Cookistry

As promised, I'm working on more recipes using freshly ground wheat. This time around, I used a hard red wheat that I bought on Amazon.

Actually, I was looking for soft wheat, which I'll be using for biscuits or maybe cake ... but then I saw a 10-pound 2-pack of soft white wheat and hard red wheat from Palouse and decided to get that.

I didn't need biscuits right away, even though I was anxious to try that soft wheat, but I needed a quick loaf of bread. So I decided to open the red wheat and give it a try. It's not actually red, but it's a darker color than the white wheat - which isn't white. It's more of a tan color. Just in case you were curious.

Anyway, I ground some red wheat to make the bread. As usual, I added some bread flour, because that's how I like to make it. And then it went into the bread machine, because I was being lazy.

Okay, I was also a little curious how my freshly-ground wheat flour would behave in the bread machine.

Turns out, the bread worked out just fine. Interesting thing, though, was that I measured a cup of wheat berries rather than weighing. Then I ground it.

Right off the bat, I saw that I had a lot more than a cup of flour. I weighed 5 ounces of flour for this recipe and had a bit over 2 ounces left. So, a cup of wheat berries fluffed up to make a little over 1 1/2 cups of flour.

That's why it's really important to weigh flour an not rely on volumes. And particularly not the volume of wheat berries versus the volume of flour.

Of course, if I had weighed the berries and then ground them, I wouldn't have even thought about the fluffing of the flour. Another interesting lesson about flour learned. That's what I love about cooking. There's always something new.

Bread Machine Freshly-Ground Whole Wheat Bread

1 cup water
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon Red Star active dry yeast
5 ounces freshly ground red wheat flour
7 ounces bread flour (I use King Arthur)
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons butter

Put it all in your bread machine. Press buttons. You know how you bread machine works. Beep. Boop. Beep.

When the bread is done, remove it from the bread machine and let it cool completely on a rack before slicing.

Note: You certainly can use other types of yeast, but I prefer Red Star Active Dry for most things. If you use a different brand of active dry, you'll probably need to let it soften in the water for a short while before mixing. Red Star's active dry has a very small pellet size, so it doesn't need to be softened first. You can also use bread machine yeast or instant yeast.

Check out my first post about freshly ground flour here.



This is NOT a sponsored. post. I got the grain mill for use in my previous post (but my obligation with them is over now), but I bought the wheat berries with my own cash. Okay, Amazon takes credit cards. But still. My money.

I absolutely love pasta salad. I like it as a side dish or a meal. Heck, I've been known to eat leftover hot pasta in its chilled state.

This pasta started with some purple asparagus, and then I started adding colors ... um, I mean vegetables ... to the concept.

The mini zucchini I bought were seriously mini - the diameter was about the size of a dime. If you use the larger (but not giant) zucchini, you can quarter them lengthwise first, then slice, if you prefer. Or just slice them into larger rounds.

This salad has a nice balance of textures, from the soft tomato, to the pasta, to the crisp zucchini.

The olives are optional, and you could certainly use a different type of olive. I tend to fling olives into salads without thinking, so this time I purposely left them out. For a while. Well, okay, when the salad was about half-gone, I might have tossed in a few extra olives. Hey, the jar was nearly empty, and I needed the space for a fresh jar of olives.

Speaking of asparagus, there was a short time when I was absolutely terrified of it. My mother never cooked it, so I was unfamiliar with it. But a friend's mom would occasionally invite me over for "spare-grass and eggs."

No, I didn't mis-hear. That's what she said. Given that my mom would forage dandelions in the spring, I had visions of this woman serving lawn clippings in scrambled eggs. I just couldn't do it.

Then one fateful evening, I went out to dinner at a relatively fancy place and the vegetable that came with my entree was white asparagus with hollandaise sauce.

I have no recollection of the entree, but I was enthralled with the asparagus. I could have eaten a whole bushel of it, if they had served it to me. I was in love. No more spare-grass fear.

The purple asparagus in this recipe came from my good friends at Frieda's Specialty Produce, who send me all sorts of fun things to work with. The purple asparagus should be cooked quickly so it doesn't lose its color. If you cook it too long, it turns green. Which isn't a terrible thing. It's just not purple any more.

