We didn’t have a stove this Christmas, but Mr. E. got the new one installed just before New Year’s Day. I wasn’t exactly hoping for the old range to die, but it was a nice excuse to convert to gas in the new house. Life with a stove ist definitely better than life without. And cooking with gas beats the heck out of electric.

I feel like I’ve spent most of the last three days in the kitchen, and today I finally got to make tamales in the new house (we skipped them last year because we left for LA the day after Christmas).

Here’s how I made them this year:

Tamales

Ingredients

Corn husks
Filling (use your imagination!)
6 cups masa harina
5 cups warm broth
2 cups shortening
2 T cumin
2 T chili powder
salt to taste

Method

Soak corn husks in boiling water (I like to soak them for an hour). Mix masa and broth; let sit. Whip shortening in a mixer until it’s fluffy. Mix in masa/broth mixture and spices; salt to taste.

I mashed a sweet potato and a russet with a little milk and butter for filling, along with some refried beans. smear masa into the corn husks, put in a dollop of filling, roll ‘em up and steam ‘em standing up and covered with a layer of corn husks in a double boiler until they’re not doughy; about 2 hours. Serve with your choice of toppings/sides/garnishes. I usually do a green sauce and a mole; this year I’m keeping it simple with a little guacamole.

And since it’s New Year’s Day, not Christmas, we’re starting things off with a pot of hoppin’ john.

Hoppin’ John

Ingredients

Black eyed peas
Onion
Garlic
Hot sauce
Salt and pepper to taste

Method

Soak and cook black eyed peas. Saute onion and garlic, and add into cooked peas. Add salt, pepper and hot sauce to taste.

For the gardener, the end of summer brings the zucchini dilemma. It doesn’t freeze well, and once it starts, it really gets going. You end up doing things like leaving squash on neighbors’ porches, ringing their doorbells and running off. Or making zucchini bread, which is delicious, but not exactly what I need as I fight the middle-age spread.

I’ve always enjoyed summer squash stewed with tomatoes and onions, which Wacky Mommy calls ratatouille (I always just called it “what was ripe in the garden at the same time”). Tonight we tried something different, inspired by a recipe in my girl Marfa’s Whole Living magazine. Call it a composed ratatouille, if you will. Here goes:

Composed ratatouille

Ingredients:

1 medium onion, sliced thinly
4 roma tomatoes, sliced 1/4 inch thick
1 medium zucchini, sliced 1/4 inch thick
1 medium purple potato, sliced 1/4 inch thick
Olive oil
Fresh thyme
Grated Parmesan
Coarse sea salt
Black pepper

Method:

Preheat oven to 375.

Sauté onion in olive oil until just starting to caramelize. Spread these evenly in the bottom of a 9×13 baking dish.

On top of the onions, lay the slices of potatoes, tomatoes and zucchini in an overlapping, alternating pattern. Sprinkle with salt, pepper, fresh thyme leaves, and Parmesan.

Bake 30 minutes covered, then uncover and bake another 30 minutes. Test potatoes with a fork, and bake a little more if needed.

We also have an abundance of heirloom Chioggia beets, which I planted by accident two years ago, and decided they were my favorite. Tonight I roasted them for about 35 minutes with a little olive oil, salt and pepper. We rounded out the meal with some seasoned pinto beans (olive oil, cumin, salt and pepper) and brown rice.

Surprisingly simple to make, fun to look at, delicious and nutritious.

Oregon berries are so late this year… but so worth the wait!

The kids and I made ravioli and cake poppers to fete the inimitable Wacky Mommy.

We were more than a week late, but we tried to make up for it with extreme yumminess, verging on decadence.

I don’t miss much about the house we left a year ago… but I do miss the garden. Our new yard was not ready for gardening last year when we moved in, but we’re working on it now. Here’s a Flickr set documenting our progress.

Aloo Methi (potatoes with fenugreek leaves), where have you been all my life? (Thank you Lentil Garden, whose rasam is also da bomb, especially for kicking a virus.)

Birthday girl requested, in order: hash browns for breakfast, left over mom’s mac and cheese for lunch, spaghetti and potatoes o’brien for dinner, and a combo deal on the cake: one with coconut, one with chocolate frosting, both based on the old family pound cake recipe. And what goes with pound cake and coconut cake? Why, chocolate syrup, of course! Yum! (And yes, it is, in fact, the second time I’ve made birthday cakes in as many weekends. It’s a special time of year for us over here!)

