Fennel frond pesto + what to do with those pesky stalks

I love fennel, especially the bright, beautiful bulbs available at my farmer's market right now. But I do feel a small pang of guilt when I buy whole fennel, because the bulb? It's so small. And -- at least in my case -- the stalks are so big. I mean:

So you see what I'm dealing with here.

A quick search for what to do with my piles of fennel stalks turned up some truly dainty advice: "sprinkle the fronds on salad," and "add a pinch of fronds to simple syrup, then mix with gin for a nice cocktail." That all sounds lovely, but if I were to "sprinkle" these fronds on my salad, I'd end up with something akin to fennel tabouli. (Which, come to think of it, doesn't sound half bad. Next time.)

I thought momentarily about trying a few different preparations and seeing what panned out, but quickly abandoned that idea for fear of excessive fussiness. I wanted to give my pile of fronds destination and purpose, and I wanted to do so post haste. So I went long - six cups long -- on what, in retrospect, was the most obvious choice: pesto.

I started with Melissa Clark's basic formula: fronds, toasted almonds, garlic, olive oil. You could stop there and have something worthy of fridge space. But I ended up adding a bit of orange zest and some Turkish chile to round things out, and I'd recommend both additions.

When the pesto comes out dense, as it did in the photo above, you can just add more oil. If you're going to use it relatively quickly, you can even add a bit of water to help thin it out.

Can we talk for a moment about all the ways to use this pesto? A few are obvious, but others are less so:

• mixed with ricotta, spread on baguette slices
• spread on a tart or a sheet of puff pastry, topped with tomatoes or, hey, slices of roasted fennel
• a spoonful mixed into a simple vegetable soup or dolloped into a bowl of minestrone
• added to salted water as a lovely cooking broth for any vegetable, especially artichokes
• as a layer in a grilled cheese sandwich (with blue, gruyere, parmesan, or pecorino)
• as a condiment on a cheese plate (see recommended pairings above), alongside orange marmalade
• Tossed with spaghetti and any number of other things (tomatoes; anchovies; raisins/currants; toasted bread crumbs)

We had it on tarts for Friday night dinner, layered under shaved zucchini, crushed tomato, and parmesan cheese.  For Father's Day dinner, I folded a bit of the pesto into tomato sauce for campanile (those little bell-shaped pasta), which I topped with a carefree helping of olive oil-toasted bread crumbs. I've still got a  tub of it left in the fridge; whatever I can't get through before the move, I'll freeze in small containers for use later this summer.

As for those pesky fennel stalks, they are far more stubborn than the bulb, slower to yield. That said, a long, lazy bake in a cast iron pan did the trick, and now I'm addicted. I sprinkled them with sea salt and pepper, drizzled a tablespoon or so of olive oil and about half as much honey, and baked them in a cast iron pan at 400 degrees for about 40 minutes. The result was a pile of soft, golden stalks, sweet and yielding and delicious as I'd ever tasted. They made a great cook's snack, but next time, I'll try layering them on a tartlet, on top of a smear of that frond pesto, finished with some honey or orange marmalade and maybe some soft cheese.

With that, I'm off to toast a slice of the last challah this AdMo home of ours will see. *sob*

Fennel Frond Pesto
Adapted from Melissa Clark Makes about 2 cups

Clark calls for an 8:1 ratio of fennel:nuts, but I prefer more nuts in my pesto. Because I used whole roasted salted almonds, I didn't need to add any salt. If you're using unsalted nuts, add salt to taste - probably no more than 1 teaspoon, but I'm guessing here.

3 cups fennel fronds, roughly chopped
1 cup toasted salted almonds (if toasting yourself or using unsalted, you'll salt the pesto to taste after blending) 
1 garlic clove
1-2 teaspoons fragrant medium-spicy chile, to taste
1 teaspoon orange zest
3/4 cup olive oil

Combine all ingredients except oil in a food processor. With the motor running, drizzle in olive oil 1/4 cup at a time, until pesto reaches the desired consistency. If adding salt, add by the 1/2 teaspoon to taste.

