Lunch

Salmon salad with avocado.

Preparation time: 10 minutes

This is a high protein meal, starting with a 7.5-ounce can of Alaska salmon mixed with diced onion, capers and mayonnaise. One can is enough to make two hefty, man-sized portions.

Slice 1/2 ripe avocado into wedges and peel. It requires no dressing. It is perfectly delicious and wholesome as is.

Mercury content in fish is always a concern. But fish from the Pacific and specifically canned salmon from Alaska have been found to contain relatively low levels of mercury compared to other fish, such as tuna. (Pacific albacore have less than Atlantic albacore.) Where carnivorous fish are concerned, the bigger the fish, the higher up the food chain, the higher its mercury content is likely to be. Shark and swordfish are especially high in mercury. In any case, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration recommends no more than 12 ounces of fish low in mercury per week. Women who are breast feeding, pregnant or planning to become pregnant and young children should be especially cautious about any fish they consume.

Like other oily fishes, Salmon--the wild-caught variety, as in Alaska--are particularly good sources of omega-3 fatty acids. Avoid farmed salmon.

Avocado is a great food, especially if you are looking for beneficial fats. Half an avocado contains 153 calories and 14 grams of fat, 63 percent of which is monounsaturated, the same as olive oil. Avocados contain more protein than cows milk and are an excellent source of omega-3 fatty acids as well as potassium, a valuable thing if you are on a diet low in carbohydrates.

Lunch

Egg and onion sandwich with homemade "crock" pickle.

Preparation time: 10 minutes

Shopping: none

My wife declares this "the best" egg sandwich ever. It's made with a fresh pastured egg from Creekside Farm & Orchard in Berkeley Springs, West Virginia. Daughter and I walked to the Dupont Circle farmers market on Sunday and picked up a couple of dozen. (We used to get our eggs from farmer friend Brett's weekly winter CSA box. But we were unable to find a partner to share the CSA subscription this year. I feel terribly disloyal, but we must have our pastured eggs.)

The egg and its rich orange yolk were mixed with a bit of salt and pepper and quick-fried. We toasted slices of the multi-grain bread that we get delivered from our dairy, South Mountain Creamery. (It's a deliciously chewy bread that makes quite a trip, first baked in Ellicott City, Maryland, then trucked across the state to the dairy almost in West Virginia, then back to us in the District of Columbia. It arrives frozen but you'd never know once it is thawed.)

A little mayonnaise on the bread, some thinly sliced onion on the egg. The pickle is a sweet and sour variety that we put up last summer, just the thing to spice up this simple lunch.

Lunch

Hebrew National beef hot dog with homemade chili on a potato roll.

Preparation time: 5 minutes

Shopping: none

The dog and the chili are leftover from our inaugural catering event. Oh, I am hearing the howls out there, the cries of "Foul!" Because there is nothing very sustainable here. In fact, I think it's a pretty safe bet that the meat on this bun came from a feedlot somewhere. In fact, the parent company is the evil ConAgra that we all love to hate so much.

But this is a perfect illustration of how far the rest of the world has to go to catch up with the ethicureans. Tens of thousands of people were fed at events all over the District of Columbia beginning over the weekend. How many of the ingredients do you suppose were local or organic or sustainably raised? Believe me, even the most liberal people we know don't bother to ask where the food comes from at a party--even when they're the ones throwing the party. We are just starting to see the beginnings of food conscious hosts out there asking for politically correct menus. Most people would choke on the additional cost.

So as professionals we consider ourselves to have feet in both worlds. We eat out of our garden, pastured eggs, grass-fed meats and dairy. But when we're cooking for others, we feel compelled to give them what they want, though for small affairs we can often sneak our home-grown products onto the menu.

From a health standpoint also this dog has nothing to bark home about. These are the jumbo Hebrew Nationals--quarter-pounders with 30 grams of fat in each. I cut one-third off mine, which still leaves a considerable portion of soy- and corn-based fat. (I am apologizing to my arteries as we speak). What we'll probably do is freeze the rest and save them for another party another day. Meanwhile, close your eyes and enjoy this rare and sinful treat....

Lunch

Leftovers, consisting of "Dad's meatloaf" with mashed potatoes and collard greens.

Preparation time: 5 minutes

Shopping: none

This meatloaf, a recipe we've adopted from Tyler Florence, is now our favorite. The loaf itself consists of ground beef and ground pork with eggs, bread crumbs soaked in milk and a wicked relish made of red bell pepper, onion, tomato, ketchup and Worcesterhire sauce. Some of the relish is reserved for dressing the meat on the plate.

