Mexico, Tortillas + a Tuesday Tradition

There’s nothing like a rainy Thursday afternoon for telling a tale you meant to tell on Tuesday. This past Tuesday, to be exact, when I was eating this very stack of quesadillas in my kitchen. The tale goes like this...

We were smack in the middle of a blissful honeymoon week in Mexico, András and I, when we had our first fight as a married couple. We had spent three amazing days and sultry nights in the buzzing Condesa neighborhood of Mexico City, strolling and eating our way through the scene, feeling not so far away from the life we left behind in New York City. Then, we then traveled down to the South Pacific via Taxco, the charming colonial silver capital nestled in the mountains of Guerrero halfway between Mexico City and a little surf spot called Troccones, our final destination.

I have no memory of what our fight was about. Certainly something not worth the fuss. Most of our fights have gone like that, thankfully. But we were both sure of our stance. So, in this gorgeous old village I marched ahead of him straight up a steep hill lined with white colonials until I stopped, dead in my stubborn tracks, straight in front of a line of women and young girls forming outside of the local tortilleria. Each had a worn, bright colored cloth, which they would hand over with a few pesos to be returned with 20 or 30 freshly minted corn tortillas steaming in their hands. I stepped in line, and before long, András and I were sitting arm in arm at the foot of a cathedral overlooking the entire city, laughing and eating our way through a stack of fresh tortillas with nothing but salt, lime and a smashed avocado. It was the perfect feast.

In the three years since, tortillas have earned special status in our home. They are often our fresh bread, our starting point, our inspiration for at least one week a meal. We turn tortillas --sometimes made by our hands but not always -- into fish tacos and enchiladas and endless combinations of quesadillas like this one {made of squash, Manchego, thinly sliced garden radishes and a sprinkling of feta}. They are always simple and intensely satisfying meals. And in that vein, I almost always document them in the most pared down form possible, Instagram. Forgive the lack of fluff and perfect pictures, but this is how, mostly likely, I’ll also bring my tortilla inspirations to you.

In the spirit of forming traditions, I love the idea of our tortilla meal falling on the same day every week—like Tuesday, week after week until our kids are grown and still talk about that thing we do as a family. I’m prone to getting carried away. But for now, in our busy, insanely inconsistent life with a little one, our Tortilla Tuesdays could happen on Tuesdays or Wednesdays, and Thursdays, and Saturdays too. But, it will be Tuesdays when I share them with you.

Welcome to Tortilla Tuesdays. 

~

Squash Quesadillas with Radishes

Serves 2 to 4

8 corn tortillas

2 cups roasted winter or summer squash

1 cup shredded Manchego cheese

4 or 5 radishes, sliced paper thin

Fresh feta, crumbled, to taste

Heat a large cast-iron skillet or grill pan over high heat. Add two or four tortillas, depending on the size, and stack each with a handful of cooked squash and shredded Manchego. Add remaining tortillas to the top and press lightly together. Cook until the tortilla is toasted and the cheese has melted enough to hold the two tortillas together. Flip and continue cooking until both sides are crispy and golden brown and the cheese is entirely melted.

Cut in half and serve with thinly sliced radishes and fresh feta to taste. 

{iced}

{From the top: Watermelon, Cherry Belle and French Breakfast radishes chill out} 

ny, ny

Everyone knows the best way to eat radishes is raw with good butter and coarse sea salt {I like pasture-raised organic butter and coarse grey salt}. But it also helps to know the best way to prep your radishes after you pull them from the soil.

Radishes love cool weather, which is why we plant them after the first frost and why they're often the first thing to pop up. They're happy to grow into early summer, but a good soak in an ice bath perks up both their roots and their tender tops after they've had a roast in the sun. The same trick works wonders for radishes from the farmer's market who've had all afternoon to wilt in the heat.

When you grow your own radishes, every little bit is usable. Trim the ends, munch on the middle and toss tender green tops into salad, or cook larger leaves with garlic and greens {like turnip and mustard greens}. And, don't forget to plant a new row of seeds every time you pluck a few to keep your crudité platter in plenty.

Urban Gardening {Morning Glory}

 


Happy first day of Spring! To help you get outside and cultivate your green thumb, I'll show you how to get growing the cheap and easy way by turning kitchen tools into garden tools on Danny Boome's new morning show, Morning Glory.

It Starts with a Seed {and a pot}

Last night I stayed up till the wees planting over 60 seeds in little newspaper pots that will later become our summer garden. The thing that made it so fun, besides the promise of practically free organic fruits and veggies all summer long, is making rows of little pots with my new paper pot maker.

