Some people love breakfast.  Other people only eat breakfast because they know they are supposed to and they know that if they don’t, they will inhale an entire table’s worth of food for lunch.  I put myself in the second category.  I never feel hungry in the morning and, consequently, I eat one of the same three things every single day.  Having a rotation of three things is actually fairly recent.  Up until this year, I ate a Luna bar every day for nine years.  Nine years.  Now I alternate with thrilling things like yogurt and cereal.

Sweet scones are all well and good but how about a savory scone?  I made these with a combination of dill and aged Cheddar but there are many other combos that would work.  Roasted red pepper and feta, scallion and chèvre, thyme and Gruyère all sound good to me.  I like the idea of serving these with some soup on a fall day in addition to offering them to friends for breakfast.

For this basic recipe, you use a (homemade) scone mix.  After I made the blueberry ones, I had just enough left over for another batch.  I kept the mix in the refrigerator and was so happy to have some on hand so I could make treats for my guests.

Scones previously on Dana Treat: Almond Praline Scones, Classic Currant Scones|
One Year Ago: Mint Filled Brownie Cupcakes
Two Years Ago: Fresh Summer Rolls with Tofu

Savory Scones
Adapted from With Love & Butter
Makes 12 scones

For this recipe, you will need approximately half the Scone Mix.  Or if you want, you can double the Savory Scones and freeze half of them.  Lots of options.

4½ cups Scone Mix
½ cup coarsely grated Cheddar cheese
¼ cup chopped fresh dill
1 large shallot, chopped
½ tsp. freshly ground black pepper
1 cup buttermilk
½ cup cottage cheese

Preheat the oven to 375ºF with the rack in center position.  In a medium bowl, toss together the Scone Mix, cheese, dill, shallot, and pepper.  Drizzle the buttermilk over the surface and blob in the cottage cheese.  (DT: “Blob” is Holly’s word!)  Stir until mixed.  If the dough is too dry to stick together when pressed, add a bit more buttermilk.  You want to be able to make a nice firm shape.

Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface and pat into two disks about 1½-inches thick.  Cut each disk into 6 wedges and arrange 1-inch apart on a cookie sheet.  Bake in two batches if they don’t fit on one sheet.  Bake 15 minutes, rotate the pan, and bake another 10 to 15 minutes, until the scones are light brown on top and darker on the bottom, and no longer soft and doughy in the center.  When judging doneness, don’t rely on the color of the tops alone.  The tops can look quite light and undone while the bottoms are getting quite brown.

Scone Mix
4½ cups all-purpose flour
1 cup plus 2 tbsp. whole wheat flour
2 tbsp. sugar
1½ tbsp. baking powder
1¼ tsp. baking soda
¾ tsp. salt
2¾ sticks cold butter, sliced

Place all the ingredients except the butter in a large bowl and mix.

Fit your food processor with the steel knife blade.  Put half the butter in the bowl and top with half the dry ingredients.  Pulse until the butter is reduced to pearl-sized bits.  Don’t over process or it will turn into a dough, you want a dry mix.  Pour the processed mixture into another large empty bowl.  Repeat this process with the remaining dry ingredients and butter.  Be sure to break up any large lumps of butter and, when through, toss thoroughly with your fingers.

Transfer the scone mix to an airtight container and store it in the refrigerator for up to 2 months, or in the freezer for up to 6 months.

Friends, I am coming off a most exciting, fun, and food filled weekend.  I was lucky enough to participate in the IFBC (International Food Blogger’s Conference) here in Seattle.  I found some of the content helpful, some of it inspiring, some of it not relevant to what I do, and some of it simply boring.  Pretty standard for a conference, right?  For me, the real value and the tremendous fun came in hanging out with some really wonderful people eating, drinking, laughing, and talking with one another.  In addition to hanging out with old friends, I got to make some new ones  including Megan from A Sweet Spoonful and Sarah from Lettuce Eat Kale.  I am excited to know two more lovely women in the Bay area!  And I finally finally got to meet Peabody.

I kicked Randy and the boys out strongly suggested Randy take the boys up to Lopez so that I could invite some women to stay with me and he graciously accepted my suggestion.  That freed up some beds in our house so that Cheryl, Tracy, Denise, Joy, and Kristina could stay at Hotel Dana Treat.  I was so thrilled to be able to not only share our house with them, but also meals at some of the best restaurants Seattle has to offer.  We had sandwiches and incredible views at Matt’s in the Market, perfectly proportioned toppings on perfectly charred pizza crusts at Delancey, and an unbelievable, no-holds-barred tasting menu at the new hot spot Staple and Fancy.

I baked some treats for my fellow food bloggers (including these cookies) – of course I did – but alas, this strawberry cake was not for them.  I actually baked this cake to bring to a Sunday night dinner with friends.  Normally, I make something much more simple for a casual dinner – especially on a Sunday.  But John and Lauren’s son Jaden is a dessert lover of the highest order and I feel it is my duty to keep sophisticating his dessert palate.  Also, Randy and I had just celebrated our 8th anniversary and Randy loves strawberries.  I don’t think I gave strawberries their due this summer so I made this cake for him too.