The loaf is shaped on a baking sheet, then topped with more of that relish and strips of Black Forest bacon. It's smokey delicious.

The collards were cooked in a smoked turkey neck broth and seasoned at the table with cider vinegar. I can hardly imagine a more decadent lunch.

Lunch

Assorted leftovers from the fridge, constituting a vegetarian feast:

Roasted parsnips and carrots, boiled potatoes, chopped spinach, sauteed mushrooms, canned baby peas. Drizzle with extra-virgin olive oil. Season with coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper. Dust with leftover grated parmesan cheese.

Preparation time: 5 minutes

Shopping: none

Lunch

Sweet potato mash with ruby chard.

Preparation time: 5 minutes

Shopping: none

These sweet potatoes were recently harvested from the garden, roasted in a 325-degree oven, then mashed and seasoned with orange juice, maple syrup, cinnamon and nutmeg.

I have enough leftover mashed sweet potatoes to last the week. I am just finishing the last of this chard, also harvested from the garden and braised with garlic and lemon. Both a little on the sweet side, these two go wonderfully well together, especially the red chard juices mixing with the mash.

Lunch

Leftover lamb shoulder chop with Romesco sauce, bulgar with lemon and black olives, smothered okra with corn and diced tomatoes.

Preparation time: 5 minutes

Shopping: none

We do love our leftovers, although this does sound like an add combo at first blush--a sort of Mediterranean-Caribbean fusion. In fact, it all went down quite nicely. The okra, of course, is from the garden. The season will soon be over for them, but we couldn't have asked for more from our sturdy band of okra plants. We've stewed them, curried them and pickled them and still they keep coming. What a great vegetable.

Lunch

Tuna and chickpea salad with golden cherry tomatoes.

Preparation time: 10 minutes

Shopping: none

This salad was tossed together with a can of tuna from the pantry, an opened can of chickpeas in the fridge, a few slices of red onion and some Dr. Carolyn tomatoes from the garden. It was displayed on this week's green salad mix already bagged in the refrigerator and dressed with the simple mustard vinaigrette we had on hand.

I also like this salad with the giant marinated white beans usually available in the cheese section at the local Whole Foods. (They used to be displayed at the olive station, but then showed up prepacked with the fresh mozzarella cheeses. Last I checked, they were sold out--hopefully this is not another one of those outstanding items Whole Foods quietly removes from the shelves.)

What is most intriguing to me about this dish, however, is the canned tuna. I buy a water-packed white albacore tuna labeled as "U.S. wild-caught." Since the dolphin controversy and the warnings about mercury content, there hasn't been much news about canned tuna, so I turned to the Monterey Bay Aquarium's "Seafood Watch" site for an update.

Perhaps more than most fish, tuna is a quagmire for anyone trying to purchase sustainable seafood. Starting with albacore, for instance, "Seafood Watch" pronounces Tombo, canned white tuna, longfin Tunny and Albacora a "best choice" if it's caught off British Columbia or the U.S., and if it's caught by trolling or with a pole. Also, the same varieties are a "best choice" if caught in Hawaiian waters by trolling, with a poll or with a handline. However, those vary same varieties caught in Hawaii using the "longline" method are merely a "good alternative."

The trouble with albacore starts when you get into those same varieties using those same methods "worldwide" (except Hawaii). In the case of "worldwide," you should avoid that can of albacore.

As for Skipjack tuna, including Aku, "Canned Light Tuna," Arctic Bonito and Striped tuna, the "best" choice is either "worldwide" caught trolling or with a poll, or from Hawaii caught trolling, with a poll or with a handline. Again, a "good alternative" is from the same varieties caught near Hawaii using the "longline" method. To be avoided are the "imported" varieties using the longline method.

No misunderstanding there, right?

Unfortunately, I don't think much of this information is listed on the cans available for inspection at the local grocery store, including the Whole Foods, which has numerous varieties available in a wide range of prices. Once again, it's buyer beware.

Yogurt Success

As long as we're getting deliveries of fresh, whole milk and cream, I thought we should start making our own yogurt on a regular basis.

On my first attempt, I made the mistake of following instructions from a dairy cookbook, heating our unhomogenized whole milk to just 115 degrees (Fahrenheit) before inoculating is with some store-bought yogurt. I left it to incubate overnight in a cooler packed with jars of hot water. What I got was a runny, fermented sort of yogurt wanna-be. Why hadn't it firmed up?

Then I recalled our yogurt lessons from "food appreciation" classes when we had cooked the milk at 185 degrees. I went back and read the pertinent section in Harold McGee's "On Food and Cooking" and kicked myself for failing to remember that it isn't the bacteria that make the yogurt thick, it's the temperature.

