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Walnut Bread with Boursin and Prosciutto

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When Saghar from Labnoon reached out to me about joining her Virtual Midsummer Potluck for Peace I knew I had to join. These days, with all bad news seemingly streaming into our computers and smartphones and into our consciousness constantly things can feel so dark and dire. I know I’ve written about it before, but besides taking action locally to fight for things we believe in, I really believe one of the best things you can do is gather with people you love and people in your community.

Get off your phone, out of Facebook and Twitter, and just spend time with people face to face. It reminds you of what is important- your relationships with people, that life does go on, and things can get better no matter how hard things seem now.

This walnut bread is a simple quick bread that you can whip up with most things you already have in in your pantry. It’s nutty and slightly sweet, and a great accompaniment to something creamy and salty. I love to top a slice with Boursin and prosciutto. If you can’t find Boursin, you can easily use a creamy fresh goat cheese (with herbs and garlic would be perfect), a ricotta, or any kind of spreadable cheese. I love it with prosciutto the way my friend’s mom serves it, but you could do any kind of sliced ham or none at all. I bet roasted red peppers or grilled summer vegetables would be great on this, too.

And for more inspiration for your summer picnic, check out all the amazing participants of the #virtualmidsummerpotluck4peace!

Adventures in Cooking: Strawberry rhubarb pie ice cream sandwiches

An Edible Mosaic: Middle Eastern Spiced Green Beans with Olive Oil and Tomato

Brewing Happiness: Healthy Southern Baked Beans

Cloudy Kitchen: Earl Grey blueberry pie

Cook Til Delicious: Cold Sesame Peanut Noodles

Delicious Not Gorgeous: No Mai Fan

DisplacedHousewife: Strawberry Scone-Cakes With Fresh Orange Blossom Whipped Cream

Donuts, dresses and dirt: Tahini Pavlovas

Floating Kitchen: Blistered Green Beans with Apricots and Chive Blossoms

Harvest and Honey: Chasing Summer (drink)

Hortus Cuisine: Panino with Roasted Peppers, Pesto & Arugula

Lab Noon: Persian Cucumber & “Sekanjebin” Summer Drink

On The Plate: Sriracha Scotch Eggs

Ruby Josephine: Halwa d’Tmar (Moroccan Date-Stuffed Cookies)

Tasty Seasons: Grilled Mojito Chicken

Tending the Table: Roasted Cauliflower with Pine Nuts, Parsley and Currants

TermiNatetor Kitchen: Strawberry Shortcakes with Gluten-Free Yogurt Biscuits & Mint Whipped Cream

The Little Epicurean: Halo-Halo (Filipino Shave Ice Dessert)

This Mess Is Ours: Simple Tomato & Avocado Salad

Twigg studios: roasted beet leek and feta quiche

Vermilion Roots: Tofu Salad with Spiced Peanut Sauce

Wood and Spoon: Strawberry Almond Skillet Cake

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Walnut Bread with Boursin and Prosciutto
Prep Time
10 mins
Cook Time
1 hr
Total Time
1 hr 10 mins
 
Author: Sonja Bradfield
Ingredients
  • 3 cups of flour
  • 4 tsp of baking powder
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 3/4 cups chopped walnuts
  • 1 egg
  • 3/4 cup of sugar
  • 2 tbsp melted butter
  • 1 1/4 cups of milk
Instructions
  1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
  2. Butter just the bottom of a loaf pan.
  3. Whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar into a large bowl.
  4. Add the walnuts and mix.
  5. In a separate bowl whisk the egg, then add the butter and milk and whisk together.
  6. Stir in the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until just combined (don't overmix!).
  7. Pour the batter into the loaf pan and bake for one hour, or until a toothpick poked into the center comes out clean.

 

Spring Pasta with Mushrooms, Asparagus, Spring Onion, and Goat Cheese

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Although ramps are the most loudly heralded on social media every April, I also look for spring onions and asparagus. Spring onions are young onions that haven’t fully grown into the round onion you find in the supermarket. They have a small bulb and come with the greens attached. They have a less assertive onion flavor and I love them charred on the grill.

Though we now see asparagus in the market year round these days, asparagus also comes into season in spring. I love the tender, skinny asparagus that require very little cooking. I will eat them prepared in any fashion- grilled, boiled, steamed, and if in season, cut into long, raw ribbons.

My friends or maybe even anyone who visits this blog might think that because I love cooking and discovering new foods that I dine nightly on a fancy meal with exotic ingredients and difficult preparations. But in fact I suspect most cooks, even people online that present a perfect plate of food with lots of pretty elements and complicated techniques, typically eat fast, easy, and simple dishes. This is a perfect example of such a dish.