Store in the fridge in an airtight container topped with a thin layer of olive oil. Keeps at least a week, probably two.

Vegetarian Bahn Mi Sandwiches

It seems like only a few weeks ago that we finally finished our new kitchen. It's actually been a couple months, but time flies when you're parenting a six-month-old (!).

Back to the kitchen: it has a butcher block, which we "reclaimed" (can you do that if it was yours to start with?) from an old shelf and installed atop a long row of gleaming white cabinets; in the small finishes department, we put up a new knife strip, which holds my sharpies in a neat row, flush against the wall. It's sort of perfect, and it made us both excited to cook and eat in it for months and years to come.

kitchen 2

We unpacked all of our stuff into our new space, set everything up, and figured we were done with the packing and moving for a while. Silly us. What actually happened - with shocking speed - was that we bought a house.

This isn't the move of five years ago, when we picked up all our belongings and walked four doors down the street. This is a different street in a different neighborhood. It shifts our center of gravity.

We're not moving until the end of the summer moving in two weeks! Does anything happen gradually anymore? I love our new house, but I really, really love our current home. Between us, I'm not quite ready to leave it.

Finalizing plans to sell a condo, buy a house, pack, move, and unpack all over again -- it's keeping us rather busy. This on top of my busiest season at work means the cooking is sort of on hold. But lurking amid the chaos of our packed calendars and many to-do lists was a day worth setting everything else aside an celebrating: our first Mothers' Day.

So we did. We shut down Redfin and went to the park to play, with Adi in the swing, my dad doing the pushing, and my mom chatting with other parents in the park like the pro that she is. Then we walked the half-block back to our place, and I whipped up some bahn mi sandwiches for dinner.

The sandwiches are suprisingly simple to make: you marinate and roast tofu (or, in a pinch, buy the pre-marinated stuff at the grocery store), and layer it onto a baguette slathered with spread and piled with crispy mushrooms and pickled vegetables.

As for the spread: Mayonnaise is traditional here, but as has been documented over and over again, I just don't enjoy the stuff. Taking my cue from the New England lobster roll, I ditched the mayo in favor of butter, and mixed in a bit of sriracha. I'm sure sriracha would taste great mixed with mayo, if you like that sort of thing.

Because it was Mothers' Day, I even made my own baguette -- from this extremely low-maintenance, relatively foolproof recipe. Since then, I've piled these same ingredients on a store-bought loaf, cut it in half, wrapped it in parchment paper, and taken it to the office for lunch.

Adi has just started to eat solids, which is a topic for another day. But I'm reasonably sure by the time she tries her first bite of bahn mi, our beloved condo will be quite far in the rear view mirror, and we'll be settled into our new home. Sigh, time.

Vegetarian Bahn Mi Sandwiches
Serves 4

For the tofu:
1 pound extra-firm tofu, sliced into half-inch slabs
2 tablespoons peanut butter
2 tablespoons warm water
2 tablespoons rice vinegar
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon sesame oil

For the pickles:
2 carrots, julienned
1 thick stump of daikon, julienned
1/3 cup rice vinegar
1/3 cup water
2 teaspoons sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons salt

For the mushrooms:
6 ounces shiitake mushrooms, sliced
2 tablespoons grapeseed or canola oil
salt and pepper
Juice of one lime

For assembling the sandwiches:
2 long baguettes, ends trimmed, halved
Pickled carrots and daikon
Marinated baked tofu
Sauteed mushrooms
1 avocado, halved and sliced
Sriracha butter
Cilantro

Make the tofu: Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Press a towel (or paper towel) firmly against each slab of tofu to remove some of the residual liquid, wringing the towel as you go. Combine all the ingredients for the tofu marinade, whisk until smooth, and brush on tofu slabs. Lay coated slabs on a rimmed baking sheet, leaving at least 1 inch of space between pieces. Bake for 15 minutes until tofu is firm and mostly dry. Set aside to cool.

