Urban Gardening 2.0 - Late March

It doesn't feel like spring here in Philly, but I couldn't help myself the other day when I stopped in the garden center and saw gorgeous flats of cool weather vegetables and pansies, and, so, the second year of vegetable gardening in the tiny raised bed on the tiny back patio began this past weekend.

Plants are so expensive, but without a greenhouse or cold frame to start seedlings, the expense of buying starter vegetables is justified. A few extra bucks spent on starters instead of seeds, and I don't have to deal with bringing trays in and out of the house every day. The pansies weren't justified. I just couldn't help myself.We started by adding Organic Mechanics soil to the bed to raise the soil level – and add some love in the form of compost and worm castings.

With limited sun on the patio, lettuce and greens did really well for us last year. This past weekend we planted lettuce, spinach, kale, mustard, arugula, mizuna, cilantro, brussel sprouts, and celery. I know some of these crops will not mature (brussel sprouts and celery) before it's time to put in warm weather veggies, but we can't help ourselves. This is similar to the affliction of planting twenty tomato plants per person.We set the flats of plants outside, and damn it if the squirrels didn't decimate one of the kales and a six pack of lettuce. Don't know what it is about city squirrels? They're either desperate, or don't know better.And, so, the bird netting fortress went up. Take no chances!While we were at this whole spring cleaning of the patio, I had the boy divide a pot of mint and trim the rosemary. I tried to let him participate in the planting of the garden by having him do most of the work, while I just helped (I do this for a living, so nothing new to me).

I admit I am not the best teacher and lack patience – especially when I can do something faster than I can explain it. I did a fairly good job of letting him be in control (I said fairly), except, when it came time to trim the rosemary, I pried the scissors from his hands. Sorry. I'm a mini-shrub/topiary-trimming Nazi.When it was all done, this is what it looked like. We brought out the table and chairs in anticipation of warm nights and wine to come. We even grilled veggies on the world's tiniest grill. Come on spring! We're ready!

Urban Gardening 1.0

Philly Food Blogger Meet-up

Philly Food Blogger Meet-up
Friday April 18
Art Museum Area

We're doing it again!

If you blog, vlog, podcast, or whatever about food or drink in or around the Philly area, are not already a member (you already have an invite if you are), and would like to join up and meet some of your fellow bloggers, please send your name and blog url to mac.and.cheese.review (at) gmail (dot) com.

An invite with details will follow. Please pardon slow responses to requests made the second week in April, as I'll be out of the country. So, hop to it, if you wanna be in the know!

More Jerusalem Artichokes

You may be asking, “What do I do with Jerusalem artichokes if I’m not into the long, labored task of making relish and pickles.” You also may be asking me to get over it. I promise this is the last post (at least any time soon) about these crunchy tubers.

If Jerusalem artichokes aren’t pickled and relish-ified, I like them best fresh, sliced thinly in a salad. Think water chestnut or jicama. Crunch!

Roasted is tasty, too. Toss with olive oil, season with salt and pepper, and roast in the oven at 450° for 20-40 minutes. This softens the tuber and imparts a toasty, nutty flavor. Think warm hugs...from a tuber.

If feeling silly, you can make Jerusalem artichoke chips. Silly, because the chips are about the size of a quarter – or half dollar, if you’re lucky. Break out the Fry Daddy, and season as you like. This preparation is not worth it, in my opinion, but I’m not a chip eater. Think twice.

Soup is also popular, but I ran out of tubers. Think next year!

Cheap Eats: 27 Hours in NYC

We went to NYC for the weekend to hook up with the boy's old high school friend. It was also the weekend before my birthday, so I figured I could throw that in as an excuse to possibly eat out at a nice place. Oh, and it was Easter, too – my favorite holiday.

Things don’t always go as planned – or as you imagine, really. I had no real plans. And that’s fine. I usually take things as they come. Make plans, and they're sure to be ruined.

Our first stop was Rai Rai Ken, a cheap and delicious ramen noodle bar with friendly servers a few blocks from our hostel in the East Village. The miso ramen soup with slices of fried garlic, sprouts, and cabbage was perfect on a chilly day!

Before we took off, I emailed the ever gracious Linda at The Village Vegetable for her suggestions of restaurants in the city, and Rai Rai Ken was one of them. This is the only spot we hit up from her long list (not that I didn't want to hit them all, but things happen...).