As I mention on a semi-regular basis, layer cakes and I are not the best of friends.  In general, they would not be invited to my birthday party (as my 3 year old is fond of saying).  I would make an exception for this cake because it was very well-behaved.  It is still a layer cake, meaning that the cakes need to be baked, split, and filled.  Frosting needs to be made and the whole thing needs to be assembled without looking like the leaning tower of Pisa.  But the filling is nothing more than jam and fresh strawberries and the frosting is made from cream cheese and butter (no multi-step buttercream here), and really the whole thing was just a joy to make.  And to eat.

One Year Ago: Mixed Berry Spoon Cake

Vanilla Cake with Strawberry Cream Frosting
Bon Appétit
12 servings

Whenever I make a cake like this one, I always make the cake part days ahead and freeze them once they are cool.  I allow them to thaw out overnight before proceeding with the recipe.

Frosting
2 8-ounce packages cream cheese, room temperature
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
4 cups powdered sugar
½ cup seedless strawberry jam
¾ cup heavy whipping cream

Cake
3 cups cake flour
¾ tsp. salt
½ tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. baking soda
3 cups sugar
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
7 large eggs
2 tbsp. vanilla extract
1 cup sour cream
6 tbsp. plus 1/3 cup seedless strawberry jam
2 pounds strawberries, hulled, sliced, divided

Frosting
Using electric mixer, beat cream cheese and butter in large bowl until smooth, stopping to scrape down sides of bowl.  Beat in sugar, then jam.  Beat cream in medium bowl until peaks for.  Fold whipped cream into frosting.  Cover; chill until firm enough to spread, about 2 hours.

Cake
Preheat oven to 325ºF.  Butter and flour two 9-inch cake pans with 2-inch high sides.  Sift flour, salt, baking powder, and baking soda into medium bowl.  Using electric mixer, beat sugar and butter in large bowl until fluffy.  Add eggs 1 at a time beating to blend after each addition.  Beat in vanilla.  Add sour cream; beat 30 seconds.  Add flour mixture in 3 additions, beating to blend after each addition.  Divide batter between prepared pans.

Bake cakes until tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 50 minutes.  Cool in pans on rack 10 minutes.  Run small sharp knife around pan sides, then turn out cakes onto racks and cool completely.

Using large serrated knife, cut each cake horizontally in half.  Place 1 cake half, cut side up, on cake plate.  Spread 2 tablespoons strawberry jam, then ¾ cup frosting.  Top with ¾ cup sliced berries, arranging in a single layer.  Repeat 2 more times with cake layer, jam, frosting, and berries.  Top with remaining cake layer, cut side down.  Spread 2 cups frosting over top and sides of cake in thin layer to coat completely.  Spread remaining frosting over top and sides of cake.  Stir remaining 1/3 cup jam to loosen.  Spoon teaspoonfuls onto top and sides of cake, then use back of spoon to swirl jam decoratively into frosting.

(Do ahead:  Can be made 8 hours ahead.  Cover with cake dome and refrigerate.)  Serve cake slices with remaining sliced strawberries alongside.

My husband calls my big dinners “Dana Meals”.  A big dinner is a meal to enjoy primarily but it also is a meal to impress.  Kind of the opposite of a weeknight meal.  Mine tend to include multiple courses and multiple components.  The ice cream usually matches the dessert.  You know.  Dana Meals usually happen on weekends spent with friends and/or family.  Sometimes, when someone special is in town, I cook one during the week.

Here is the problem.  Let’s say you cook a really nice meal for a very cool and very appreciative person thoughtful enough to bring along his beautiful wife and adorable baby daughter.  Let’s say that same person brings his whole work team over for dinner on another weeknight and you make an even more impressive and complicated meal.  Now what if that person comes for dinner all by himself?  On a Monday?  You can’t exactly serve cold pizza, right?  So a Dana Meal on a Monday it was.

Now a couple of weeks ago, Randy informed me that there would need to be a Dana Meal on a Wednesday for a philosophy group he is a part of.  Please don’t send me an email saying that if Randy needs a dinner for his club, he should make it.  Theoretically that is correct.  Philosophically even.  But I know my husband and if the dinner was left up to him, cold pizza it would be.  Randy is very good at lots of things but he does not cook.

Just before that Wednesday night I had just found my perfect crust, so I opted to make two savory tarts for the philosophers.  One contained corn and white cheddar, the other had chard spiced up with saffron.  I expected the corn tart to be the runaway hit but the chard tart was so good it definitely took first place.  I loved it and couldn’t wait to make it again.  A sunny end-of-summer Monday evening with a visiting friend with high expectations seemed just right.  (I’m kidding about the high expectations.  Kind of.)

Truth be told.  Everything in the markets right now is so amazing that food can taste really exceptional with just a bit of coaxing.  Alongside the tart, I made a corn pudding that I loved and need to make as many times as possible before our fleeting corn season is over.  I sautéed some zucchini in just a bit of olive oil and then tossed the coins with strips of basil, lemon juice, and Pecorino Romano.  (This is my new favorite way to eat zucchini).  I made that tomato and burrata salad that I know I will cry remembering in November.  Not a ton of work and really delicious results.

