By Guest Blogger Michael Kiss (of Whole Foods Arlington).

Well Foodies the unofficial end of summer has past, and I look back at the beautiful summer food we have cooked with great joy!

 Food adventures always seem to be the best adventures, they have a tangible memory, if we think hard enough we can almost taste highlights from our summer. The sweet watermelons with their pink juice on our chins, the crunchy corn on the cob dinners outside, if I just get a whiff of grill smoke in my nose I can recreate a whole picnic without even lifting a finger. No other memories have this influence over us, food is powerful.

Tonight we are going to “refresh” our memories and celebrate the catfish. Catfish is an amazing success story in the aquaculture world. Here at Whole Foods Market we are enjoying the beginning of North Carolina catfish harvest from Carolina Classics Catfish Farm.

We have partnered with them for nearly 25 years now and they have upheld their great standards from the very beginning and are always looking to improve their green mission. From specially formulated by product free feed that floats, to creating breeding facilities to ensure their fish have never been treated with antibiotics or hormones at any point in their lifecycle, Carolina Classics Catfish is committed to sustainable aquaculture.

Help us celebrate all month long!

Myth #1: Catfish tastes “muddy.” The truth: If it does, it’s not good catfish.Because of the way we raise and harvest our fish, you’ll never get that muddy flavor, which is caused by algae blooms in the water.

Miso glazed catfish with bokchoy

Ingredients

2 tablespoons  oil, divided

1 1/2 tablespoons white miso

1 teaspoon sugar

4 (5- to 6-ounce) catfish fillets

8 baby bok choy, halved or 1 large head bok choy, trimmed and separated into leaves

Method

In a medium bowl, whisk together 1 tablespoon of the oil, miso, sugar and 1 tablespoon warm water to make a glaze. Brush catfish all over with some of the glaze. Heat ½ tablespoon oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Arrange two fillets in the skillet and cook, brushing with more glaze and pan juices and flipping once, until cooked through, about 5 minutes; transfer to a plate and keep warm. Wipe skillet clean then repeat process with 1/2 tablespoon more oil and remaining fillets. Reduce heat to medium; add bok choy to skillet and brush all over with remaining glaze. Add 1/4 cup water to skillet, cover and cook, tossing occasionally, until just wilted and bright green, 3 to 4 minutes. Arrange bok choy alongside catfish and serve.

Myth #2: Catfish is a bottom feeder.The truth: Farm-raised catfish eat off the top of the water.In the wild, catfish are opportunistic feeders and they will eat anywhere in the water column. To minimize the feed costs of farm-raised catfish, we make feed that floats so we can make sure every bit is eaten and doesn’t go to waste.

Pecan herb crusted catfish

Ingredients

2 Tbs. oil

¼ C. pecans crushed

1 tsp fresh thyme minced

1 tsp sage minced

¼ C. whole wheat panko

½ C. buttermilk

½ tsp Worcestershire sauce

Salt and pepper

4 catfish fillets 

3 Tbs. butter to finish 

Method

Soak catfish fillets in buttermilk seasoned with worchestershire sauce and salt and pepper for 2 minutes

Mix the panko, pecans, and herbs together and dredge the catfish fillets in the mixture gently pressing the mixture into the surface

In a large sauté pan heat the oil gently then panfry the fish on both sides until browned, approx 5 minutes per side. Remove and keep warm. Wipe out the pan and add the butter, sizzle the butter until it starts to brown. Serve the browned butter over the cooked fish. Serve with a brown rice pilaf and some vegetables. Simply great!

CREAMED SWISS CHARD

I love creamed spinach.  Whether it’s served with poached eggs, or a NY strip, or just as an entrée on it’s own, if it’s on the menu, I’ll usually order it.  But I’ve never made it-I mean, come on—it’s CREAM, right? I don’t use that kind of stuff at home (unless it’s for a confection).  My go-to spinach recipe involves sautéing the spinach with raisins and pine nuts, and sometimes throwing in olives and garlic as well.  It’s delicious, it’s nutritious, and afterwards, I can justify a little dessert.  Creamed spinach, on the other hand, is one of those delicacies I have chosen to leave to the kitchens of the professionals, where I don’t have to see the gallons of cream elevating the pretty green leaves from it’s iron, calcium and antioxidant rich glory into luxurious, creamy deliciousness.