The big wrench in our day was the fact that the Kansas basketball game (March Madness, folks!) was moved from early afternoon to early evening, and considering the fact that there were four KU alums in our group, a trip to the KU alumni sports bar to watch the tournament game was a given. Eight hour of drinking and one hummus appetizer that tasted like canned refried beans later, this is what I felt like eating…

For fun, we chose the most disgusting looking slice of pizza – ziti topped – and, you know what? It wasn’t that bad! Perhaps because it was more pasta than pizza? Perhaps because we were wasted? Don’t know where we picked this up from.

The next day was Easter, and, it never fails, every year I delude myself into think I’m gonna wake up to 70 degree days, so I can have a picnic in the park for my birthday (and Easter, this year), but it’s cold as hell in the Northeast in March. Boo. Hiss. No picnic. No Easter. You came too early to fit you in!

We hit up 'sNice Café, a cozy vegetarian and vegan coffee and sandwich shop in the West Village. I wanted one of their many veggie sandwiches, but s'Nice Café is bucking the brunch trend, and doesn’t serve lunch until noon. I had a tofu scramble wrap by default. Not bad, but nothing exciting. The yummy looking platters of veggie and grain salads for lunch that whizzed past me looked good, though.

I finally got to eat a veggie hot dog in NYC – but it wasn’t off a cart like in my original dream. This soy dog comes from Better Burger in Midtown West, one of three Better Burger stores in NYC that offers organic burgers and dogs on whole wheat buns. You know, better for you!

I got a NYC soy dog – kraut and bbq onions. The bbq onions are more like tomato paste onions, and the whole wheat bun is a bit of a chewy clunker. Dog Almighty in Austin, with their buttered and grilled buns, wins hands down. Junk food doesn’t need to be too healthy.

The veggie burger at Better Burger was a little tasteless, but a good effort. The fries are baked, not fried, and they were very good – thick, meaty, and you never would have guessed they were baked. The best part was the curry ketchup and Cajun ketchup for dipping.

Then we hopped on the Chinatown bus for Philly. Zzzz.

Pickled Jerusalem Artichoke

I’m not a frequent canner. It’s an all day job, and when you’re done, you’re left with a bazillion jars of an item – great if you’re building a bunker and never coming out, or dream of becoming the Pickle Fairy and sprinkling your fiends and family with gifts.

There is one thing that sends me straight to the kitchen to don my Pickle Fairy tutu, and that’s Jerusalem artichokes – the knobby tuber of a sunflower with thin brown skin, and crispy white flesh.

Gifted with two huge bags of Jerusalem artichokes last Friday, I was on the hunt for canning jars that evening, and in the kitchen the next day making Jerusalem artichoke pickles. (I swear I'm not a complete dork. I went to a show, out to the bar, and took in Sixers game that weekend, too.)

Last year I canned Jerusalem artichoke relish, which is my absolute favorite way to eat Jerusalem artichokes, but pickles are the next best way to eat these tubers – at least in my opinion.

These Jerusalem artichoke pickles retain the pleasing, crunchy texture of raw Jerusalem artichokes, but have a spicy, sweet-and-sour zing, and a cheery yellow color imparted by turmeric.

Harvest the tubers after the first frost, but before they sprout again (time is getting short now that it’s spring), or pick them up at the market when in season (I’ve seen some at Trader Joe’s recently). If you harvest your own, you must clean the bejesus out of the soil-caked knobby knobs, but it’s sooo worth it. And don’t peel them – unless you’re masochistic!

Gifted with so many Jerusalem Artichokes, I needed to multiply the recipe below by six! If you don’t feel like canning, this recipe makes only 2 pints, which you will eat in no time. I doubled the sugar amount, which is reflected in the recipe, but adjust sugar to your liking.

