Coconut Rose Pudding

For the past three days I have been craving something that I have never made and never even tasted. Coconut pudding. Where the notion for such a thing came from I have no idea. But here I am, craving something sweet and cold, refreshing but creamy, the kind of dessert that takes two bites to get off the spoon. Comfort food.

With the ever growing popularity of coconut water it has become pretty easy to get access to the stuff. As with most trends, once it catches on there are people who become purists, which, as far as I can tell, in the case of coconut water, means getting it raw, or better yet, straight out of a green coconut. In this case, the purists are right. Many of the boxed and canned coconut waters taste too sweet, too processed, like the flavor of coconut instead of the thing itself. If you live somewhere with a good Asian market or close to a Whole Foods, you can easily get your hands on a young Thai coconut. It's worth the dicey work with a cleaver just to get at that fresh, almost effervescent, incomparable water.

Once you've refreshed yourself with the water you're left with silky coconut meat which bears little resemblance to the chalky flesh you find in the drier, brown-husked variety. This is slippery and almost gelatinous to the touch but dense when you sink your teeth in and delicate in taste.

Traditional pudding involves cream and milk and actual cooking. Maybe it's the hot weather, maybe it's the past weeks of a sprint-paced life, maybe it's as simple as missing someone I love who now is gone. Whatever the reason, I really needed this pudding to be simple, no-frills, easy to make and comforting to eat. I recently read that the Sanskrit word for coconut palm means "tree that gives all that is necessary for living." Eating this, barefoot in my dusty backyard, a thin slice of moon rising in the twilight, and not a sound but the crickets and my spoon against the bowl, I just might have to agree.

Coconut Rose Pudding

serves 4

2 young Thai green coconuts

1/2 cup coconut water reserved from the coconuts

1 t raw honey or other sweetener

2 t rose water

Lie one of the coconuts on its side. Carefully and with confidence, use a cleaver or other very sharp butcher knife to cut off the top of the shell. Do your best not to lose too much of the coconut water inside. 

Once you've cracked the nut, pour the water into a cup or jar and repeat with the second coconut. Drink some of the water. It's delicious.

Wielding the cleaver again, split the coconut in half from top to bottom so you may more easily access the meat. Using a spoon, scoop the meat from the shell and place it in a high speed blender. 

Add the honey, rose water, and about 1/2 a cup of the reserved coconut water and blend until smooth. Chill in the fridge for at least a couple hours so the pudding thickens.*

Top with a sprinkle of cinnamon, cocoa powder, some chopped pistachios or just enjoy as is. 

*I put one small bowl in the freezer just for fun and ended up with a sorbet-like consistency which was very nice.

Note: This can be made vegan by replacing the honey with stevia or coconut nectar. Stevia will also make this a cleanse-friendly sweet.

Maggie's Salad

Last weekend I had the privilege of being a bridesmaid in my friend Bree's wedding. Let me just say, in all my years of working closely with brides and more recently, seeing friends get married, I have never seen anyone so completely unruffled by stress on her wedding weekend. From the second I saw her Friday afternoon, through the hung over post-wedding brunch she was nothing but smiles, beautiful and beaming and clearly having the best weekend of her life. It was a joy to witness. An added bonus to the whole event was the reunion of some of my closest girl friends from high school. Cliche as it is, it is all too true that it does not matter how much time has passed, we drop right back in like we never skipped a beat. The only thing that has changed is each of them has become even more brilliant, more accomplished, wiser and stronger, sharper witted and bigger hearted.

The bittersweet side of the weekend was that I had to say goodbye to my man for a month. Pete's alpine climbing excursions have become common enough that you would think I would be used to saying goodbye. But while it gets easier, it is never easy and I was grateful that after saying goodbye to him in my dear friend Maggie's apartment I got to turn around and fall into a long, tight hug, and the same steady shoulder I have leaned upon, literally and figuratively, since I was 15 years old. After the bender of a weekend and my rattled nerves at sending my love into the icy mountains of Patagonia, I wanted something comforting and nourishing and simple. Salad. I know. It doesn't seem like comfort food but it was. It was as green as a salad can get, (as green as this one, also written about as a comfort food of sorts), and packed with all the things I had leeched out of my body with the weekend's festivities. The salad in and of itself is nourishing and nutritionally pious, no question about it. But the most restorative, nourishing part about it was making it and eating it with Maggie, weaving in and out of conversations covering every aspect of our lives, present, past and future.

There is a lot of emphasis these days on the food going in to our bodies, the value of each individual component, but half the time the way we eat a meal is just as important--if not more so--than the virtue of the meal itself. It doesn't have to be fancy or even particularly inventive. Just made with love, shared with love, and eaten with gusto (and probably a good glass of wine).

I used half of the ingredients we bought and left the other half in Maggie's fridge. When I came home to California, to my empty house, I recreated the dish. While I was throwing it together I got a text from Maggie, "How do I slice this fennel?"  I sent her the answer and sat down with my own green bowl, feeling suddenly a little less lonely, knowing that sturdy shoulder was only a text message away.

