Recipes at Sound Food

Here's the place to post, share, tweak and discuss recipes. Do you have a seasonal favorite? A good way to use garden produce? A special holiday or family dish? Send your recipes to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , and post what worked for you in "Comments."

New website creates master index of your cookbooks

Written by julie Cooper
Tuesday, 03 January 2012 19:24
I’ve always had a thing for cookbooks. My favorite cookbook growing up was my mom’s 1963 edition of Betty Crocker’s “Cooky Book.” Its mod cover featured cookies of all shapes decked with maraschino cherries, silver balls, and fluorescent icing. Fresh out of graduate school, I worked as an editor in the New York for a few years, during which time I befriended several of the cookbook editors at the publishing house. In turn, they passed along used and new copies of books they were editing, and-in lieu of a grand salary-I amassed a fortune of cookbooks. I had no idea how many cookbooks I’d acquired until this Christmas, when my husband gave me a gift that is perhaps my favorite of all time. On Christmas morning, I received a handwritten slip of paper with the cryptic web address: www.eatyourbooks.com and my user name and password. For an annual fee of $25, eatyourbooks.com enables members to have an online, personalized search engine for their private cookbook collections. Eat Your Books has indexed hundreds of cookbooks-chances are, if you own cookbooks that have been published in English in the last 10 years, or are old classics-they will be indexed. After you become a member, you just need to enter the titles of all your cookbooks, and then the website makes it possible for you to search your own cookbook library for the precise recipe you want. My husband entered all 220 of our cookbooks into the site before I opened my gift, so that on Christmas morning, when I entered the words, “crème frâiche,” I discovered there were over 400 results for recipes using “crème frâiche,” in cookbooks that I already owned. The site does not allow you to view the recipes themselves, but it does generate automatic grocery shopping lists (so you can determine if you have what you need in your house to make the recipe before consulting the book), and rate the recipes after you’ve enjoyed the results. Membership at the site also has other nifty features that I’m still learning how to use, but I wanted to share my beginner’s excitement in the hopes that others would begin to rediscover their cookbook collections, too. On Christmas day I added two new cookbooks (my husband’s presents, not mine!) to my eatyourbooks.com digital library, bringing it up to 222. Maybe it’s time to stop now? Add this page to:

Agate Pass Café's Kale and Apple Salad Recipe

Written by Carolyn Goodwin
Tuesday, 03 January 2012 18:54
My husband and I often head up to Suquamish to the Agate Pass Café. And no matter what else is on the menu, we always order the Kale Salad. It has just enough sweet, sour and salty to make it fit with anything that comes before or after. Recently, having run out of ideas for using the lacinato kale that is the sole survivor in my winter garden, I wrote to the Café to ask for the recipe. Owner Marty Bracken wrote back within minutes -- apparently I'm not the only one with a passion for this salad. "People ask me for the recipe almost every day!" she wrote. So here it is. And yes, the kale is raw. But since it's finely chopped (chiffonade means to cut into thin strips), and combined with an acidic dressing, it is deliciously edible. Enjoy! Agate Pass Café’s Kale & Apple Salad Salad: 1 cup radicchio, shredded 3 cups tuscan/lacinato/dinosaur kale, stemmed & chiffonaded 1 granny smith apple, julienned (skin on) 1 T chives, snipped ¼ cup pecorino romano cheese, shaved 2 Tbsp shallots, minced ¼ cup pancetta finely diced, rendered & lightly browned ½ cup maple-white balsamic vinaigrette To taste: salt & pepper ½ cup candied pecans (recipe follows) Procedure: 1. Combine kale, radicchio, apple, herbs, cheese, shallots & pancetta in salad mixing bowl 2. Add dressing & toss well; add more dressing as needed - don’t skimp! 3. Season to taste with salt & pepper. 4. Mound salad on serving plate & garnish with pecans. 5. Enjoy immediately. Candied Pecans 2 C pecans ½ C powdered sugar ½ tsp cayenne pepper ½ tsp salt Procedure: 1. Preheat oven to 325F. 2. Cover pecans with water in a bowl; transfer to strainer & shake off water. 3. In another bowl, whisk together sugar, cayenne & salt; add pecans & toss. 4. Transfer nuts to a strainer & shake off excess coating. 5. Arrange on paper- or silicone-lined baking pan & bake 10-12 mins until sugar is lightly caramelized and the pecans are golden. Maple Vinaigrette yield: approximately 1 cup 2 Tbsp minced shallot 1 T stone ground mustard 1 Tbsp champagne vinegar 2 Tbsp white balsamic vinegar ½ tsp dry thyme ¼ tsp fresh rosemary, minced 1 egg yolk 2 Tbsp maple syrup ¾ cup canola oil To taste: salt & pepper Procedure: 1. combine all ingredients except oil, salt & pepper in bowl of food processor 2. turn on food processor and slowly drizzle in oil 3. season with salt & pepper 4. adjust acid with more vinegar or sweetness with a bit of honey as needed 5. should be yummy ? Add this page to:

Chef's Recipe: For Beet's Sake!