Meanwhile, make the pickles: Combine water, vinegar, sugar, and salt in a small saucepan. Pile julienned vegetables into a heat-safe jar. Heat pickling liquid until it just comes to a boil, then remove from heat, let cool about 15 seconds, and pour into heat-safe jar, over vegetables. Set aside.

Make mushrooms: Heat oil in a small stainless steel or cast iron pan over medium-high heat. When oil shimmers, add mushroom slices; they should sizzle. Cook for a total of 6-8 minutes, flipping mushrooms as they start to brown, until all mushrooms are golden and crispy. Sprinkle with salt, transfer to a small bowl, and squeeze lime juice over top.

Make sriracha butter: Stir together butter with half the sriracha. Taste, and add more sriracha as desired.

Assemble sandwiches: Slice baguette into sandwich-sized pieces. Slice into each length of baguette lengthwise, leaving one end connected. Splay baguettes open on a work space.

Spread a layer of sriracha butter on the insides of each baguette length. Layer two slabs of tofu, a handful of the pickled vegetables, several mushrooms, slices of avocado, and a pinch of cilantro into each baguette. Serve.

Sandwiches will also keep relatively fresh for about 2 hours after assembly.

Ramps 'n' Eggs Biscuit Sandwiches

Ramps have ridden the wave of foodie obsession. In years past, from the moment the green bundles made their season debut in Instagram feeds, fanatics and curious innocents would rush to the market to purchase their share. The next few days would see post after post of ramp-infused everything. I'll own it: I played the game. I bought my little ramps, priced rather preciously at $5 for a tiny fistful. I folded them into butter, plopped them on pizza, even grilled them whole and served them with romesco sauce, fancy-style. It was all a bit exhausting.

This year, it seems, the craze has died down. Ramps were at the market last week, but if my memory is correct, they were priced slightly cheaper than last year, something that never happens. There also weren't hoards of people clustering to snatch them all up; in fact, there was barely a peep about them. I ran into a couple of friends, and when I went to purchase a bundle or two, they frowned: why would you buy those?

Fair enough. They're fancy wild onions, not truffles. Point taken. But here's what I like about them: they're like the green part of scallions on steroids. Super grassy, with a distinctly wild bite. A little goes a long way. And because the leaves are so delicate, they don't need much -- if any -- cooking before they get added to whatever you're making. And what you're making, if you're with me, is brunch.

In the case of last Sunday's brunch, it was a basic biscuit egg sandwich. Ramps rescued the thing from being purely a bald-faced attempt at consuming as much butter as possible and calling it a meal. Now everything was green! Sort of. But it was more than sort of tasty. And come Sunday, it'll probably grace our brunch table yet again. 'Tis the season; it doesn't last for long.

Ramps 'n' Eggs Biscuit Sandwiches
Serves 4

The biscuit recipe is adapted from my go-to, Marion Cunningham's cream biscuits. There's no butter in the dough itself; it just gets brushed on (liberally!) before baking. Here, I subbed out half the cream for yogurt, which worked really well.

Biscuits:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon sugar
3 ramps, green tops only (white bottoms reserved), sliced
3/4 cup heavy cream
3/4 cup yogurt (preferably full-fat)
4 tablespoons butter, melted

Eggs:
6 eggs
2 ramps, green and white parts, chopped, plus reserved white ramp bottoms from biscuits salt and pepper
2-3 tablespoons butter

Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.

Combine flour, salt, baking powder, sugar, and ramp tops in a medium mixing bowl. Stir to combine.

In a separate bowl, combine cream and yogurt; stir until smooth. Pour yogurt-cream mixture into flour mixture, and use a fork to start combining the mixture. When most of the flour has been incorporated, dump the mixture onto a clean work surface, and use your hands (and a light touch) to bring it together. Knead the dough gently for about 30 seconds, until it comes together fully.

