2013: Daaang, January, that's fresh!

New Year's Resolution #1: Listen to my friends

After a weekend in the North Woods of Minnesota I am finding myself incredibly grateful for my amazing friends and (real) seasonal food. A quick shout out to my besties: Every time I get together to share food with folks they tell me to write down all my intuition so it can be shared with everyone. So, here's it goes.

To sum up the slacked year and a half: I am in graduate school. The end.

But, I am still cooking, obviously, and like many graduate students, on a budget that is nothing to brag about. But I manage to eat seasonally and locally on that budget. Being in California, it's all relative, but it's good practice for when the time comes to move back East or anywhere but here for that matter. 

 On a recent trip home to NH, I checked on my parents greenhouse bed expecting to see frozen miniature plants, and lo and behold, I found some delicious leafy kale! What a sight in a landscape devoid of color. Green! Short and shout from the long cold nights and short days, there wasn't much to the plant, but I knew the flavor was perfect. If you don't already know that kale is better after it's been through a frost, consider yourself enlightened. It complete changes the flavor and texture into something quite magical. In fact, you can pack raw kale in the freezer and when you defrost it it's sweeter, still appears to be raw! I learned that one out of laziness, avoiding blanching before freezing. 

I took a bunch of it, brought it back to the house, and whipped it up as a replacement for basil in pesto. I added a touch of lemon and zest to brighten it up. Threw some roasted butternut squash on there and suddenly seasons were melding. The hot pasta hit the garlic and lemon and it's summer, and the roasted butternut squash and sweet kale was a strong reminder of the lasting power of hardy crops. It's a nice experience on the shortest days of the year.

The best part about this recipe is it is incredibly fast. If it weren't for the butternut squash, you could make this in the time it takes to boil water and make pasta. It would be perfectly delicious without it. But I love contrast, orange, green, winter, summer. The squash follows my leave-it-alone mentality. Chunk it up and forget about it in the oven. I suppose the hardest part of this recipe is peeling this damn thing. Worth the time, and if you get a big squash, you'll have plenty left over to use in something else. Or you'll find it tastes like candy and you eat most of it before dinner is served. That could also happen.

Winter Pesto 

A bunch of kale, destemmed and washed 

A cup of nuts or seeds toasted or raw, no salt   (pumpkin seeds, pecans, walnuts, almonds, or cashews)

zest and juice of a lemon

2-4 cloves garlic

1/2 c good quality extra virgin olive oil

salt and pepper to taste

A hardy winter squash (butternut, buttercup, or kabocha)

1 pound pasta (a sturdy shape like orecchiette, rigatoni, spaghetti)

Cheese (Reggiano, sharp cheddar, anything aged, nutty, salty) or not

**A note about the garlic: you can use raw or you can roast the cloves a bit in some of the olive oil (for a few minutes in a pan over medium low heat) to take the edge off. Thats up to you.

Start with the squash. Peel it and cut it into 1 or less inch chunks, toss with a drizzle of olive oil on a sheet pan. No seasoning.  400 for 30 to 45. Honestly, forget about it while you do everything else.

For the pasta, bring a big pot of water to a boil with a small handful of salt. That's right, handful. An exact measure would be at least 2 tablespoons. No oil.

While the pasta is boiling, whiz all the other ingredients, sans cheese, in the blender, cuisinart, or just chop finely by hand. The pesto is finished. It's hard for me at this point not to just eat the whole lot spread on bread.

Drain the pasta when its al dente. Don't let it drain too long, keep a bit of moisture on it to steam the kale in the pesto. Throw the pasta and pesto in a bowl and toss to combine.

Take out the squash. Salt and pepper the squash once it's out of the oven. Put it on top of the already tossed pesto and pasta. A dash of cheese, or not. A drizzle of really yummy olive oil, or not. Your preference.

To think that something so fresh could come out of a place with not a speck of green in sight. Where people cut holes in frozen lakes to jump in on the shortest day of the year.