But enough about spinach.  This is a post about chard.  I bought it at the farmer’s market, and was scrolling through blogs and websites looking for a good chard recipe.  I found plenty that mimicked my go-to spinach dish of pine nuts and raisins, but I wanted to treat my chard right.  I wanted to give it it’s own unique place in my culinary repertoire.  And then I came across a recipe for creamed chard, and it was all over.   And it turned out, the recipe wasn’t that sinful after all.  So afterwards, I had dessert.

Creamed Swiss Chard

(Adapted from Smitten Kitchen)

• 1 bunch (about 1 lb) Swiss chard
• ½ cup red onion, diced
• 3 tblsp butter
• 3 tblsp all-purpose flour
• 1 1/4 cups milk (I used 1%)
• Salt and pepper, to taste

Wash chard but do not dry it. Cut off thick stems (and save for another use).  Tear leaves into pieces which are about 1 inch square.  Place the wet leaves in a dry 10” sauté pan and sauté over medium law heat until wilted, about 6 minutes.

Remove chard from pan, and place it in a colander lined with paper towels or cheesecloth.  Squeeze the excess water from the leaves and set aside.

Wipe out the sauté pan and melt the butter in it. Add the diced onions and sauté over medium heat for about 6 minutes, until they are softened and translucent. Heat the milk in a small saucepan over moderate heat, stirring to avoid scalding the milk.

Add the flour into the onion and butter and stir to create a roux. Continue stirring for about three minutes. Add the warm milk in a slow stream, stirring continuously to prevent lumps.   Continue stirring as you simmer the roux until thickened, about three or four minutes. (If the roux is too thick, you can add additional (warmed) milk to thin it out.)

Stir in the chard, add salt and pepper to taste, and cook, stirring, until heated through.

-LMB

Update:

Enter Your Big (or big-ish) Vegetable in the Biggest Vegetable Contest!

Is that a five pound melon sitting in your garden? What about a foot long zucchini? A football sized pumpkin? Why aren’t you entering your vegetables in the DC State Fair Biggest Vegetable Contest, sponsored by Washington Gardener? More…
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In My Inbox.
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-JAY

DC Picklers – Show Us Your Best Pickle

Green beans. Cucumbers. Beets. Is there anything that isn’t improved with a good pickling brine?

Well it’s time for DC picklers to show us what you’ve got. Do you have a delicious bread and butter pickle recipe that’s wowed your friends? Do you pickle your own onions to serve on sandwiches? Do you make your own kimchi? Enter your sour, salty, and/or sweet pickled creations in the DC State Fair Home-Made Pickle contest. Many thanks to GLiTTARAZZi, a DC-based social and gossip blog, for sponsoring. The winner will win a $50 gift certificate to 19th.

You can enter the DC State Fair Home Made Pickle Contest here. While we’d love to know if your pickled items were grown in the District, it’s not a requirement of the contest. The deadline for entries is Thursday, August 26, so get your pickles going today!

The recipe contest is from the following festival:

{Exclusively For Gastronomes, Food Bloggers & Garden Bloggers and Tomato Enthusiasts}

Who: Hosted by The International Wine & Food Festival

What: The Mid-Atlantic Red Fruit Festival

When: Friday, September 24, 2010 from 6-8 p.m.

Where: Woodrow Wilson Plaza at the International Trade Center and Ronald Reagan Building :: 1300 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW

Why: The Mid-Atlantic Red Fruit Festival is an annual reception celebrating the spectacular regional produce of the Mid-Atlantic by pairing top area farmers with leading area chefs with enthusiastic home gardeners and cooks with tomato tastings and wine pairings. Each year the event will showcase a “red” fruit and 2010 kicks off with the TOMATO.

