Happy June

Hot damn! It’s been years. I sit here at 11:28 p.m. on a Friday night because tomorrow is June 1st and there isn’t a month that has gone by since I started writing here that I haven’t posted at least one thing. And I haven’t posted one thing this whole whirlwind month (but I have been writing a little…).

So as Dan sits outside by the fire with a beer and our cats, I sit here on a pile of clothes, staring at dust bunnies, wondering where to begin. And because tomorrow (in several minutes) is the first day of June, I’ll just tell you about grilled mushroom burgers. A year ago my friend Sam invited us over for a cook-out (sometimes a dreaded event for vegetarians) and served grilled portabella mushroom burgers. She marinated portabella mushrooms in crushed garlic cloves, BBQ sauce, Worcestershire, apple cider vinegar, mustard and olive oil. Then her husband Matt grilled them while their dogs photobombed each other and looked adorable.

The mushrooms can be topped with cheese and served on a bun or eaten by themselves. With a side of grilled asparagus and a cocktail, it makes for a scrumptious, meat-free cook-out.

Happy June.

Asheville over easy

Dan and I recently returned from a road trip to the Asheville, North Carolina area. We drank lots of hoppy beer, ate lots of good food and spent most waking hours soaking in a cedar tub overlooking the snowy farm where we spent several nights. Ah, spring break.

People in Madison always like to compare our city to the other hip ones: Austin, Texas. Portland, Oregon. Burlington, Vermont. “You know, people always say Madison is a lot like ________ (insert hipster/ progressive/ beer or bike-friendly city here). But I’ll tell you what Asheville’s got that Madison ain’t: Breakfast places where the default side dish is raw kale salad. Not bacon. Not toast. Kale salad. And, while we’re talking about it, in Asheville they use compostable containers for to-go food. Ahem, Madison…

The place where I would eat breakfast every day of the week if I could is Over Easy Cafe on Broadway in downtown Asheville. I stumbled into the bright and noisy cafe at about 9:30 a.m. on a Monday morning. It was a reprieve after emerging from our very clean, but very dark and claustrophobic, windowless private room at the hostel. I took a seat at the bar and lolled over the juice menu, ordering one for “waking up:” Apple, celery, greens and ginger.

Next I pondered food. Tempted by the grits, biscuits with vegetarian herb gravy, and lavender french toast, I decided to try the breakfast tacos: Corn tortillas filled with scrambled eggs, green onions and southwestern tempeh, topped with ginger-lime slaw and cilantro. Raw kale salad and pickled carrots on the side. As I waited I sipped my juice and coffee, people-watched and sang under my breath to the 80s playlist. (“I Want to Know What Love Is” is still a really good song.)  Pretty soon I got company at the bar- a gentleman with a newspaper and a cap who sat down on his stool and ordered a carrot juice. He spoke to me about every 5 1/2 minutes, inquiring about my juice, what I ordered, how many apps I have on my phone (“zero- it’s a flip phone”) and to tell  me that race car drivers are acting like kids- getting into fights. Just as my food arrived he was scoffing at the man at the end of the bar who he didn’t think had the moxie to finish his double order of pancakes. “You’re too skinny!” I stopped listening as I admired my colorful plate for a few seconds before devouring my first taco. It tasted fresh, healthy and delicious.

After taking care of my check I said so long to my neighbor and went to rouse Dan from the bat cave- we went back 30 minutes later and again on Friday.

See ya next time, Over Easy.

Grapefruit tart in motion

Friday night I was in bed at 10:30. Instead of going out to listen to music and guzzle beer last night, I decided to stay home and assemble a tart. ASSEMBLE A TART. I then asked a friend if he could meet for coffee next weekend. I am having a serious “St. Elmo’s Fire” moment. But I have been dreaming of this tart since I first read about it a month ago. And last weekend while in Bayfield- after narrowly losing out by only 17 minutes in a foot race across Lake Superior to Madeline Island and back to this dog-

I finally found a bag of rye flour as I celebrated my victory over Cody the corgi with a carrot cake cupcake at Coco in Washburn. 

In addition to making sandwiches (many vegetarian!), breads and desserts, Coco sells rye and whole wheat flour- ground just down the road at Maple Hill Farm.

So last night I rolled out the crust, separated six yolks from their whites, cursed the curd for not thickening, swore at the crust for collapsing in the oven and fell asleep on the couch watching a 1970 Led Zeppelin concert (Animal from The Muppets must be based on John Bonham) while the tart chilled in the fridge.

