A tale of two meals

Sunday, July 06, 2008

Aside from my holiday blueberry pancakes, I made two other meals this past week that qualify for One Local Summer - meatloaf with fava beans sauted in garlic, honey-roasted carrots, and leftover kale and spelt berries, and chicken with herb roasted potatoes, green beans, and peas. 

The green beans were the real star of this meal - yes, they were very fresh, but I also cooked them in the duck fat I rendered a few weeks ago.  Delicious!

Where it all came from:
chicken, Pennypack Farm - 31 miles
herbs, my garden - 0 miles
potatoes, Landisdale Farm - 100 miles
green beans, Landisdale Farm - 100 miles
rendered duck fat, from a duck breast from Griggstown Quail Farm, 56 miles
peas, Paradise Organics - 49 miles

not local: salt, pepper, olive oil

Like many of us, I can’t think of fava beans without thinking of Silence of the Lambs.  That movie probably did more for the name recognition of fava beans than anything else in the world!  I picked up the fava beans and peas from Fair Food last week and shelled them on the train home.  The meatloaf was a catch-all for what I had laying around the house - the last of last year’s roasted peppers, garlic scapes, onions.  I do love meatloaf - there’s pretty much nothing more comforting!

Where it all came from:

ground beef
eggs, Natural Acres - 100 miles
bread crumbs, made from Le Bus bread - 15 miles
roasted peppers, frozen from last year’s CSA - 100 miles
garlic scapes, Landisdale Farm - 100 miles
onions, Landisdale Farm - 100 miles
catsup, homemade - 0 miles
carrots, Urban Girls - 29 miles
butter, homemade from Dutch Way Dairy cream - 100 miles
honey, honey, Bee Natural - 59 miles
fava beans, Paradise Organics - 49 miles
garlic, my garden - 0 miles
fennel, my garden - 0 miles
leftover kale and spelt berries

Not local: olive oil, salt, pepper

My kingdom for a gherkin

July is a fantastic month to visit farmer’s markets.  There’s just so much available - tomatoes, peppers, and zucchini are coming into season, there’s tons of fruit, and everything is just beautiful.  A visit to the Headhouse Square Market this morning was too much to resist - and even though I had have a big CSA box full of gorgeous produce and fruit and I was able to get pretty much everything on my grocery list yesterday at Clark Park, I had to buy a few more things that I didn’t really need.

These West Indian Gherkins were available at two different stands, Culton Organics and Yoder’s Heirlooms (I think).  They were just too tempting to pass up, so about a dozen of them came home with me.  West Indian Gherkins are a completely foreign cucumber variety to most of us.  These tinies beauties must be picked before they reach about 1.5 inches long or else they will likely be bitter.  And they are super crisp and very sweet. 

There’s pretty much only one thing you can do with a West Indian Gherkin: pickle it.  I plan to use this recipe.

Sing the blues away

Saturday, July 05, 2008

To celebrate Independence Day yesterday, I did something I rarely do: cooked breakfast.  Oh, I eat breakfast almost every day - but it’s usually something like a bagel, something I buy pre-made and purchase to eat at my desk at work.  But it was a holiday and I had the day off.  A special treat is always a good idea!

Using the blueberries I picked last weekend at Linvilla, I made blueberry pancakes.  They were quite delicious, and I even have a few leftovers in the ‘fridge for another day.

2 eggs, separated
1.5 cups flour
2 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
2 pinches of teasooon salt
1 cup milk
3 tablespoons butter, melted
1 cup blueberries

Beat egg whites until stiff; set aside.

In another bowl, combine flour, baking powder, and salt. Beat together egg yolks, milk, and melted butter; add to dry ingredients and mix well.  Stir in blueberries..

Heat up a nonstock griddle or skillet.  When hot, drop batter onto the griddle and cook pancakes on both sides until golden brown.

Here’s where it all came from:
eggs, Natural Acres - 100 miles
flour, Daisy Flour - 60 miles
milk, Dutch Way Dairy - 100 miles
butter, homemade from Dutch Way Dairy cream - 100 miles
blueberries, Linvilla - 15 miles

not local: baking powder, salt

Clamming up

Sunday, June 29, 2008

I’ve been on a tear lately to find local seafood.  It just shouldn’t be this difficult.  The 100 mile radius from Philadelphia includes the Jersey shore, Delaware Bay, and parts of the Chesapeake Bay.  And within those waters, we (should) have access to tons of seafood - from clams and oysters to scallops and squid to lobster and bluefish.  Yet I have walked into about half a dozen seafood shops and a few grocery stores, and I can only reliably find Jersey bluefish.