Of Note: We are pleased to announce The Mid-Atlantic Red Fruit Festival is the home of SEEDS TO SCHOOLS, a landmark public drive that collects and redistributes seeds to schools and community gardens in our region that have a demonstrated commitment to engaging children with life science and nutrition. SEEDS TO SCHOOLS supports the teachers and public volunteers who share the wonder of planting, nurturing, harvesting and preparing one’s own food

We have also partnered with Common Good City Farm, an urban farm and education center growing food for low-income residents in Washington, DC and providing educational opportunities for all people helping to increase food security, improve health, and contribute to environmental sustainability.

Please follow us on Twitter (@RedFruitFest) and Like us on Facebook to be one of the first guests to receive an invitation to this event!}

From Chef Michael Kiss of the Whole Foods in Arlington. This is from Tonight’s (7pm) free class.

Healthy lifestyle isn’t always fun and granola, sometimes we get little hankerings for something familiar and kinda bad. Don’t we love hamburgers? We also like the feeling of empowerment when we stay true to what our bodies want and go for the veggie burger, even though what is inside the box isn’t very appealing. Mystery veg isn’t any better than mystery meat, that’s all I am saying.

Well, today is the day we say NO to the frostbitten hockey puck of bland flavorless pseudo-food patty and say YES to a big beautiful healthy burger that we made with all natural whole foods. It will be a day that when we sit down next to those omnivores, they will look at our buns in envy.

Anatomy of a basic veggie burger
The truth is there isn’t a lot to a veggie burger as far as the basic binding medium. The art of the whole thing is to fill up the binder with lots interesting flavors and textures so the burger has highlights and appeal. Without the veggie fillers the binder alone would be like a dense pasty savory cookie. So go crazy with the veg folks, and remember that is where you can really fine tune your nutrition too.

Basic veggie burger
Makes 10 to 12 burger patties
1 Can black beans drained
1 Can diced tomatoes
1 C. chopped carrot
1 clove garlic
½ C. chopped onion
1 ½ C. chopped fresh vegetables or frozen is fine too
2 C. Instant oatmeal
Salt and pepper to taste

Pre heat oven to 400 f.
In a food processor puree the beans, tomatoes, and carrots garlic and onions with a few pulses. Next mix in by hand the oats and vegetables, season with salt and pepper. Let stand for 10 minutes then form into patties and bake on a parchment lined baking sheet for 8 to 10 minutes. Let cool and freeze in zip lock bags for later

So this is the basic burger, and this alone is way better than morning-boca-gaden-crud, but basic isn’t how we roll foodies, hamburger roll…

Let’s get funky and have something crazy good for dinner.

How do you think of variations and themes?
Sometimes I have an idea and just wait for the right ingredient to fall in place, sometimes I find an exciting ingredient and try to work it into a recipe. And once in a while, when the mood is right and the stars are aligned and all is well in the world I make up a funny name and make the food reflect the name…tonight is one of those nights.

So for tonight’s variation:
The Rhinestone Ninja
I added shitake mushrooms and edamame for the vegetable and seasoned with gomasio, ginger and soy sauce
I changed the onions to scallions (see flexibility-an onion is an onion)

That’s just the burger, but what about the toppings?
To fill out the Rhinestone Ninja, let’s have fun with the toppings. Foodies the topping enhance the burger but also it is an opportunity to expand the nutrition of the meal by getting in some extra vegetables in creative ways. Way better than lumping out the mustard and ketchup.

Gitano slaw
For 4 burgers
1 C. shredded carrot
1 C. shredded daikon radish
1 tsp poppy seeds
2 Tbs. seasoned rice wine vinegar
¼ tsp toasted sesame oil
½ tsp honey
Mix all ingredients together and let stand for a few minutes

Cowboy karate chop sauce
For 4 burgers
3 Tbs. veganaise
1 tsp or more to taste siracha hot sauce
½ tsp lime juice

Whole sprigs of cilantro to finish the burgers

Foodies, I want you to make some amazing veggie burgers this week, Have fun get the family and friends involved. Having a healthy lifestyle is a journey, enjoying a meal with people we love is a destination.

Eat well!

In my Inbox:

Michael just sent us this.

