Leaf Lady

I think I know how the squirrels and the woodpeckers must feel when they have laid in a good supply of acorns.

The backyard leaf pile has reached a satisfying height. The top layer, a bright cascade of colorful confetti, comes from two flowering cherry trees across the street. I spent about an hour raking them up at the invitation of a neighbor who was glad to have his yard cleared and, in the bargain, donate the leaves to a worthy cause.

Everything in this pile comes from various trees on our short street, one block long, plus a few bags I've collected during our nightly walks around the neighborhood. Feeling only slightly eccentric, I carry a grocery bag, a dustpan, and a flashlight, and whenever we come across a lush drift of leaves covering the sidewalk, I scoop them into the bag. Leaf Lady strikes again.

Leaves are free mulch, free fertilizer, and -- eventually -- free soil if you are willing to wait a couple of years for everything to break down. I use them in the compost bin to form alternate layers with kitchen scraps and also to cover dormant garden beds.






As my greed for leaves has become more widely known, some neighbors on the block have started leaving them in our front yard. Now I have two leaf piles!

Finally! A Frittata di Trombetta di Albenga

It took about five years to get from the first planting out of seeds for the dramatic Italian climbing squash, Trombetta di Albenga, to actually featuring some in a meal.

Year 1: Discover a packet of Renee's Garden seeds at a local drugstore. Plant some out of curiosity. Become so intimidated by the gargantuan plants and strange elongated fruit that none of them get used for food. Forget about it for a couple of years.

Year 4: Find the old seed packet with some seeds left in it. Plant some out of curiosity, wondering if they will grow. They do. Vow that this time the squash will make it into a meal. It doesn't. Vow not to plant Trombetta di Albenga again.

Year 5: Discover some seedlings of Zucchetta Rampicante at a local nursury. Plant some out of curiosity. Find out that Zucchetta Rampicante is Trombetta di Albenga by another name, or such a close cousin that there is no discernible difference: long thick vines twining up eight foot poles and across a trellis, bearing numerous sleek green fruit that dangle in mid-air as they grow larger and longer. Give up, accept the dictates of fate, and welcome Zucchetta/Trombetta into our family cuisine.

Most of this year's harvest found its way into the summer batches of green soup. But finally, in early December, we used the last tender squash in a delicious frittata. The recipe comes from the attractive Italian food blog, Not Only Pizza. The secret to getting the best flavor is to slice the squash into thin rounds or half circles.






Another secret is to use really good cheese, such as Asiago. Here's the recipe:

Frittata with trombetta di Albenga
(From notonlypizza.com)
Ingredients:
1 lb. trombetta di Albenga
2 cloves of garlic
7-8 datterino tomatoes or cherry quartered or cut in half
3-4 fresh basil leaves
4 eggs
1/2 cup shredded provolone, scamorza (not smoked), Asiago or a cheese of your choice
2 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
sea salt to taste
Preparation:
Slice the trombetta thinly with a knife or a mandoline. Heat up 1 Tablespoon oil in a nonstick skillet with 2 cloves of garlic. Add the squash and cook it until tender, about 15 minutes mixing it often.
When the squash is cooked, turn it off and add the tomatoes. This is already a good side dish.
To make the frittata, eliminate the cloves of garlic, put the cooked squash in a bowl, add the basil, the eggs, the shredded cheese and a good pinch of salt. Mix well.
Heat up 1 Tablespoon olive oil in a non-stick skillet and pour the zucchini-egg mixture. Cook at low medium heat for about 10-15 minutes uncovered or until the bottom becomes golden brown.
Place a large plate over the frittata and turn the pan upside down then slide the frittata back in the pan and cook it for other 10 more minutes. Serve it warm or tepid, it’s good either way.





Here's what the squash looked like in late September, still sizing up on the vine.






And here's how it appeared on our dinner table at last!

(Full disclosure: It turns out that another really important secret for a perfect frittata is to use a non-stick pan so the whole thing doesn't fall apart when it gets flipped over. But that's just a minor detail in the long saga of Trombetta di Albenga, which is not only abundant but really quite delicious.)

Have Nut Loaf. Will Travel.

Every Thanksgiving we go "over the river and through the woods" to take part in a pot-luck feast of food and friendship. "Over the river" happens in Healdsburg, where Highway 101 crosses the Russian River as it runs west to the sea, and "through the woods" happens in southern Mendocino County, where fragrant groves of bay laurel, live oak, Doug fir, madrone, and second-growth redwood cloak the rocky hills between Cloverdale and Booneville.

It's not grandma's house we're headed for, but a thriving counter-culture conclave founded in 1970 -- forty years ago and counting -- where former Peace Corps and Vista volunteers and friends have been tending (organically, of course) a large acreage of ancient apple trees.

