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Rancho La Puerta … Take Three

Posted on September 1, 2011 by Lia Huber — 5 Comments ↓

This was my third year returning to Rancho La Puerta Resort and Spa in Mexico to teach at their La Cocina Que Canta cooking school. And, honestly, it gets more blissful every year. I’ll let the pictures and video clips speak for themselves.

The scenery and landscaping is striking, from tiny details to broad vistas. The natural beauty evokes a deep feeling of timelessness, while man-made additions–like sculptures that take your breath away dotted all over the property–drop you into the moment of Here. Now.

There’s a simplicity to the Ranch that instills serenity. Lines of nature are paralleled in various touches that feel as if they’ve been there forever.

And then there’s Tres Estrellas …

Tres Estrellas is the Ranch’s five acre organic garden, presided over by genius gardener Salvador (I actually wrote a poem for Salvador the first year I was there). Spend three minutes with Salvador and you’ll know that you’re with a man who has found his calling. He claws up earth to wax on about healthy soil and beams at rows of healthy eggplant as if he were praising his own children. It’s always a delight and a privilege to take students out into the garden with Salvador before cooking the ingredients he’s harvested for us (you can see a clip of that down below).

… And La Cocina Que Canta

Ah … La Cocina Que Canta. It’s heaven for cooking teachers and students alike. A gorgeous kitchen, incredible staff (that’s Gabby, Celia, Melissa and Alejandro there with me below … and my BFF, Julie, who took these pics and videos!) and all in all an inviting place to be.

Wish you could be there for a class? Watch these videos and you’ll get a taste …

It starts like this …

And then we head out into the garden …

Then I talk through what we’re cooking and give some mini lessons on nourishing principles …

And then we cook! In my classes, the students do most of the work, but here I’m doing a sauteing demo with some gorgeous baby zucchini (blossoms on) that we harvested from the garden.

I’ll see you next year at Rancho La Puerta!

Back to Basics

Posted on August 29, 2011 by Lia Huber — 2 Comments ↓

I’ve spent most of my career writing and developing recipes for long lead-time magazines. It wasn’t unusual for me to hit send and not see an article again until it was in print a year later. So it’s been a big change for me to teach classes face to face, as I did at Rancho La Puerta last week.

And I have to say: I love it. Now I get to see up close and personal where people trip up in the kitchen and when the aha! comes into their eyes. Here are three of the basics that come up again and again, yet leave the most lasting impact.

back-to-basics

Learn how to dice. One of the biggest hurdles to eating more vegetables is all the darn prep time. But learning how to quickly cut pieces of uniform size makes it go much faster … and makes prep time much more enjoyable. (Here’s how to dice an onion.)

How to: Cut your vegetable so it has a flat surface to rest on the cutting board. Hold your knife parallel to the cutting board and slice horizontal slices as thick as you want your cubes to be (it’s easiest if you leave a connector area, like the root end of an onion, in tact to hold the slices together). Then pinch those slices together with your left hand and cut lengthwise slices of the same width perpendicular to the cutting board. Continue to hold the pieces together with fingers like a claw and cut cross-wise slices the same width as the other two cuts. The result will be uniform cubes of vegetables—whether onion, sweet potato or zucchini.

Make mincing garlic easy. Those jars of minced garlic may seem like a great convenience, but you’re really not doing yourself any favors. Much of garlic’s pungency comes from the oils released by smashing or cutting the cloves, and their strength dissipates over time. But once you learn how to quickly mince garlic, you’ll see it takes less than a minute to prep 3-5 cloves, which is all you need for most dishes.

How to: One at a time, smash a clove by laying the side of your chef’s knife on top (with the blade parallel to the cutting board) and hitting it hard with your palm. Remove the skin. Smash the skinless cloves once again with the side of your knife, scrape the garlic together and run over it a few times with your knife using a rocking motion; hold your hand flat on top of the tapered end of the blade to keep it still while you rock up and down with the hand holding the knife, moving forward and back over the garlic.