So let’s talk about the tart.  If you happen to have tart dough in the freezer, this comes together very quickly.  After a blind bake for the crust, onions are sautéed, chard is wilted, eggs and milk are whisked together, saffron and lemon zest are added, everything stirs together and goes into the tart shell, and 40 minutes later you have a tart.  I happen to prefer my savory tarts warm and not hot, so this is a perfect dish for a dinner party.  It can sit and cool while you attend to other details.

One Year Ago: Tortellini Skewers with Parmesan Lemon Dip
Good Chard on Dana Treat: Chickpeas and Chard with Cilantro and Cumin

Chard and Saffron Tart
Adapted from The Greens Cookbook
Serves 4-6

1 recipe Tart Dough (recipe follows)
1 large bunch of chard, leaves only, roughly chopped
1 tbsp. butter
1 large yellow onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
3 eggs
1½ cup whole milk
Large pinch saffron threads, soaked in 1 tablespoon hot water
Zest of 1 small lemon
3 tbsp. freshly grated Parmesan
Nutmeg
3 tbsp. pine nuts, toasted

Preheat the oven to 375ºF.  Roll out one disk of dough to a 14-inch circle.  Carefully transfer the dough to a 10-inch fluted tart pan.  Fold the edges over on themselves to create a thick crust.  Pierce the bottom of the dough with a fork in several places, then place in the freezer for 15 minutes.

Line the pan with foil and fill with pie weights or beans.  Bake in the oven until the edges of the crust are starting to brown and the bottom no longer looks doughy, about 25 minutes.  Remove from the oven and set aside to cool.

Heat the butter in a wide skillet; add the onion and cook it over medium heat until it is translucent and soft.  Add the garlic, and the chard leaves by handfuls, if necessary, until they all fit.  Sprinkle in a large pinch of salt.  Turn the leaves over repeatedly with a pair of tongs so that they are all exposed to the heat of the pan, and cook until they are tender, 5 minutes or more.

Make the custard.  Beat the eggs; then stir in the milk, infused saffron, lemon peel, grated Parmesan, and a few scrapings of nutmeg.  Stir in the chard and onion mixture.  Taste and season with salt and a few grinds of pepper.  Pour the filling into the prepared tart shell and bake until the top is golden and firm, about 40 minutes.  Scatter the pine nuts over top before serving.

Olaiya Land’s Tender Tart Dough

Note:  You will need only 1 disk of this dough for the tart so keep the other one in your freezer for next time!

3 cups all-purpose flour
2 tbsp. sugar
1¾ tsp. salt
1 cup plus 2 tbsp. (2¼ sticks) chilled unsalted butter, cut into ½-inch cubes
8 tbsp. (or more) ice water
1½ tsp. apple cider vinegar

Blend flour, sugar, and salt in a food processor.  Add butter; using on/off turns, process until coarse meal forms.  Add 8 tablespoons ice water and cider vinegar; blend until moist clumps form, adding more ice water by the teaspoon if dough is dry.

Gather dough together.  Turn out onto work surface; divide dough in half.  Form each half into ball and flatten into disk.  Wrap disks separately in plastic and refrigerate 1 hour.  (Can be made ahead.  Keep dough refrigerated up to 2 days, or enclose in a resealable plastic bag and freeze up to 1 month.  Thaw in the refrigerator overnight.)  Soften slightly at room temperature before rolling out.

This is an amazing and super simple appetizer.  The recipe is at the end of this post.  Please allow me to tell you why I made them.  But first a question.  What would it take to get you to shave your head?

I can imagine that for most of her life, my friend Kelly would have said nothing could get her to shave her head.  She is a woman with a beautiful head of hair.  It is her most striking feature and she has always had it cut to perfection.  Kelly is not a high-maintenance woman but her haircut is always beautiful.  She has that enviable hair that is straight but with enough texture to give it lots of body.  In spite of this, Kelly is going to shave off her beloved hair.  And she is doing it in celebration.

Kelly has a son named Jackson and he is about six months older than my oldest son Graham.  Five years ago, Kelly found blood in Jackson’s diaper.  He was about 16 months old at the time.  Visits to doctors’ offices and the hospital and tests revealed the unthinkable.  Jackson had an aggressive tumor on his kidney.  Immediately the ball started rolling – surgery to remove the kidney, chemo, radiation.  His doctors were very frank with Kelly and her husband Gregg.  This was a very nasty cancer and his road was going to be difficult.  His outlook was pretty grim.  Kelly remembers the pediatric oncologist saying that he would not be considered cured until he was 5 years past his diagnosis.  At the time, with Jackson incredibly ill, five years must have sounded like beyond forever.

Jackson’s treatment was very rough.  He spent 69 nights in the hospital in six months.  I remember Kelly calling me and talking about how difficult it was to get him to nap in a room with IVs in his arms and another very sick child sharing the same room.  At the time I was struggling with my own napper and felt incredibly guilty for having such an easy problem.