-JAY

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August 3rd – Veggie Burger Bonanza. Do you relish the thought of learning how to make your own veggie burgers? Join Chef Michael Kiss in this fun and informative class on how to put the flavor back in the bun. No moo, No cluck, and definitely no duck, just wholesome plant oriented burgers that are way better than anything from a frozen box. Vegetarian class.

August 10th -  29 ½ Minute Meals. It’s a busy life folks, and sometimes we feel hopeless to maintain a healthy lifestyle for us and our families. If you can find 29 ½ minutes Chef Michael Kiss will show you how you can eat healthy and delicious food that most importantly is fast to prepare. This week’s dinner in a flash; Peanut Tamari Tofu wraps with Thai hummus. Stop for a moment and chew! Vegetarian class.

August 17th **NEW SERIES** Hungry for Knowledge. In this new series, each month, Chef Michael Kiss will review and discuss one of the many dietary lifestyle books we have here at Whole Foods Market. In this non-bias exploration of all things food we will cook some of the recipes from the book as well as offer a 5% discount off the purchase price of the book of the evening. Our first book we will explore is “The Engine 2 Diet” by Rip Esselstyn. Rip is an Austin TX, firefighter that has developed a plant strong approach to healthy lifestyle. Vegetarian class.

August 24th – Melons 101. Summer isn’t summer without a big ol’ wedge of watermelon, the juice dribbling down your chin and the fun spitting the seed further than your friends. In this informative class Chef Michael Kiss will show you the right way to pick the best of the season but we will also prepare a few dishes that might surprise you when you taste them. Sweet and savory dishes that all include melon in the ingredient list; this will definitely be a class with a rind. Ur,um… I mean appeal.

August 31st – How to cook like a chef-Gazpacho Mania. This summer one of the hottest trends in cooling down is gazpacho. There are so many variation and new ones being invented by talented chefs every day. Join Chef Michael Kiss as we investigate what makes a classic gazpacho as well as learning how to get funky with nuvou gazpacho variations. Get excited for the flavor flamenco dance on your tongue. O’le! Vegetarian class.

Classes begin at 7:00 PM. All Whole Foods Market Cooking Classes are free of charge. seating is limited to first come, no registration required. veggie burgers ready to go in the oven! I feeling healthy today!

I’m not sure why, but I’ve always associated eggplant with winter; the illusions of our global market, I suppose, since the purple blobs are actually in season right now. I picked up a few lovely looking baby ones at the farmer’s market the other day, and have been mucking about with them, trying to do something interesting. Turns out, so far, that classic (or at least classic-ish) works best.

The main thing I’ve learned is that purging is absolutely essential: the final product is much less greasy and grainy, with better flavor. Purging goes like this: you slice the eggplant, salt it pretty generously on both sides, and leave it in colander for just over an hour. The salt draws out some of the moisture from the outside layer, making it firmer and sealing the insides. Then, you rinse the eggplant (very well, you don’t want all that salt in your dish), and dry them with paper towels (I squeeze them a bit to be sure). Then cook them. This is especially critical if you’re frying, but important in other prep too, for eggplants. Also works on plantains, tomatoes, etc.

My best dish this eggplant week was, as I said, simple and fairly classic. I used:

1 Italian eggplant, sliced into circles ~1cm thick, and purged
3 large cloves finely minced garlic
1.5 tbs herbes de Provence
1/2 tsp cayenne
Olive oil
Salt
Fresh black pepper

While the eggplant is purging, grease a tray with some oil, and make a dressing from the garlic, herbs, cayenne, and about a tablespoon of oil. Preheat your oven to 425. I actually made this in my toaster oven, because it’s bloody hot these days and I wanted to minimize the heat in my kitchen.

Once purged and dry, arrange your eggplant on the tray, and top each slice with your dressing (which should be very thick…almost a rub). Throw that in the over for about 25 minutes, or until the tops are a little bit browned and crispy.

Serve as hors d’oeuvres, side dish, or even as a whole meal if you make a larger batch.