Slice the bulb in half...

...and then in half again.

This salad has endless variations. You can use your own favorite dressing, add different green things, more green things, other-colored things.... I added raw pumpkin seeds to mine one day and a poached egg the next. The key, no matter what, is to chop your ingredients to roughly the same size so you get all the flavors and textures in each bite.

Maggie's Salad (serves 2 for dinner)

Two big handfuls of spinach (about 2 cups)

1/2 a small bulb of fennel

One avocado 

2-3 stalks of celery

a handful of basil leaves

half a small head of broccoli

for the vinaigrette

1/2 t raw honey

1/2 t dijon mustard

juice of half a lemon

salt

1/4 cup good, green tasting extra virgin olive oil

Wash the spinach well by submerging it in a bowl of water and lifting the leaves out so the grit settles in the bottom of the bowl. Spin dry and chop roughly.

Trim the fronds from the fennel (you can add some into the salad if you like), and slice the bulb vertically in half, and then in half again. Slice thinly.

Slice the celery the same thinness as the fennel pieces. I cut mine on the diagonal.

Cut the avocado in half and remove the pit. Using a paring knife, slice the flesh three or four times, top to bottom, and then five or six times side to side, making a grid. Using a large spoon, scoop and scrape the avocado out of the skin. Repeat with the other half.

Slice the broccoli head in half, top to bottom and chop the half you are using, roughly, into pieces around the same size as the rest of the veggies.

Stack the basil leaves on top of one another and roll them up like a cigar. Using a good sharp knife (a dull one will bruise it) slice the cigar in thin strips.

Put all the salad ingredients in a large mixing bowl. In a small bowl whisk the honey, mustard, lemon juice and salt together until the ingredients are well integrated and there are no lumps of honey left. Slowly, in a stead stream, whisk the olive oil in. Taste and adjust the acid/salt/sweetness as needed.

Pour the dressing over the salad and toss gently until everything is nicely coated but not drenched. You may not need all the dressing in which case you can store the remainder in a jar at room temperature for a week.

Share with someone you love!

Winter Salad, California Style

Living in a new part of the country means re-learning what "seasonal eating" is. We lucky people who live in the Bay Area are, well, spoiled. Winter doesn't mean that farmer's markets are limited to root vegetables, storage squash and the last of autumn's apples. It means we get to pile all of those things along with many others, on top of fresh new lettuces and greens which, up in Sonoma, finally have enough water and shade to grow. After the searing summer heat and more peppers, eggplants and zucchinis than I ever care to see again, our winter garden is leafy, spicy and growing at the rate of a full salad bowl every other day. Like I said, lucky. When I first lived in the Bay Area, years ago, I worked for a dear friend at The Gardener, in Berkeley. The lessons I learned from her are innumerable, and among them was how to eat a persimmon.

Persimmons are not something I ever encountered as a child in Los Angeles. And of all the produce sent from California to New England, persimmons are seldom seen. Around here they show up at the start of November and stay on through the holidays, lending their festive orange glow to menus and decorative arrangements alike. While sort of intimidating and almost quixotic on the shelf, they are simple to prepare and easily digested by the body. Most importantly, they are delicious, sweet at first bite but without any lingering or excessive sugary taste.  My preferred variety is the Fuyu which is squat like a tomato and firm like an apple. These are eaten while still hard and crisp and are delicious in salads, with dry, salty cheeses, or in slices on their own.

Hachiyas, the larger, more oval shaped variety, are eaten soft and ripe when they are practically pudding in the skin. Both varieties are said to soothe sore throats and an irritated intestinal tract and contain enzymes that break down damaged cells and foreign microbes in the body. Pete came home from Sebastopol the other day with a bag full of both kinds so I have been enjoying them every way I can. Most recently I sliced them into this salad of the-best-spinach-I-have-ever-had (it is almost meaty in its richness), escarole and mustard greens. I added pomegranate seeds, another favorite winter fruit.

Pomegranates grow on trees all over town and my friend Emma has been plucking them from her Edenic back yard and bringing them to work, so I eat the seeds in my granola, in salads, dropped in a glass of soda water or prosecco...you get the idea.

Crunchy persimmon, the tart pop of pomegranate seeds, crisp, spicy greens. What's missing? Oh yeah, cheese. I just discovered how much I love ricotta salata. It has an odd, almost springy texture that I really enjoy. I tossed the whole shebang in good olive oil, juice from half a lemon, and a sprinkle of Maldon sea salt. Now that's my kind of winter meal.

Winter Salad with Persimmons & Pomegranate

serves one hungry person or two as a side

A handful of really good spinach*

A few large mustard or kale leaves

A few large escarole leaves

1 firm Fuyu persimmon

1/4 cup pomegranate seeds

2-4 oz ricotta salta, cubed or crumbled

1 T high quality olive oil

juice of half a lemon

Maldon or other flakey sea salt

* If you are able, try to get your hands on hearty spinach that has textured, knobbly leaves. It is more likely to have that lovely meaty quality I mentioned than "baby" spinach or more the more delicate, thin-leafed variety.