This past weekend I found myself in a Genuardi’s (the one on Baltimore Pike not far from the Springfield Mall) to buy an iced tea, so I wandered into the seafood department. “What do you have that’s caught in Jersey?” I asked.  The woman behind the counter thought for moment and said, “Well, I think probably the bluefish and flounder.  We get boxes labeled ‘East Coast’ and we know from migratory patterns that it’s probably from New Jersey.  I would guess I’m 90% sure the bluefish and flounder are from Jersey.” I guess I should be excited the seafood workers at grocery stores pay attention to migratory patterns of fish, but it doesn’t exactly inspire confidence that the chain doesn’t get fish with exact labeling.  It goes beyond me just wanting to know - what if there was a problem with a particular fishing ground?  It would make it really difficult to recall fish without having a concrete location for the fish.

One of the One Local Summer regional coordinators recently found Jersey scallops at Whole Foods.  I have yet to hit a Whole Foods to check out their seafood selection (I plan to this week), but that’s some potentially good news.  I’m really shocked I haven’t been able to find more Jersey seafood in grocery stores - earlier this year the NJ Department of Agriculture expanded a branding and marketing initiative to label Jersey seafood.

There are only two shops I’ve found (and note that I have not visited every single seafood market in Philadelphia and the surrounding burbs) that reliably have Jersey bluefish - that’s a tiny seafood market on Calcon Hook Road in Sharon Hill and Hill’s in Media.  I do have some good leads on some other places to check out.  One is Haddonfield Shellfish (170 Grove Street in Haddonfield, NJ).  I’m told they have a good selection of Jersey-caught fish.  The other is Ippolito’s in South Philly.  Rumor has it that they occasionally have Cape May salt oysters, as well as other Jersey fish.

Coincidentally, Cape May salt oysters are on the Slow Food Ark of Taste, as are Delaware Bay oysters.

The other option is mail order.  I still haven’t figured out how I feel about this.  I mean, yes, one would be ordering local seafood from a local harvester - and having them delivered via mail is probably more environmentally sound than if I drove to, let’s say, Cape May to pick them up myself.  Places where you can order local seafood for delivery include Atlantic Capes Fisheries and The Lobster House.

I did find some topneck clams from the Chesapeake Bay at Hill’s in Media.  This really stretches the limit of the 100 mile radius, but it still counts.  I steamed them in butter, white wine, a bit of chopped onion and garlic, basil, parsley, and dill.

Where it all came from:
clams, Chesapeake Bay - 100-130 miles
butter, homemade from Dutch Way Dairy cream - 100 miles
wine, Chaddsford winery - 20 miles
onion, Landisdale Farm - 100 miles
garlic, my garden - 0 miles
basil, parsley, dill, my garden - 0 miles

Garden fresh!

Saturday, June 28, 2008

Last night I had the first major harvest out of my garden.  “Major” is relative, of course.  I picked the very pretty bunch of turnips pictured here: a small bunch of Scarlett Queen and Hakurei turnips, as well as small handfuls of spinach, swiss chard, and lacinato kale.  It was pretty exciting!

You know what they say: easy come, easy go - and my harvest is no exception.  I cooked it all up immediately for a vegetarian dinner that qualifies for One Local Summer.  The turnips were cooked up in my usual way (the addition of more traditional tasting turnips was new), and I used up all that kale from the CSA share - along with the greens from my garden - in a casserole of cheese, greens, and spelt.  The casserole is a really excellent way to use up any greens you have:

1 c. spelt berries
2 lbs of assorted greens
6 large garlic cloves, minced
2 Tbsp olive oil
parmesan cheese
fresh mozzarella

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Boil a few cups of water and pour over spelt.  Put a plate or something over the bowl and steam for 20 minutes.

Tear up the greens into bite sized pieces, being sure to keep each variety separate.  Wash thoroughly and drain.  Put the tougher greens (kale, collards) in a large pan with about an inch of water.  Cook over medium heat for about four minutes.  Add in less tough greens (spinach, chard) and cook for a few minutes more.  Drain all greens very well.

Heat oil over medium heat and saute garlic for a few minutes.  Add greens and drained spelt; season with salt and pepper.  Grate some parmesan over the greens (how much depends on you - I like mine with a lot of cheese).