The Thanksgiving pot-luck is well established, with the same people bringing the same dishes year after year. The hosts can determine the menu simply by asking around to verify who will be coming, uncovering any gaps that might need to be filled. Generally speaking, you can always count on M.'s hor d'oeuvres, T's traditional Czech Hoska (a showstopper braided bread), B.'s stir-fried veggies, P.'s Waldorf salad, and N.'s classic pumpkin pies from her grandmother's recipe -- to mention some of my personal favorites.

The photo above shows a few of these old-reliable dishes, plus the time-tested vegetarian entree, the nut loaf.






It's our responsibility to bring the nut loaf, an obligation not to be taken lightly.

This year, a couple of weeks before Thanksgiving we got the usual phone call confirming that everything was on as planned, and the usual not so subtle hint about our role:

"Are you guys coming? If you can't make it this year we could come down there and get the nut loaf . . . ."

"We're coming! We're coming!"

And we did come, arriving a bit late as usual. As we lugged the heavy cardboard box full of nut loaves and mushroom gravy out of the trunk of our car, several friends came to greet us, rushing down the steps of the 100 year old farmhouse:

"Hooray! The nut loaf has arrived!"

Here's how to make this enthusiastically received holiday classic. It first entered our repertoire decades ago during college days in Berkeley, from Richard Hittleman's Yoga Natural Foods Cookbook, now out of print. My copy vanished long ago so I'm not sure how many adaptations have crept into our version over the years. Once change I do remember introducing is to use wholewheat toast cut into cubes, rather than bread crumbs -- so much easier!

1. Assemble all the ingredients:

1 and 1/2 cup walnuts, very finely chopped or blended
3 cups toasted whole wheat bread cubes (toast the bread then cut into small cubes)
1 cup celery, very finely chopped
1/2 cup onion, very finely chopped
2 eggs, beaten
3 tablespoons oil
1 cup tomato juice
1/4 cup parsley, very finely chopped*
Salt and pepper to taste

2. Mix dry ingredients together in a large bowl.
3. Beat together eggs and oil, combine with tomato juice.
4. Mix wet ingredients into dry ingredients. Don't be afraid to use your bare hands to make sure everything is thoroughly mixed together and liquids are evenly distributed.
5. Pack mixture into a well-buttered loaf pan (for a round loaf use a Pyrex bowl) and bake 45 minutes to an hour in a preheated 350 degree oven. Cover with tinfoil for the first 30 minutes. Test for doneness by inserting a table knife into the center -- when hardly anything sticks to the knife it should be done. The loaf should have a well-browned appearance.
6. Run a table knife around the edges of the pan and turn the loaf out onto a plate. Pour mushroom gravy over the top, garnish with cranberry sauce and parsley*. (The cranberry sauce is important for fullest holiday splendor and taste. The parsley* is important because without it the dish can be mistaken for a dessert.)

And here's how to make the mushroom gravy, an absolute must accompaniment. (Sometimes I think we should be greeted with cries of "Hooray! The mushroom gravy has arrived!") These are B.'s instructions:

1. Put a pound or so of cleaned whole mushrooms in a pot. Cover with water plus an inch or so.
2. Bring to a boil.
3. Add juice of one lemon, some white wine or sherry, and five or six pepper corns.
4. Boil for 20 minutes until you have a dark broth. Strain and set aside.
5. Make a roux: Melt 3 tablespoons butter in a saucepan and add some finely grated onion. When the onion is soft, add three tablespoons flour, blend until smooth.
6. Mix one cup of the mushroom broth into the roux. Add as much as needed to get the desired consistency of gravy. Slice up some of the whole mushrooms to add to the gravy.
Save any leftover broth for soup.

*A note about parsley: For the last several years the parsley has been coming from our backyard. All I had to do is run out the kitchen door and gather as much as was needed from generous swaths of volunteer plants. But this year, no parsley. It felt like cheating to have to buy some. Must plant more.

First Freeze -- Last Fruits

Last night, during an all-too-short interval between a day at work and a night-time event, I found myself out in the garden with a flashlight, stripping the remaining tomatoes, eggplant, and trombetta squash off their respective plants. Freezing temperatures were predicted.

After covering the little potted Meyer lemon and bidding a fond farewell to the basil and nasturtiums, I dashed off to store the last fruits of the summer season in the garage and the kitchen. Clipped branches of tomatoes were hung in the garage, dangling above the one huge, pale beige trombetta that had managed to transition into a winter squash. The eggplant, loose tomatoes, and still-green trombettas went into the house.

This morning I went out to check on the carnage. The basil had turned black overnight, so the expected killing frost had occurred as foretold. The drooping nasturtiums were still green, as were the tomatoes, eggplant, and squash, but they all had lost their will to live, cells burst open by shards of ice that formed inside.

Meanwhile, the spinach, kale, and broccoli were standing tall: "Ah, a bit of frost -- just the refreshing pick-up we were craving."

November is the Month of Greening

In many respects November in our little corner of the cosmos behaves as a proper fall/winter month should. Days get shorter, nights get longer, cold winds and rain blow falling leaves through chill air.