As usual, I cooked the asparagus to be served warm for dinner, and refrigerated the rest. I love cooked, chilled asparagus, sometimes drizzled with just a little bit of balsamic vinegar. This time, though, I was yearning for a little pasta salad.

Pasta Salad with Purple Aparagus


1 cup pasta (I used elbows) cooked and drained
2 teaspoons lemon juice
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 bunch purple asparagus, cooked quickly, chilled, and sliced into bite-size pieces
3 mini zucchini, sliced into rounds
1/2 large tomato (or 1 smaller tomato), cut into bite-size pieces
1/4 cup shredded parmesan cheese
Small handful of fresh basil, torn
Salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste
1/4 cup kalamata olives (optional)

Add the lemon juice and olive oil to the pasta as soon as it's done cooking, so it absorbs the flavors. Once the pasta has cooled to room temperature, add the remaining ingredients, and stir to combine. Taste for seasoning and add more salt, pepper, or lemon juice, as desired.

If you're using the kalamata olives, you can add some of the brine rather than adding salt - it gives a little extra flavor along with the saltiness.

If the pasta salad seems a bit dry, drizzle on a little extra olive oil before serving.

Have you ever tried cooking pasta by starting in cold water?

Keep reading; this photo will make sense.

One thing that you might not know about me is that I tend to be a skeptic. In a good way.

If someone tells me something that runs counter to what I believe, I love it. Because I might learn something new. But I don't simply believe what I hear. Mostly I disbelieve until I can find out more.

If it's something that I can investigate on my own - like a new method of cooking - then I often perform my own experiments. That's how I fell in love with sous vide cooking. A number of people scoffed and said that it was nothing more than the old "boil-a-bag" method and completely useless.

But that wasn't enough for me. I tried it, and I like it. I don't use it all the time, but there are results I can get from sous vide cooking that simply aren't possible any other way. Like 72-hour short ribs. And the rib roasts I've made using sous vide have been amazingly tender.

When I can't do the experiments myself - like when we're talking about real science rather than kitchen science - I go online and hunt up reputable sites and dig as far back to original scientific papers as I can. I've read some pretty obscure research papers over the years.

I love it when I learn something new, or when some bit of information changes my opinions.

I also enjoy listening to, watching, or reading about things that I know are untrue. In those cases, I'm not looking for information to change my mind, but I'm honing my skills at seeing the flaws in logic or the fact-manipulation that's sometimes used to convince the less-skeptical.

While I don't expect everyone to go to ground zero to get their facts, I do find it amusing when someone bases their decisions on "people say" or "everyone knows." I once asked one of these folks which "people" say these things.

Just people.

Do you know these people well? Have they studied nutrition? Do they have degrees in the subject? Where did you meet them? How many people have told you this?

All I got was a tilted head and a puzzled look. I don't know if it sunk in or not, but I did suggest that other people would tell you the opposite, if you researched further than the backyard fence.

Non-mushy cooked pasta.

This all came to mind because recently I mentioned that lately when I cook pasta, I start it in cold water. Someone responded that I must like mushy overcooked pasta and that I should ask "any good Italian" how pasta should be cooked.

It was an odd comment, to say the least.

First, I'm not sure what they meant by "good Italian." Is that someone who's nice to their mother? Someone who doesn't kick puppies? I suspect they meant that I should talk to someone's grandma who has been making pasta the same way for decades. A traditional Italian, perhaps.

And as far as how I like pasta, it was interesting that someone would assume that the pasta was mushy or overcooked, or that I liked it that way. I was going to ask if they had ever tried the cold-water-start method themselves, but I'm pretty sure they would have said that they didn't because they don't have to. Everyone knows you start it in boiling water. Everyone.

But here's the thing. When I first read about the cold-water-start method, I was skeptical. It challenged my long-held belief that you had to start pasta cooking in in a large amount of boiling water. I always started pasta in boiling water. Always.

So of course, I ran into the kitchen and gave it a try. And now I always cook my pasta starting in cold water. Because it actually turns out better. The fact that it's done faster is a bonus.

But, if I was you, I wouldn't believe me without a little more proof, so I went into the kitchen and did a side-by-side comparison of pasta cooked both ways.


So, here's how it went. First, the cold-water start.