We at Chez Wacky are long-time devotees of the Beaverton Farmers Market. It’s still the best market in the Portland metro area, both in terms of selection and shopping experience.

Here’s a little something I whipped up yesterday. Let’s call it:

The Market Cocktail, v. 1.0

Ingredients:

• Fresh strawberries from Denison Farms in Corvallis, OR
• CranHoney sticks from Little Oak Farms in Cornelius, OR
• Chopin potato vodka
• 7-Up or sparkling water
• ice

Method:

Slice 3-4 ripe strawberries and muddle with contents of one CranHoney stick and as much vodka as you like to pour. Add ice and top with a splash of 7-Up or sparkling water. Enjoy with your lovely spouse, and toast the coming of summer!

Chioggia beets with caramelized onions and garlic and pan-seared green beans an zucchini with crisp basil, Parmesan and lemon zest

I love beets. Despite this love, and despite having been a produce guy for 10 years, I never tried Chioggia beets until I grew them in my garden this year. They are an Italian heirloom variety, milder than your average beet, and they don’t stain. The first batch I harvested, I roasted to bring out their sweetness, but tonight I wanted to steam them to appreciate their unadulterated complexity.

I also harvested the first big batch of green beans tonight, and some baby zucchinis, and the basil’s still kicking of course, so I whipped this up for dinner tonight.

Ingredients

• 5 medium-small Chioggia beets, peeled and sliced
• 1 fistful of green beans with the ends cut off
• 2 baby zucchini, sliced thinly
• 1/4 sweet onion, chopped
• 5 cloves garlic, sliced thinly
• zest from 1/4 lemon
• juice from 1/4 lemon
• a couple sprinkles freshly grated Parmesan or other dry cheese
• several leaves fresh basil, sliced length-wise, plus sprigs for garnish
• olive oil
• steamed rice
• salt and pepper to taste

Method

Heat olive oil over medium-high flame in a cast-iron skillet. (Use more olive oil than you think you’ll need; this will not only cook the onions, garlic, beans and zucchini, it will dress the beets and rice.) Caramelize onions. While onions are caramelizing, steam beats.

Once onions are starting to brown, add green beans, thinly-sliced zucchini, and thinly-sliced garlic; sear well. Add salt and pepper and lemon juice. Add a little olive oil if it doesn’t look like enough.

Arrange beets on a bed of rice, top with skillet mixture, Parmesan cheese and lemon zest. Garnish with a sprig of basil. Enjoy wth a glass of Pinot Griggio and your super-hero spouse (serves 2).

Tonight’s garden feast: capellini with garden fresh pesto, rustic whole wheat bread, and rice salad with fresh green beans, zucchini, basil, and jalepeño. I haven’t made pesto for years, but it’s not hard to remember.

Pesto

• fresh basil
• garlic
• olive oil
• some kind of dry, grated cheese (Parmesan works great)
• pine nuts
• salt to taste

(You could use some other kind of nuts — walnuts, almonds — but then don’t call it pesto.) We’ve got some old food processor I never use, but it’s perfect for this. Go cut a bunch of basil. I used the equivalent of about four bunches at the store. Rinse the bugs and dust off them, the strip all the leaves (and the tender buds) into the food processor. Add several cloves of garlic, a couple glugs of olive oil and some grated cheese. Puree the heck out it and set it aside in the fridge. Toss with hot pasta later.

Rice Salad with Green Beans

This is a variation on something I used to do with cilantro, but I’m not growing any cilantro this year. I added garbanzo beans to make a complete protein. Make a bunch; keeps well in fridge for several days.

• a pot of cooked rice, cooled
• cooked garbanzos, cooled, thawed or from a can, drained (I used one can)
• 1 small zucchini, grated
• 1 small jalepeño, minced
• 1/4 sweet onion, minced
• a couple fistfuls green beans, par-boiled
• lemon juice
• olive oil
• a small handful fresh basil, minced
• salt and pepper to taste

Prep beans like you’re going to freeze them: submerge in boiling water one or two minutes, then transfer to ice bath. While beans cool, mix rice, beans, a glug or two of olive oil and a fair amount of lemon juice. Add minced jalepeño, onion, basil, grated zuchinni, salt an pepper. Lemon zest would be great if you’re using fresh lemons. Add the beans, stir well, and set aside in the fridge to marry flavors.