An important garden lesson: you cannot stop a cucumber plant from going crazy– Actually, you cannot stop any vining plant from clinging and climbing wherever it sees fit. But let’s talk cucumbers.

I planted an heirloom variety known as lemon cucumber. Lemon because the resulting fruit is fairly lemon shaped and ripen from light green to a bright lemon yellow. When I checked on the plant two Fridays ago there were a number of flowers waiting to burst with fruit. I left for a week to visit D in upstate New York terrified I would miss out on a massive cucumber harvest. (Seriously, I had three different dreams about lost or unattended garden bounty.)

While upstate, I purchased a beautiful 3-gallon ceramic crock pot from a lovely antique dealer– really a gift for all those cucumbers ready to spring to life. When D and I returned Sunday we headed to the garden for our first massive harvest: corn, tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplant and ever more basil.

We’re overflowing with cucumbers now and decided to take action. Garden cucumbers head to the crock for brining and CSA cucumbers get crock treatment or turned into the great little snack you see pictured above. I’ll provide a picture of the brined cucumbers once the pickles are (hopefully) tasty and ready for the camera.

Until then, satisfy your cucumber (and tomato) bounty with this fresh and easy snack. I used a hearty cranberry-walnut bread as the base. Any other good bread will do, or go without bread, using the cucumber as a base. Top with any fresh herb and voila, a tasty garden treat.

Cucumber Bites
Serving Size= 5 piece. Prep time= 5 minutes.
5 small slices, or 2 larger slices cut small of cranberry-walnut bread
1 cucumber, sliced 1/2-inch thick
1 vine ripe tomato, sliced 1/2-inch thick
salt/ pepper to taste
5 slices, 1/4-inch thick, feta
fresh thyme for garnish (parsley, chives, parsley or cilantro will work too)
lemon spritz (optional)

Method: Toast bread until golden. Layer bread with cucumber and tomato. Season with salt and pepper then top with feta and a sprinkle of herbs. Add a spritz of lemon over top for some added zip.

Just Braise disappeared for a bit, but I assure you we kept eating. My energy has been focused on a food literacy project in NYC public schools and re-writing dairy pages for a non-profit. Once published, I’ll share my extensive knowledge of the dairy world with everyone. Until then, I have self-dubbed myself the NYC Milkmaid.

I assure you readers have not missed much. In the past few weeks dishes were sometimes brisk, consisting of leftovers, frozen soups and toasted bagels (we all have our days). While delicious, let us just say it was nothing to write home about. Can you blame us? As T.S. Eliot said, April is the cruellest month. What is a foodie to do when those root vegetables no longer look as crisp and inviting as they once did? What happens when dreams of spring greens appear so close yet feel so far?

We turn to the sea.

As I may have overly noted again and again, I live deliciously close to a handful of fish markets. I implore any of you who live remotely near to these dying markets (butchers, fish mongers and assorted now “specialty” markets) to shop these stores. The quality is often far superior than any supermarket and the workers (often the owners or extended family) know what they are selling and take their products seriously. When were these fish caught? Answered. How was this beef raised? Answered. Where was this pasta produced? Answered. It brings us back to the small stores so quickly falling through the cracks that are truly needed to connect us to a sense of community.

When D and I walked by one of these markets and saw the large handwritten sign, “Soft Shell Crabs are IN,” we knew we needed them. I stopped by a few hours later to pick some up and joked with the husband-wife team who own the place about prepping these babies:

Me: “What do you think is the best way to do these up?”
Husband: “Fry them! These babies are fresh! You know how I know? I made them last night, deeeelicious.”
Wife: “You didn’t make anything! You never make anything. You kidding me?”
Husband: “Well I ate them!”
Wife: “Yeah, you sure ate them, it’s about all you know how to do!”
Husband: “I know how to clean ‘em. I clean ‘em real good. I’ll clean them for you honey, you’ll see.”

Okay, so it was less of me joking and more listening in on an awkward domestic dispute about household chores.

But I had my soft shell crabs (with a free lemon I was told I would “definitely need”), I had my recipe, care of my bickering suppliers, and I had some homemade mayonnaise eagerly awaiting the chance to be turned into tartar sauce. (The mayonnaise is another story of love and loathing.)

In fact, the crabs were so fresh-tasting of the ocean, that after D and I finished off one each for dinner and then leftovers for lunch the following day, I bought four more to make crab tacos the next day! When they are back again I promise to pick more up and saute them in butter and lemon. (Soft shell crabs are blue crabs that have grown, shedding their shells. The waters have to be warm enough for them to grow. Soft shell crabs are now available from Florida to North Carolina. By the end of June we will have more local North East crabs. It’s a long and delicious season!)

My favorite application of the soft shell crab was in the above sandwich. I love the way the crab looks like it is ready to walk out and pinch you. As our spring greens have yet to grace our tables, we bulked up these sandwiches with some creamy avocado slices, a great balance to the crispness of the bread and zesty sauce.

You can ask your fish provider to clean the crabs for you. To clean yourself, simply cut off the eyes at front, remove the lungs from the sides, and the little bit of slime out the rear. Go here to see how The Minimalist does it.

