger, garlic and green onions.


Hot and Sour Lettuce Wraps with Pork

juice of 1 medium lime
1 teaspoon brown sugar
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon fish sauce
1 serrano chile pepper, stem removed, thinly sliced
½ cup celery, diced
½ cup radish, diced
½ cup rhubarb, diced
½ cup green onion (scallion) finely chopped
¼ cup chopped cilantro
1 tablespoon fresh ginger, cut into thin strips
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 pound ground pork
1 teaspoon kosher salt
¼ teaspoon pepper
1 head butter lettuce, well washed and leaves separated

1/2 cup chopped peanuts

1. Combine lime juice, brown sugar, soy sauce, fish sauce, and chile pepper slices in a medium bowl. Add the next 7 ingredients (through garlic) to the lime juice mixture.

2. Place pork, salt and pepper in a medium frying pan. Brown over medium heat until fully cooked. Drain and remove to a plate for serving.

3. To serve, spoon about 2 tablespoons pork into a lettuce leaf. Spoon about 2 to 3 tablespoons of the vegetable mixture over the pork. Sprinkle with peanuts. Wrap in the lettuce leaf.

Serves 6 to 8 as a main dish (makes about 16 lettuce wraps)