Butter a casserole dish.  Throw in about half the greens and top with a few slices of fresh mozzarella.  Throw in the rest of the greens and finish with more mozzarella.

Bake for 20 minutes.

It was pretty darn yummy, and the spelt made it really filling.

Where it all came from:
kale, Landisdale Farm - 100 miles
spinach, my garden - 0 miles
swiss chard, my garden - 0 miles
lacinato kale, my garden - 0 miles
garlic, my garden - 0 miles
mozzarella, handmade from local milk - 30 miles
parmesan, Hendricks Farm - 39 miles
spelt berries, Small Valley Milling - 120 miles
turnips, my garden - 0 miles
red onions, Landisdale Farm - 100 miles
butter, homemade from Dutch Way Dairy cream - 100 miles

The best bird ever

Friday, June 27, 2008

I don’t know what Pennypack Farms does to their chickens, but they are nothing short of amazing.  Perhaps they can also do aerial acrobatics while alive, but when cooked the chickens are super tasty.  In fact, I would venture to say that I have never in my life had a better tasting chicken than the one I bought from Pennypack’s stand at Clark Park last weekend.  While I would like to think that maybe I had something to do with making the chicken taste good, there was nothing special about the way I cooked the chicken - I made a paste of olive oil and a handful of herbs from my garden (minced), spread it under the skin of the bird, and roasted it.  Seriously: so good.

Combined with the rest of the carrots I bought from Urban Girls (boiled up and then tossed with butter, parsley, and tarragon) and the baby yellow squash from my CSA share (grilled by my husband, Chief Grillmaster), it was a really great meal that qualifies for the One Local Summer challenge.  I didn’t notice until I put it all together on the plate that it’s a very yellow-ish orange meal, too.

I think I may need to buy another chicken tomorrow when I pick up my CSA share.  And then I can make a double batch of chicken stock with the carcasses.  Woohoo!

Where it all came from:
chicken, Pennypack Farm - 31 miles
miscellaneous herbs, my garden - 0 miles
squash, Landisdale Farm - 100 miles
carrots, Urban Girls - 29 miles
butter, homemade from Dutch Way Dairy cream - 100 miles

not local: olive oil, salt

Potato Salad Days

It’s when I revisit the recipes of my childhood that I understand how far the idea of fresh, local food has come.  Recipes were selected, items purchased at the grocery store, directions were followed.  That was it.  There was little concept of seasonality, of what looked good at the supermarket, or of even using fresh herbs rather than dried.

Growing up, there were two kinds of potato salad in our house.  One contained dill (dried, of course), chunks of peeled Idaho potatoes, and gobs of mayonnaise.  The other contained parsley (dried, of course), chunks of Idaho potatoes, and gobs of white vinegar.  I always preferred the latter, which we referred to as “German” potato salad.  It may have been that we had that type for most of the summer, and, thus, I have a pleasant, accompanying association of summer.  Or, it could be my aversion to most forms of mayonnaise - excepting soy-based or home-made.  Wishing to recreate my childhood potato salad with local food, I decided to take advantage of Culton Organics‘ beautiful tri-colored fingerling potatoes.

Note:  I was not surprised to find Italian versions of this (thus the use of olive oil) from the North of Italy.  There are many dishes from this area that closely resemble German or Austrian dishes.

What follows is only the outline of recipe.  The possibilities for variations are endless: rendered bacon for some salted crunch, an additional herb (lemon balm, mint, dill), bitter greens (young dandelion or radichio), anchovy fillets (mashed into the oil), or even hard-boiled egg.  Obviously, the most important thing is the quality of the potatoes; that is what you want to feature here - everything else should support that. One more thing - whatever you’re putting the salad, be sure to have everything prepped and ready to go.  I’ve found that the potatoes absorb the flavors best when they are still warm as you mix everything. 

2 lbs. fingerling potatoes, cut into bite-size pieces (the exact dimensions are not as important as uniformity, to ensure cooking)
1/2 c. chopped parsley
olive oil to taste
lemon juice to taste

Boil the potatoes in salted water until they are fork-tender.  Strain and dump into a mixing bowl.  Toss with parsley, olive oil and lemon juice.  Let sit for thirty minutes. 