But at the same time a whole other narrative unfolds. In a Mediterranean climate like ours there are really only two seasons: wet and dry. The dry season runs through what is traditionally known as spring, summer, and early fall: May through October. The wet season runs more or less from late fall to early spring: November through April.

When the first rains fall, announcing the shift from dry season to wet, the parched brown earth responds immediately with tiny shafts of new green growth pushing up through dead thatch. Out in the countryside dusty hillsides take on a pale greenish blush and gradually get covered with luminescent carpets of gaudy green.





In our backyard there are newly fallen leaves layering the ground and vigorous seedlings sprouting beside them.






Our backyard "meadow" changes -- with some help, consisting mainly of removing the dead debris -- from a stand of dried up Queen Anne's Lace, wild fennel, and mallow to a quasi-lawn: the only time of year we have what could remotely be called a lawn.






The winter garden surges: spinach, kale, lettuce, peas, broccoli, chard, leeks. The paths start filling up with lush volunteers: arugula, lettuce, kale, yard chard galore, along with the usual roster of weeds. Alongside the flourishing winter growth, the summer garden languishes as the plants turn limp and yellowed: tomatoes, peppers, summer squash, eggplants, basil.

I'm always reminded of the lines from Bob Dylan (It's Alright Ma): "He who is not busy being born, is busy dying."

Insanely Great Pasta Sauce

It was the continuous supply of eggplant that led to B.'s latest culinary breakthrough. Even though the season is just about over (after all, it's November!), the memory lingers on and will provide inspiration for next spring's planting decisions.

Two plants of Hansel eggplant and two of Fairy Tale produced gorgeous platefuls of glossy purple fruit that sat around on the dining room table, just asking to be made into something wonderful.






It wasn't the best season ever for tomatoes but there were still enough on hand (Early Girl, Black Trifele, Sun Gold, Yellow Pear) to fill their own plates and provide their own entrancing palette of color.







Since they were meant to be together -- like moonlight and music -- it was only a matter of time before they ended up simmering together in the same pan with some olive oil and crushed garlic. The little Fairy Tail teardrops didn't even need peeling, they were so tender. They disappeared completely into the sauce. The Hansels were peeled and sliced up and cooked until soft along with the tomatoes.

Sometimes B. would blanch the tomatoes first to get the skins off, and sometimes just quarter them and set them in the pan, skins and all. Pictured above is a skins-on batch. Whole basil leaves, just picked, were added towards the end of the cooking time.







Voila! A sauce that is so utterly simple yet subtle and rich with the tang of fresh tomatoes and the smokey undercurrent of eggplant, so silky it coats the noodles with flavor that lingers in the mouth and in the mind.






Another approach that draws out of the savor of the eggplant even more is to roast them whole for an hour in the oven. Just cut off the tops and prick them with a fork, coat lightly with olive oil and set them on an oiled baking sheet. Take them out when soft and collapsing into themselves, slit them open and squeeze out the yummy paste.






The eggplant is then combined with oven-roasted tomatoes. These were cooked for half an hour in an iron skillet with a layer of olive oil and some crushed garlic. When done, set the skillet on the top of the stove, add the eggplant paste and simmer gently until the mixture forms a sauce.







The roasting method produces a smoother sauce because all of the eggplant disappears into the magical meld of mouth-watering goodness.

Whatever route you take to get there, it's an insanely good pasta sauce.

Easy Refrigerator Pickles

As of early October we had a goodly pile of lemon cucumbers in the refrigerator, the last survivors after our one very prolific plant had succumbed to mildew and been removed. For months we had been eating the cukes fresh and giving them away. We were tired of them and so were our neighbors.

I had never made pickles out of anything but it seemed worth a try if it didn't take too much time. As usual, a little internet sleuthing yielded some good suggestions.

The recipe I ended up following was compiled from several sources. It had to be easy and not sweet -- no sugar. Mostly it had to be easy.







The cucumbers sliced up nicely into six cups worth. To this was added some chopped cilantro and some chopped green onion.






I brought to a boil two cups of vinegar, plus spices (1 tablespoon each of celery seed, mustard seed, and turmeric) and pickling salt (2 tablespoons), and let it cook for a minute or two.

However, this ended up being way too little liquid to fill the seven pint jars I had crammed the cucumber slices into. Perhaps I hadn't packed in the cucumbers tightly enough, or perhaps removing sugar from the recipe reduced the volume of the mixture. Anyway, I just boiled up four more cups of vinegar with more spices and salt and hoped for the best.

The filled jars were allowed to cool down and then put into the refrigerator where they will stay until all used up. Supposedly they will keep for months, but we won't get a chance to test that out since we are going through them pretty fast.

They are crunchy, spicy, and delicious, although a bit strong for eating more than one or two out of hand. (Next year, I will try diluting the vinegar mixture with water or packing the jars better.)






We've been enjoying them in salads, cut up into small pieces, or, best of all, as a garnish for veggie burgers along with garden tomatoes and lettuce.

Mmmmmm. And so easy. Even with the mistakes, making the pickles took not much more than an hour.