This paper pot maker came from Jackie Johnson who sells his handmade oak beauties at his store Wood Elements on Etsy. It’s a handy tool; worth it’s cost for the dollars you’ll save on terra cotta since it allows you to roll old newspapers into pots just the right size for seedlings like the tomato starters above. Since the paper will disappear into the soil as the root systems grow, they can be transplanted directly into the ground when the weather warms. 

If you don’t have time or dime to invest, you’ll find a stash of surprisingly suitable pots in your very own kitchen. Save your paper towel tubes and cut them in thirds, and line them up on a sheet tray or baking dish which becomes their temporary bottom when you pack them with soil. 

Once you have your pots, it takes little more than the cost of a bag of potting soil and a few packs of seeds to create your own mini farm. It helps to have somewhere to transplant your farm in about 6 weeks, like a backyard, a set of raised beds or a community garden like mine. But you’ve got plenty of time to sort that out. For now, set the seeds to incubate in the warmest, sun drenched spot in the house where the window light will reach them while you’re away at work. Before you know it, you'll be seeing green. 

It sort of makes the whole growing your own food thing seem easier than you thought huh? Here’s the news—it is. Here are five other things you’ll need to know:

1. Soil

It helps tremendously to start seed in the healthiest soil available. Choose organic “seed starter” or “potting” soil, which is light and loose {those seeds need oxygen}, and designed to have the perfect balance of the nutrients plants need: potassium, phosphorus and nitrogen.

2. Seeds

It has been well argued that organically grown produce has the highest nutrient content. I’m a believer. Start with organic seeds, dated for the current year. Talk to local farmers and gardeners {your farmer’s market is likely full of them} about what grows well in your climate, and where they get their seeds. Some of my favorite online seed sources are: Southern Exposure Seed Exchange, The Seed Savers Exchange, Twin Leaf: Seeds from Thomas Jefferson's Garden at Monticello

3. Light + Warmth

Seeds are dormant storehouses of energy and nutrition, but they need warmth to unlock their potential. That’s why we start seeds indoors in the springtime in cooler climates, where the ground has not yet reached the optimum temperatures. That temperature is different for every plant, but most plants germinate most quickly in soil between 65 and 80 degrees. Seeds don’t need light to germinate, but once they reach the surface they do need about 6 to 8 hours of full daylight.

4. Oxygen

You know this: Plants, like animals, need oxygen, which is why we start tiny seeds in loose soil. Don’t pack your soil too tightly, and water with a light sprinkle or drizzle rather than a heavy douse of water.

5. One Last Tip

Follow the instructions on the seeds for how deep to plant seeds in the soil, but a general rule of thumb is the bigger the seed, the deeper in the soil it should go. Sprinkle tiny lettuce and herb seeds on top of the soil and top with a thin dusting of soil. Press zucchini, cucumber and melon seeds about 1 inch below the soil. They’ll need a deeper root system to grow up big and strong. 

A Christmas Goose

{Handmade Christmas, part xi}

I can't imagine ever spending Christmas without my family, but one day, we'll spend Christmas in Hungary. When I think of that, I imagine a goose, big and fat, once covered in the white feathers that András grandmother taught me to use to dust flour off her strudel dough. The goose would taste like the one I ate at the Csárdás in Csopak on a cold October night after Andras asked me to be his wife. We {sans A., the Hungarian Vegetarian} would eat it with red cabbage and Olaszirizling and finish the night with Hungarian Rákóczy Cake, and Dios Beigli.

At the Copeland house, Christmas is a perfect repeat of Thanksgiving, Turkey and cranberry relish, mashed potatoes and pecan pie, but whatever the bird, a bundle of herbs from your garden, tied and ready to baste with butter, is the perfect way to whisper thanks to your hostess, and help her fill her bird with flavor.

Blue Ribbon Beans

{Handmade Christmas, part ix}

Before you put away your sewing machine, here's the perfect thing to put in a little bag made of scrap fabric. Since you were so clever to save your seeds from your summer garden, why not pass them on? Shared seeds are the gift that keep on giving, and keeping heirloom varieties growing in your community is a smart way to protect our seed supply. Plus, every successive season you save seeds, you're more likely grow veggies better suited to your garden's climate than they were the year before.

My favorite thing about seed saving is naming them. Experts like Mike McGrath, host of Public Radio's You Bet Your Garden, claim that if you save the seed of a specific variety for a decade and grow it in the same climate, you earn the right to give it a name. I took that liberty a little early, and am pretty proud to pass on my blue ribbon beans. I can't wait to see them spring up in my neighbor's garden when the snow thaws. Oh, don't forget to add the year of the upcoming season, to remind gardeners to put them in the ground.