This pasta is a kind of pasta primavera, or spring pasta, tossed with mushrooms, asparagus, and spring onions and the simplest of sauces, fresh goat cheese thinned with a few splashes of the pasta cooking water. You can use any kind of small bite-sized pasta for this dish, but I like orecchiette because it kind of catches the sauce like a little scoop. With lemon peel zested right into the pasta for a bit of brightness and topped with freshly grated cheese and black pepper, it’s the the perfect easy dish for spring.

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Spring Pasta with Mushrooms, Asparagus, Spring Onion and Goat Cheese
Prep Time
10 mins
Cook Time
20 mins
Total Time
30 mins
 
Servings: 4
Author: Sonja Bradfield
Ingredients
  • 1/2 lb of pasta I used orecchiette because the scoops capture the sauce!
  • 1 tablespoon of oil
  • 4 oz of mushrooms chopped into bite sized pieces
  • 1 bunch of the skinniest asparagus you can find trimmed of the woody bottoms and chopped into 1 inch pieces
  • 2 spring onions trimmed of their roots and any dry, green tips and chopped
  • 1/4 cup dry white wine
  • 5 oz of goat cheese chevre
  • lemon to zest over pasta
  • pecorino or parmesan for serving
  • salt and pepper
Instructions
  1. Bring a large pot of water to boil. Cook the pasta according to the maker's instructions (my orecchiette took 10 minutes).
  2. Meanwhile, heat the oil in a Dutch oven or large sauté pan over medium hight heat and add the mushrooms. Let them sit undisturbed for about five minutes until golden then stir fry until all the liquid has released.
  3. Add the onion and cook until the white parts are translucent.
  4. Add the asparagus and cook for about 2 minutes. Pour in the wine and scrape up any brown bits at the bottom. Let the wine evaporate completely. Season the vegetables with salt and pepper.
  5. Put the drained pasta into the pot, reserving about a 1/4 cup of pasta cooking water. Stir in the goat cheese and thin out the sauce with pasta cooking water a spoonful at a time until smooth.
  6. Zest the whole lemon over the pot and stir. Check for seasoning and salt as needed.
  7. Serve with grated cheese and fresh black pepper.

 

Pascualina (Spinach and Ricotta Pie)

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It’s time for some beautiful, sunny weather before the humidity creeps into the Mid-Atlantic. If you can somehow remedy the symptoms of spring allergies enough to want to sit outside and enjoy this season, I recommend having as many picnics and cookouts as possible before it gets too hot. For picnics I always prepare some kind of cheese plate that is composed of cheese, fruits, and pickled things that can easily be thrown into a bag and later assembled, some crudités and a dip or two, and a ready-to-eat dish that doesn’t need to be heated to be delicious.

I was introduced to pascualina by my dear Uruguayan friends, a trio of sisters and their parents that I consider family. It’s a savory dish of greens and cheese, with eggs baked right into the mixture, wrapped in a savory, flaky crust. It’s great warm out of the oven, but it tastes even better cooled to room temperature. It’s a dish that was traditionally enjoyed at Easter (Pascua means Easter in Spanish). Of course it’s great any time of year, but the greens and egg seem so appropriate to this season and holiday.

Print
Pascualina (Spinach and Ricotta Pie)
Prep Time
30 mins
Cook Time
1 hr
Total Time
1 hr 30 mins
 
Servings: 6
Author: Sonja Bradfield
Ingredients
  • 2 pie crusts store bought or two of this recipe
  • 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil
  • 1 cup of chopped onion
  • 2 cloves of garlic minced
  • 2 10 ounce packages of frozen chopped spinach (or about 3 1/2 pounds of fresh spinach or chard cooked until wilted)
  • 1 cup of ricotta
  • 1/2 cup of grated parmesan
  • fresh grated nutmeg
  • 1/2 teaspoon of salt
  • 1/8 teaspoon of black pepper
  • 6 eggs
  • flour for rolling out
Instructions
  1. Heat the vegetable oil over medium heat in a large skillet.
  2. Sauté the onion and garlic until translucent, about five minutes. Add the frozen spinach and let it thaw out and the liquid cook off. Set aside to cool.
  3. Mix the ricotta, parmesan, nutmeg, salt and pepper together in a bowl. Mix in the cooled spinach mixture. Taste for seasoning and adjust accordingly.
  4. Turn on the oven to 400 degrees to preheat.
  5. On a floured surface, roll out one of the pie crusts to about 12 inches in diameter and place on a piece of parchment paper on a baking sheet.
  6. Pile the spinach mixture into the center of the crust, and smooth out in a circle, leaving a two inch edge.
  7. Make five indentations and carefully crack the eggs into them.
  8. Place the second pie crust on top and carefully seal the edges by crimping or folding and twisting the edge in as pictured.
  9. Whisk the remaining egg and a splash of water together and brush evenly over the pie crust.
  10. Place it in the oven and immediately turn down the temperature to 350 degrees.
  11. Bake for about 45 minutes or until the crust is golden brown.
  12. Let cool for at least 20 minutes to eat warm or cool to room temperature.

