The Humble Kitchen

People seem intimidated cooking a whole fish but it really couldn’t be easier. I had this lovely wild sockeye salmon, headless, but you can’t have everything. Flipping through a Jamie Oliver book I saw a recipe for Roast Salmon with fennel, parsley and tomato. Having no fennel I substituted some thinly sliced onion.

Thinly slice lemons, onion (or fennel) and chop tomatoes.

Mix with chopped parsley, lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper.

Season fish and rub with olive oil. Stuff with tomato mixture. Bake at 400º until just cooked, anywhere from 25 to 45 minutes depending on the size of the fish.

Serve with roast potatoes.

And something green, like asparagus.

With the leftover salmon I made another Jamie Oliver recipe, fish cakes.

Leftover salmon, boiled potatoes, lemon, parsley, eggs, salt and lots of pepper.

Formed into fish cakes, ready to cook or freeze for later.

Delicious.

-Jennifer

Thanks to Sarah for taking the roasted salmon photos.

I can’t help but be reminded of that wonderful and short lived tv show Pushing Daisies. It was an ideal blend of fantasy, word play and pie. I am reminded of it because I have a fridge full of cheese, just like the former synchronized swimming aunts of Chuck, who referred to the fridge as a cheese box.

So what does one do with all those oddly shaped remains of cheese? The dried up ends and fuzzy bits, the mystery cheese whose label is long gone, the warehouse store buy that seemed too good to pass up despite the fact that you have no use for a block of cheese the size of your head. Look no further. Here is your answer.

• 1 pound of various leftover cheeses
• ¼-½ cup dry white wine or vegetable broth, or a combination of both
• 1 clove garlic, or more to taste
• handful of parsley (optional)
• freshly ground black pepper

Assemble your cheese. Just about any cheese will do. Here I’ve used Fontina, Gruyere, Manchego, Monterey Jack, Chévre, and Gouda, because that is what was in my cheese box. Once you’ve trimmed all the scary bits off that cheese, you must leave it at room temperature to soften up a bit. If you’re using hard cheese it’s best to grate it, or at least cut it into a fine dice. Softer cheeses can be rough chopped. In a food processor finely mince the garlic. Place your cheese in and pulse a few times to mix. Add the torn parsley and a few grindings of pepper and pulse again.

Now pour in about ¼ cup of your wine or stock. Pulse a few times and add more if the mixture seems too dry. What you want is a chunky yet creamy mixture. Be careful not to over mix, you don’t want a paste. Taste and if it seems lacking in salt you can add a pinch, but most likely you won’t need any.



Place into the vessel of your choosing and refrigerate. It will taste better once it’s had some time to mellow. Eat it with crackers, apple slices, crusty bread. Put it on some toast under the broiler for a moment until warm and oozing. Deliciously frugal.

-Jennifer

Never tried this before, but I decided to give it a shot since I was out of my normal pancake mix. It is based on Carol Fenster’s sweet potato pancake recipe in her book, 1000 gluten free recipes.

I used:

1/3c sorghum flour                                                 1 egg

1/3c cornstarch                                                      1/2c of buttermilk

1/3c potato starch                                                 some oil, maybe a tablespoon?

1t baking powder                                                   1/2 c of sweet potato puree

1/2t baking soda

a bit of salt

1T brown  sugar

Mixed it all together and poured them on the hot, buttered, iron skillet.

Aside from not being able to find the charger holder for my whipped cream canister and having to break the bad news to the whipped cream loving kid that there will be no happy faces on the pancakes, these were a success. Could I eat them all the time? Nah, not really. A bit too rich for everyday fare, but quite tasty. The kids covered theirs in wild blueberries and maple syrup and gobbled them up.

Hey, another vegetable made it’s way onto my non-omlette breakfast plate. Yipee!

~Sarah

P.S. Don’t forget to check out the blue moon tonight.

Recently I acquired a lovely book called Loaf, Crust and Crumb by Silvija Davidson. It’s a sort of encyclopedia of bread. There are recipes, but not for the bread itself, rather how to use the bread once you’ve got it. I love this idea, particularly the uses for stale bread. We tend to forget that necessity brought about so many delicious recipes we still enjoy today. Who doesn’t love French toast (pain perdu to the French), a way of saving yesterday’s lost bread? Stuffing, croutons, all these are in the book, along with some unexpected recipes like Brown Bread Ice Cream.

I have the great fortune of living near enough to the Acme Bread Company that I can enjoy these exceptional loaves on a regular basis. My favorite being pain au levain. I could happily eat the entire loaf in one day, but when I manage to show some restraint and I have a bit leftover, there are so many possibilities. One of my favorites is a Moroccan inspired stuffed fish. I particularly like Jamie Oliver’s recipe, though I tend to use butterflied whole trout, and I don’t bother to tie it. Delicious with or without the bacon & crème fraîche.

The most recent way I’ve used up my bread was for breakfast, after having noticed a recipe for Migas in a beautiful book by Sam & Sam Clark called Moro. I decided to see what I had in the fridge. I sauteed onion and garlic in bacon drippings, added in the bread cubes, salt, pepper, smoked paprika, a fresno chile and some spinach for color. Topped it off with a fried egg. Breakfast served.

-Jennifer