Once Jackson was stable, the family came over to our house for dinner.  Jackson was pale, bald, and had a feeding tube.  He had difficulty walking and not in the sweet way that a toddler should.  It was absolutely heartbreaking and I sobbed as soon as they left.  I had complete admiration for his parents.  They were incredibly involved, on top of the doctors, and getting support from their community.

Somewhere along the way in that very difficult first year, Kelly heard about an organization called St. Baldrick’s, a non-profit devoted to pediatric cancer.  It started out as a couple of friends shaving their heads to support children bald from chemo, and has blossomed into the world’s largest volunteer-driven fundraising event for childhood cancer research.  The only organization that funds more research is the U.S. government.  All this money is raised by people who are willing to lose their hair in solidarity with a child stricken by cancer.

Every year Gregg has shaved his head in Jackon’s name for St. Baldrick’s.  Like other volunteers, he asks for sponsors, raises as much money as possible, and then goes under the clippers.  Gregg is, ahem, follicly challenged so he does it to support the cause, but for him it is essentially a free haircut.  Kelly is another story.  She and her team of 45 other moms are going to shave their beautiful heads to create awareness for the good work St. Baldrick’s is doing and for pediatcric cancer in general.  This is a big deal for a beautiful woman.  It is an even bigger deal because she is doing to celebrate five years of Jackson being cancer-free.  He has officially graduated from the Children’s Hospital program and no longer needs to go back for scans or tests.  His story is an incredible one of beating the odds.

Kelly and Gregg had a special party on Saturday night to celebrate and to offer thanks to friends and family who have supported them throughout this time.  Also in attendance was one of Jackson’s pediatric oncologists, who is also benefitting from St. Baldrick’s.  He is getting grant funding through St. Baldrick’s to fund research that he is doing at the Fred Hutchinson cancer reserach center in Seattle.

When this party was first in its planning stages, Kelly asked if I could help with the food.  Of course I said yes.  I made lots of different easy-to-pick-up appetizers including these stuffed peppadew peppers.  Gregg tasted them at our summer party and they were first on his list of requests.  This is such an easy recipe but it packs a powerful punch.  Each bite is a perfect combination of heat, savory, creamy and sweet.

Sometimes when I read posts about people who are doing great work in our world, especially work involving children, I immediately want to help.  If you feel this way, I invite you to visit Kelly’s fundraising page.  She has a personal goal of raising $15,000.  To date she has raised $10,270.  And one more thing about this amazing woman.  She plans to not wear a hat or a scarf during her bald phase and also plans to wear a button that says, “Ask me why I am bald”.  I love her.

D’Lish Peppadew Peppers
Sipps and Apps
Makes 45 to 50

Each time I make this recipe, I make the cheese mixture and fill the pastry bag ahead of time and put it in the refrigerator.  Then, before serving, I allow the cheese to come back to room temperature before piping.

1 14-ounce jar Peppadew piquanté peppers
3 ounces fresh goat cheese, at room temperature
3 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
45 to 50 whole Marcona fried almonds

Drain the peppers thoroughly.  Meanwhile, in a food processor or mixing bowl, combine the cheeses and mix until smooth.  Fit a pastry bag with a plain tip, fill with the cheese mixture, and pipe into the peppers.  Insert an almond into each pepper.

(If you can’t find jars of these peppers, check in the bulk olives section of a high-end grocery store or fresh-pack Peppadew peppers.  For this recipe, you should purchase about a pound.)

Although I was a good eater as a child, I had a list of things I did not like.  Turkey was at the top of the list.  Closely following were mushrooms, zucchini, peppers, and eggplant.  As I moved into vegetarianism and my taste buds grew up, I learned to love mushrooms in just about any form, zucchini almost all ways (not raw unless thinly sliced like this), peppers as long as they are cooked way down, and eggplant…  Well, still working on that one.

I like eggplant more than I did when I was a kid but that isn’t really saying much since I hated it then.  I’ve said this before here but I tend to like it best when it kind of hides in the background a bit.  It’s harder for me to tolerate when it is front and center.  (Although I do have a great Eggplant Parmesan recipe that I love and there is just no explaining that.)

Caponata is the thing I tend to ignore on the antipasto platter.  It stands between me and the marinated mozzarella or the garlicky mushrooms.  So why did I make it?  I have eggplant lovers in my life and this recipe comes from a most-trusted cookbook.  I made it during one of those weeks when I needed appetizers for several different things and this recipe makes a lot of caponata.  It also keeps really well.  I’ve tasted my share of them and this, in my humble opinion, is the finest version.  Some are too salty, some are too sweet, and most are too greasy.  John Ash finds the perfect balance here.  Sweetness from raisins and a bit of brown sugar, salty from capers and olives, acidity from tomatoes and red wine vinegar, and not too much olive oil.  It’s delicious with crackers or bread and I would head straight for it on my next antipasto platter.

One Year Ago: Heirloom Tomato Salad with Burrata (a knock-it-out-of-the-park dish)
Two Years Ago: Succotash

Roasted Eggplant Caponata
Adapted from From the Earth to the Table
Makes about 2 cups

In the heading of this recipe, Ash mentions that you can toss this mixture with pasta too.  Yum!