P.S. I told you my sewing machine broke, so I cheated. This little satchel game with a gift card from Anthropologie. Recycled giving = green, and in a pinch is as good as handmade!

P.S.S. It's completely covered in white outside!

Spot of Tea

{Handmade Christmas, part viii}

Good morning! I like to start the day with tea. You?

Chances are someone you know does too, and they'd be delighted to get a little hand-sewn satchel of mint or lemon verbena leaves from your very own garden or windowsill. I clipped these bunches from mine just before the snow fell and plan to give them fresh for potent tea, but you can dry them out in a single layer on a lined tray overnight.

This satchel is inspired by The French General, one of my favorite stores for stickers, ribbons, aprons and linens, and the team behind my favorite sewing book, Home Sewn. They sell their signature fabrics here, but if you don't sew, or have a sick machine like me, a paper coffee bag will work just as well.

The Age of Innocence

l.i.c., new york

Down in Maryland, where I was last Sunday, there were still tomatoes on the vine. Here in New York, the tomatoes are long gone, and with them the golden days that colored them red and warm like the sun. There are a few, here and there, enough to slice over a sandwich, but the last real final harvest happened several weeks ago.

It was a quiet September night, before the clock turned, before our neighbors Hameeda and Fahmeda went back to school and before they moved to the apartment upstairs, where we can no longer count on seeing them waiting for us on the sidewalk when we arrive at home.

Earlier that week, András and I were taking the kayak down the block to Two Coves beach for the last spin of the summer. The 8-foot bright-orange boat must have drawn some attention, because just as we passed their house, Hameeda and both of her brothers flew to the front door. Hearing the commotion, their father came out, followed by Fahmeda who seemed to glide toward us, her pretty head covered with a veil.

The girls ran to me, and I gathered them in my arms.

“What’s this?” I asked, touching the cloth framing Fahmeda's face. “Does this mean you’ve had a birthday?”

Fahmeda is Bengali, and Muslim, and what little I do know about the Muslim faith told me this new cloth marked a coming of age.

“It’s Wednesday,” Fahmeada said.

We three walked together toward the water, Hameeda’s little hand in mine, trailing András, the kyack, the boys and their father down to the water.

The kids and I lapped in the current and waded to our kneecaps while András practiced eskimo rolls. I held Hameeda out of the water when it came too high, and we all soaked in what was sure to be the last sunset of summer.

“So how old will you be?” I asked Fahmeda, picking the conversation back up.

“Eleven.” She said.

“Eleven, that’s a great age!” I said. “Will you have a party?”

“We’ll have a dinner. Upstairs, in the new house.” She said.

Secretly, I hoped to be invited to that birthday dinner. I imagined myself sitting at the table with the children and András, our arms swinging up in down in a prayer before we devoured a table lined with dishes, flavors and spices from Bangledesh. I wondered, if in Bengali custom, it would be impolite to invite myself to dinner.

That night when we came back home, I asked their mother if she thought Fahmeda would like a cake.

“No, no, you don’t need to make something,” her mother said.

“We should cook together,” I said, changing the subject. Fahmeda’s mother is my age, and I fancied us becoming friends, rolling Parothha bread and seasoning vegetable stews with cumin, fennel, fenugreek, and black mustard. “I would like to learn from you. We can go to the garden. We can harvest and bring back vegetables and cook together.”

She laughed, warmly, but as if to change the subject. She has five mouths to feed and likely no time to give lessons.

That Wednesday night, I came home from work to find Fahmeda sticking her head out of the second floor window.

“Happy Birthday!” I called up. “Come down, I have something for you!”

“You remembered!” She tucked her head back in, ran down the stairs to greet me. Hameeda followed.

“Come, let’s go to the garden,” I said, handing her a bushy lemon verbena plant. “I brought you this to plant in honor of your birthday.”

“What is it?” She asked.

“Lemon Verbena. Smell.”

She enhaled. Hameeda imitated her.

“It’s a very lovely herb, for a very lovely girl.”

In the garden, we talked about every vegetable, and snacked on green beans and lettuces. Fahmeda and I dug a deep hole, planted the lemon verbena and patted the soil around it. Then she watered, patiently, suddenly looking more like a woman than a girl, the bright colors of the fabrics surrounding her popping off the graying sky. The sun went down far too fast that night.