I put 1/2 cup of elbow macaroni in a pot and added water about a inch over the level of the pasta. I added a little bit of salt, covered the pot, and put it on high heat to get it to boiling.

The water came to a boil in 4 minutes - since there wasn't much water, it was pretty quick. I checked a piece of pasta every minute starting at 5 minutes. After 7 minutes, The pasta was firm, but you can still see a bit of white, dry, uncooked pasta. If I was going to add the pasta to a hot soup, or it was going into sauce and cooked for a few minutes, this would be a good time to get it out of the water.


At 8 minutes, the pasta is cooked almost all the way through, but a really close inspection shows that it's still got a tiny bit that's not quite cooked. This would be a good time to take it out of the water if it was going into sauce for a short time.

At 9 minutes, it was cooked all the way through. The pasta was plump, but still with a bit of chew. If I was going to toss it quickly with ingredients, but not cook it in a sauce, this would be perfect.

At 10 minutes, it was a little softer, but in no way mushy. This would be the perfect cook for a cold pasta salad.


So, this is 10 minutes total, since there was no time required to get the water to a boiling point. Keep in mind that I live at high altitude, so if you live at sea level, your cooking time is likely to be less.

But what about starting the pasta in boiling water? How does that compare?

I filled a pot about halfway full, added salt, and put the lid on to encourage it to come to a boil. That took about 8 1/2 minutes. I measured 1/2 cup of pasta and added it to the water, and started timing the cooking from that point - 9 minutes.

I started checking the pasta starting after 5 minutes of cooking. The first thing I noticed was that the surface of the pasta was sort of ... slick. Or maybe the right word is pasty. The outer layer was cooking much faster than when I started it in cold water.


The pasta was cooked through and plump at 7 minutes - about the same stage as the cold-water version at 9 minutes, but the outside of the pasta was definitely softer and a little mushy. Keep in mind that this is 7 minutes of cooking time, plus 9 minutes to get the water boiling, so it's 16 minutes total.

I let it cook one more minute, and it was overcooked and had almost no "bounce" left. When I tried to cut it to see the interior, it broke.

So there we go. The cold-water version cooked faster and more evenly. I thought for a moment that the outer softness of traditionally-cooked pasta might help sauces to stick, but I've been using the cold water method for a while and I've never had a problem getting sauces to hang onto the pasta.

I suspect - but can't confirm - that the difference between the two methods might be a little more dramatic up here at high altitude. But I'm not the only one who says this works - even Alton Brown has written about it.

But there's one point where I disagree with Alton. He says the cold-water method isn't useful for long pasta, like spaghetti. But I've cooked long pasta starting in cold water. The trick is to use a pot that's wide enough so the pasta can lay flat in the pot. 

Have you read my review of the Fonde ravioli pin made by Repast Supply Company? You should. Right after you check out this recipe. Because this is a little bit crazy.

I was trying to think of something different than the typical ravioli fillings of cheese, meat, and mushrooms.

My mind wandered to pierogi, which are also stuffed pasta.

While pierogi also might be filled with meat, cheese, or mushrooms, there are some other common pierogi fillings that are very different from what you'd find in ravioli - like potato, sauerkraut, and fruit-filled dessert pierogi.

But I didn't want just make a square pierogi. I liked the idea of potato as a filling, but i knew I needed to add something that was non-traditional in both cuisines. I settled on corn to add sweetness, and decided to use creamed corn because of the smaller pieces and to take advantage of the creamy liquid that would add moisture to the potatoes.

I made a batch with the corn and potato filling, and fried them in butter with some onions and prosciutto, and it was pretty good.


But the onions and prosciutto overwhelmed the filling a little bit, and the sweetness of the onions competed with the sweetness of the corn. It was a good dish, but not amazing.

I really wanted the pasta and its filling to be the thing that people would comment about. So i added peppers to give the filling a spicy southwestern flair. I tried the final dish with a number of different toppings, and my favorite was the combination of a  green salsa along with guacamole.