Make your stainless-steel pan nonstick. One of the most frustrating things in the kitchen is when food sticks to a pan. But it’s almost impossible to create a fond for making pan sauces if you’re using a nonstick pan all the time. The secret is to heat your regular pan before you add oil (or butter or bacon fat or …). When you add oil to a cold pan, it sinks into the microscopic nooks and crannies in the metal. Heating it first makes the cells expand to create a more uniform surface that, once slicked with oil, becomes virtually nonstick.

How to: Heat your regular pan over medium-high heat and wait until it feels like you’re warming your hands over a campfire when you hold your hands over the pan. Then swirl the oil around the pan and wait a few seconds for it to shimmer before adding whatever you’re going to sauté.

I hope these three back-to-basics cooking tips help you! Now go practice all three (OK, well, two) on this tasty Sautéed Succotash … you can get video tips for prepping just about every ingredient listed in our library of Kitchen Tips Video Clips.

Relandscape Your Kitchen

Posted on August 19, 2011 by Lia Huber — 1 Comment ↓

Lately, as I’ve been getting my garden into shape, I’ve been reflecting on how some outdoor techniques can apply in the kitchen to create a healthier landscape to cook in. Here are three ways to relandscape your kitchen (and, unlike most landscaping projects, they won’t cost you a cent!):

relandscape-your-ktichen

Get Rid of What Doesn’t Work– When we first put our yard in, Christopher and I were on the lookout for ground cover. We saw one we liked—a euphorbia—and I bought a bunch of seedlings hoping they’d take root and spread. And oh did they spread. That particular type of euphorbia, it turns out, spreads by underground rhizome, and although the tag had promised it would max out at eight inches tall, most of our plants were bushy 2-foot monsters.What had seemed attractive at first ultimately threatened to choke out all the painstakingly placed plants in the yard. There’s a parallel here with our pantries. I used to pack my pantry with pretzels because they seemed attractive as a “low fat” choice. Over time, though, I discovered that I was always at battle with them. I wanted the pretzels to make me slim, but instead I’d feel sluggish and bloated after eating them. Sometimes, we just need to admit that something needs to come out.
Move Things Around– My mom’s yard is always in flux; in a good way. If a hosta becomes stagnant, she’ll relocate it under another tree. If a clump of lilies becomes too dense, she’ll dig them up and replant them throughout the garden. The lesson I’ve gleaned from my mom’s technique is that location does affect whether or not something “takes.”I think of this every time I open my cupboard and see my grains on the shelf above my head. I say I want to eat more whole grains—both in quantity and variety—and yet they’re essentially out of sight and in a place that takes effort to reach. By moving my grains to a more accessible location (on my project list), they’ll have more of a chance to take root in my family’s daily diet.
Try Some New Things– Some of my greatest triumphs in the garden have come from experimentation. One year, we became smitten with Padron peppers at a restaurant and decided to give growing them a try. Since then, they’ve been hands-down the most productive plant in the garden every year. Little delights like that can happen in your kitchen too, and you don’t even need to buy anything new. If you bought a jar of cardamom for a coffeecake recipe six months ago, give it a shot in a curry. If you have some dried chiles lingering on a shelf, throw a few in a pot of beans.

This week, seek out ways to relandscape your kitchen so it will better nurture you.

Summer Confits

Posted on August 5, 2011 by Lia Huber — 3 Comments ↓

This post may be a bit premature, since we’re all still in the early glow of summer’s offerings. But as the season wears on and you’ve had your 304th tomato salad and 172nd roasted pepper, odds are you’re going to be looking for other ways to use your summer veggies. Well I’ve got just the thing: a summery confit.

Officially, confit (pronounced con-FEE) is a specialty of Southwestern France where meat is cooked in its own fat for long hours at a low heat to render it succulent and silken—think duck confit and you’ll get the picture. Unofficially, confit is just about anything cooked slowly in a bit of fat and its own juices to give it a melt-in-your-mouth texture and rich depth of flavor, making it a great technique to use on summer veggies.

confit-vignette

There’s a magical give and take with a vegetable confit. Oil at a steady, low heat almost melts the vegetables and burnishes them with just the slightest hint of sweetness while they, in turn, impart their distinctive flavor back into the oil. Strain off that oil and you’ve got the makings for one tasty vinaigrette. Or scrape everything into a tight-sealing jar and store it in the fridge for up to a week.