2 pounds eggplant, peeled or not as you please, slice lengthwise ¼-inch thick
3 tbsp. olive oil
1 small yellow onion, chopped
5 cloves roasted garlic
½ cup diced celery
1 14-oz. can chopped tomatoes
2 tbsp. rinsed capers
3 tbsp. toasted pine nuts
2 tbsp. golden raisins or currants
1/3 cup chopped Kalamata olives
2 tbsp. light brown sugar
1/3 cup red wine vinegar
Kosher salt and red pepper flakes

Preheat the oven to 400ºF.  Lay the eggplant slices on a baking sheet in a single layer.  Roast for 15 to 20 minutes or until tender and lightly browned.  Remove, coarsely chop, and reserve.

In a large sauté pan, heat the olive oil over medium heat and sauté the onion, roasted garlic, and celery until softened  but not brown, stirring occasionally.  Add the tomatoes and cook for 2 to 3 minutes.  Add the capers, pine nuts, raisins, olives, brown sugar, and vinegar.  Over medium heat, cook for 6 to 8 minutes, stirring frequently.  Add the eggplant and season to your taste with the salt and red pepper flakes.  Serve at room temperature.  Can be stored, covered, in your refrigerator for up to 5 days.  (DT: The flavor gets better as it sits.)

I tend to like my green beans pretty plain.  Like broccoli.  I could pounds and pounds of those two veggies just steamed with a healthy sprinkle of salt.  Maybe a squeeze of lemon.  That is how my husband likes them too.

But the green beans are so gorgeous at our markets right now.  Plump, long, incredibly fresh.  I felt like I wanted to celebrate their beauty more and make something a little more substantial.  I found this recipe in my new Plenty cookbook but knew instinctively that some changes had to be made to the method.  I was instructed to toss cooked beans, snow peas and peas in a warm spiced oil, then scatter crushed garlic, lemon zest, chopped chile and tarragon over the top.  I don’t know about you, but crushed garlic and lemon zest don’t “scatter” too well for me.  I wouldn’t welcome a big bite of raw garlic-laced green bean or a fuzzy lemon-zested one.  I certainly am not interested in getting a big bite of jalapeño either.

Instead of following directions like a good oldest child, I made more of a dressing including the juice of the lemon as well, and poured tossed the mixture with the vegetables.  I am not a huge snow pea fan and would normally have substituted snap peas, but instead I just upped the green beans and threw in a diced avocado.  The oil with crushed coriander seeds and mustard seeds really made this dish.  I loved their smoky flavor and subtle crunch along with the tartness of the lemon.  I guess I could eat pounds of green beans this way too.

One Year Ago: Sharlyn Melon Soup with Cucumber Chile Ice
Two Years Ago: Chilled Tomato Red Pepper Soup with Mint

Green Bean Salad with Mustard Seeds and Tarragon
Loosely adapted from Plenty
Serves 4

1½ pounds green beans, ends trimmed
1 cup frozen peas
2 tsp. coriander seed, roughly crushed with a mortar and pestle
1 tsp. mustard seeds
3 tbsp. olive oil
1 large shallot, finely chopped
1 large avocado, chopped
1 jalapeño, seeded and finely chopped
1 garlic clove, pressed
Grated zest and juice of 1 lemon
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 tbsp. chopped tarragon, plus more for garnish

Fill a medium saucepan with water and bring it to a boil.  Have a large bowl of ice water ready.  Add 2 tablespoons of salt and then the green beans.  Cook for 3 minutes, then add the peas.  After 30 seconds, scoop all the vegetables out into the ice bath, adding more ice if necessary.  When cool, drain well, then place in a large bowl.  Add the chopped shallots and avocado.

Put the coriander seeds, mustard seeds, and oil into a small frying pan and turn the heat to medium.  When the seeds begin to pop, remove the pan from the heat and allow to cool slightly.  Meanwhile put the garlic, lemon juice and zest, chile, and tarragon in a bowl or jar.  Add a large pinch of salt and a few grinds of pepper.  Pour the oil over and shake or whisk to combine.  Pour the dressing over the vegetables and gently toss to combine.  This dish looks best on a platter garnished with additional tarragon leaves.

Randy and I hosted a big party last weekend, ostensibly for my birthday.  (Yes, the celebration is ongoing.)  We like to have a party each summer because we have a good summer party house.  Unfortunately, the weather was more like November so we all stayed inside and, consequently, I did not take a single photograph of the food I made.  (And yes, I made the food for my own party.)  But I did get a photo with two of my best friends.  Michelle, on the left, I have mentioned here.  Lauren, in the middle, I have mentioned here.  I have been friends with both of them for over 15 years.  I have several photos like this in albums and shoeboxes, just the three of us together at various stages in our lives.  I feel lucky to have celebrated my 40th with them.  We are not the Three Musketeers, we are the Three Brunettes.