And so it became a breakfast tart, enjoyed with coffee for brunch dessert on this slate gray Sunday.

And for my first tart, it wasn’t bad. I think I like the idea of it even more than I liked eating it, but sometimes that is all that matters. There are worse things than daydreaming of citrus and rye, aprons covered in flour and wooden rolling pins. And staying home on a Saturday night.

Enjoy the extra hour of light, my friends, rainy as it may be.

Stout: It’s not just for brunch anymore

Back in December when the skies were thundering with snow and the Packers still had a chance at a championship, I fell into an abyss of stout beer. It all started with the Narwhal from Sierra Nevada.

Dan brought home a four pack of this turbidly decadent beer to celebrate the recording of his latest album, Small Batch (to be released in April!), and there was no looking back.

Next came Breakfast Beer, an oatmeal stout from the folks at One Barrel Brewing Company. And then the nostalgically 80s-named Care Bear Stout. Goblets of this dark, sweet beer have me visiting this bar most Saturdays (and some Thursdays). I love these guys- not only is their beer delicious and brewed locally, they donate money to the Humane Society and declare “Go Pack” on their chalkboard the day of the Super Bowl even though Green Bay lost in the second round of the playoffs.

Stouts swirled around me into January and February. There was Luna Coffee Stout from Hinterland served with a post-skiing brunch, Colorado’s Left Hand Milk Stout, Lake Louie’s Mr. Mephisto’s Imperial Stout and last weekend in Milwaukee, after a trip to the art museum to visit a photography exhibit- where I found out no cameras were allowed- I discovered Central Waters’ Peruvian Morning Imperial Stout at Sugar Maple in the Bayview neighborhood. Holy hell. That is one beer.*

And somewhere in that stout blizzard I found this recipe for boozy stout brownies. The original recipe is vegan but I de-veganized it (mainly because two of my favorite people in the world- my mom and Dan- threatened to stop cooking for me and break up with me, respectively, if I went vegan and I didn’t want to give either of them the wrong idea.) I also doubled the amount of stout. I kind of thought the brownies would taste a little more like beer, but they were deliciously chocolatey and gooey. And who doesn’t love baking with beer?

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Lake Louie Milk Stout Brownies

De-veganized from Vegetarian Ventures by way of Chickpea Magazine

• 1 cup flour
• 3/4 cup dark cocoa powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/3 cup canola or coconut oil
• 1 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup soy yogurt
• 1/2 1 cup stout beer (I used Lake Louie Milk Stout)
• 1/2 cup vegan chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 325 degrees and line a 8×8 pan with parchment paper.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the flour, salt, and cocoa powder. In another bowl, combine the brown sugar, oil, yogurt, and beer. Make a well in the center of the dried ingredients and add in the wet ingredients. Fold dry into wet until a thick batter has formed. Lastly, fold in the chocolate chips.

Pour mixture into prepared pan and cook for 30 minutes or until the center has set.

Let cool slightly and serve warm!

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It’s up to you if guzzle a goblet of stout on the side. I chose a jar of milk. (Cow milk, mom, not that crazy hemp milk. No way.)

Happy baking.

*If I attempt to write about beer again, I promise to read some beer reviews- I have no idea how one reviews beer.

100

And just like that, this is post number 100 for Wisconsin Fun Next Exit.

Over the past couple of years I have truly enjoyed writing here- in this tiny space of the atmosphere- and I hope you have liked it, too. While I may not tell you enough, I am always thinking about you. I hope that you have found something that made you laugh or think or want to get your buns into the kitchen. It makes me infinitely happy that that is a possibility.

Now I’m not trying to tell you what to do, but lately I’ve been spending weekend mornings listening to 1970s Rod Stewart on the record player and cooking eggs. And because this is my 100th post, you just might want to listen to me. A couple of weeks ago I told you about eggs in purgatory. This morning I adapted an idea from Heidi Swanson (she calls it sun toast) and made eggs in Wisconsin: Melt a hunk of butter in a skillet over medium-low heat. Take a round cookie cutter (or a Wisconsin one, if that suits your fancy/ is all you have) and cut a shape out of the middle of a piece of bread. Put the bread (both parts) into the skillet and toast both sides. Next, carefully crack an egg into the hole. Flip it with a spatula and cook the egg to your liking. Just before serving rub a garlic clove all over the toast. Or, if you are Dan, skip the garlic and grate sharp white cheddar all over the darn thing. A salad of arugula and olive oil is nice on the side. And coffee. Keep it coming.

