Brussels Sprout Salad

This past Sunday, my mom gave a concert in Suttons Bay.  We went up to attend, and my mom graciously invited me to sing with her on a couple of pieces.  What an absolute joy to be able to sing together.  You want to talk about voices blending?  Try being related!  It's like nothing else.  The program was all sacred, and there was a free-will offering collected to raise money for homeless teens living in the area, in order to provide them with turkeys for their Thanksgiving celebration.  The goal had been to raise $300, which would have covered that cost.  We ended up raising $575.  I was speechless.

On Saturday afternoon, we drove up to Brys Estate on Old Mission Peninsula for a wine tasting and food pairing event.  It was a beautiful day - sunny, cool and clear.  The views were unbeatable.

We got home, and I started putting everyone to work on dinner: Dad shelling pistachios ("Three quarters of a cup of shelled pistachios is more than you would think!"), hubby peeling potatoes, sister grating cheese.  It's amazing how fast dinner comes together when you have 5 pairs of hands!  (If you're doing mental math right now, my sister's boyfriend was also there helping.  Calm down.)

I first had this brussels sprout salad at my friend Joey's restaurant, Franks 'n' Dawgs.  I might never have ordered it if he hadn't just given me a taste one time.  I mean, you can't blame me.  Who in their right mind would order a salad of brussels sprouts when the menu boasts things like the "Tur-doggin" (Turkey & date sausage, crispy duck confit, herb garlic aioli, pickled onion relish & pickled carrots), "Krazy Kimchi" (Spicy beef sausage, braised short rib & turnips, kimchi, wild rice & basi), and "Peking Duck" (Duck & sesame sausage, pickled cucumber, hoisin aioli, scallion, crispy peking duck skin & puffed rice)?  Many of the sausages are house-made daily, and they're served on freshly baked, buttered, and toasted New England-style lobster rolls.  Certainly, the salad is NOT the thing to order here.

Or is it?

I am so glad I tried this, because it completely transformed the way that I see this humble vegetable!  Don't get me wrong, I've never been a hater.  My dad started me on steamed sprouts early on, and since then I have fallen in love with their roasted counterparts.  But raw was a new concept to me.  This salad is the perfect antidote to sad, wilty lettuce salads when the weather turns cooler.  Refreshing and satisfying, with a zing of lemon and a crunch of pistachios, this is the perfect salad to have alongside something not-so-light.  Like the fabulous sausages at Franks 'n' Dawgs, or fried chicken and mashed potatoes at home. 

 

Brussels Sprout Salad

1 bag brussels sprouts

3/4 cup pistachios, roughly chopped

1/2 cup grated Parmigiano Reggiano

zest and juice of 1 lemon

1/4 cup of olive oil

pepper to taste

finely chopped fresh dill, to taste (about 3 tablespoons for me)

Chop the tough ends off of the sprouts, halve them, and slice them thinly.  (This was a revelation to me. It's like a tiny cabbage!)  Place sprouts in a large bowl.  Add remaining ingredients and toss.  Serve with something indulgent.  It's all about balance.

Grilled Chard Salad

In my family, we've always celebrated birthdays when it's most convenient for everyone to be there.  Both my parents are singers, and they would sometimes be traveling when one of our birthdays happened.  Instead of missing the celebration, birthdays became moveable.  So even though my dad's actual birthday was a few days ago, we celebrated it yesterday.

We had decided ahead of time that we wanted to float in tubes down this little river that ends at Lake Michigan.  There were six of us, and seven tubes (one for the cooler full of beer), and it seemed like a great plan!  That's assuming that it's hot and sunny in July... which it sometimes is not in Northern Michigan.  The high yesterday was only about 72, and it was cloudy, which made for an interesting trip down the river.  We definitely still had fun, but by the end of the 2-plus-hour journey, we were all a little blue and shivering.  Especially me, since my tube had started slowly deflating about halfway through.  Oh well.