Southwestern Pierogi Ravioli

For the pasta:
4 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
2 whole eggs
Water, as needed (about 1 cup)

For the filling:
2 pounds baking potatoes, baked or microwaved until done
1 14.75-ounce can creamed corn
4 ounces cream cheese
1 teaspoon salt (or to taste)
2 4-ounce cans diced Hatch chiles (mild or hot, your choice)
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste

To make the pasta:
I made the pasta dough in my stand mixer, but you can certainly knead it by hand.

First combine the flour and salt, then add the egg and then begin mixing in the water. you want a firm dough, but not super-solid, so add as much water as you need to get to that point. If you add too much water, you can add a little more flour as you knead.

Knead by hand or with the stand mixer until the dough is elastic. Form the dough into a ball and set aside for at least 20 minutes to rest. You can also make it ahead and stash it in the refrigerator.

To make the filling:
Peel the potatoes or scoop the flesh out - whichever is easier for you.

Rice or mash the potatoes, then add the creamed corn, cream cheese, salt, chiles, and pepper. Mix well. It should be fairly smooth with just small lumps from the corn and peppers.

Taste for seasoning and add more salt or pepper, if desired.

To make the ravioli:
For easiest handling, divide the dough into 4 pieces.

Roll the first two pieces on a lightly floured work surface until each is a rectangle a bit wider than 17 inches by about 15 inches. They shouldn't be paper thin, but they should be considerably thinner than a corn tortilla.

If the pasta bounced back too much as you roll it, cover it and let it rest for 10 minutes, then continue rolling.

Make sure your work surface has a light sprinkle of flour. Lay one of the pasta sheets in front of you with one of the 17-inch sides facing you. Spread half of the filling on top of the pasta, then top with the second sheet of pasta. You can stretch it to make sure it fits over the bottom sheet.

Use the Fonde ravioli pin to crate the ravioli. Trim the outside edges, then cut the ravioli apart with a pizza cutter, pasta cutter, or sharp knife. If you need tips about using the pin, check out this post.

Continue with the rest of the dough and filling.

If you're not going to cook all of the ravioli, you can place them on a baking sheet (make sure they're not touching each other) and freeze them.

Once frozen, you can put them in a plastic bag to store them in the freezer. You shouldn't thaw the pasta - just cook it from its frozen state. It takes slightly longer to cook, but not much.

To cook the pasta:
Use a wide, short sided pan with a lid. Add 1 tablespoon of butter and just enough water to barely cover the bottom of the pan - just a barely 1/8 inch is plenty. Cover the pan and heat  on high until it bubbles, then add as much pasta as will fit in a single layer with a little space between them. Cover the pan and cook for 3 minutes then remove the lid and let the pasta continue cooking until all the water has evaporated and the pasta begins to fry in the butter. If you've added the barest amount of water, it should evaporate very quickly. If the pasta seems to be swimming in water, drain some of it out - since the pasta is fresh, it cooks quickly - you don't want it to get mushy.

When the pasta has browned a little on one side (it should be spotty browned), flip it over and brown it on the second side.

Serve hot with the condiments of your choice: Salsa, guacamole, sour cream (or crema or creme fraiche) would be my choices - or a combination of two or more of them.


If you want to tone down the heat of the chiles without adding any strong flavors, a little crema does that very nicely.








I received the Fonde pin from the manufacturer at no cost to me. I'm sure you'll be seeing more of it here, since it's so much fun to work with!

Pasta started in cold water (with butter and cheese for serving)

I've seen a number of posts on Facebook about cooking pasta by starting it in cold water. Which is exactly the opposite of what we were all taught to do, right?

We're told to start with briskly boiling water, then add the pasta, stir to keep it from sticking, and quickly bring it back to a boil.

But the cold-water method has the pasta added to cold water (or cold water added to pasta, I suppose) and then it's brought to a boil and cooked until it's done.

Oh, and you don't need a vast amount of water. Just enough so the pasta is covered enough so it stays under water during cooking, which means it comes to a boil faster.

One advantage to cooking this way is that the pasta doesn't stick to each other. There's a scientific reason for that. I was a little skeptical. But it worked. No sticking.

The second advantage is that you don't have to wait for the water to start boiling before you start cooking. It starts softening right away. So cooking time is significantly less.

I thought that second advantage would be the one that would win me over. But it turns out there's one more advantage, and for me, it's the killer reason for doing this.