If you are up for a little bit more flavor and punch, my other suggestion is to make ranchero breakfast tostadas, from my new cookbook, The Sprouted Kitchen. These are easily adapted to what you have in the fridge- I used whole yogurt instead of sour cream, a yellow onion instead of green and whole wheat flour tortillas in place of corn. They were delicious all the same.

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Ranchero Breakfast Tostadas

Serves 2

Adapted from The Sprouted Kitchen

Ingredients:

1 cup cooked black beans

1/4 cup whole milk plain yogurt (and more for topping the tostada, if you like)

1/4 yellow onion, chopped

ground cumin

pinch salt

red pepper flakes

2 whole wheat flour tortillas

2 eggs

shredded sharp white Cheddar

avocado (optional- if you have one, it’s delicious)

1/4 cup chopped cilantro

1/2 lime

Hot chili sauce

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Warm the beans in a saucepan (if using a new can, drain them first) over low heat. Add a little luke warm water, the yogurt, onions, cumin, salt and red pepper flakes and mash them up a little with a fork. Turn off the heat, but cover to keep warm. Fry the eggs in butter, olive oil or coconut oil. Meanwhile, place the tortillas in the heated oven until they become a little crisp. Assemble the tostada by topping a tortilla with 1/2 of the bean mash, an egg, avocado slices, shredded cheese, yogurt, cilantro, hot sauce and a squeeze of lime.

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It’s above twenty degrees and I’m off for a run. But be on the lookout- Dan and I have a surprise up our sleeves. A new corner of the universe where we will share the things that make us happy. Until then, thank you for reading.

Cheers.

An invitation

I have stopped and started writing this post in my mind several times over the last couple of weeks. I wanted to say something profound. Comforting. Something that would help us make sense. And now I find myself on the eve of the new year with the thought that, very often, the world simply does not make sense. But I wanted to offer something, so here it is, stolen from Bob Dylan’s ‘Goin to Acapulco:’

“It’s a wicked life, but what the hell, everybody’s got to eat.”

And now I’ll tell you what to eat: Eggs in purgatory. I have fallen madly for The Yellow House and yesterday I made this recipe after a cross-country ski adventure with Dan. We mowed it, along with Luna Coffee Stouts from Hinterland.

I followed the recipe as is, and while mine did not look quite as beautiful as hers, it tasted like heaven.

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Eggs in purgatory (Uova al purgatorio)

From The Yellow House 

1 loaf thick country-style bread, sliced

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

1 medium yellow onion, roughly chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

28 ounces canned, peeled whole tomatoes and their liquid (or blanched, peeled whole tomatoes)

8 ounces canned tomato purée

Kosher salt

Ground black pepper

A handful of flat-leaf Italian parsley, roughly chopped

Parmigiano or asiago, shaved

Directions:

Toast the bread and set aside, covering with a clean dish towel. It’s okay if it cools a bit.

In a thick-bottomed, oven-proof pan or Dutch oven, melt the butter. Sauté the onion over medium heat until translucent and aromatic, about 5-7 minutes. Add the garlic and cook, stirring, for 1-2 minutes. Do not allow the garlic to brown.

Add both the whole tomatoes and the tomato purée, stirring and using a wooden spoon to break up the tomatoes. Bring the mixture to a boil and reduce to a simmer, allowing excess liquid to boil off and the sauce to thicken, about 10 minutes. Stir occasionally.

Taste the sauce and season with salt and pepper. Is the sauce too acidic, too sweet? Adjust as needed—sometimes it needs a pinch of brown sugar, a splash of red wine vinegar, or a dash of red pepper flakes.

Keeping the sauce at a low simmer, start the broiler on high. Using the back of your wooden spoon, make small wells in the sauce and gently crack one egg into the well. The sauce should still be on the stovetop simmering, so the eggs should start cooking immediately. When all the eggs are situated in the sauce, turn off the range and slide the pan under the broiler.

Broil, keeping a close eye on the eggs, until the whites are set and yolks have reached the desired doneness.

Place slices of bread on plates, and scoop eggs and sauce on top. Sprinkle liberally with parsley and top with cheese. Serve immediately with more black pepper.

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And now I offer you an invitation for the new year. It comes from a Native American elder and I first heard it while hiking across southern New Mexico. Our backpacking guide, Kate, read it to us one night using the glow from her headlamp. I then wrote it in my brown journal that I carried with me all 120 miles of the trip. When words fail me, I rely on the words of others and I found myself thinking about these words today.

