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Carrot-Zucchini Bread with Candied Ginger

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The one downside to removing the wall unit is that the amount of shelf space available to house my cookbooks was reduced dramatically, but this turns out to be less of a hindrance and more of a blessing. Sorting through the cookbooks, I find myself wondering why I still own one that I have never used, from a restaurant I ate soup in once, 17 years ago, only because it happened to be across the street from my office.

Since the only thing I really remember about the soup is that I thought it was overpriced, even by New York City standards, I am wondering why I bought the book in the first place.

It turns out I have a lot of cookbooks like this, which I put into piles in another room, and, eventually, discarded.

Even though it will be some time before I figure out the remaining details of hanging pictures and placing knick-knacks, the family room is now a cozy place, pleasant to sit in on a weekend morning, drinking coffee and waiting for baked goods to emerge from the oven.

I made this bread right around that time, trying to find a way to make zucchini bread that was a cut above the usual. I found the recipe on the Sur La Table website, but it can also be found in one of their cookbooks, Eating Local; it is probably the best zucchini bread I’ve ever tasted, light and moist, with the carrots adding nice color and sweetness and candied ginger bits adding zest and a bit of texture. Better yet, it makes two loaves, so you can eat one now and freeze some for later. Or, give it to your neighbors, who will probably appreciate it more than some more of your extra zucchini.

Not that I have this problem – I made this bread with the only zucchini I managed to grow this summer. In two years, I’ve managed to produce two zucchinis.

The Child loved this bread, as did her friends, much to my surprise, and the first loaf disappeared on a late-summer trip to the water park with her friends. The second loaf never made it in to the freezer; it was waiting for us when we got home, sunburned and hungry.

 

Carrot-Zucchini Bread with Candied Ginger

Carrot-Zucchini Bread with Candied Ginger
 
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Ingredients
  • Nonstick cooking spray, for preparing the pan
  • 3 cups sifted unbleached all-purpose flour
  • 1½ tsp ground ginger
  • 1½ tsp ground cinnamon
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • ¼ tsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp kosher or sea salt
  • ½ cup minced candied ginger
  • 3 large eggs
  • 1 cup canola oil
  • 1¾ cups sugar
  • 2 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1 cup grated carrots
  • 1 cup grated zucchini
Instructions
  1. Preheat the oven to 325°F. Coat two 8½ by 4½ by 2¾-inch loaf pans with oil or nonstick cooking spray.
  2. Sift together the sifted flour, ginger, cinnamon, baking soda, and baking powder into a medium bowl. Stir in the salt and candied ginger.
  3. In a large bowl, whisk the eggs until light and foamy. Add the canola oil, sugar, and vanilla, whisking vigorously until the sugar dissolves. Whisk in the carrots and zucchini.
  4. Add the dry ingredients to the egg mixture all at once and stir with a wooden spoon just until blended. Divide the batter evenly between the 2 prepared pans.
  5. Bake until the breads are well risen and firm to the touch, and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 1 hour. Let cool in the pans on a rack for 10 minutes, then invert and finish cooling right side up on the rack.
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Fuchsia Dunlop’s Sichuanese Chopped Celery with Beef

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After I made Big Sur Bakery’s Baked Beans, I had a problem: I had bought a whole head of celery, and used one stalk, leaving me with, well, a lot of celery. I know, I could put peanut butter on it, or even peanut butter and raisins, and try to pass it off as a healthy snack, but since the advent of the vegetable crisper – the thing that forces us to look at all that unused celery and feel guilty for not eating it when we know we should – has anyone, ever, been fooled into actually wanting to eat one?

Fortunately, I ran across a blog post some time ago on The Wednesday Chef, in which she mentioned a recipe that solves  the what-to-do-with-the-rest-of-the-celery dilemma, and even more fortunately, I remembered the post and was able to find it after I got tired of feeling Celery Guilt every time I opened the crisper.