Pickled Jerusalem Artichoke
Adapted from The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook
Makes 2 pints

1 ¾ pounds Jerusalem artichokes, washed
1 quart water
2 tablespoons kosher salt
3 cups cider vinegar
1 cup water
3 tablespoons sugar
½ teaspoon whole black peppercorns
¼ teaspoon coriander seed
3 whole allspice berries
½ teaspoon whole red peppercorns (optional)
¼ teaspoon ground turmeric
2 dried red hot chilies (Thai or chiles de arbol)

• Bring a 3-quart pot, three quarters full of water to a boil. Set jars and their lids, along with a slotted metal spoon in the boiling water to sterilize. Boil for 15 minutes, then remove carefully with tongs, and set aside.
• Trim bad spots from tubers, and cut the tubers into chunks between the size of a grape and a walnut (you should have about 4 cups of artichokes chunks).
• In a bowl, combine artichokes, 1 quart of water, and one tablespoon of salt, stir to dissolve. Soak for 4 hours on the counter top, or overnight in the refrigerator. Drain and rinse the artichokes, then pat them dry.
• Bring vinegar, 1 cup of water, the remaining 1 tablespoon of salt, sugar, and all the spices except the chiles to a boil for 4 minutes.
• Using the slotted spoon, place one pepper in each jar, then carefully pack the jars with the artichokes, and pour the hot vinegar brine over the artichokes up to 1/2 inch below the neck. Place any remaining spices in the pot into the jars. Seal the jars, and process in boiling water if canning (I processed these 15 minutes). If only making a small batch, allow to cool, and store in the refrigerator. Unprocessed pickled artichokes will keep for about 4 weeks in the refrigerator.

Fitzwater Café

It has taken nearly three years of walking past Fitzwater Café in Bella Vista to finally duck into this once corner gas station for brunch, but I did it!

A mere five-minute wait on a weekend and we were in the door, guided past cases filled with scrumptious pastries made in-house, past a counter bar, and seated at a roomy table at the far end of the cozy restaurant, which is an Italian bistro when it’s not doing the breakfast brunch.

It’s been a long time since I’ve done decadent French toast, but I dove into the banana and Nutella toast sprinkled with powdered sugar. Good and sweet! A bit much for even dessert-loving me, but I balanced out the sweet with savory by stabbing at the plate across from me…

Scrambled eggs and cheddar cheese on one of their buttery croissants accompanied by potatoes and sliced tomatoes. I could have eaten the whole croissant, but it wasn’t mine. The sautéed potatoes lost favor with crispy potato boy.

Fitzwater Café = Good breakfast brunch basics with a short wait to get in! We did have to wait longer than normal for the bill, though. Win some; lose some!

Fitzwater Café
728 S. 7th St., Philadelphia, PA 19147
215-629-0428

Tofu Banh Mi

It’s pretty much a guarantee that five days a week I’m eating a homemade peanut butter and jelly sandwich or a veggie turkey sandwich for lunch. If I’m feeling particularly lazy, a sandwich is on the menu for dinner, too.

Sandwiches for dinner sounds a little pathetic, but not if you’re making Banh Mi, the Vietnamese hoagie brimming with Asian flavors thanks to carrot and daikon slaw and cilantro.

This usually meat-filled sandwich gets a vegetarian makeover with fried tofu. A little prep is involved in making this sandwich – time is needed to marinate the tofu – so plan ahead. If you want to cut prep time, buy already marinated tofu. And the slaw will be ready before you are.

This ingredient list looks long for a sandwich, but it’s just a list of all the yummy fillers…and their marinades.

Tofu Banh Mi

1 baguette
1 block firm tofu, drained
¼ cup soy sauce
½ cup, plus 3 tablespoons rice vinegar
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 stalk lemongrass, diced
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
½ lb daikon, shredded
1 carrot, shredded
1 tablespoon sugar
½ teaspoon salt
1 jalapeño, thinly sliced
½ red onion, sliced thinly
1 bunch cilantro
lettuce
mayonnaise (can substitute vegan mayo)

• Combine soy sauce, 3 tablespoons rice vinegar, garlic, and lemongrass in a container with a lid. Slice drained tofu into ¼-inch slices and place in soy sauce marinade, turning container upside down to coat the tofu. Marinade tofu in refrigerator for at least one hour, or overnight. In a large skillet over medium-high heat, fry marinated tofu in oil until browned on each side, about four minutes each side. (Save any leftover marinade to brush on inside of baguette)
• In a small bowl, stir together ½ cup vinegar, salt, and sugar, and toss with shredded carrot and daikon. Let marinade for 15 minutes, then drain.
• Meanwhile, heat split baguette in oven, about 5 minutes.
• Assemble the sandwich: Brush inside of baguette with soy sauce marinade. Top bottom layer of bread with jalapeño, onion, cilantro, tofu, slaw, and lettuce. Spread mayonnaise on the top layer of bread.
• Slice the sandwich crosswise into fourths, and serve.