an open cupboard

The sausages are from the Fatted Calf, a local artisanal charcuterie known for corrupting strict vegetarians (according to one of their formerly veg employees). The sweet, tangy goat cheese is from Yerba Santa dairy. The vegetables are from the farmer’s market and the lemon is from my backyard. Penance for a fallen foodblogger.

Spring vegetables with lemon herb sausages, polenta, and goat cheese

4 cups boiling water, in a small saucepan
1 cup polenta
salt to taste
butter

1-2 TBS butter
1/2 large red onion, chopped
1 stalk & bulb green garlic, chopped (chop the leafy ends and save for seasoning the dish at the end of cooking)
2 small zucchinis (I used Cocozelle), halved lengthwise and coarsely sliced
2 small squashy looking (I used scallopini), halved lengthwise and coarsely sliced
3 small carrots, peeled and sliced into coins
1/3 of a medium eggplant, coarsely chopped
5-6 sun-dried tomatoes in oil, sliced into matchsticks
4 cooked Fatted Calf lemon herb sausages (or similar, these sausages are pretty small, a little more than half a pound), chopped into bite size pieces
1/2 lemon
goat cheese

– Into the pot of boiling water, stir the polenta until it begins to thicken. Add some butter (how much you add depends on personal taste and your willingness to eat vast quantities of delicious butterfat). Lower the flame to a low simmer and stir frequently as you work. The polenta should take about 30 minutes to cook.
– Heat a large cast iron pan or saute pan over a medium flame. Add butter when hot. When the butter has melted, add the onions.
– Saute the onions until almost transluscent, then add the garlic. Saute for a minute or two.
– Add the vegetables in stages, so as not to lower the temperature of the contents of the pan. I added the vegetables in three stages, waiting a minute or so between each addition.
– Saute vegetables and then allow to cook.
– You’re remembering to stir the polenta, right? And always in the same direction.
– When the vegetables are bright and almost cooked, add the sliced sun-dried tomatoes and stir.
– Add in the sausage pieces and stir.
– Season to taste with salt, pepper, and paprika. Here’s your chance to improvise with some herbes de provence, for example, which I didn’t have on hand. Squeeze the lemon half over the vegetables.
– Taste, correct seasoning, and turn off the flame.

Serve atop polenta and sprinkle with crumbled goat cheese.

Serves 2-3

If you’re like me, you’re probably content to eat any form of pasta for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, so any leftovers are a rarity. My husband, A, is very fond of cooking and eating pasta, but he usually cooks the amount he’d like to eat, rather than the amount two people (and one dog) are capable of eating in one go. As a result, we often have leftover pasta sitting in the fridge. I’m the first to admit that I love even cold pasta, but it’s a little less appealing than the freshly cooked, steaming hot variety, with a drizzle of olive oil and a sprinkling of salt and freshly ground pepper. So… what do you do with leftover spaghetti?

A friend of A’s once taught me a great Italian trick for using up the remains of last night’s pasta: spaghetti frittata for breakfast. Open the fridge and take out a bowl of cold, lifeless, leftover spaghetti. Chop it up, and mix it with beaten eggs, cheese, herbs, and spices. Fry the whole thing in a cast-iron pan and finish it off under the broiler. It makes a great breakfast, possibly topped with a little creme fraiche and some salad on the side. It makes a nice dinner as well. It’s also extremely versatile. You can throw in bits of cured meat, add creme fraiche or sour cream to the batter, experiment with different herbs such as fresh oregano and thyme, use different types of cheeses, or add in olives or sun-dried tomatoes. The possibilities are endless, limited only by the bounds of good taste and whatever you’ve got in your pantry. My version uses ingredients I had lying around, including some leftover black-eyed peas. They add a pleasantly soft texture that contrasts with the chewy pasta. Lightly crushed coriander seeds add some crunch and a lemony flavor that goes well with the fennel.

Spaghetti Frittatta with Black-eyed Peas and Fennel

1-2 TBS butter
1/2 chopped onion
1 chopped spring onion
2 cloves crushed garlic
1/2 diced fennel
leftover pasta, coarsely chopped
leftover black-eyed peas
minced parsley
minced fennel fronds
3-4 beaten eggs
salt and pepper to taste
paprika to taste
1-2 tsp coriander seeds
grated or sliced cheese (goat, cheddar, gruyere, pecorino, etc.)

– Saute the onions and garlic on a medium to low flame in a large pan. When transluscent, add the fennel.
– Season onion mixture with coriander seeds and stir.
– In a bowl, mix the pasta with the beans, herbs, and eggs. Optionally, mix in some grated cheese.
– Season with salt, pepper, and paprika.
– Pour pasta mixture into pan, and mix to more or less evenly distribute onions. Smooth into a pancake shape and allow to cook for several minutes.
– Turn on broiler and grate or slice cheese on top of frittatta.
– Turn off flame and place frittatta under the broiler until cheese bubbles and frittatta is lightly golden.

Makes breakfast for 2-3, along with a fresh salad, or grilled fennel with olive oil.

Fat, purple asparagus, freshly harvested. Bright green fava beans in their pods. Fragrant green garlic and creamy King trumpet mushrooms. The spring bounty of the Berkeley farmer’s market is a fine one. Warm weather and crisp spring vegetables seem to beckon a dinner of light, small dishes. Fresh spring produce inspires with its beauty and promise of robust flavor. A simple dish celebrates these virtues by allowing the vegetables to speak for themselves, without being muffled by dominant sauces or meats.

My original idea, hatched on a long train ride home, was to make a dish of fava beans, another of asparagus, and a variation on Elise’s chard tzatziki. But time and patience are limited on a week day, while laziness is not, so the tzatziki was postponed for another dinner. I settled on just the fava beans and the asparagus. The fava beans didn’t turn out the way I expected, so I won’t bother posting the recipe here. The asparagus, however, were quite a different matter. I paired them with the King trumpet mushrooms, frying them in butter and sliced garlic. A splash of sherry adds a wonderful dimension to the mushrooms, which greedily soak up the sherry flavor. A few thin slices of naturally cured salami added a meaty, slightly tart flavor and some shavings of Gruyere rounded it out. Ah… thank the gods for spring.

Asparagus with Mushrooms

1 TBS butter
2 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
1/2-3/4 lb. fresh purple asparagus, roughly chopped
3-4 large King trumpet mushrooms, sliced into rounds
a splash of sherry
a bit of dry cured salami, sliced into matchsticks
a few thin shavings of cheese, cut with a vegetable peeler (I used Gruyere, feel free to use Parmesan or Pecorino)

– In a large pan on medium to low heat, melt the butter and saute the garlic until transluscent.
– Add the asparagus and stir. When the asparagus begins to brighten, add the mushrooms and stir.
– Add butter if necessary. Cover the pan for a minute or two.
– Add the sherry and cover the pan. Cook for another couple of minutes and remove the cover.
– Add salami matchsticks, stir, and season to taste with salt and pepper.
– Turn off the flame and sprinkle cheese over the top.

Serves 4