This is my dining room.  I love this room.  It is west facing so it gets wonderful afternoon light and it is where I take almost all of my photos.  Lauren, see above, helped us pick the color of the walls and I love how they look in both winter and summer light.  We recently got this new amazing dining room table, again with the help of Lauren, and I was thrilled to see the company highlighted in the New York Times.  Meyer Wells makes incredibly beautiful furniture out of reclaimed wood.  Trees that have fallen in storms or have been taken down due to disease find their way into their studio and re-emerge as functioning works of art.  All of the furniture is made from trees that come from within a ten mile radius of Seattle.  Cool, huh?

For our table, we were able to choose our wood and then choose our actual tree.  We were able to customize it with two leaves so that, when they are both in, we can comfortably seat 12 and up to 14.  This will come in handy at Thanksgiving and it came in handy when a certain party ended up indoors rather than outdoors (see above).  We have been using a nice but very plain teak table that we bought in London and had shipped back here.  I always thought it was crazy to spend money on a table but that was before I saw learned about these guys.  (By the way, those little votives are GlassyBabys.  I catered an event at their glassblowing studio in May.)

I can’t show you the dining room without mentioning this painting.  Soon after we moved in to our house, we realized we were going to need something big for this wall.  It’s a big wall.  We went to a wonderful local art show and met an extremely talented artist there named Erik Hall whose work we really liked.  Erik does custom work so we invited him over for dinner to take a look at our wall.  He envisioned a triptych, showed us some sketches, and just a few short months later, this beauty graced our walls.  Three years later I am still mesmorized by this painting every time I see it.

I leave you with a minor miracle in the Dana Treat household – an on the fly family photo where all four of us are looking at the camera.  And it’s sunny.  And Mt. Baker is in the background.  Great job Mr. Ferry Man!

If you read any blogs written by people who live in Seattle, or if you follow any of us on Twitter, you are probably tired of hearing us complain about the weather.  This has been the summer that practically wasn’t.  We have had some decent days here and there but we have also had lots of low temperatures, clouds, and rain.  After a long wet dark spring, we all feel we are due some sunshine.  Our summer is why we put up with the winter after all.

I am looking ahead to the forecast for the week and it looks like we have some warm and then hot weather on the way.  I can’t tell you how happy that makes me.  Like all good Northwesterners, I usually complain when it gets too hot.  I like my temperature right around 78º, thank you very much.  But at this point I don’t care.  I’ll take heat as long as there is sun so I can make summery food and enjoy it out on our patio instead of in the kitchen with the heat on.

Polenta has always been a bit elusive for me.  All that stirring!  For some reason I don’t mind stirring risotto but I hate stirring polenta.  The good people at Cook’s Illustrated have, in the past year, come up with ways to make both risotto and polenta without constant stirring and I give them a big cyber-thank you.  I adapted their practically no-stir method slightly (because I was just lazy enough that I didn’t want to fashion my own flame tamer), and just gave it a good stir every 5 minutes or so.

So what do we have here?  Triangles of polenta wedged in tight on a bed of tomato sauce, a quick sauté of corn, tomatoes, garlic, and jalapeño peppers, and a sprinkle of Parmesan cheese.  The whole thing gets baked in the oven until it is bubbly then you get summer on a plate.  Besides its deliciousness and seasonal appeal, here are some things I like about this recipe.

You can make the tomato sauce days before and the polenta a day or two before.

You can also make it super easy on yourself and use store-bought tomato sauce and one of the those polenta logs.  (I won’t tell anyone.)

You can assemble the whole thing early in the day and keep it in the refrigerator until ready to bake.

You can bake it about two hours before you want to serve it and just let people eat it room temperature.

This is healthy food that is super flavorful.  Really the only fat you are getting is from a small amount of Parmesan cheese.

It makes a LOT of food.

In fact, I cut this recipe in half which is something I rarely do.  I find it’s always better to have more food on hand than less – if for no other reason that wonderful people like to babysit at my house because there is usually something good in the refrigerator.  But I made this early in the week and I knew there would not be a lot of leftover eating so I made less.  We still could have fed four with the dish.

One Year Ago: Mushroom, Walnut, and Rosemary Pâté
Two Years Ago: Farro with Green Beans and Corn

Polenta Baked with Corn, Tomatoes, and Basil
Adapted from Fields of Greens
Serves 6-8

Polenta (recipe follows)
1½-2 cups of your favorite tomato sauce
1 tbsp. unsalted butter
3 ears of corn, kernels shaved off the cob
Salt
¾ pound tomatoes, cored and seeded
1 tbsp. olive oil
Pepper
1 cup fresh basil leaves, chopped
1 or 2 jalapeño chiles, seeded and finely chopped
¾ cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

First make the polenta.  Make sure you have plenty of time to allow it to set up.

Heat the butter in a large skillet and add the corn.  Sauté over medium heat just until the corn is tender, about 5 minutes for very fresh corn.  Season with a sprinkling of salt.  While the corn is cooking, cut the tomatoes into large pieces.  Marinate the tomatoes in the olive oil with a ¼ teaspoon of salt and a few grinds of pepper.  Cool the corn and toss with the tomatoes, half the basil, and the chiles.  Add salt and pepper to taste.

