Brunch 101

Even though my kitchen is cluttered with bottles and nipples, it’s a place that inspires me. The stove might not always be on, like it is in my mom’s kitchen, but it does allow me to flex my culinary creativity when I decide to make the time to do so—just as I did in my very first kitchen, and I’m not referring to the one that I grew up in. My first kitchen was the one in my dorm suite during my sophomore year of college.

It was a slightly dingy kitchen with a window that faced the building’s air shaft, and even though it was used by five other girls, it was cleaned on a very irregular basis. It was mostly home to boxes of cereal and other ready-to-eat items, but I did enjoy using it to create my own comfort food, which was often overcooked as I would get lost in my studies and forget about whatever I had put in the oven.

One night I neglected an orzo pasta dish that was cooking in chicken broth for so long that the pasta completely absorbed the liquid. I couldn’t waste it, so I stirred in a little grated parmesan and tried to pass it off as a labor-intensive risotto. I don’t recall who I served it to, but it could very well have been my dear friend, Krissy, with whom I had a standing weekly dinner date; sometimes we'd cook for one another but mostly we'd get out to try and review every restaurant near campus.

I’m pleased to report that I still enjoy breaking bread with Krissy and no longer ignore my stove. I recently had K and her lovely husband, John, over for brunch. It was the whole nine yards—a beverage, appetizer, entrée, two side dishes, and a dessert—thanks to my husband, Steve, who was able to keep the boys entertained so that I could pull it together!

John is a produce-hound (he hails from my hometown, San Francisco, and often longs for the west coast produce of his youth) and Krissy is carrying their first child, due in October, so my menu had to pack a healthy produce punch.

I’m pretty sure that they enjoyed brunch as they both had seconds. Here’s what I served and how I did it:

Orange Mint Water
Every hot summer brunch needs a cool refreshing beverage, and I’m on a real kick with infused waters. This time I went with an orange-mint combo: just add thin slices of oranges and several mint leaves to a pitcher of water and let it sit in the fridge for a few hours. John started coughing on a pepper flake from one of the side dishes while I was trying to take photos of my water pitcher, so I graciously gave up the pursuit of the perfect shot to help save him and serve him a glass (okay, I confess: he did have to ask in between hacks, sorry again, John!)

Kale Pesto Dip
I’m a huge fan of pesto—there are so many different kids (basil, spinach, and now kale!) and I love that it can be used as an ingredient with many different applications. There’s plenty more to do with it than your standard pasta toss: use it as a sandwich spread , thin it out with oil and use it as a salad dressing, or stir it into yogurt or sour cream and serve it as a dip alongside carrots and multi-grain chips like I did! Using kale in pesto is highly nutritious and delicious but does take one extra step since kale is tough: it needs to be steamed first. I used an easy Kale Pesto recipe and then mixed it with a 6 oz container of nonfat Greek yogurt and a few tablespoons of nonfat sour cream.

Red Chard and Cremini Mushroom Reduced-Fat Crustless Quiche
I went free-style on this one, consulting an online recipe for Chard Quiche and my recently rediscovered hard-cover book, The Joy of Cooking. Pages 140-141 in my version of the book (copyright 1997) has details on the ins and outs of crustless quiche and reduced-fat quiche techniques. I married the three recipes, added the mushrooms myself, and came up with this:

1 bunch red chard
2 scallions
8 ounce basket of Cremini mushrooms (you can certainly use white button mushrooms instead, the Cremini’s just have more flavor)
Enough garlic to suit your fancy
1 ¼ cups milk (Yes, I bought and used whole milk!)
¼ cup light cream
6 egg whites
1 whole egg
¼ cup grated Parmesan cheese
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
Pinch of freshly grated or ground nutmeg

Preheat the oven to 400°F. Butter a 10-inch glass pie pan and set aside.
Wash and dry the chard and rip the leafy parts away from the thick center stalks. Pile the leaves together and cut them into smaller, approximately 1-inch wide square pieces or just tear them up with your hands. Wash and slice the mushrooms and scallions. Chop up a garlic clove or two.
Add a little olive oil to large, heated sauté pan. Throw in the garlic and the scallions and stir those around a bit. Add the chard and mushroom mixture and sauté until the chard wilts down (about 10 minutes or so, if I remember correctly.)

While the chard is wilting, combine the remaining ingredients—milk, light cream, egg whites, egg, parmesan cheese, spices— in a large mixing bowl.
Once the veggie mixture is ready and has cooled off a bit, slowly stir it in to the mixing bowl. Pour the contents of the mixing bowl into a 9-inch pie dish and bake for about 45 to 55 minutes, or until set in the center. I put the broiler on for the last 10 minutes to brown the top.

Corn Tomato and Basil Salad
I did a search for corn salads and found this Ina Garten Corn Salad recipe to use a starting point. I added grape tomatoes that I halved, drizzled with olive oil and roasted in the toaster oven until the tops looked a little shriveled. I also used rice vinegar instead of cider vinegar.

Roasted Yellow Squash and Potatoes
Follow the zucchini frizzle recipe from my Sweet Teeth post from earlier this month, but use thinly sliced yellow squash and Yukon Gold potatoes instead.

Peach and Nectarine Tapioca Pudding
I had too many peaches and nectarines to use up so I diced them for use in a refreshing dairy-free tapioca pudding that I decided to make when I came across the tapioca section in The Joy of Cooking (this tapioca recipe is on page 1022). Even though the recipe calls quick-cooking tapioca, I used all natural small pearl tapioca and followed the instructions on the bag to soak the pearls in water for 30 minutes first.

I ended up soaking about ½ cup tapioca in a little over 1 cup of water and just eyeballed the amount of soaked tapioca that made it into the saucepan. If you do use quick-cooking tapioca, the recipe calls for ¼ cup. The recipe is supposed to yield 4-6 servings, but I ended up increasing the ingredients to 1 ½ times the original measurements to be sure that we had enough (this recipe was a math lesson, to boot.) Here’s the section of the recipe from The Joy of Cooking that I did follow, prior to any quantity adjustments:

Bring to a simmer in a large saucepan:
1 ½ cups water
½ cup sugar
One 3-inch cinnamon stick (optional)

Drop in diced fruit. Simmer until tender, about 2 to 5 minutes. Stir in the tapioca pearls and simmer until the pearls are translucent and the mixture has thickened, about 5 minutes. Let cool and pour into bowls—I used ramekins that were actually a wedding gift from Krissy along with a fun kitchen blow torch!—and refrigerate until cold.

It was a sweet way to end a summer brunch, along with a beautiful peach tart that K & J brought over from the fabulous Silver Moon Bakery on the upper west side. Hopefully we didn’t scare them off with all of our baby paraphernalia that is now scattered throughout the apartment and they’ll come back again soon! I did remind them to be sure to schedule a brunch date with us for when K's due date can’t come soon enough (since I have special powers to induce labor, which you can read about in my June 29 post titled Change of Plans and Good News.)

This Week’s Produce Roll Call (over 65% of which was used in my brunch!): romaine lettuce, carrots, Yukon gold potatoes, local kale, local yellow squash, tomatoes, corn, cantaloupe, red chard, Valencia oranges, nectarines, packham pears, plums, peaches, and bananas.

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