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your hearts longing. It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dreams, for the adventure of being alive… It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away. I want to know if you can be alone with yourself, and if you truly like the company that you keep in the empty moments.

Here’s to daring to dream in 2013. Happy New Year.

The good land

In September on a gorgeous late summer weekend, Dan and I went down the road to visit our friends, Nora and Nate, in Milwaukee. As a kid growing up in Madison, trips to Milwaukee meant one of two things: a ballgame at decrepit- but lovable- County Stadium to watch Rob Deer, Robin Yount and Cecil Cooper lope around in baby-blue uniforms or a “we’re tired of winter and need to get out of the house and feel humid air” trip to the domes. This time around, upon arriving at Nora and Nate’s attractive and sunny hard-wood floored apartment across from the river, we abandoned our car for bicycles and pedaled unchartered (by us) Mill-e-wah-que territory. I believe I said aloud more than once: “I never knew Milwaukee had this many trees!”

Our first trip on the wooded bike path took us to Lakefront Brewery, home of one of my all-time favorite beers, Fixed Gear Red Ale. Our tour guide was an interesting combination of angry and cheesy, yelling at participants for talking but also leading us in a somewhat-inspired rendition of the theme song from ‘Laverne and Shirley.’ But, as all good brewery tour guides do, he kept us in the beer throughout the proceedings.

After the tour we traded our tokens for various samples of Lakefront’s offerings and sat next to the river until they kicked us out for a wedding.

Giggling as we were ushered away from the brewery, we hopped our bikes for the beach, weaving through the neighborhood where our cat, Danger Boy, was found mewing under a porch as a kitten. We made our way to Bradford Beach where our friend, Craig, was singing on a stage set up on the sand a hundred feet from Lake Michigan.

I reveled in the feeling of being on a surprise get-away as we cruised away from the beach past parks, old pavilions and people out enjoying the air. Dinner came next. Nora and Nate wanted to take us to their favorite restaurant, Roots. I traded shorts for bell-bottomed jeans, french-rolled my pant leg, threw our headlamps in my purse and we were off- another trip down the bike path took us to the restaurant on the hill, overlooking downtown. I believe I said aloud more than once: “I never knew Milwaukee had this many hills!”

Upon arriving at Roots, we noticed a nervous energy filled the air. Soon the news floated down to us- this was the last night this extremely popular farm-to-table restaurant would be serving dinner. Nora and Nate were crushed with the news, but we decided to live it up. We sat outside and were lucky to have their favorite waiter, a charming man with an even more charming South African accent. He and I must have thanked each other a thousand times over the course of the evening. We sipped on red ales and started with mussels nestled in a tomato broth that I sipped as a soup long after we divvied up the meaty mollusks. Next came the main course- Nora, Nate and Dan all opted for the grass-fed steak as I decided on the vegetarian succotash. I almost didn’t order this dish as the word ‘succotash’ for me conjures up images of a bad summer camp meal full of frozen corn and mushy lima beans, but in the end, I went for it, mainly on the recommendation of our waiter, who at this point in the meal I felt ready to trust with my life. The succotash was, in a word, heavenly. I can’t really describe it much more, except to confide in you that, in the middle of this fine-dining restaurant, I looked around to see if anyone was paying any attention before I picked up my plate and licked it clean.

I have only done that (in public) once before and it was the plate of the chocolate bread pudding at the Rendezvous Bistro in Jackson, Wyoming. If you’ve had it, you understand. (Additionally, that night our waiter in Wyoming informed us we were in the plate-licking section so it was okay.)

After the succotash we ordered dessert, but I honestly don’t remember what it was. I do remember, however, that Nora ordered tea, knocking the socks off our waiter when she asked for rooibos tea, apparently a favorite in his native South Africa. Delighted, he brought us a full tea service, complete with tiny pitchers of milk and honey. It was the perfect end to a beautiful dinner- sipping hot tea as the evening air grew chillier. We bid Roots goodbye and put on our headlamps, biking home through the quiet dark in the middle of the city.

The next morning Nate made us a delicious meal of eggs and bunsen burner coffee. We lazed around before deciding on one more adventure before Dan and I had to make our home. We were off to the biergarten. We headed the opposite direction on our bicycles two miles and landed in this magical place next to the river where I could spend every Sunday afternoon from here to eternity.

There were steins of beers, pretzals with mustard, good friends, corgis and a two-piece band featuring an accordian player from Slovenia. Alice Cooper was right. Milwaukee is the good land and I can’t wait to go back.