Written by Cherie Levan
Thursday, 20 October 2011 12:20
Beets As the cool, crisp air of Fall blows through the Island, my mind turns to beets. One would think apples, squash, chantrelles, and pumpkins would be top of mind. No, I crave a rainbow of beets and their luscious leafy greens in just about every meal. Steamed, roasted, pureed, and pickled are some favorite preparations but they all focus on the beautiful ruby orb itself, not the nutrient full greens. And we all know the leaves are packed with vitamins. So feeling envious of all the chickens who get to munch down our tasty discarded beet greens, I went on a recipe testing expedition where I could use the entire beet. While on my search, I stumbled across farro. This nutty, ancient grain is perfect as an addition to side dishes or even as an entrée. And you know what else is great about this cornucopia of nutrients? Not only is it a protein packed, vitamin rich dish, but it is also scores a perfect 10 on the yum scale. What’s more, every ingredient is made in our gorgeous state with most of the items found right here in Kitsap County. Give it a try. Gluten intolerant folks may obviously forgo the farro. This is a perfectly tasty salad without the farro as well. Enjoy and be happy in knowing you ate the whole beet, for beet’s sake! Roasted Beet Salad with Greens on a Bed of Bluebird Grain Farm Farro (Recipe inspiration from Cynthia Lair, of Cookus Interuptus fame) Serves 4 1 Cup of Bluebird Grain Farms Farro 6-8 Large Beets - the more colorful, the better. (The perfect mix is the chiogga and early wonder beets!) ¼ teaspoon sea salt 2 tablespoon champagne vinegar 1 small shallot, peeled and minced (about 2 tablespoons) 1 clove of garlic 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard ¾ cup of fruity extra virgin olive oil ¼ cup of Port Madison Farms Chevre, crumbled 4-5 sprigs of fresh thyme, stripped Freshly ground pepper and salt to taste ¼ Salted and Roasted Pumpkin Seeds 1. Prepare the farro according to the instructions from Bluebird Grain Farms. (I prefer to soak mine overnight) 2. While the farro cooks, prepare the beets. Wash thoroughly and remove stems. Pierce all over with a fork. Place in shallow pan with about 1 to 2 inches of water and cover tightly with foil. Roast at 400 for 10-15 minutes. (Depending on the size of your beets, this may take a bit longer.) Pierce with fork when and extend cooking time when necessary. The beets should be firm but tender. 3. While the beets roast, dry the greens. Cut away and discard any off colored leaves and any tough stems. Rough chop the greens and place in bowl. 4. Prepare the vinaigrette. (This is so tasty, you may want to triple the recipe!). And the farro soaks up the liquid pretty rapidly. Peel the shallot and the garlic. Finely mince both. Place in bowl with salt, pepper, and Dijon. Add the vinegar and whisk together. Once combined, slowly add the olive oil in a stream until it emulsifies. Another fun way to place all ingredients in a Dijon jar and shake! 5. Once everything is cooled and chopped, assemble, toss the pumpkin seeds on, and enjoy! It gets better the next day. The strong color of the beets will dye everything in this dish a beautiful pink. If pink is not your thing, add the beets at the very last minute and toss gently. I always reserve a few beet chunks for garnish Cherie Levan is the owner of Simply Bainbridge, a local catering and events company. Cherie partners with farmers all over Kitsap County searching for the most perfect beet. Most recently, the fine farmers of Persphone, Farmhouse Organics, and Sol Farms have shared their fields of beet gold with Simply Bainbridge diners. Farro can be found in the bulk section of Town and Country. Add this page to:

An Old-Time Sip of Summer: Raspberry Shrub

Written by Rebecca Rockefeller
Thursday, 14 July 2011 12:27
Our raspberries are just starting to ripen, and soon there will be a flush of berries each morning and another each evening. We'll have berries enough for pies, for my mother's famous Raspberry Bavarian (fresh raspberries folded with sweetened whipped cream and set with plain gelatin), to store in the freezer, and to eat by the handful with every meal. We are blessed with very productive canes! This week we're getting a couple of kid-sized handfuls a day, not enough for any recipe we knew of, but what if we mixed one day's berries with some vinegar? A quick Googling and we discovered shrubs. Not the leafy sort, but the beverage popular before industrialized food, a hit drink in colonial America and during Jane Austen's days. A shrub is a sweetened fruit vinegar that can be mixed with water, with or without the addition of booze, the perfect way to liquefy and preserve the fruity essence of summer's fragile fruits. This, we had to try! We found a clean glass jar and filled it with clean raspberries. My girls took turns pouring raw, unfiltered organic apple cider vinegar into the jar, enough to cover the slightly-packed berries. We capped it and put it in our favorite dark cupboard. For the richest flavor, it's best to let the berries macerate for 3 days, but we had to taste it the next morning. While most shrub recipes call for boiling the fruit vinegar with sugar to produce a syrup that can be stored for months in the fridge, we like to keep our vinegar raw and full of life; we're also trying hard to avoid processed sweeteners and to find local alternatives wherever we can. So we ladled off a few tablespoons of our bright pink vinegar and mixed it with an almost equal volume of local honey. We poured about 1 tablespoon of this syrup into each of our fancy drinking glasses and filled the rest up with plain old water. The resulting shrub was delicious. The vinegar almost made it feel carbonated, the honey was just sweet enough, and the raspberry flavor came through so bright and clean. It doesn't hurt that, even diluted with water, the color is a gorgeous pink, with a tickly sort of fragrance. In a couple of days, we'll strain our raspberry vinegar into a clean glass bottle and store it at room temperature. Treated this way, it will keep indefinitely, and can be used for all sorts of things. When we're thirsty, we'll mix up the amount of syrup we'd like using honey and then we'll drink our shrub, our Bainbridge Island summer in a glass. Whether you're looking to circumvent industrialized food, eat local, eat seasonal, avoid processed sugars, lower your carbon footprint, or find a cooking project that kids can do entirely on their own, a simple shrub can do it all and taste good, to boot. More reading about shrubs: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/01/magazine/01food-t-000.html http://www.laughingduckgardens.com/ldblog.php/2008/11/21/consider-the-cranberry-shrub/ http://drinks.seriouseats.com/2011/06/cocktail-101-how-to-make-shrub-syrups.html Add this page to:

Whip up a Springtime Frittata with Homegrown Eggs

Written by Rebecca Rockefeller
Wednesday, 11 May 2011 17:14
My daughters and I are part of the island chicken renaissance with the Easter Egger chicks we brought home from Bay Hay and Feed last year. Thanks to the formative weeks they spent living in our bathtub, our chicks have grown into friendly hens who have been moved by the ever-increasing daylight hours to gift us with an average of 5 blue-green and pinkish-brown eggs each day. We anticipated our eggy wealth all winter, but the reality of it still caught us a bit by surprise. We have eggs aplenty to pass over the fence to our neighbors, and we made it through the egg-intensive holiday of Passover without having to buy any extras; between the mandatory hard-boiled eggs and the kugels that call for a dozen eggs each, this was no small achievement for our backyard flock! We've also been harvesting our first greens of the year, mostly sorrel from our garden and nettles and cress from local marshy places. The other day we drove to Olympia for the signing of the Cottage Food Bill, and my daughter wanted nettle soup for lunch. I'm up for creative food packaging, but I'm skittish about soup as a car food for my preschooler. I needed something that would deliver the desired nettle flavor in a handheld form, so I thought I'd combine our surplus of eggs and greens into a frittata. We like our frittatas heavy on vegetables and relatively light on eggs, so they're more like a crustless pie than a custard with benefits. Bainbridge Spring Frittata Ingredients: 1 cup fresh eggs (4 lg or 5 med) 4-5 cups fresh nettles, steamed and chopped into bite-sized pieces or pureed in a food processor 1 cup fresh sorrel, cut into thin strips 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped freshly grated nutmeg to taste (I like a light dusting, enough to give fragrance without bitterness) sea salt and pepper to taste grapeseed oil for pan large ovenproof skillet, preferably cast iron Instructions: Heat your skillet over med-low heat with enough oil to coat the entire bottom well (about 1-2 Tbs). While skillet is heating, whisk together the eggs until very well combined and a bit frothy. Stir in the greens, garlic, nutmeg, salt, and pepper. Pour mixture into hot skillet and let cook, undisturbed, until mostly set. If you'd like, you can lift the frittata's edges to allow any runny, uncooked eggs to flow to the bottom; with this ratio of eggs to greens, though, there shouldn't be much visible runny egg. When the eggs are almost cooked, with the top and center still wet, set your oven to broil and place pan a few inches below the top element until everything is just set. Slice like a pie and serve hot, warm, or at room temperature. This keeps well in the fridge, and works for breakfast, lunchboxes, or a picnic dinner. If you eat dairy, this would be wonderful with some local goat cheese stirred in, and you can substitute your favorite local greens or spring vegetables for the nettles and sorrel. Add this page to:

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