Economics of a seasonal meal

Thursday, June 26, 2008

Last weekend when I was at Clark Park Farmer’s Market, I could not resist buying a bag of pretty carrots from Urban Girls.  Yes, they were pretty - but they were also inexpensive: $2.00 per bag. A bunch of non-organic carrots at the local Acme is selling for $1.99 and a bag of organic baby carrots is $2.50.  The carrots from Urban Girls were not just organic - they came trimmed and in varying colors. 

Those carrots ended up being part of a One Local Summer challenge meal this week, along with lamb from Hillacres Pride and spinach from my Landisdale CSA share.  And since I knew that the carrots were an economical buy (or, at least, comparable), I was curious about how the rest of my meal stacked up price-wise.

The lamb from Hillacres was $10.00 for a pack of four lamb loin chops (about one pound).  The lamb is heritage breed, grassfed, no hormones or antibiotics.  I would expect to pay more, and I did - a whole $1 more.  Yes, I can get lamb loin chops from Acme for $8.99/lb.  Granted, they are most certainly not heritage breed, grassfed, or hormone- and antibiotic-free.

The spinach is a little harder to figure out - I divided my total share cost by the number of months it covers, and then divided that by four (you know, four weeks to a month on average), and then divided that by the number of items in my CSA share.  It came to about $2 for my spinach, which is organic.  I don’t know what the poundage was, but it was a good sized bag.  If I bought spinach at Acme, it’s $1.99/lb for regular, non-organic spinach or $3.99/5 oz for organic baby spinach.

I’ve heard people say that eating seasonally is elitist and expensive, but you could have fooled me - I’m eating organic and supporting local farmers for, what, maybe $1 or two more than if I had purchased commercially grown, non local food at the grocery store?  And when you take into consideration that I used herbs from my garden, I probably came out ahead of the game.

The spinach was just barely cooked, the lamb was marinaded in red wine, olive oil, oregano, and honey, and the carrots were cut into strips with a vegetable peeler, sauted in butter, and sprinkled with dill, salt and pepper.

Where it all came from:
lamb, Hillacres Pride - 56 miles
red wine, Chaddsford winery - 20 miles
oregano, my garden - 0 miles
honey, Bee Natural - 59 miles
spinach, Landisdale Farm - 100 miles
carrots, Urban Girls - 29 miles
garlic, my garden - 0 miles
dill, my garden - 0 miles
butter, homemade from Dutch Way Dairy cream - 100 miles

not local: olive oil, salt, pepper

Bok choy, why do you mock me so?

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

A couple of years ago I grew bok choy in the garden.  It was one of the easiest vegetables I’ve ever grown, but I just didn’t fall in love with it enough to have it in the garden again.  I’ve just never found very many recipes for bok choy that I love or can eat over and over again.  Last year I made a killer wonton soup using a bunch of bok choy from the CSA share, but it’s not soup weather.  And I make a great kimchi, but I still have some leftover from last year.

There was a giant head of bok choy in the Landisdale Farm CSA share last week that, predictably, sat around the kitchen and never got used.  My rule is that if I don’t use it within a week, I have to find a way to preserve it.  After giving it much thought and doing a ton of research, I decided to do two things with the bok choy: dry it and pickle it.

I got the idea for drying bok choy from the many websites that kept saying bok choy stalks have a very celery-like texture - which means freezing is out of the question.  Well, maybe not out of the question, but the texture suffers.  Anyway, I ran into a site that suggested drying celery in a dehydrator.  I stripped off the leaves and sliced up the stalk - it took about six hours on the lowest heat setting.

Pickling bok choy leaves is not quite the same as making kimchi.  It’s more akin to making sauerkraut: you cut the leaves into chiffonade and pack it into canning jars, laying pickling salt in every 1/2 inch or so.  The salt will draw the water out of the bok choy, making its own brine.  If you are super careful about canning, you can run the pickled choy in a water bath after a week or two, but you can just as easily skip all that if your jars are very clean to begin with. 

Garlic scapes a-go-go

Sunday, June 22, 2008

Recently I found myself with an overabundance of garlic scapes.  I never thought I would ever utter those words, because you can never have enough, right?  But I had most of the harvest from my own garlic patch, a pound purchased from Fair Food Farmstand, and a handful from my CSA for two weeks in a row.

So what does one do with that many scapes?  I researched ways to preserve them.

Freezing does not appear to do scapes any favors...at least not if you intend to saute them.  They lose their texture and that’s just no good.  You can slice scapes into small bits and freeze for use in soups and things like that, but I didn’t think I’d use them that way.