Using Confits

Summer confits are extraordinarily versatile—somewhere between a condiment, a spread, a dip and a sauce—and the ultimate summer convenience food. Here are just a few ways to use them:

* Mounded on grilled baguette slices for out-of-this-world crostini toppings
* Tossed with pasta and a grating of pecorino for an easy, no-cook pasta sauce
* Served in a bowl next to a basket of pita chips as an impromptu dip
* Spooned onto a plate as a condiment for a cheese course
* Spread on the bottom of a baguette as the base for a stellar sandwich
* Mixed into beaten eggs for an easy frittata

Making Confits

Confits take a bit of time to cook because of the low-and-slow approach, but they scale easily so feel free to double or even triple the recipe. The basic method is the same for all confits, although you’ll have to adjust timing and measurements for each vegetable.

Step 1: Start with 2 cups thinly sliced vegetables (some, like onions and peppers, will hold their shape better than others, like zucchini and tomatoes, which will become almost the consistency of jam or marmalade). Feel free to add thinly sliced aromatics (garlic, shallot, onion or even ginger) and chopped herbs to the heap.

Step 2: Heat ¼ cup extra virgin olive oil over medium-low heat in a large sauté pan and swirl to coat the pan. Add vegetables (along with any aromatics or herbs) and a pinch of salt and pepper (add a pinch of sugar tooif it’s an especially bitter vegetable). Toss to coat. Cook, stirring every few minutes to ensure even cooking, for 25-75 minutes depending on the vegetable, until they’re meltingly soft and lightly gilded with caramelization.

Step 3: If you like, finish with a squeeze of lemon or a bit of citrus zest or fresh herbs.

Makes 1 to 1-1/2 cups

Pasta with Summer Squash, Sausage and Pesto

Posted on July 30, 2011 by Lia Huber — No Comments ↓

I pulled this pasta together one night when I had leftover sausage and summer squash in the fridge and a daughter eager to help out in the kitchen–the pesto came as much as an activity as an element of the dish. We went to the garden together to pick the basil and Noemi pounded the pesto together in our mortar and pestle. If you don’t have a mortar and pestle, use a blender and add warm water by the tablespoon as needed to blend.

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“Melted” Summer Squash

Posted on July 30, 2011 by Lia Huber — 3 Comments ↓

This is one of my favorite ways to serve summer squash. You can use any type of squash, but I prefer the denser, green-fleshed varieties, such as zucchini. It’s a great summer squash recipe to use up a bumper crop. I also like to add a dash of Guatemalan smoked chile pepper a friend of mine gave to me; this is a great dish to be adventurous with anything special you want to play with too.

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My Kid in the Kitchen

Posted on July 28, 2011 by Lia Huber — No Comments ↓

Moms ask me all the time if my daughter is a good eater, and I’m happy to say that she is. Part of the reason is that I put her to work in the kitchen (from an early age … see the video below). I’ve said before and I’ll say again that the more kids get involved with their food, the more likely they are to eat it. Here are a few ways that Noemi (4-1/2) and I cook together in the kitchen.

We snap beans and peas together, and husk corn … often at the table outside or on our front stoop (I think God made front stoops as a place to husk corn and eat popsicles).
Noemi “zips” greens for me. She loves, loves, loves doing this and is so proud of what a great job she does.
She cuts soft vegetables and fruits like mushrooms and strawberries. I bought a couple of plastic serrated knives from Curious Chef a couple of years ago and we’ve never looked back. Noe puts a cutting board on her her little “stove,” picks up her knife and goes.
Noe loves pounding garlic in my mortar and pestle. Last night, as I was pulling together a pasta with zucchini and pesto, she perked up and asked if she could help out. So I put her to work on the pesto (what she’s not so fond of is mommy hopping up to get her camera and then making her hold a pose …).
A different season, but Noemi also loves getting pomegranate seeds out of the pod, and little things like rolling cheese in breadcrumbs and shaping mounds of dough.

The point is, the kitchen is a really fun place for kids if you invite them to do things that they can excel at and enjoy … no matter what their age. Start them young and your kids will become naturally curious towards food, rather than looking at it as something foisted upon them.

