At the Farmer’s Market the other week I bought a bunch of kale. Sometimes when I buy something at the market I know exactly what I’m going to do with it. In this case, I just bought it because I like kale. A few days later I was trying to decide what to make for dinner; I didn’t want to make pasta again, but I wasn’t sure what I was in the mood for. Suddenly my mind started repeating over and over to me: kale and eggs, kale and eggs, kale and eggs… I wasn’t sure why, at first, but I was convinced they’d make a great pairing. After a few minutes I remembered that I’d had a dish at Blue Hill which involved a poached egg and some stewed kale. I wasn’t sure how they’d made it, and I assumed it was rather complicated, but I knew how I could make something similar, but much simpler and easier.

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Membrillo is so easy to make it’s surprising to me that more people aren’t making it at home. Maybe it’s the lack of quince, or maybe it’s just that people aren’t sure exactly what it is. Membrillo is basically a paste made of quince; there’s sugar and lemon juice in it, but the main thing is applying heat to the quince, in various stages. This simple application of heat, over a long period of time, transforms a hard, pear-like fruit into a delicious bright orange paste that is traditionally served with cheese, and is also delicious on its own.

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When I had the thyme whipped cream from The Dessert Truck I was amazed how good it was. I never thought of putting herbs into whipped cream. So when I was making the apple pie for Thanksgiving I wanted to do something similar. After googling around I decided to use sage and make sage whipped cream. But all the “sage whipped cream” I found on the internet was just adding pieces of sage into the cream. I wanted to incorporate it more so I decided to boil it.

I poured in a pint of heavy cream into a pot. Wasn’t sure how many sage leaves to put in but I put in 7. Turned on the heat to medium-low. Give it a good few stirs every so often. When it gets to a rolling boil, let it simmer for couple more minutes. Take it off the heat, pour it into a bowl/container and let it cool. Take out the sage leaves too. As it cools, the cream will form a top layer of skin. Just skim it off. If you’re using this later, put it in a container and into the fridge.

Before actually whipping the cream, put a metal bowl and the whisk into the freezer and let them freeze up really good. Pour the cream into the cold bowl, add about 1.5 to 2 tablespoons of sugar and whip till stiff peaks form. Don’t over whip, no one likes lumpy whipped cream.

I was surprised how good this was. The flavors of the sage really came through and at the same time wasn’t weird or too crazy. 7 sage leaves were definitely the right amount. Enjoy!

I was watching an episode of “Julia and Jacques Cooking at Home” in which they made some fancy French desserts. One of the recipes involved making pate a choux, a kind of all purpose batter that you can use to make cream puffs, eclairs, gougeres, and profiteroles (among other things). It actually didn’t look to hard, so I figured “Why not?”

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Ever since Hanco’s opened their 7th Avenue branch, I’ve been eating their tofu banh mi at least once a week. Then a few weeks ago I was at the Farmer’s Market and spotted a beautiful daikon radish and an idea began to form in my head. Why not make my own banh mi? I grabbed a daikon, some carrots, a few demi-baguettes, a sprig of cilantro, and some eggplants (among other things) and began to plan.

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So here’s all of the stuff I’ve been cooking during the summer season, with produce from the Farmer’s Market.

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