Fried Soft Shell Crab Sandwich
Active time= about 15 minutes. Serving Size= 4 people
For the Crabs:
4 soft shell crabs
1 egg
2-3 dashes Tabasco sauce
2 cups whole wheat flour (or mixture flour and cornmeal)
1 teaspoon Old Bay
vegetable oil to fill 1 inch up the side of the pan

1) Begin warming the oil on medium-high heat.
2) Place the egg and Tabasco in a bowl wide enough to fit a crab, scramble until combined. In another bowl, mix the flour and Old Bay until combined.
3) Once the oil is hot enough (test by placing the end of a chopstick in, if it bubbles, it is ready) dredge each crab in the egg, then transfer to the flour and toss until well coated. Transfer the crabs one at a time to the hot pan. Do not crowd the pan. Fry 2-3 minutes each side until lightly browned, set aside on a paper towel to dry and sprinkle with another dash of Old Bay.

For the Tartar Sauce:
1 cup mayonnaise
juice of 1 lemon
2 teaspoons horseradish sauce
2-3 dashes Tabasco sauce
1 tablespoons dill relish (or chopped pickles)

1) Mix all ingredients to combine.

To Assemble the Sandwich:
Toast your preferred bread until golden (I used sourdough). Smear each slice with a hefty dosage of tartar sauce, splay sliced avocado along the sauce and top with a crab and the second slice of bread. For easy handling, cut the sandwich in half.

With every New Year we are asked to make Resolutions. I am sort of sick of the usual “lose weight,” ones that really just prep a person for the beach and allow the weight roller coaster to start up again in the fall. Really, do people still make these sorts resolutions or is it the media onslaught of fat trimming pills to pop come the New Year (has anyone else noticed these all over TV?!) that make us think everyone is making them. While I do think overall lifestyle changes are healthy, they should not be a New Year makeover.

Here are my “Resolutions”: Eat more food that is better for the environment, as well as the people that bring my food to my table (farmers and workers alike). To become better educated on where my food comes from, what is inside (packaging labels as well as gene splice) and the global impact my food choices have on us all. On a broader scale, I hope that more people have access to better food choices, more reasonably priced pesticide-free foods, hear less lies about GMOs, and increase worker rights on farms and in factories. Maybe these are not all resolutions, but simple hopes for the New Year.

As for the picture in this post…

D and I ate a lot of kale back in ‘07. I had never really considered the leafy green before. Like most people, I stuck with what was easy. Simply, more often than not, with what I knew. Sure I ventured out and bought new things here and there (much to D’s initial horror) because finding new delicious foods is always a positive.

But my local groceries don’t really carry much kale, which is unusual– it’s a New York food staple. It is so easy to grow, and more importantly, it is so healthy. Seriously, there is so much good information about kale it’s almost like the new chicken soup (see here, here, and here)! There are even whole blogs waxing poetic on kale (see here and here).

As a member of my local CSA I received a lot of kale. I’m talking every week. Initially, I chopped raw kale super fine and tossed it into salads. Mixed in with all the other vegetables it just became another complex, earthly flavor in those salads. Growing tired of that, I threw every bunch into omelettes. Sure, not very exciting, but now I was cooking the kale– One giant kale omelette after another. As the season tapered on and I realized I grew tired of my kale omelettes, I experimented with other methods.

While some folks in the CSA juiced their kale (adding in peaches, apple juice and more), some made kale pesto, others threw it into soups. I thought these methods, more often than not, covered up that great subtle bitterness I had come to love in the vegetable. So I thought, hey, it looks sort of like lettuce, and voila, the kale sandwich.

This method was so good D and I started making it nightly. We grabbed for extra kale at distribution (no joke) and when we ran out of kale, used other bitter greens (cabbage, broccoli rabe, collards). Still, our favorite green was kale. I added a creamy goat cheese to play with the earthy qualities of kale and come Thanksgiving, I made this sandwich for D’s sisters who ate it up– “that was kale?!” (Note that D’s sisters were subjected to kale salad earlier in the season and were not so into it, though the kale omelette did win hearts).

D and I eat these sandwiches open-faced and find them quite filling. You can cut these sandwiches into bite sized appetizer noshes and serve them at a party. If you have no bread, use crackers. If you don’t like goat cheese, use swiss, a smoky gouda, or whatever you find works best for you.

As for the celeriac chips. Need I remind folks that fried things are delicious? Celeriac, or celery root, is a variety of celery grown as a root vegetable. It sort of looks like a crushed brain when you buy it, but smells and tastes slightly, of celery. Just peel the skin and use it as you like. It’s great raw, as a soup, folded into mashed potatoes, or in this application, fried! Simply slice it thin, fry it 3-4 minutes in hot oil, drain on a towel and sprinkle with salt.

Kale Salami Sandwich
Active time= 10 minutes.
1 tablespoon butter or olive oil
1 bunch kale
2 slices good bread (I like to use sourdough)
2 tablespoons goat cheese
salami

1) Warm the butter or olive oil in a skillet on medium heat. Roll kale like cigars and slice into thin strips. Add kale into the skillet, coat with butter and cover.
2) Toast bread. Spread each with goat cheese.
3) Stir kale, when it has turned a deep green, add on top of cheese. Add a few slices of salami.