 

Steak Salad with Salsa Verde

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The gentle art of gastronomy is a friendly one. It hurdles the language barrier, makes friends among civilized people, and warms the heart.

–Samuel Chamberlain


A lot has happened since I last blogged in October. I likely don’t need to review current events for you, and I’m not really interested in getting overtly political here. But something would be amiss if I just blogged as if something hasn’t shifted for me personally.

The whole point of me starting this blog was to share experiences and memories through food. And of course, food can be quite political, as anything can be. But I want to use this space to emphasize something that I think is very important and seems to be getting lost these days – gathering and sharing a meal together, and seeing the faces of your family, friends, and neighbors without the noise of the news and social media drowning out real connections you have with folks who may or may not have voted the same way you did.

That’s not to say that you shouldn’t stay informed or get involved. If you feel uneasy, upset, disoriented – take action. I know it’s really helped me a lot to channel these feelings into something productive. But you need to take care of yourself and spend quality time with people without a smartphone or the TV on. My fiancé (a story for another post!) and I have been sitting down to a home cooked dinners every night we are both at home, unplugging, and just talking about our day and what’s going on around us. It’s a small act, but it helps. And as the weather gets warmer, we plan to get together with friends more often to do this very thing.


This meal is quick and easy and perfect for a weeknight dinner. But it’s also a bit different and nice enough to share with dinner guests. The sauce comes together in a blender or food processor in a few seconds and the steak cooks to a medium rare in about ten minutes, either in a cast iron skillet or on the grill. While the steak rests, use a vegetable peeler to create shavings of parmesan and simply dress the greens with lemon juice and olive oil.

A quickly seared steak sliced on peppery arugula with parmesan shavings and topped with a fresh Italian style salsa verde is the perfect dinner to eat outdoors on a warm night (or inside by an open window).

Print
Steak Salad with Salsa Verde
Prep Time
10 mins
Cook Time
10 mins
Total Time
20 mins
 
I've had great success using NY strip steaks, ribeyes, and sirloin for this salad, but you could also use flank or skirt steak cooked medium rare and cut against the grain.
Servings: 4
Author: Sonja Bradfield
Ingredients
Salsa Verde
  • 1 cup Italian parsley leaves
  • 2 cloves garlic roughly chopped
  • 2 anchovy fillets rinsed
  • 1 tablespoons capers rinsed
  • 1/4 cup pine nuts or walnuts
  • A few pinches Red pepper flakes
  • Zest of 1 lemon
  • 1 to 2 teaspoons red wine vinegar
  • 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
Steak & Salad
  • 20 oz New York strip steaks ribeye steaks, or sirloin
  • vegetable oil and butter or ghee if cooking on stovetop rather than grill
  • kosher salt & coarsely ground black pepper
  • fresh lemon juice from zested lemon
  • baby arugula
  • extra-virgin olive oil
  • parmesan
Instructions
  1. Pat both sides of the steak dry and season with salt and pepper.
  2. If using a skillet on a stovetop (preferably a cast iron skillet with vents going and windows open!), place over high heat with a mixture of oil and butter or use ghee (clarified butter). OR, if using a gas grill, turn to high to preheat.
  3. Put all the ingredients for the salsa verde in a food processor or blender and pulse until well combined, scraping down the sides a few times.
  4. Place steak in skillet and cook for about ten minutes, flipping every 30 seconds. OR place steak on the grill, cooking for about 5 minutes on each side. Steak should reach 130-135 degrees for medium rare.
  5. When finished, rest the steak for about 10 minutes. Meanwhile, toss the arugula with fresh lemon juice, then with a drizzle of olive oil. Season with salt and pepper. Divide evenly between plates.
  6. Slice the steak and place on top of the arugula. Top the steak with the salsa verde. Use a vegetable peeler to shave parmesan on top.

 

Pumpkin Jeon

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The Mid-Atlantic region has had another confusing bout of very warm weather. The AC was turned back on and I had to find the summer clothes I had started putting away. Then this weekend, a trip out to a Maryland farm took a very chilly turn. With falling temperatures and a cutting wind at our backs, we  took a hayride to a pumpkin patch to find our perfect jack ‘o lantern. Buoyed by warm spiced cider and a cannon that launched pumpkins at sculptures modeled after Transformers (yes, this exists!), we attempted to navigate a massive corn maze in the dark….

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