Warm fiddlehead salad

Served with a generous portion of roasted potatoes and some thick slices of wheat bread, this salad makes a lovely centerpiece for a tasty vegetarian meal.

Wash, clean and snip the ends of about two cups of fiddleheads. In a non-stick pan, sautee a clove or two of minced garlic in a couple tablespoons of olive oil.

Meanwhile, make the dressing. First, grind 1 tsp dried rosemary, 1/2 tsp marjoram, 1 1/2 tsp sea salt, about ten pepper corns and 1 good pinch of red pepper flakes in a mortar. Add this dried mix of herbs to a mix of 1 tbsp vinegar and 3 tbsp olive oil.

When the fiddleheads are ready (about ten minutes; more if you prefer them softer), allow them to cool for about 5 minutes. Mix with the dressing and serve warm.

Mousse au chocolat

Because I had fresh, free range eggs from my sister Corrine this week, and since it was a dreary and rainy day yesterday, the time was right to whip up a chocolate mousse. My rendition of this lovely dessert is based on my friend Beatrice Luttman's recipe which I modified a bit by using crême fraîche instead of milk and by folding in the eggs whites in two stages, the way Bittman does with his mousse in How to Cook Everything and the way Patricia Wells' does with her chocolate cake recipes in Bistro Cooking. According to Beatrice, the mousse is to be made the night before you plan to eat it. However, following Bittman's advice, I put the mousse in small ramekins and they were set and ready to eat within three hours. If you are going to make this recipe, be sure to use the freshest of eggs from free-range chickens.

• 150 grams of bittersweet chocolate
• 1 tbsp crême fraîche (cream will work just fine)
• 3 fresh eggs, separated
• 4 tbsp sugar
• 1 1/2 tbsp butter

In a small saucepan, melt the chocolate with the crême fraîche over very low heat. When it is melted and smooth, add the butter and stir until it is completely melted. Remove from heat.

In a small bowl, blend the sugar with the egg yolks. Stir in the chocolate and blend well.

Beat the egg whites until they form firm peaks. Fold half of the whites into the chocolate mixture, slowly and patiently until all the white disappears. Repeat the action with the rest of the egg whites.

Pour into four ramekin molds and place in the refridgerator to set. Serve cold.

Trout spread

This simple spread, which was made with a little leftover trout from a previous meal (see "truite sautée à la poêle"), is based on a recipe called "Anchoiade chez Gilbert" from Patricia Wells' Bistro Cooking. On some fresh baguette from Anarosa's in Newburyport, it made a most delicious little appetizer.

• Leftover cooked trout, chopped up fairly small (about 1/4 cup)
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 tblsp olive oil
• 1 tsp red wine vinegar
• 1/2 tsp each kosher salt and dried rosemary, ground up with a mortar and pestle
• 8 thinnish slices of good baguette

The the broiler on and place the baguette slices on a tray. Toast the bread for about two minutes, turning over once. Reserve. Mix all the ingredients for the spread together in a small bowl. Spread evenly on the toasted baguette slices and return to the broiler for about one and a half minutes. Serve immediately.

Spinach and Cottage Cheese Omelette

When I went home to Maine this past week, my sister Corrine gave me a dozen fresh eggs from her free-ranging chickens (hence the bright yellow color of the omelette seen in the photo) and I picked up some homemade cottage cheese from my cousin Gloria's and her husband Greg's farm store at Nezinscot Farm on Route 117 in Turner. I also picked up a loaf each of anadama (seen in the photo), wheat and seven grain bread. If you are ever in the area, you must absolutely stop! The farm is excellent, Greg and Gloria are real and the food is fantastic. I highly recommend the cookies, especially the chocolate chip cookies!

You might think it weird to add cottage cheese to an omelette. Of course, you aren't wrong to think so if your notion of cottage cheese is that watery, chemically-tasting stuff you buy at the grocery store. My cousin Gloria's cottage cheese is drier and crumblier. It has the texture of feta, so if you can't get your hands on some homemade cottage cheese, use feta in this recipe instead. It will change the taste, however, as feta is much more salty than cottage cheese.

• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• Half a small onion, sliced thinly
• A few generous handfuls of fresh spinach
• 2 - 3 eggs per omelette, lightly beaten and generously salted and peppered
• Cottage cheese (or feta)
• Butter

In a non-stick pan, melt a few tablespoons of butter over medium-low heat. Sautee the garlic and onion until translucent. Add the spinach and cook until it wilts without losing it's dark green color. Remove the spinach, onion and garlic mix from the pan and reserve in a bowl. Melt a few more tablespoons of butter in the same pan and raise the heat. The butter should sizzle but not brown. Add the beaten eggs. Lift the pan a bit from the stove and shake it as though you were making popcorn. Place it back on the heat and cook, lifting it to shake every once in a while to keep the eggs from sticking to the pan. This will also help move the uncooked liquidy eggs to the edges of the pan to cook. Right before the eggs are set, remove from the heat and add some spinach and cottage cheese to one side of the circle. Using a plastic spatula, flip the other side of the circle over the part that has the spinach and cottage cheese. If you like your eggs runny, serve it up just like this. If you want them a little more cooked, place the pan back on the heat and cook until your desired consistency.

Enjoy with a light green salad and a thick slice of homemade bread. This is dinner in 5 minutes! This is heaven on your plate! Enjoy!

Truite sautée à la poêle

There is nothing more simple or more delicious than fresh trout fried in butter! I got this fish from a friend and colleague, Bill, who went fishing in Cape Cod last weekend and didn't hesitate to cook it up as soon as I had it in my hands. This was easy to do since Bill had already gutted the fish and removed the scales and the head!




For two medium-sized trout, mix about half a cup of corn meal with some fresh ground pepper, fresh ground sea salt and ground rosemary in a shallow bowl. Rinse and pat dry the fish, then roll it in the cornmeal mix. In a non-stick pan, melt a generous amount of butter (3 to 4 good tablespoons) over medium heat until melted but not browned. Place the fish in the butter and cook, turning only once, for about 4-5 minutes on each side. Sprinkle with more salt, pepper and rosemary if you wish.

Serve with sides of fresh veggies and quinoa, or other grain of your liking. Enjoy!

Tofu and Carrot Sautee

I have never been a huge fan of tofu. In fact, I have always thought it was quite disgusting. Josh likes it, and because it is a source of protein, I prep it sometimes to include in dishes simply for its protein content. The other day, however, I made a discovery: small pieces of tofu fried up in oil in a non-stick teflon pan is quite lovely. So lovely, in fact, that Josh and I ended up eating the first batch I made as a simple appetizer! The difference was the pan, which I just bought recently in my efforts to cook the perfect Julia Child's omelette. The non-stick pan allows for a more crispy, browned top, something I've never been able to achieve by frying the tofu in my cast iron pans, the only kinds of pans I owned until just recently. So, with salt and some cumin, the result of tofu cooked in the non-stick pan is a slightly crispy, lovely nugget of flavor. As an appetizer served with toothpicks or in this dish, it's great!

1. Half a block of firm tofu, cut into small cubes
2. 1 large clove of garlic, minced
3. About 2 tsp fresh minced ginger
4. Half an onion, cut into small pieces
5. 5 or 6 small carrots, peeled and cut into small pieces
6. Half a can of black beans, drained
7. Rice

Sautee the cubed tofu in a tablespoon or so of olive oil, sprinkling with salt and cumin to taste as you go. Use a wooden spoon to stir occassionally and shake the pan so that all sides of the tofu (or at least a few of them) turn a golden brown. Remove to a bowl, add a bit more oil to the pan and sautee the garlic and onion until translucent. Add the carrots and cook only until just tender. Add the black beans and cook until hot.

Serve over rice for a delicious, healthy meal!

Ginger broth

My stomach was feeling a little queazy the other day, and since I didn't have any gingerale in the house, I thought I'd try making a little ginger broth to calm the system a bit. There's nothing more simple or economical than this: all you need are a few scraps from an onion, some garlic and ginger that you might be using for something else that you are cooking up. In the pot, you see that it doesn't take much to start, but the yield is pretty high.

Place the scraps into a pot about this size and fill about 3/4 full with cold water and a generous amount of salt, about what you see in my hand below. Bring to a boil than reduce to simmer for at least an hour, if not more. Strain, cool and drink or spoon up like any other soup. Enjoy!