- MAW

It’s hot, but we’re still hungry, even if long evenings over a hot stove are less appealing these days. This lovely summer oddity is actually more like a template than actual recipe – you can swap around all the ingredients and how you prepare them. The frying here is quick, and only requires one pan, but you can just as easily do this raw or on the grill if you infuse your oil with herbs and mix it with a little vinegar for a dressing/grill marinade.

My most recent version included:

A few handfuls of fresh basil
A couple of fresh chives
One grapefruit
Olive oil

Peel fruit and cut into quarters. Quickly fry the chives in some olive oil, then add some basil leaves and, immediately thereafter, the grapefruit. After a couple of minutes, use your fingers (tongs if you’re a wuss) to flip the grapefruit sections onto a different side, and add a few more basil leaves on top. After another couple minutes, flip again. Repeat if you have more flat sides on your fruit. You probably shouldn’t. When they’re done, serve with more fresh basil leaves as a garnish. Delicious!

Like I said, you can do this raw or on the grill. You can also swap the herbs around. I have used mint instead of basil (especially in a raw version), or actual onion instead of chives, etc. Go play!

– MAW

I recently posted a recipe for roast lamb. As delicious as that dish is, it is possible, though not likely, that you may have some lamb left.  Here’s one idea for how to transform the leftover lamb into an entirely new, and healthy, dish.

Mediterranean Lamb salad

3-4 oz cooked lamb

2 apricots, cut into segments

1 can chick peas, drained and rinsed

2 Tblsp pine nuts

5 olives, quartered

A few sprigs of mint

Cut lamb into cubes.  Put in bowl.  Add apricots and chick peas.  Dress with yogurt dressing. Sprinkle olives and pinenuts on top. Garnish with mint.

Dressing

½ cup plain yogurt

¼ cup loosely packed mint leaves

1 lemon

Salt

Place yogurt in a bowl.  Stir in mint leaves.  Sqeeze lemon juice.  Stir.  Add salt.

Dress Mediterranean lamb salad.

-LMB

It’s summer, and that means new and wonderful things pop up at the farmer’s markets. My neighborhood market has started again, bringing the brutally peppery radishes (grown about 3 blocks from my apartment, by hippies of course) I’m currently slathering with locally-churned organic salted butter and eating like there’s no tomorrow. But there was another, more exciting find the other week: fresh fava beans. Nutty, sharp, and nutritious: despite the work required, I had to have them.

Being short on human liver (mine’s on vacation from my beer habit) and nice Chianti, plus preferring comfort food to cannibalism, I decided to put some fancy pants on a classic: beans on toast. The traditional English dish is usually made with canned baked beans and probably-stale bread, neither of which I had handy, and eaten for breakfast. I wanted dinner, and I made do, as I do, with what ingredients I had on hand. The result was a delicious and fresh and summery dinner, which actually could be served in smaller bites as fabulous hors d’œuvres. And, it was all cooked with fresh, local ingredients (except the wine – that came from a bottle).

At the farmer’s market, I bought:

– Fava beans (about 2 pounds)
– 1 medium Hungarian hot pepper
– Garlic (a couple cloves)
– Lots of fresh-picked spearmint
– Butter
– (Cheap) white wine

Start caramelizing your (diced) garlic and peppers in the butter, and put some salt water on to boil. Remove the beans from their pods. Blanch beans about 2 minutes, and plunge them into ice water to stop cooking. Remove the bean sheaths, which are chewy and not delicious.

Now your peppers should be nice and brown and yummy, so go ahead and add the favas to your pan. Over medium heat, saute the lot with some more butter for about 6-7 minutes. While that’s going, add about a half cup of wine to a glass with some mint to infuse. When the favas are almost done, add a handful of freshly torn mint leaves and toss that around. Remove your sauteed beans and peppers to a bowl, and toss in some more fresh mint. Now, deglaze your pan with minted wine and, while that’s reducing to almost-syrup, toast some bread (I used sourdough whole wheat).

Put the sauteed beans over the toast, and pour your deglazing liquid over that.

I’ve made this again a few times since, and found that the addition of fresh English peas is wonderful, but adding vidalia onion makes the flavor too earthy. Experimentation is fun!

-MAW