Scapes can be canned.  Well, sort of.  Apparently, pickling scapes is super easy and produces a nice, crunchy, slightly garlicky pickle.  I seriously love almost any pickled vegetable, so I opted to test drive a jarful.  It’s pretty easy - cut scapes into smaller lengths and put a shallow layer of scapes into a canning jar.  Sprinkle with salt.  Repeat the scape and salt layering until you have about a 1/2 inch of headspace in the canning jar.  Leave the jar on a kitchen counter for a few days to allow the salt to leach the water out of the scapes, forming its own brine.  You may have to add more salt.  When the brine has formed, process in a water bath for 25 minutes. It’s sort of the same process as making sauerkraut, but without the pressing.

Having started the pickled scapes a few days ago, I gave them a try today - delicious!

I saved a few scapes to have sauted scapes with dinner the other night, but for the rest of them I opted to make scape pesto.  I put the scapes in a food processor with some olive oil.  Right now it’s being stored in my fridge until I can get my hands on some Hendricks parmesan and walnuts.  I haven’t decided if I will freeze or can the pesto.

There is a distinct possibility that I may find myself with more garlic scapes within the next couple of weeks.  Well..bring it on, says I.  I think I’d like to make some garlic scape aioli to have on hand.

Duck duck goose

Saturday, June 21, 2008

Last weekend when I stopped by Headhouse Square market, I picked up a lovely duck breast from Griggstown Quail.  I’m always a little hesitant to cook duck at home.  I’ve cooked it a few times and it’s always very good, but I’m a little out of my element and just not very confident about it.  This time around I decided to follow the instructions for pan-roasting a duck breast at Cookthink.

I served the duck with cherry sauce, using fresh cherries I picked up from Linvilla.  Also included in the meal: roasted cipollini onions and sauted garlic scapes.  I rarely make cipollini onions, but when I saw them at the farmer’s market I couldn’t resist picking them up.  They’re so cute!

Roasted Cipollini Onions

One handful of cipollini onions
2 sprigs of rosemary
1/2 c. red wine
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 Tbsp honey

Preheat oven to 475 degrees. Boil a saucepan full of water and drop in onions; boil for 30 seconds.  Drain, cool, and peel onions.  Arrange in a single layer in a roasting pan and top with rosemary sprigs.  Whisk together the remaining ingredients and pour over onions.  Roast for 30 minutes, flipping onions halfway through.

Strain cooking liquid into a saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for three minutes - you should get a slightly thickened sauce for the onions.

Where it all came from:
duck, Griggstown Quail Farm, 56 miles
apple cider, Linvilla - 10 miles
red wine, Chaddsford winery - 20 miles
cherries, Linvilla - 10 miles
thyme, my garden - 0 miles
cipollini onions, Culton Organics - 86 miles
rosemary, my garden - 0 miles
honey, Bee Natural - 59 miles
garlic scapes, my garden - 0 miles
butter, homemade from Dutch Way Dairy cream - 100 miles

not local: olive oil, salt and pepper

Easy peasy stir fry

Friday, June 20, 2008

I’m happy to report that the concept of eating local and vegan is difficult can be put to rest with this recipe:

Bok Choy, Snow Pea, Spring Onion and Seitan Stir Fry

1 package Ray’s Seitan
1 head bok choy
1/3 pound snow peas
4 - 5 spring onions, sliced
2 tablespoons oil
1+ teaspoon red pepper flakes (I used about two teaspoons)
1/2 cup water mixed with 1/2 tablespoon Bragg’s (or replace Bragg’s with soy sauce or tamari, or use 1/2 cup stock)

Heat one tablespoon of oil in a skillet over medium heat. Using scissors, cut seitan to bite-sized chunks into the pan and stir. Liquid from the seitan will drip into the pan as you cut, which is just fine. Once all the seitan is added, stir and increase heat to medium-high. Brown seitan, stirring every few minutes, until edges crisp, about ten minutes. Set aside.

Cut the bok choy stems into roughly one-inch pieces; slice leaves into strips and and put aside. Trim or pull the little “hats” of the snow peas. Heat remaining oil in large skillet over medium heat. Add the bok choy stems, snow peas, onions and red pepper flakes and cook, increasing heat to medium-high and stirring occasionally, until the bok choy loses its crunch, about five minutes. Add the bok choy greens and 1/2 cup water and Bagg’s, and mix well. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the liquid evaporates and the stems become very tender, about ten minutes. Add a little more liquid if necessary.