Put the spinach in a bowl and cover with cold water. Lift the spinach out. The sand and dirt will settle in the bottom of the bowl. Rinse the bowl and repeat until all the sediment is removed from the leaves. Do the same with the other greens.

Spin or pat the greens until very dry.

Using a paring knife, remove the stems from the mustard or kale by cutting each leaf lengthwise down either side of the stem. Cut or tear the stemless leaves into fork-bite size and place in a salad bowl. Cut or tear the escarole to a similar size and add to the bowl along with the spinach.

Cut the stem off the persimmon, then halve the fruit vertically. Some Fuyu persimmons contain seeds but many are seedless and just have a pretty flower-like pattern inside. Place one half, flat side down, on a cutting board and slice thin half moons. Do the same with the other half and add to the salad bowl.

Cut the pomegranate in half, vertically. Store one half in the fridge, covered, to enjoy later. Cut your remaining half in half again, vertically. Remove the seeds from the white pith and sprinkle over the bowl of greens. One half should yield at least 1/4 cup of seeds, sometimes more.

Add your cubed or crumbled ricotta salata, the olive oil and lemon juice and toss until salad is evenly coated. Add a good pinch of sea salt and a crack of black pepper and gently toss again. Enjoy as a light, vitamin-rich meal, a first course, or a fresh Thanksgiving side.

Other Fun Facts

Spinach is one of the best greens you can eat. It is very high in iron, clorophyll and vitamin A. It promotes peristalsis (the involuntary wave-like movement of the muscles in your digestive tract that moves your food through your system), soothes intestinal inflammation, is a great detoxifier and can help restore pH balance to your digestive system.

Pomegranate is another cleansing and cooling food which can be great in a season marked by celebratory and, often, heavy eating. Along with cranberries it is known to promote a healthy bladder and urinary tract. The astringent rind is said to make a good skin wash.

Escarole, cousin of endive, is high in vitamins C, K, and A, as well as calcium, iron and magnesium.

Mustard Greens are incredibly high in water content making them a great detoxifying, tonic food. They belong to the Brassica family which is widely considered to be one of the most powerful anti-cancerous groups of vegetables.

Zucchini: A trilogy

PART I: RAW
Admit it. You're sick of them already. For the first week you're ecstatic: the daily harvesting of the small and delicious squash, the blossoms stuffed and fried, the very picture of summer abundance, living proof that even you can grow a vegetable, and a flourishing one at that. And then you forget to look at your beloved plant for a couple of days and lo and behold, you have 4 zucchinis the size of baseball bats. We have three plants in our backyard, and we've stayed pretty on top of harvesting. Still, I find myself opening the fridge and sighing deeply with resignation. Another meal, another zucchini. It's hard to stay excited and inspired by the same ingredient no matter how versatile it is. But I will try in these next three posts to get myself and you re-excited about good old, dependable, prolific, adaptable zucchini. There will be one recipe for each stage of the fruit: one for the baby size, one for the mid-sized and one for the sleeping giant zucchini, so that none of your harvest goes to waste.

My favorite way to eat zucchini is raw, harvested young, when they are tiny, no longer than a couple of inches and about the width of two of your fingers. Sliced very thinly they are crunchy, slightly nutty, and the perfect vehicle for lemon, good olive oil, and a mild cheese. The other day I prepared them in a carpaccio-like salad, alternating the paper thin slices with equally thin rounds of lemon cucumbers and armenian cucumbers.  Add a little cheese and whatever fresh herbs you have on hand--basil, dill, mint, parsley, tarragon, or all of them--and you have yourself a delicious (and maybe home grown and harvested) lunch or side dish. Eat up, there is more on the way!!!

Raw Zucchini & Cucumber Salad

2 small zucchini 

1 or 2 cucumbers 

juice and zest of one lemon

zest of one orange

a handfull of basil, chopped

a few mint leaves, chopped

a few sprigs of Italian parsley, chopped

a handful of multi-colored nasturtiums, chopped

1/4 cup really good olive oil

1 shallot peeled and minced

a splash of rice wine or champagne vinegar

salt and pepper to taste

optional: a mild chevre or, for a vegan option, chopped toasted almonds to garnish

Very carefully, using a mandolin, slice the zucchini into paper thin rounds. If it is very hot and dry out, cover the slices with a damp paper towel while you tend to the rest of the ingredients.

Slice the cucumbers into paper thin rounds and set aside, covering with a damp towel if needed.

In a small bowl whisk together the shallots, lemon zest, lemon juice, a pinch of salt and a splash of vinegar. Let sit for ten minutes.

Alternating between zucchini and cucumber, lay the slices out on each individual plate or on a large serving plate. Each round should slightly overlap the one beneath it. 

Whisk the olive oil into the dressing and taste. Adjust as needed. Drizzle the salad(s) with the dressing, coating lightly but well. Sprinkle the chopped herbs and nasturtiums all over the salad. If you are using goat cheese add generous hunks here and there on top of the slices. Sprinkle the whole salad(s) with orange zest.

Finish with good sea salt and cracked black pepper.