Here's the thing. When you cook potatoes, you always start in cold water so that the potatoes cook evenly from the outside to the center. If you started them in hot water, the outside of the potatoes would be mushy while the center is still raw.

Well, because pasta is so thin, that's usually not an issue. BUT!!! I live at high altitude where water boils at about 202 degrees instead of the usual 212 degrees. I've noticed that unless I'm cooking something super-small, like angel hair, the pasta can be a little too soft on the outside, while there's still an uncooked "bone" in the center of the pasta.

As much as I love it, pasta is not always my friend.

But when I cooked the pasta starting in cold water, it was evenly cooked from the outside to the center. I was thrilled. I'm never going to cook pasta any other way, ever again.

But what about long noodles, you say? Since you don't need a deep pot, you can cook spaghetti, linguine, fettuccine, or any other long pasta in a skillet where it can lay flat. Yeah, it's pretty magical.

Long, long ago, I worked for a family company that had the bad habit of building its empire by buying similar family companies. Inevitably, we'd acquire one or two family members who were contractually obligated to get a paycheck, but who weren't terribly motivated to work for that paycheck.

Those new pseudo-employees were shuffled around to different departments, in the hope that they'd find something they liked enough that they would do the job, and (fingers crossed) that they'd be capable of doing the job. Or at least they'd cause no great harm.

I worked in outside sales, and one such wunderkind was shoveled into our department, probably because he liked to go out to lunch a lot, and the powers-that-were thought he could at least take customers along for the meal.

I had the un-pleasure of dining with him on several occasions, and whenever he had the chance, he'd order Pasta Puttanesca. Not because he particularly liked it better than other offerings, but because it would allow him to grin creepily and ask everyone at the table, "Do you know what that means?"

He was not Italian, nor did he speak Italian, but he had once asked a waiter what puttanesca meant, and was absolutely delighted that a pasta dish was named after ... well, ladies of the night. And he gleefully shared that knowledge with whoever was dining with him.

The story is that the ladies in question would make this dish because they could make it fast, which allowed them to get back to work quickly. But of course, he didn't care about the story. He just loved translating the name (usually in cruder terms) and gauging the reactions of people at the table, hoping for shock or horror.

Yup, that's the guy you want representing the brand.

Back then, I just rolled my eyes and said yes, I know. These days, I'd probably conspire with a waiter to invent a dish named after men with small noses.

No matter what the name, the dish still holds up as a quick and tasty meal. This version comes from Patsy's Italian Family Cookbook by Sal Scognamillo. Patsy's is an Italian restaurant in New York, and the recipes are what you'd expect from a restaurant serving the classics.

The recipe is actually for Linguine Puttanesca, but I've also had it with spaghetti. Use what you like.

I didn't have the anchovies in oil, but I did have anchovies in a tube. I just eyeballed the amount.

Linguine Puttanesca
Adapted from Patsy's Italian Family Cookbook by Sal Scognamillo

1/4 cup olive oil
2 garlic cloves, peeled and minced
1 28-ounce can whole plum tomatoes in juice
1/2 cup pitted and coarsely chopped kalamata olives
3 tablespoons drained capers, rinsed
6 anchovies* in oil, drained and finely chopped
1 teaspoon dried oregano
Salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste
1 pound linguine, cooked al dente in boiling salted water
Grated parmesan (or the good stuff), for serving

Get the water boiling and cook the pasta while you're working on the sauce.

Heat the oil and garlic together in a large, deep skilled over medium heat. Stir very often until the garlic is just turning golden. It can burn in an instant. If it does, toss the garlic and oil and start over.

Pour the juices from the tomatoes into the pan, then crush the tomatoes with your hands as you add them. Bring the mixture to a boil, then add the olives, capers, anchovies, and oregano. Reduce the heat to medium-low and let it simmer until it has thickened, about 20 minutes. If the linguine hasn't cooked to al dente by this time, set the sauce aside.

The book suggests draining the pasta, reserving 1/2 cup of pasta water, and adding the sauce to the pasta along with the reserved pasta water. Instead I transferred the pasta to the sauce, then added pasta water. Do whichever you think is easier.

Bring the pasta and sauce to a boil over high heat. Taste and add salt and pepper to taste - you might not need a whole lot of salt since you have olives, capers, and salty pasta water already.