Bacteria ferment the milk by noshing on lactose and making acid. That gives yogurt it's pleasant tang. The thickness occurs when the proteins in the milk are heated to a fairly high temperature. Heat concentrates the proteins and forces them to gather in thick chains. Commercial yogurt makers often add powdered milk and gelatin to achieve the thickness consumers are used to.

For this most recent batch, I mixed 3 1/2 cups whole, unhomogenized milk with 1/2 cup heavy cream and heated it slowly in a heavy saucepan to 195 degrees. I maintained that temperature for 10 minutes (according to McGee's instructions) before moving the pan to a cold water bath and lowering the temperature to 115 degrees, at which point I mixed in 3 tablespoons of our favorite commercial yogurt from Seven Stars Farm. I poured the mix into a warm quart jar and placed the jar in a cooler with a heavy pot full of hot water.

I placed an instant-read thermometer in the cooler, aiming to maintain a temperature of about 115 degrees. Turned out I didn't need to do anything further. The yogurt had firmed up after just a few hours, but I left it in the cooler overnight. The next morning it was thick and delicious. I couldn't wait to slice up a peach and smoother it in our fresh, whole-milk (with some cream) yogurt.

Without a doubt, this is the best yogurt I have ever tasted.

Note: take care not to boil or burn your milk. Use a very heavy saucepan and don't try to rush the milk to 195 degrees. Be gentle with the heat and stir frequently with a wooden spoon or heat-proof spatula to prevent the milk at the bottom of the pan from scalding.

Lunch

All this talk about pickles and rye bread made me hungry for a corned beef sandwich.

Unfortunately, the District of Columbia is not exactly known for its Jewish delicatessens. So this menu required a trip to the Parkway Deli, almost in Silver Spring, Maryland.

It was a pleasure to stand in front of the display case and ogle the chopped chicken liver, the white fish salad, the brined herring. I also found a bag of Utz potato chips cooked in lard, which would be our new preference over cooking oils such as processed sunflower or cottonseed. I grabbed some of the herring, along with the corned beef and a pint of cole slaw.

To construct the sandwich, I spread Dijon mustard on two slices of fresh rye bread. A goodly amount of corned beef was piled on one slice, then drizzled with a homemade Thousand Island dressing (mayo, ketchup, pickle relish, rice wine vinegar, Worcestershire sauce), followed by a slice of Swiss cheese and a layer of cole slaw. It's too hot to light the over, so I placed the sandwich in an iron skillet over low heat and covered it to melt the cheese. After turning the sandwich once, it was beautifully toasted on each side, the cheese running.

Serve with the chips and one of our own deli-style pickles. Close your eyes and you are transported to the Carnegie Deli. The only thing missing: a cream soda.

Lunch

Plate of leftover salads: beet and tomatoes, corn salad.

Preparation time: 5 minutes

Shopping: none

We never tire of having a container of our beet salad in the refrigerator. Fresh beets from the garden, tomatoes and red onion seasoned with extra-virgin olive oil and red wine vinegar is big on flavor and utterly refreshing, especially chilled. Next to that is a simple corn salad with many of the same ingredients, plus cilantro. I could easily add to that some of the jalapeno growing in the garden. We've had some in fresh salsa and the flavor is explosive--so fruity and aromatic, and no salmonella.

Lunch

Fried eggs with sauteed beet greens.

Preparation time: 15 minutes

Shopping: none

I can hardly think of a vegetable easier or more delectable then freshly harvested beet greens. I'd been eyeing one particular Franken-beet in our garden. It was unexpectedly huge, some kind of mutant, with greens towering over the rest of its mates. I was weeding in the area this morning and decided it was time to see what this fellow was all about. I pulled it up, and it looked like a giant, red parsnip. No accounting for a beet like that. But nothing goes to waste around the garden. If it's edible, it will be eaten.

I brought the greens inside, let them soak in the kitchen sink to refresh, then sauteed the leaves very simply in the cast iron skillet with extra-virgin olive oil, coarse salt and just the water left on the leaves after lifting them out of the sink. You could season the greens with a little white wine vinegar, or even cider vinegar.

Meanwhile, I melted a spoonful of butter from South Mountain Creamery in the non-stick skillet and fried a couple of eggs from our farmer friend Brett. (These would be the ones that require the five-mile drive to the Chevy Chase farmers market). Dust the eggs and greens with some grated Pecorino cheese. I dabbed some red Sriracha pepper sauce on there as well.

I'll be tasting this for the rest of the afternoon...