Hameeda danced around the garden, touching every plant. She picked all the tomatoes and lined them up in neat rows along the path, then tromped all over them as she watered, making the best of her four-year-old motor skills and splaying water on anything in her path. Fahmeada and I smiled at each other, grown-up girls, enjoying Hameeda’s playful spirit among us.

After dark, I walked the girls to meet their family at the Mosque, despite Fahmeda’s insistence that they’d be okay on their own. I wasn’t ready for her to be that grown up, so she humored me as I guided them the two blocks, then headed home with the crushed tomatoes to make mashed buschetta with aged gouda for András. We drank rose, and toasted to our favorite neighbors, wondering how even when our little shoe box studio gets a little tight, we could ever move away from them.

Much Has Been Given

prince george's county, maryland

I have a farmer’s tan, a bonafide farmer’s tan. A tan earned by a hard day of harvest in the afternoon sun on Miller’s Farm in Prince George’s County, Maryland. It all started in a corner of a collard field where Sir Thomas R. Chandler stood before us with a megaphone and a message.

“Do not reap all the way to the edges of your field, so as to leave some for the poor and the needy,” he said.

With the passion and purpose of a preacher, Sir Thomas introduced us to the ancient gleaner’s law, recorded in the Bible and the artwork of masters like Jean-Francois Millet.

It makes perfect sense. In the same country where 1/2 of the produce we grow is thrown away, there are 12.6 million children at risk for hunger every day. In that same country, our country, crops that are edible but not marketable would rot in the field if not for the volunteers who glean and gather to feed the hungry mouths of their neighbors.

It is upon this principle that Thomas Chandler founded the Mid-Atlantic Gleaning Network that mobilized volunteers to do exactly that. I call him Sir Thomas because he wears the mark of a knight, upholding the values of faith {in the good of man}, loyalty {to his hungry countrymen}, courage {to ask for help} and honor {to uphold civic duty} by feeding the needy with resources that would otherwise go to waste.

Under his leadership, we, an army of gleaners 100-deep from Share Our Strength’s Conference of Leaders, descended upon the field armed with mesh bags to collect a second growth of collards that stood in 30 neat rows. The collards, vibrant green and bursting with life, bore the occasional mark of a moth, tiny holes that effect neither flavor nor nutrient content, but prevent them from going to market. In one hour, we gathered over 60 bags of greens that Sir Thomas estimated would weigh in at about 3,000 pounds.

After our first gleaning, we gathered for a family meal in the fields like true farmers, celebrating our harvest over sandwiches and stories, before heading further out to tackle another patch of green.

It was there, in the second field, that I met Pastor Daniel Hall, co-founder of the Gleaning Network, when I came to confess to Sir Thomas that I’d gleaned a few stray mustard greens right into my mouth. Pastor Hall’s gentle laugh at my confession welcomed me into a deeper conversation. Born on a farm in Maryland where his daddy was a sharecropper, Pastor Hall went on to get his doctorate, teach as a professor at Howard University, serve on numerous boards of directors, and lead churches and revivals before connecting with Sir Thomas, somehow maintaining the humility of farm boy all along.

He shared with me the story of the ancient city of Sodom, a city whose eventual demise rested upon the arrogance and abundance that caused their indifference to the poor and the needy.

“We have been blessed, to become a blessing,” Pastor Hall said of the good fortune most of us share.

With that in mind, I headed back to the field to work a little harder. By day’s end, we filled a refrigerator truck plum full of greens that would make the journey back to DC to feed the kids at Roosevelt High School. Meanwhile, we made a journey of consciousness, awareness that hunger and need are all around us, and that our afternoon effort, which fulfilled many an agrarian dream, is just one piece in the puzzle to end hunger in America. There is education, inspiration, and imagination required.

It is the kind of imagination that can turn a bunch of greens into a luscious frittata that can also turn an empty parking lot into a Common Good City Farm, changing the face of hunger on one city block; the enterprising spirit that uses one ingredient as a building block to a more satisfying story. Cheese, eggs, olive oil, salt. Access, awareness, information, education. We are building a better meal, a better food system, a better nation.

It’s so simple; it could start in a collard field with a megaphone and a message.

No Kid Hungry.

Squashing Pumpkins {Sorrel Pesto Recipe}

People seem to give up on pumpkins after Halloween. Not me. While pumpkins don’t always get carved in our home, they do often get baked, split open and seeds removed, drizzled with olive oil, salt and pepper and roasted at 375 until they are soft and squishy {about 1 1/2 hours, depending on the size}.