Serve hot with cheese on the side to add as desired.

*I used anchovy paste from a tube and eyeballed the amount.

I received this book from the publisher at no cost to me.

Need a simple colorful side dish that goes well with almost anything? Try this orzo.

It's also very good as a chilled pasta salad, but I'd suggest using olive oil instead of butter if you intend on serving it cold.

If you can't find tri-color orzo, regular orzo is fine. The one I used had white(ish), light salmony-orange, and pastel army-green pasta. I've seen some at the farmer's market with more brilliantly-colored pasta that would be even more interesting.

Confetti Orzo

1 cup tri-color orzo
2 ears fresh corn
1/2 medium onion
1 red bell pepper*
1 tablespoon butter
1/2 teaspoon salt
Several grinds black pepper
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon thinly sliced fresh chives

Cook the orzo in boiling salted water until al dente, then drain. You can do this ahead of time and rinse with cold water to keep it from sticking.

While the pasta is cooking, prepare the vegetables. Cut the corn from the cobs and discard the cobs. Dice the onion into pieces about the same size as the corn. Core the bell pepper and dice into pieces about the same size as the corn.

Melt the butter in a pan on medium heat and add the onion. Cook, stirring as needed, until it begins to soften and become translucent. Add the salt, pepper, bell pepper, and corn. Cook, stirring as needed, until the bell pepper barely begins to soften.

Add the cooked pasta, and stir to combine. Add the lemon juice and chives, give it another stir, and take it off the heat. Serve hot.

*I used parts of several peppers - red, orange, and yellow - for more color. You can use one pepper, if you prefer.

Roasted salmon, plated.

I've been curious about services like Blue Apron for a while.

If the name doesn't sound familiar, it's a meal service that ships to customers on a weekly basis. But it's not prepared meals. It's all of the fresh ingredients that you need to make the recipes they give you.

A friend of mine described it as something like restaurant take-out, but without getting soggy from sitting in Styrofoam. In other words, really good food, served fresh.

Since ingredients are pre-measured, it's easier than cooking from a cookbook. And there's no need for shopping. The only things you need to supply are salt, pepper, water, and oil. Every other thing was included, from a pat of butter to a small amount of heavy cream, to a handful of olives.

Just like cooking from a cookbook, you need to do some work, and you do need some basic cooking equipment. This isn't dump-and-stir. If there are vegetables to be peeled and chopped, you will peel and chop them. If there's cheese to be grated, you will be grating it.

I ordered a the two-person box, which included three meals (at no cost to me, for reviewing). When ordering, I was asked some basic questions about food preferences. Vegetarian? Fish? I selected the omnivore option, and received one seafood meal, one chicken meal, and one beef meal.

It came in an insulated box with cooling packs, with the really small ingredients in bags to keep them contained.

A box of ingredients.

The instructions suggested that since fish is most perishable, that should be cooked first, so I tackled the Roasted Salmon, Fennel & Castelvetrano Olives with Cara Cara Oranges, Farro, and Salsa Verde. It sounds complicated, but the instructions were pretty simple and there were photos for the steps to make it a little easier.

Recipe cards from Blue Apron

The other two meals we got were Spicy Thai Chicken Noodle Soup with Red Curry and Mushrooms, and Short Rib Burgers on Pretzel Buns with Hoppy Cheddar Sauce and Roasted Sweet Potato Rounds.

The recipe cards are printed on a glossy stock, so if you splash something on them, you can wipe them off. They're not indestructible, but you can have one sitting on the counter, right next to where you're cooking.

My husband and I were really happy with the results of all the meals, and there was plenty of food. The salmon was a reasonable portion, and the vegetables and farro made the salmon meal pretty substantial.

The soup was really filling, and we ended up with sufficient leftovers for a few lunches. We also had some leftovers from the burger dinner. Hungrier folks might have finished it all, but I don't think anyone would consider the portions skimpy.

Here's the salmon recipe, which is also available on the Blue Apron site. The recipes that you see online are formatted just like the recipe cards, complete with photos. Since their recipes seldom repeat, this gives you a chance to try recipes you missed, and you can recreate the ones that you did get, if you happen to lose the recipe cards..