Preheat the oven to 375ºF.  Pour the tomato sauce into the bottom of a 9×13-inch baking pan.  Arrange the polenta triangles upright in tows across the width of the dish, overlapping the triangles slightly; use all of the polenta.  Spoon the vegetables into the spaces between the polenta triangles, separating the rows as you go.  Sprinkle with the cheese.  Cover and bake for 25 minutes, then uncover and bake for 10 more minutes, until the gratin is bubbly.  Sprinkle on the remaining  basil and serve.

Polenta

To keep the whole dish even more healthy, I skipped the butter and cheese in the actual polenta but you can add them for even more flavor.

6 cups water
1½ tsp. salt
1½ cups coarse cornmeal
¼ tsp. pepper
2 tbsp. unsalted butter
½ cup grated Parmesan cheese

Lightly oil a 9×13-inch baking dish and set aside.  Bring the water to a boil in a large saucepan.  Add the salt, then vigorously whisk in the cornmeal.  Bring it back to a boil, stirring all the while, then reduce the heat as low as it will go.  Cover the pan.  Stir every 5 minutes or so until the polenta is smooth, about 20 minutes all together.

Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the pepper, the butter, and the cheese.  Pour the hot polenta into the baking dish and set aside to cool.  Once it is cool, cover and refrigerate to make the polenta even more firm.  Once cold, dump the whole thing out on a cutting board and cut it into 12 squares.  Cut each square into two triangles.

After writing this blog for over two years, I’m surprised by how many things you all don’t know about me.  Of course there are plenty of things you don’t know about me the person – Dana.  As opposed to me the cook – Dana Treat.  For example, even if you have met me, you probably don’t know that I have a hitchhiker’s thumb on my left hand but not on my right.  Like my thumb bends all the way back.  I kill at thumb wrestling.

So maybe it is not surprising that I haven’t shared more fascinating things like hitchhiker’s thumbs on my food blog.  But it is a little surprising that I still have some culinary things I haven’t shared.  Like the fact that I love honey.  Did you know that?  I love honey.  It is one of my very favorite things in the whole world.  I use it in marinades and in salad dressings and I stir it into Greek yogurt for breakfast.  I have been known to sneak spoonfuls of it when I am craving something sweet.

Living in a city where there are loads of farmers’ markets, it is easy for me to buy good honey.  Over the years, I have tasted some wonderful honey from Washington bees.  So when the good people at Mohawk Valley Trading Company offered to send some of theirs to try, I hesitated.  But the truth is, I was low on honey and the stuff isn’t cheap so I so I replied yes to their offer.

Not a week later, I got a box with four different jars of the most beautiful tawny-colored honey.  Not only is it beautiful, the flavor is so different than any honey I have tasted.  It is thicker, richer and more floral than anything I have ever used.  It seems a shame to put it in things where the amazing flavor gets masked by other ingredients.  I wanted to make something that would take advantage of the unique flavor and texture of this special honey.  (And yes, honey can have texture.  You know how you put a spoon in a jar and the honey almost immediately runs off?  This stuff really coats your spoon.  You have to coax it off.)

These mini bundt cakes were one of the first things I noticed in the first Ottolenghi cookbook.  I had seen a display of the adorable cakes in the window of the restaurant while in London in June.  Is there anything more tempting than a little cake sized perfectly for one?  For some reason I would totally buy one of these but not a slice of a large cake.  Anyway.  In the recipe, Ottolenghi mentions that the pans are not easy to find in England but we Americans can find them more easily.  (See?  Americans don’t like everything super-sized.)  I found mine in a local kitchen shop and I would imagine they can be tracked down online.

I was a little stumped as to how best to make these.  I needed about 20 of them and there are only 12 cakes in the molds.  I didn’t want to bake a whole batch, allow the molds to cool, and then bake another batch.  I have another larger mini-bundt pan mold so I doubled the recipe and just hoped for the best.  I ended up getting all my mini-bundts, a whole tray of mini-muffin size cakes and a small loaf cake.  The bundts got eaten at the party, the boys snacked on my mini-muffins, and the loaf cake is in the freezer.

I don’t know if I have ever written a paragraph quite as boring as that one.  What I am trying to tell you is that if you make the recipe as written below, I have no idea of how many cakes you will end up with.  Just get out all your fun sized pans and go for it.  Whatever you end up with will be the most delicately flavored but substantially textured cake.  If you leave it plain, it is perfect for an afternoon tea or even for breakfast.  Or you can dress it up with a drizzle of glaze and some lovely berries and call it dessert.

And speaking of dessert, my blog duty at Amazon Fresh has started back up again.  This week I posted a recipe for a very delicious and very easy cheesecake ice cream.  You can read it here.

Honey and Lavender previously on Dana Treat: Lavender-Honey Ice Cream
One Year Ago: Cheese Balls Three Ways
Two Years Ago: Olive and Jarlsberg Sandwich

Lavender and Honey Tea Cakes
Adapted from Ottolenghi, The Cookbook
Makes ??

8 ounces unsalted butter, room temperature
4 ounces sugar
4 ounces best quality honey
3 large eggs
8 2/3 ounces flour
1 tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. salt
½ tsp. ground cinnamon
½ tsp. dried lavender, chopped
½ cup sour cream

Glaze
1 tbsp. fresh lemon juice
2 tsp. honey
3½ oz. powdered sugar

Berries for garnish, optional

Preheat the oven to 340ºF.  Grease your pans with butter.