It took a while to find a couple of the ingredients on the list (the vinegar and the chili paste) – there were items that seemed to fit the bill at my local grocery, but since the blog post said that these two specialty items were, in fact, quite cheap, I passed on my store’s $12 vinegar and $8 chili paste, and made a special trip to our local Asian market, where I found both items for $3, and, feeling proud of my culinary bargain-hunting prowess, tossed in a package of Matcha Kit-Kats for The Child (which she loved) and then went to the liquor store next door and stocked up on Belgian beer for me (which I loved).

Not only does this recipe use up leftover celery, it used up exactly what remained of my celery head, minus the one stalk I bought it for (for use in the beans). If that weren’t enough, the recipe is startlingly easy to make – startling because each time I’ve tried to make actual Chinese food at home, it either doesn’t taste as good as restaurant Chinese, or it involves complex preparations or obscure ingredients or both, and I generally end the meal wishing I’d simply gone with takeout.

Though the recipe begins with two seemingly involved steps – blanching and de-stringing celery – blanching takes all of 30 seconds, and I learned a handy trick for de-stringing celery: simply run a vegetable peeler on the outside of the stalk. You might have known that one already, but I picked it up from The Kitchen Chick’s post about this recipe. Everything else is pretty straightforward: dice the celery, cook the ground beef, and toss everything else in. Have the rice cooked (or nearly so) when you start the beef, because it all cooks up very quickly.

I’m not sure I need to say it, but just in case you were in doubt: I adored this recipe. It’s quick and simple to prepare, tasty, serves two precisely. The flavors are pure, very authentic Chinese, with a nice spice that you can adjust to your taste.

Did I mention The Child loved it? To my amazement, she did, even though I followed the recipe precisely and it was fairly spicy as a result. The spiciness didn’t bother her at all: She declared it was a nice spicy, not a burning spicy.

The recipe is originally from Fuchsia Dunlop’s Every Grain of Rice, which is on hold for me at the library as I sit here typing. I used the directions from The Kitchen Chick’s blog post.

 

Fuchsia Dunlop's Sichuanese Chopped Celery with Beef

 

Sichuanese Chopped Celery with Beef
 
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Serves: 2
Ingredients
  • 11 oz celery
  • 3 tbsp neutral cooking oil
  • 4 oz ground beef
  • 1½ tbsp Sichuan chili bean paste
  • 1½ tbsp finely chopped ginger
  • light soy sauce to taste
  • 1 tsp Chinkiang vinegar (brown rice vinegar)
Instructions
  1. Boil a pot of water for blanching the celery.
  2. De-string the celery by running a vegetable peeler along the outer side. Dice celery into ⅜ pieces. Blanch celery in boiling water for about 30 seconds; drain.
  3. Heat oil in a large pan or seasoned wok over high flame. Add ground meat and stir-fry until cooked. Break up pieces as needed.
  4. Add chili bean paste and stir-fry a bit more until fragrant and the oil is red. Add ginger and stir-fry for a few seconds. Add celery.
  5. Stir-fry until celery is hot but still crunchy. As you cook, season with a bit of soy sauce to taste. Stir in vinegar.
  6. Serve with rice.
Notes
This dish cooks quickly, so don't begin stir-frying until your rice has finished cooking.
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Marion Cunningham’s Fresh Ginger Muffins

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If the shoe fits, wear it. If you happen to live in Seattle in springtime, I suggest rain boots.

For the past few months, my backyard has been a muddy swamp, much of which has been tracked indoors by two dogs: the Red Dog, who lives here permanently, and the Feisty Girl, who was supposed to be only a temporary resident but who shows no signs of having her own permanent home anytime soon. Her presence is a source of despair for the cats, who have not left my bedroom since Feisty Girl arrived, while her eventual departure is a source of distress for The Child, who has proclaimed Feisty Girl to be The Only Dog That Likes Me Most and is convinced that somehow, if we adopt her, it will all work itself out.