Shape dough into a mass (round if you want pie-slice biscuits; square if you want square biscuits), and slice into about 9 pieces.

Brush biscuits with melted butter on all sides; set buttered biscuits 2 inches apart onto an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake for about 15 minutes, until browned and puffy.

Once you've taken the biscuits out of the oven, heat 1 tablespoon of butter in a small saute pan over medium heat. When butter foams, add the sliced white bottoms of all the ramps. Cook for about 3 minutes, stirring occasionally, until ramps are fragrant and softened. Meanwhile, combine green ramp tops and eggs in a mixing bowl. Whisk to combine; season with salt and pepper. Add remaining butter to the pan, then add egg mixture. Use one hand to vigorously shake the pan back and forth; hold a fork in the other hand, and make continuous mixing motions with the fork, to break up the eggs and create a light, custardy texture in your scramble. When eggs are cooked to your liking, remove from the heat. Serve immediately, on or alongside hot biscuits.

Asparagus Toasts with Pistachios and Mint

I think I speak for all of us on the east coast when I say, FINALLY. Winter can see its sorry self out the door for another nine months or so. I'm preoccupied by my true loves, the asparagus that have arrived,* and I can't bring myself to talk about much of anything else.

*As I'm writing this, asparagus season hasn't really started here in Washington.** Usually I'm a stickler, waiting with embarrassing impatience for local farmers to harvest their crop. But this year, weeks after I ran out of creative uses for beets and kale, the asparagus still hadn't made their debut at my farmers' market, and yet there they were on display at the Whole Foods, skinny little bundles of asparagus from California. Are they as good as the ones grown nearby? Not even close. But I figure since all my citrus comes from the west coast anyway, I may as well start spring vegetable season a bit early, too.

This is a great recipe for those transitional weeks, when the produce isn't gleaming and perfect. The WF asparagus had a longer woody stem than I'm used to, so I removed those and sliced the rest of the spear on the bias into short coins. Over medium-high heat, I sauteed them rather unevenly in plenty of butter, so some just barely cooked through while others got nicely browned and crisp.

There's pretty much nothing you can do to mess up a good slice of bread slathered with ricotta. Adding browned, buttery asparagus: not an exception. To keep things bright, I ran to a flavor combination that I think I originally saw in the Zuni Cafe cookbook: pistachios, orange, mint.

If you time things right, you'll catch the tail end of citrus season: these toasts really benefit from the zest of a good orange (or blood orange) and the juice from a meyer lemon.

The weather's still bouncing back and forth here, one day as beautiful as it gets and the next cold and rainy. Spring isn't predictable, but there's one thing I can guarantee the coming weeks will bring: plenty more asparagus recipes.

** In the end, it took me almost a week to get this post live, and as of right this very instant, ASPARAGUS SEASON HAS STARTED!!

Asparagus Toasts with Pistachios and Mint
Makes 4 toasts

1 small bunch (about 8 spears) asparagus, rinsed and trimmed, sliced into 2-inch pieces
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
salt and pepper
1/4 teaspoon chile flakes (I like Turkish chile)
zest of half an orange or one lemon
1/3 cup good ricotta
4 half-slices of very good crusty bread (I like sourdough)
leaves from one sprig of mint, rinsed and torn into small pieces
2 tablespoons salted (shelled) pistachios, coarsely chopped
small wedge of lemon

Heat butter in a small saute pan over medium heat. When butter foams, add asparagus and a pinch each of salt and pepper. Add turkish chile and citrus zest. Cook, tossing pan occasionally to prevent sticking, until asparagus are on the crunchy side of tender and golden brown in spots; I found that this took around 3-4 minutes for stalks on the thin side. Set pan aside and allow asparagus to cool slightly.

Toast bread in a toaster or hot oven to your liking. (I'm a golden girl.) Spread a thick layer of ricotta onto the toast slices, and divide the asparagus spears evenly among the toasts. Finish with a pinch of mint, a sprinkle of pistachios, and a squeeze of lemon. Serve immediately.