Lunch

Cantaloupe with yogurt and honey.

Preparation time: 10 minutes

Shopping: none

We love these no-cook summer meals. The melon comes from the local Harris Teeter's and has been chilling in the fridge, getting riper and nibbled on the last couple of days.

The yogurt is plain and whole, with all the fat, baby. Among the many different brands at Whole Foods, the one I currently like best is from Seven Stars Farm in Phoenixville, PA. It's got all the live cultures in there, but none of the powdered milks and gelatins and stabilizers you find in too many other brands.

Just drizzle a little honey on top. The garnish, by the way, is a sprig of anise hyssop, now in bloom. After you take the picture, sprinkle some of those little flower buds into the yogurt. They're full of sweet anise flavor.

Lunch

Salad greens from the garden with grated carrot, cherry tomatoes and leftover hard-boiled egg.

Preparation time: 10 minutes

Shopping: none

Season with extra-virgin olive oil, white wine vinegar, a little salt, freshly ground black pepper.

Here's a question: Why are brown eggs more expensive in the grocery store than plain white eggs? The only difference between brown eggs and white eggs is that brown eggs are laid by brown chickens. My wife thinks this is simply a marketing scam perpetrated by the egg industry. Usually, we buy our eggs from a local farmer.

What do you think?

Lunch

Greens overwintered in our garden and from the CSA box, boiled and seasoned with cider vinegar. Baby rutabaga and turnip overwintered in the garden. The end of a grilled pork tenderloin and cranberry relish from Thansgiving.


The root vegetables had been previously picked, peeled and boiled in lightly salted water, then stored in the regrigerator. (The guinea pig loved the greens.)


Preparation time: 10 minutes


Shopping: none


And boy, you haven't tasted rutabaga until you've have it fresh from the garden. That is pure root vegetable love.

Lunch: Gypsy Soup with Poached Egg

We have an abundance of local, farm-fresh eggs from our CSA box. I can't think of a better use than in the soup we made with our farmer friend Brett's sweet potatoes.

Call me a freak, but I love finding liquid yolk in my soup spoon. It adds a velvety touch to the broth.

I also added some leftover cannellini beans
from the fridge (there are garbanzo beans in the original soup).

Preparation time: 15 minutes

Shopping: none

Lunch: Arugula With Honeybell Orange

A Ziploc bag of arugula arrived with our CSA box last Thursday and I am determined not to let it go to waste. Sometimes it's hard to keep up with the produce arriving from the far. It goes back into the cold room--out of sight, out of mind.

We also are down to the last of our season's Honeybell oranges. We love these huge oranges for the immense, sweet flavor and juiciness. But now I wonder, are they politically correct in the new food paradigm? I mean, individual boxes of oranges being shipped hither and yon from the Florida grower, rather than traveling in one trailor-load to the supermarket distribution center?

Simply dress the arugula with a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil, then a spritz of lemon juice. Season with coarse salt and black pepper. Toss with Honeyell orange sections.

Preparation time: 5 minutes.

Shopping: none

I happen to like the peppery, cold-hardy arugula we get from our farmer friend Brett. But if you don't happen to have any on hand, just substitute the lettuce that's sitting in your crisper drawer.

Lunch = Leftovers

Turkey breast in whole-wheat pita pocket, sage-infused mayo, cranberry relish, arugula from the CSA box.

Preparation time: 5 minutes

Shopping: none

Today's Lunch

Leftover meatloaf with hickory-smoked Benton's bacon and tomato-bell pepper relish.

Salad from the garden with extra-virgin olive oil, champagne vinegar.

Shopping time: none

Preparation time: 10 minutes

Yesterday's Lunch

Proving once again that scrounging for leftovers can lead to a perfectly satisfying meal...

This tomato from the garden was just half of what was left from the night before and the fruit flies were determined to get it. You see it here cut into wedges, dressed with some Bulgarian Feta cheese that we've been whittling away at since the weekend.

Underneath is a quinoa pilaf with chickpeas and small dice of red onion, all left from making client meals on Saturday. I added some halved golden cherry tomatoes that are especially abundant in the garden just now, as well as some cilantro and freshly picked mint, everything seasoned with extra-virgin olive oil and a splash of white wine vinegar.

All this meal needs is a pinch of coarse salt and a grind or two of black pepper. To wash it down I poured a small bistro glass of my latest favoriet red wine, a 2006 Vina Borgia, 100 percent Grenache grapes from Spain, that is so drinkable and so conveniently priced for my budget--less than $6--that I bought a case of it at Whole Foods, something I almost never do.

I can't think of a better way to start the afternoon...