I visit the cats regularly during the day, because I miss them, but also because my bedroom window is the only spot I can observe my side yard, which doesn’t sound like a very interesting thing to watch unless you know that there’s a mountain range emerging there, at a pace much faster than glacial. The Himalayas are slackers compared to what’s going on in my yard, but then again, the Himalayas have to wait for tectonic activity to do its thing, and my yard has a decided advantage:  one very active mole.

You can (and really, should) complain about me using this space to make mountains out of molehills, but please don’t – having to draw cat/dog Maginot lines is all I can handle at the moment. The battle rages inside and out: I tried mole repellent, which should have made the mole leave, but he merely chuckled at the effort (I heard him). I moved on to poison worms, which should have been the mole’s last supper, but he was either too full or the worms were not up to his usual culinary standards.

I fought the mole, and lost.

I finally google to find out what actually kills moles, and learn a very helpful thing: traps are very effective, but also illegal in two states, one of which happens to contain my lawn.

My neighbor helpfully suggests that it’s not like anyone would report me or bother me about using the traps – which one can buy anywhere, since they are perfectly legal to sell in Washington State, just not legal to use – but based on the fact that 80% of the drivers I pass on the roads are talking on handheld cellphones, yet I got pulled over for doing the same, I think my personal track record suggests I might be among the unlucky 20% who get caught and fined.

When life hands you lemons, you’re supposed to make lemonade, and maybe I should have, because the lemon buttermilk sorbet I attempted didn’t work out very well. Still, I ended up with a refrigerator full of leftover buttermilk and lemons,  as well as an abundance of ginger from my love affair with Momofuku’s Ginger Scallion Sauce. As luck would have it, these are just the things I needed to make Marion Cunningham’s Fresh Ginger Muffins.

So, one sunny Sunday when I should have been outside enjoying a break in the weather, or, apparently, killing a mole with a shovel (which is legal in Washington), I made muffins. These are a wonderful way to start the day: Light and airy, lightly sweet, and brightly flavored with ginger and lemon. The muffins are studded with little bits of sweet, slightly crunchy ginger. They’re wonderful with a cup of coffee or tea and even better with some berries on the side. They don’t need anything extra, but some currants would be a nice addition.

I did eventually win the Battle of the Mole, by hiring a service that dispensed with the mole the same day they showed up. No, I don’t know how, and no, I don’t care. The battle inside the house rages on.

 

Fresh Ginger Muffins

 

Marion Cunningham's Fresh Ginger Muffins
 
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Serves: 16
Ingredients
  • 1 piece unpeeled fresh ginger (4 to 5 oz.)
  • ¾ cup plus 3 Tbs. sugar
  • 2 Tbs. finely grated lemon zest
  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • ½ tsp. salt
  • ¾ tsp. baking soda
  • 8 Tbs. (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room
  • temperature
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 cup buttermilk
Instructions
  1. Preheat an oven to 375ºF. Butter standard muffin tins or use paper liners.
  2. Cut the unpeeled ginger into large chunks. In a food processor fitted with the metal blade, process until it is finely minced. You should have about ¼ cup.
  3. In a small saucepan, combine the ginger and ¼ cup of the sugar. Cook over medium heat, stirring, until the sugar melts and the mixture is hot; this takes only about 2 minutes. Set aside to cool until tepid.
  4. In a small bowl stir the lemon zest and the 3 Tbs. sugar. Let stand for a few minutes, then add to the ginger mixture. Stir and set aside.
  5. In a medium bowl, stir and toss together the flour, salt and baking soda. Set aside.
  6. In a large bowl, beat the butter until smooth. Add the remaining ½ cup sugar and beat until blended. Add the eggs and beat well. Add the buttermilk and mix until blended. Then add the flour mixture and stir just until blended. Stir in the ginger-lemon mixture.
  7. Spoon into the prepared muffin tins, filling each cup about three-fourths full. Bake until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean, 15 to 20 minutes.
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