It’s the grounding nature of pumpkin, its subtly sweet flavor and long lasting energy that has me hooked. But it could also be a subconscious appreciation for the high doses of potassium {known to control blood pressure} and beta-carotene {a cancer-fighting antioxidant} it delivers that seem to reward with a satisfying sensation that few vegetables give all on their own.

But, in truth, it is probably the fact that it comes together as a beautifully healthful dinner in no time when I pair it with homemade sorrel pesto and serve it on a platter along side a glass of good wine.

Pesto, like pumpkin, could be fairly forgettable in the wrong hands. But not in your hands, my friend. Think of pesto as the little black dress of your culinary wardrobe -- Simple, classic, reliable. Give it a few garnishes and you’ve got a stunner on your hands. That’s what’s sorrel does to pesto.

Sorrel is the little engine that could of our garden, growing upward and onward despite weekly clippings, near frosts, and weeks of gloom and gray. It’s somewhere between a green and an herb, too acidic to become a salad, too leafy to waste simply on the occasional chiffonade but brilliant when blended with pine nuts, parmesan, garlic and olive oil, à la pesto.

Sorrel pesto {or any pesto} can be made on the spot, but it’s the perfect thing to make in advance and tuck into the fridge or freezer for a rainy day. And you’ll be glad you did since this modern pesto makes a quick and elegant accoutrement to almost anything from crudités to skirt steak to roasted veggies. Which brings me back to the pumpkin you were roasting while we were talking here. Put it on a lovely platter, drizzle on your fresh pesto, and presto, it’s dinner.

{click recipe to enlarge}

This simple supper came together so effortlessly last Monday night that I forgot to take a picture, inspiring a repeat performance later in the week with acorn squash, a certifiably successful substitute that earned three stars from my most trusted taster.

By the way, you can use the same method to roast pumpkins {or squash} for fresh puree, which is not only the basis for delicious pumpkin breads and pies, but makes a divine little dinner for your lil’ pumpkin too. After roasting, allow pumpkin to cool enough to handle, scrape the flesh from the skin with a fork and put it through a food mill or food processor.

The Language of Fireflies

l.i.c., ny

Summer officially ended this week, but don’t tell that to my garden, or the kids on my block who are still outside on the sidewalk catching fireflies well past dinnertime. It is during that hour, the just past dinner hour, that you’ll find me in the garden tempting the sun to dare to go down on me before I’ve pruned the tomato plants that hang heavy with fruit, or picked the last of our lively beans that creep where they will.

One such night this week, András came to the garden with me, and pulled up a perky bunch of bright orange carrots with one golden misfit. Like almost everything that comes out of our garden or goes on to our plates, I wanted to take their picture, particularly when he dangled them by their tops in front of his vibrant orange shirt. But he wasn’t having it, sticking out his tongue and making funny faces. Luckily, our Hameeda came to his rescue.

Hameeda is the spirited four year old who lives next door with her two brothers, her older sister Fahmeda, her parents, two cousins and her aunt and uncle. The family, but in particular the kids, have become our constant companions on summer nights at home. At first, I was the garden lady, always passing in front of their gate with haphazard bundle of something green, which all six children would gather around to touch or taste.

But Hameeda isn’t satisfied with casual encounters. Ever since I met her last summer, she almost seems to wait for me to come home, leaping into my arms as soon as she sees me, grabbing onto any part of me until she is up close to my face staring into my eyes where I stare back, loving her happy eyes, her baby skin, her childish mixture of Bangla and English that makes perfect sense to me. If ever my arms are too full of vegetables to lift her up, she’ll accept a taste of what I’ve picked as a love offering instead.

“What’s that?” she asked reaching for the carrots in András’ hands. And before long they were hers, András was inside in his Lazy boy and I was in heaven shooting pictures of my little friends.

Although the kids are no stranger to my camera, Hameeda stood stiff against the brick wall, trying to pose pretty and perfect with her carrots. Fahmeda, always quick to leap to her role as big sister, called out instructions in Bangla, after which Hameeda would turn her head or smile bigger or lift the carrots a certain way. I snapped a few photos, then I pulled her into my arms and whispered in her ear “go wild,” after which she handed out the carrots one by one to her playmates and raced down the street, panting and laughing with the unabashed joy and wonder of a four year old for whom a summer night on a sidewalk is a magical and mysterious thing, full of endless possibilities.

These were the moments just before grown-up-dinner hour, before the carrots softened into the subtleties of butter, shallots and garlic in a sauté pan, before they were married with the pot of simmering summer beans and served in return for the unabashed joy and gratitude of a hungry city farmer.