Cream the butter, sugar, and honey together until pale and fluffy, preferably using an electric mixer.  Break the eggs into a cup, beat them lightly with a fork and gradually add to the creamed mixture, beating well until each little addition has been fully incorporated.  Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon, then stir in the dried lavender.  Gently fold the flour mixture into the creamed mix in 3 additions, alternating with the sour cream.

Carefully fill your molds or pans.  If you are using molds, only the fill them to within a ½-inch of the top.  Place in the oven and bake for about 25-30 minutes, depending on what size pan or molds you are using.  You will want a skewerer inserted into the center of the cake to come out clean.  Remove them from the oven and leave them for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a rack to cool completely.

To make the glaze, mix the lemon juice and honey together in a small bowl, then whisk in enough powdered sugar to make a thick pourable glaze.  Use a pastry brush or a spoon to coat the top of the cakes, allowing the icing to drip down the sides.  Garnish with berries, if desired.

(DT: Even though I was careful about not overfilling my pans, I still got a rounded bottom on my small cakes.  I just sliced off a thin bit so they would stand up straight.)

I’m a careful Costco shopper.  Did you know Costco started in Seattle?  We’ve been members for as long as I can remember.  We go about every other month and I buy the same things over and over.  Paper towels, toilet paper, canned tomatoes, chickpeas, garbage bags, olive oil, string cheese, Diet Pepsi, beer, wine.  Occasionally I buy Ziploc bags, dish washing detergent, kids vitamins, ibuprofen, butter, Dijon mustard, dried pasta, some kind of cookbook, and nuts.  I am very very happy to tell you that I no longer need to buy diapers or wipes.  Or formula.  Hallelujah.

My point here is that I don’t get sucked in.  I know what I need and what I have room for.  I see people’s carts and wonder “where are these people putting all this stuff?”.  I am lucky in that I have plenty of room for impulse purchases, but I hate to have things on hand that I know I won’t use.  So there is not a lot of impulse shopping at Costco.

Once in a great while, I see something and I pounce without thinking too carefully.  I get sucked in by cheap pretzels and quinoa.  About a year ago, I found a 5 pound bag of Israeli couscous and very happily put it in my cart.  I love the stuff and it is not always that easy to find in regular grocery stores.  That 5 pound bag has been mocking me from the basement storage room.  Yes, thankfully I have a basement storage room for things like giant bags of Israeli couscous, but still.  What I have realized is that, while I love Israeli couscous, it’s not something I use all that often.

In my searches for a salad for the summer yoga retreat, I was thrilled to remember this one tucked away in one of my notebooks.  The flavors sounded wonderful, all things that I love, and it uses a lot of Israeli couscous.  Because I knew there were going to be 18 of us, I doubled the recipe.  The salad was a hit and partly because I loved it and partly because I still had lots of couscous, I made another giant portion of it to bring to a block party.  I even held back some of it so I could serve it as a side dish at a dinner party the night after the block party.   And yes, I still have couscous in that bag.  A lot of it.

Israeli Couscous previously on Dana Treat: Couscous and Mograbiah with Oven-Dried Tomatoes
One Year Ago: Grilled Potato Slices with Salt and Vinegar

Israeli Couscous with Olives and Roasted Tomatoes
Adapted from Gourmet
Serves 6-8

For roasted tomatoes and dressing
2 pints red grape or cherry tomatoes (1½ pounds)
3 large garlic cloves, left unpeeled
¼ cup olive oil, plus extra for drizzling
¼ cup warm water
Juice of ½ a lemon
1 tsp. kosher salt
½ tsp. freshly ground black pepper

For couscous
2½ cups vegetable broth
2 cups Israeli couscous
½ cup Kalamata olives, pits removed and sliced in half
½ cup basil, thinly sliced
¼ cup parsley, chopped

Roast tomatoes and make dressing
Preheat oven to 400ºF.  Place tomatoes and garlic, still in its peel on a baking sheet.  Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with a healthy pinch of salt and a few grinds of pepper.  Bake in the oven until the tomatoes are quite soft and starting to brown, about 20 minutes.  Remove and allow to cool slightly.

Peel garlic and purée with oil, water, lemon juice, salt, pepper, and ½ cup roasted tomatoes in a blender until dressing is very smooth.  Set aside.

Make couscous
Bring broth to a boil in a large heavy saucepan and stir in couscous.  Simmer for about 3 minutes then cover pan and remove from the heat.  Let stand for 10 minutes.  Spread couscous in 1 layer on a baking sheet and cool 15 minutes.

Transfer couscous to a large bowl and stir in remaining ingredients, dressing, roasted tomatoes, and salt and pepper to taste.  You may not need all the dressing so hold a bit back.

(DT: I found it best mix this salad with my hands so the tomatoes don’t get too squished.  You can make the couscous and dressing a day ahead and store them separately.  The couscous will stick together but add some of the dressing and work it with your hands before adding the rest of the ingredients.)