Add seitan to veggies and mix well, cooking until seitan heats through, about a minute.

Feel free to substitute the veggies with others that you have on hand or that are in season.  Kale, collards, chard, arugula for the bok choy, and carrots, tomatoes and snap peas for the snow peas will all work.  Get crazy.  See what you have in the fridge, calculate the cook time and substitute away! 

Naked salad

With the large varieties of lettuce everyone has been receiving in their CSA boxes recently (myself included), it gets hard to make salads interesting or even remotely appealing (see Eliza’s break up letter to lettuce for proof of how bad it’s getting around here!).

The other day I was staring glumly at a head of lettuce, wondering how I could face yet another salad.  It occurred to me that maybe it was all about the dressing.  I have a garden full of fresh herbs and enough olive oil to...well, I have a lot of it.  What kind of dressing could I make?  Apparently, the question is more like what kind of dressing couldn’t I make.

I decided to go with a multi-herb vinaigrette with Dijon mustard.

¼ cup of olive oil
2 tablespoons of red wine vinegar
1.5 tablespoon of finely chopped herbs
1 teaspoon of whole grain Dijon mustard
salt and pepper

Whisk it all together (or, in my case, pack into a recycled jar and shake) until it’s all combined.

There are, apparently, about twelve billion varieties (give or take) of easily made salad dressings.  Here are a few:

• creamy parmesan vinaigrette
• balsamic vinaigrette
• Basil and garlic vinaigrette
• carrot ginger vinaigrette
• green goddess dressing
• bleu cheese dressing
• cucumber dill dressing

Round is good

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Last weekend I picked up three small round zucchini from Culton Organics at Headhouse Square market.  It was kind of silly.  I mean, what do you do with three golf ball-sized zucchini?  Well, maybe not that silly: it’s just my husband and I.  Three of them actually makes a perfect side dish size.

Because of their pleasing shape, one of the only things to do with round zucchini is to hollow them out and stuff them.  Before stuffing, though, you have to boil the zucchini for about three minutes and then blanch.  I made risotto last week using the last of last Fall’s butternut squash and some kale from the CSA share (the only non-local part of the risotto was the arborio rice and white wine) and had a little left, so I stuffed the squash with spoonfuls of risotto.  And then the stuffed zucchini got baked for about seven or eight minutes, as my honey-glazed pork cutlets from Country Time Farm finished baking.

Along with that, I served up an onion and swiss chard saute.  The onion came from Landisdale Farm, as did the chard (through my CSA share this week).

While it’s cheating just a little to count this as a One Local Summer meal (on account of the non-local wine and arborio rice), I think I will anyway.  It’s pretty darn close!

The details:
round zucchini, Culton Organics
butternut squash, Lancaster Farm Fresh
kale, Landisdale Farm - 100 miles
butter, homemade from Dutch Way Dairy cream - 100 miles
onions, Landisdale Farm - 100 miles
chicken stock, homemade from local carcass - 50 miles
parmesan cheese, Hendricks Farm - 39 miles
swiss chard, Landisdale Farm - 100 miles
pork cutlet, Country Time Farm - 81 miles
honey, Bee Natural - 59 miles

not local: salt and pepper, arborio rice, white wine

Something’s Missing Here…But I Don’t Know What It Is

When I look at this picture and remember this meal, I remember that it was good but not very good.  No, there was something missing, but I am not sure what.  In this case, it needs one more component to make it memorable, extraordinary, whatever – I don’t know. 

I can remember certain dishes where the addition of a single ingredient increased the quality of the dish exponentially.  The best chefs do this instinctively.  At Vetri, I remember sugar snap pea flan with pecorino shavings.  At Southwark, I remember a goat cheesecake infused with lavender.  In my own cooking, though, I’ve needed help.  I grate nutmeg into grated, sauteed zucchini or sauteed spinach (thanks to the River Cafe Cookbook); add lemon zest to brussell sprouts and to a shrimp frittatta (thanks to Jamie Oliver); and include dried oregano in a marinade for grilled portobello mushrooms (thanks to Lynne Rossetto Kasper).  In each case, there was nothing overly elaborate in terms of presentation, ingredients or technique, but the combinations were extraordinary.  They may have been unexpected, but the surprise is not what is memorable: it’s how that one addition somehow managed to enhance the overall dish and each, individual ingredient as well. 

And so I return to the roasted beets and goat cheese.  What is it missing?  Aceto tradizionale?  Torn mint leaves?