Roasted Salmon, Fennel & Castelvetrano Olives
Recipe courtesy of Blue Apron

Salmon, ready to roast, on a bed of onions, fennel and olives.

2 Skinless Salmon Fillets
2/3 Cup Pearled Farro
1 Fennel Bulb With Fronds
1 Cara Cara Orange
1 Clove Garlic
1 Red Onion
1 Large Bunch Parsley
2 Ounces Castelvetrano Olives
3 Tablespoons Sliced Almonds
1 Tablespoon Capers
1/4 Teaspoon Fennel Pollen

1 Prepare the ingredients:
Preheat the oven to 450°F. Wash and dry the fresh produce. Heat a medium pot of salted water to boiling on high. Remove the salmon from the refrigerator to bring to room temperature. Pick off and reserve some of the fennel fronds; thinly slice the fennel stems and bulb. Using a peeler, remove the rind of the orange, avoiding the pith; mince to get 2 teaspoons of zest (or use a zester). Cut off and discard the remaining orange rind and pith; medium dice the orange. Peel and mince the garlic; smash with the side of your knife until it resembles a paste. Peel and thinly slice the onion. Pick the parsley leaves off the stems; discard the stems and finely chop the leaves. Finely chop the almonds. Roughly chop the capers.

2 Cook the farro:
Add the farro to the pot of boiling water. Cook 15 to 17 minutes, or until tender. Turn off the heat. Drain thoroughly and return to the pot.

3 Roast the salmon, onion, fennel and olives:
While the farro cooks, pat the salmon fillets dry with paper towels; season with salt and pepper on both sides. Place the fennel stems and bulb, onion and olives on a sheet pan. Drizzle with olive oil and season with salt and pepper; toss to coat. Arrange in a single, even layer; place the seasoned salmon fillets on top. Roast 16 to 18 minutes, or until the vegetables are tender and the salmon is cooked to your desired degree of doneness.

4 Make the salsa verde:
While the salmon, onion, fennel and olives roast, in a small bowl, combine the garlic paste, parsley, almonds and capers. Stir in enough olive oil to create a rough paste. Season with salt and pepper to taste and set aside.

5 Dress the farro:
Add the orange and orange zest to the pot of cooked farro. Stir in a drizzle of olive oil; season with salt and pepper to taste.

6 Plate your dish:
Divide the dressed farro and roasted onion, fennel and olives between 2 plates. Top each with a roasted salmon fillet and the salsa verde. Garnish with the fennel fronds and fennel pollen. Enjoy!

Looks good, right? It was!

The photo on the recipe card showed the farro on the bottom, fennel on top, and the salmon on top of that. I decided to plate the fennel and onions on one side of the plate, the farro on the other side of the plate, and the fennel on top.

More about the making of the recipes

It's all pretty clear, right? It sounds simple to do, right? So why not just download the recipes and make them?

Here's the deal. Not only don't you need to shop for the normal ingredients, like the salmon and the onion and the parsley, but you also don't need to go hunting for the ingredients that your store might not have.

I'm pretty sure I could find oranges any time of the year, but I don't know if I could find Cara Cara oranges. Farro isn't the easiest thing to find, either. Some specialty stores have it, and you can buy it online. But could you find it tomorrow? Maybe not. Same with fennel pollen. It's not a spice you'd be likely to find at the grocery store. Olives are easy, but do you think you'd find Castelvetrano olives?

All those ingredients help to make these recipes a little more special. If you like them, you can hunt them down later. If you're not crazy about them - well, you only have enough for one meal, so you're not stuck with extras that you don't have any use for.

All of the ingredients for the salmon meal.

And then, if you don't cook all that often, you might not want to buy a whole jar of capers or a bag of almonds. Parsley always comes in a pretty big bunch, but this recipe didn't need nearly that much.

All three of the recipes I tried had at least a few of those specialty ingredients, including the burgers that were made from ground short rib meat, and the cheese sauce that included hops flowers. When was the last time you saw hops flowers at your grocery store?

How much skill does it take to make these recipes?

My husband, who never cooks, volunteered to make one of the recipes. He tackled the Spicy Thai Chicken Noodle Soup. I hovered nearby to answer questions and make sure things didn't go wrong. I mean, there's fire and sharp knifes and heavy cookware to deal with.