Last night after making her pesto, for instance, Noemi was enthusiastic about sitting down for dinner. And, yes, she did eat the zucchini.

7 Things to Have in Your Summer Pantry

Posted on July 21, 2011 by Lia Huber — 9 Comments ↓

Yes, we all know how important it is to have a well-stocked pantry. Those beans and grains and canned tomatoes come in quite handy during months when produce is bleak. But what about at the height of summer, when veggies are at their peak? I’d argue it’s just as important to keep your pantry strategically stocked, so you can turn those mounds of tomatoes and zucchini and eggplant (oh my!) into healthy summer meals at the drop of a hat.

Here are seven things I like to keep stocked in my pantry during summer:

Anchovies — Anchovies are amazing. They add a punch of savory umami–and good-for-you omega-3 fatty acids–to anything from tomato sauce (think pasta putanesca) to salad dressing (yep, hail, Caesar). I think their flavor pairs especially well with summery foods like zucchini, tomato and pepper. Salted anchovies have the best flavor, but can be hard to come by. I like to keep a jar of good-quality anchovies in my fridge; if you’re intimidated by whole anchovies, you could opt for a tube of anchovy paste instead.
White Beans — In summer, when we tend to eat lighter and focus more heavily on vegetables, a can of beans can make a main course. Toss them into a fresh garden salad, stir them into a summer stir-fry, or mix them in with your favorite vegetarian pasta. Besides adding a lovely “umph” and flavor to the dish, beans bring a healthy dose of filling fiber and protein.
Capers — It’s so funny. In winter, I think of capers as a quintessentially cold-weather addition, and in summer I think of them as belonging to that season. They go especially well with tomatoes, and I like them paired with squash too. They also bring a nice zing to grilled summer foods like firm white fish fillets, chicken or steak. I like them best whisked into oil with a copious amount of minced garlic and parsley.
Good Extra-Virgin Olive Oil — Around the stove, I reach for an average Joe bottle of extra-virgin olive oil. Those tend to be filtered, which means they stand up better to a bit of heat. But come summer, I want the cloudiest, most unctuous, tongue-tingling extra-virgin olive oil I can find because I’m drizzling it fresh over raw veggies. That cloudiness comes from impurities in the oil–little bits of olive paste that were left after the first pressing. That sediment is what makes the oil so incredibly flavorful (and so incredibly healthy … the antioxidants are what make your tongue tingle), but it’s also what burns when heated. So keep your high-quality extra-virgin olive oil away from the stove … and use it liberally during summer!
Whole Grain Pasta — I haven’t yet met a summer vegetable I couldn’t turn into ten or more variations of pasta. If you’ve got a garden, and you’ve got a box of whole grain pasta on the shelf, you’ve got dinner (bonus if you have these other items in your pantry too!).
Good Salt — Get yourself a perfectly-ripe heirloom tomato. Slice it into thin wedges. Get yourself a great bottle of extra virgin olive oil and drizzle a bit on top. Get yourself a box of Maldon Sea Salt (or another flakey sea salt) and sprinkle on a pinch. Take a bite. I rest my case.
White and Red Wine Vinegar — Yes, I am an advocate of having four or more types of vinegar in your pantry at any given time. But to me, summer is a time for the mellow flavors of white and red wine vinegar. A couple of lemon cucumbers from the garden sprinkled with white wine vinegar and sea salt is often my mid-afternoon snack. And red wine vinegar, to me, makes a lovely, flavorful foil for mixed greens laden with tomatoes and onion.

These are seven things I’m never without come summer. What are yours?

Buttery, Crumbly Tart Crust

Posted on June 30, 2011 by Lia Huber — No Comments ↓

I wanted a more crumbly (as opposed to flakey) tart crust for the Cherry Apricot Almond Tart I make. This simple pastry dough recipe is it.

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Cherry Apricot Almond Tart

Posted on June 30, 2011 by Lia Huber — 2 Comments ↓

This tart has the trifecta effect of cherries + almonds + apricots. And it’s gorgeous. I love how this tart gives off both a casual, rustic feeling and a sense of refinement at the same time. Get ready for it to be the talk of the barbecue.

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