My mom and I are a pretty great kitchen team.  We marinated some boneless pork chops in Wicker's Original marinade, which you can (and should) order here.  We grilled the pork chops along with some sweet corn on the cob, and this chard salad, and made a peach cobbler (using this recipe, substituting peaches for rhubarb, and omitting the almond extract), which we served with ice cream from Moomers, the little ice cream shop down the street.  You can see the cows that provide milk for them right outside their window.

Grilled Chard Salad


1 bunch chard (red, rainbow, whatever you want)
1 cup cherry tomatotes
1/4 cup pine nuts
olive oil
juice of 1/2 lemon


Rinse the chard well, and chop into 1-inch pieces, discarding the very end of the stems.  Toss with olive oil in a large bowl, and then pour out onto a piece of aluminum foil.  Using another piece of foil, fold the edges to make a sealed packet.  Place on a hot grill for about 10 minutes.  Remove, open the packet, and empty the chard into a serving bowl.  Add cherry tomatoes and pine nuts, dress with a little more olive oil and the lemon juice, and season to taste with salt and pepper.  Serve warm.


Yield: 6 servings

Sunrise, Sunset

We're up in Traverse City for a long weekend, and I'll have some recipes to share later, but for now, I just wanted to share a couple of photos: one from last night as we drove up here, and one from this morning, on my parents' property.

Hope you're having a beautiful day where you are!

Cherry Pie... with issues.

My mom always paints stuff on the top of fruit pies with food coloring. 
Except the tops of her pies don't have fault lines...

The Cherry Festival starts this weekend!  Eeeep!

Wait... you've never heard of the Cherry Festival?  Let me fill you in!

It always takes place the first full week of July in Traverse City, Michigan.  Did you know that Traverse City is the cherry capital of the world?  Michigan produces 70-75% of the tart cherries grown in the United States, and most of those are grown in the counties surrounding Traverse City.  The Cherry Festival is a week-long celebration of cherries, including parades (a Cherry Queen is crowned), cherry pit-spitting contests, cherry pie-eating contests, concerts and more.  For people who live in Traverse City, it renders our tiny hometown nearly useless for a week, as 500,000 people descend and cause unbelievable traffic.  But it's fun!

In honor of the Cherry Festival, and because they had fresh Michigan tart cherries at the farmer's market last week, I decided to bake a pie.  I've never baked one with fresh cherries before, because the pies that my mom makes from frozen Michigan Montmorency cherries (which I told you about when I made Chocolate Cherry Cheesecake Bars) are flipping amazing, and I never felt the need.  After having pitted what felt like a million cherries the other night, I don't think I'll ever do that again, at least not for a pie.  Or not until I get a cherry pitter.

My hand, stained bright red with cherry juice.

Did I mention that my mom makes utterly amazing pies?  Seriously.  At Thanksgiving, we have three.  Pumpkin (obviously), and pecan for my dad, who's from Memphis, and then cherry.  Because... they live in Traverse City and it's my mom's favorite.  You really can't blame her.  One of my favorite things about Thanksgiving is actually the piece of cherry pie I get to have for breakfast the next day.

I pitted each one of these with a knife!  It took forever!

I had some trouble with this pie.  The crust just wouldn't stay together!  I rolled it out, and everything seemed to be going well.  Then I tried to get it off the counter and into the pie plate, and... it fell apart.  Not like one little tear, or a rip down the middle that's easily fixed.  Like, fell apart into a million crumbly pieces.  So that I had to pick up each tiny piece, put it in the plate, and try to smash it into the other pieces to get a pie crust that was resonably intact.  Thankfully, I had a little bit better luck with the top crust - you can't exactly patch-as-you-go on top of the fruit, now can you?  I was more than a little frustrated.  Then I almost burned it.  But it's still cherry pie, and it still tasted ridiculously good.  That said, I still won't give you the recipe, because it is woefully incomplete, and only escaped becoming a total trainwreck because, well... it was still made with butter, sugar, and fresh fruit.  And that can only get so bad.



What is your hometown famous for?