Ingredients for Thai Chicken Soup.

He had a few questions, like the best way to peel ginger (use a spoon) and whether his chopped ginger and garlic were minced finely enough (they weren't.)

Slice, slice, chop, chop.

If I wasn't there, I'm sure he would have figured it out on his own. Seriously, if the ginger wasn't minced completely, it would have been fine. When I asked him what he thought, he said, "I could serve this to a date."

Good luck with that, dear.

But his point was that you could serve this to someone you're trying to impress, whether it's a date, your boss, or your in-laws.

But these are still simple fast and easy enough to serve on a normal night. The salmon dish was the fanciest of the three, while the soup was more casual. The burgers were the most casual of the three, but still a step above a standard burger.

So. Let's talk cost.

The three meals for two that I got would cost $59.94, so that's a tiny bit less than $10 per meal per person. I'm pretty sure you wouldn't get a restaurant meal for $10 per person.

There are also two family plan options available. They're both for four people, but the difference is the number of meals per week.

Two meals per week for four people is $69.94, while four meals for four people is $139.88 -  that's about $8.74 per person. Pretty reasonable, right?

And now, I have a deal for you.

Einkorn tapenade with crackers.

It's not often that I get a cookbook where I've never used the main ingredient before.

But that was the case when I got The Einkorn Cookbook by Shanna and Tim Mallon.

Einkorn is an ancient form of wheat that's making a comeback, following in the footsteps of spelt and farro.

I've used both spelt and farro, and for sure I've used a wheatfield worth of wheat. But while I'd heard of einkorn, I'd never cooked with it, and I'd never eaten it, either.

Still, I figured I'd like it just fine, since I liked all of its relatives well enough. I did a little hunting and was able to find both einkorn berries and einkorn flour at a nearby natural food store. Score!

Einkorn salad with tomatoes and feta.

I figured that I'd try recipes using both forms, eventually, so I bought both the flour and the berries. I mean, hey, I had a whole cookbook, right?

As I was browsing through the book, I figured that a recipe using the berries would give me the best idea of the flavor of einkorn, so I picked out a recipe for an olive tapenade that was supposed to be served as topping for crusty bread.

I served the tapenade with crackers on the first day, but then decided to turn the leftovers into a salad.

To make that salad, I chopped up some tomatoes and cubed some feta cheese and added it to my olive tapenade along with extra cooked einkorn berries and a few extra olives that I roughly chopped.

I mixed it all together, then added a small drizzle of olive oil, It was a darned good salad.

I have to say that I'm pretty pleased with the einkorn berries - they've got a satisfying texture and a slightly nutty flavor. They should be just fine in any recipe that uses spelt berries or farro, and probably some that call for barley, wheat berries, or bulgur. Or, you know, get the cookbook and you'll have plenty of recipes.

To cook the einkorn berries:
Soak the einkorn berries for 8 hours (or overnight) in a bowl with enough water to cover by about an inch, along with 1 teaspoon of cider vinegar.

After soaking, drain and rinse the berries and put them in a heavy-bottomed pot.

Add 1 1/2 cups of water. Bring to a boil, lower to a simmer, and cook until the berries are al dente - figure about 30 minutes - stirring as needed.

This makes about 2 1/2 cups of berries, so you'll have enough for the tapenade, plus more for other recipes. The book says the cooked berries can be kept refrigerated for 2 weeks, so you needn't worry about using them right away.

Olive Tapenade

Adapted from The Einkorn Cookbook by Shanna and Tim Mallon.

1 cup pitted kalamata olives (or your choice of olive)
1/4 cup capers
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1/4 cup basil leaves, thyme, or parsley
1 cup cooked einkorn berries

Put the olives, capers, mustard and basil (or other fresh herbs - I used a mix) in your food processor fitted with the steel blade. Process until the olives are finely diced, but not pureed.

It's perfectly fine if there are a few slightly larger pieces of olive in the mix - it's better to have those than to turn the olives into a paste.

Add the olive mixture to the einkorn berries in a medium bowl. Stir to combine. Refrigerate until needed.

Serve with crusty bread or crackers.

I received the cookbook from the publisher at no cost to me; I bought the einkorn.