Zucchini-Currant Bran Muffins

In a month where you can find sweet, dribbly nectarines and burstingly juicy tomatoes pretty much everywhere, you might not be jonesing for zucchini. And considering you can pile those nectarines into a bowl of yogurt, or put some of those tomatoes on your morning toast, you're definitely not seeking a way to eat zucchini for breakfast. Convincing you that that's a good idea would be a heavy lift. And yet here I am, peddling a breakfast item pretty much loaded with summer squash. You must think the heat's gotten to me.

But I'm willing to bet at least half of you skip breakfast altogether, and a good many more - not that I know anyone in this category coughwifecough - eat those insipid, playdough-textured nutrition bars for morning meals. So here's my opening salvo: don't do that. As Sam Sifton said, "A mere 15 minutes stolen from sleep can bring stylishness to the morning, along with a feeling that the day is filled with promise rather than recrimination. Do it once, and it’s hard. Do it three times in a week, and it’s a habit." Never is that more true - or less burdensome - than when the cooking happens in advance.

So, about these muffins. I'm always looking for ways to use up oversized summer squash; an easy way is to grate them into baked goods (and fritters, and frittatas, and all manner of other things). By now, you have a recipe for zucchini bread. (You don't? Let me fix that. Let me fix that again.) Muffins are the next logical step. The zucchini are moist enough that they can stand up to a dry mix that includes some bran flour, which I added to win over the fiber fanatics among you. As for currants, they're like raisins, but better. Am I right? Use the latter if that's what you have. I'm in a don't-sweat-it mood.

Whatever you do, please - if only so I stop worrying about you - don't skip breakfast. When you get to the office on a Monday morning and the sun is shining and the HVAC isn't working and you're pretty much drenched in your own sweat, you'll be thankful that sustenance, at least, is taken care of.

Zucchini-Currant Bran Muffins Makes 12

1 cup wheat bran 
2 cups all-purpose flour (or substitute 1 cup whole wheat)
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon pinch of salt
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
5 tablespoons butter, melted
2 eggs
1 cup buttermilk or yogurt
1 lb. zucchini/squash, grated
1/2 cup dried currants or raisins

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line or grease a 12-cup muffin tin.

In a medium bowl, combine wheat bran, flour(s), baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. Set aside.

Combine sugars and butter in a mixing bowl and whisk until fully combined. Add eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Add buttermilk or yogurt, and mix until mostly combined. Add zucchini and mix to combine.

Add flour mixture, and use several long, forceful strokes to combine the flour into the wet mixture. It's okay if there are some lumps. Add the currants, and give a few more firm strokes, just until any streaks of flour disappear and currants are evenly distributed.

Scoop the batter into the muffin tin using a 1/3-cup measure. Bake for 25-28 minutes, until the tops are golden brown. Let cool for 5 minutes, then serve warm or at room temperature.

Chilaquiles

This is the most glamorous thing to do with the half-bag of stale tortilla chips languishing at the bottom of your snack drawer. (Come clean: it's there.) Instead of throwing them away -- or, as I do, letting them sit there getting even more stale until not even the greatest of hunger pangs can motivate you to open the bag, and then throwing them away -- you can dunk them into a vat of good ranchera sauce, pile on some toppings, and call it breakfast. Yes, I'm telling you to eat tortilla chips for breakfast. I'm sorry, do you need more convincing?

Somehow, in a feat of magic and wonder, you can soak a tortilla chip in sauce, and it stays just crunchy enough to make for a delightful meal. If you put a bit of queso fresco and some scallions on top, it even starts to look healthy. I admit, it's confusing. In a very good way.

Yet another recipe from Roberto Santibanez's excellent book, these chilaquiles remind me of the ones that we had a few summers ago in Santa Fe. If I were feeling ambitious, I'd make both the red and the green sauce in his book, and serve the chilaquiles "divorciados" (half red, half green). But on a lazy Saturday, that kind of potchkeing isn't in the cards. I've got half a bag of semi-fresh homemade tortilla chips from Luna's Tortillas, which I visited on last week's business trip to Dallas. I have a jar of ranchera sauce in the fridge, as well as a bit of fresh feta cheese and heavy cream (two very fine substitutes for queso fresco and crema). No cilantro, but I've got scallions from my CSA. Five minutes later, I have chilaquiles, a happy stomach, and a bebe who, from the strength of its kicking, seems to enjoy breakfast as much as I did.

Chilaquiles Adapted lightly from Roberto Santibanez's Truly Mexican Serves 2

1 recipe ranchera sauce (see below) 1/4 teaspoon dried epazote or 1 sprig fresh epazote, optional 60 tortilla chips, about half a large bag 1/4 cup queso fresco or crumbled feta cheese 2 tablespoons crema or heavy cream (or substitute sour cream or yogurt thinned with a bit of water) 2 tablespoons chopped cilantro or diced scallions

Add the ranchera sauce, the epazote, and 1/2 a cup of water to a deep saute pan and set over medium heat. When sauce is simmering, remove epazote sprig (if using).

Set out two shallow bowls along with the correct portions of the other ingredients; once the chips go in, you want to be able to serve the chilaquiles as quickly as possible, before they go limp.

Add the chips to the sauce, stir gently to coat each chip with the sauce, and let steep until chips have softened but are still crunchy at the core, 1-2 minutes. Use a slotted spoon to transfer a heap of chips and sauce into each bowl, and top with crema, queso/cheese, and scallions/cilantro. Serve immediately.

Ranchera Sauce Adapted lightly from Roberto Santibanez's book Truly Mexican Makes a little more than 1 pint

1 1/2 pounds tomatoes (about 4 medium-large)
1 fresh serrano or jalapeno chile, coarsely chopped, including seeds
1 large garlic clove, smashed and peeled
2 tablespoons mild olive oil 
2/3 cup diced white onion
1/2 teaspoon sugar
3/4 teaspoon kosher salt, or rounded 1/4 teaspoon fine salt
1 (1-inch) piece canela (Mexican cinnamon) or regular cinnamon, or 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Set the oven or toaster oven to broil and preheat. Alternatively, you can preheat the oven to 500 degrees F. If you’re using the broiler, position the rack 8 inches from the heat source.

Core tomatoes and cut a small "X" through the skin on the opposite end of the core. This will make it easier to slip off the skin. Roast the tomatoes (Santibanez recommends cored sides up but I did the opposite) on a foil-lined baking pan until their tops have blackened and the tomatoes are cooked all the way through, 20 to 30 minutes. Remove from the oven and set aside for 5-10 minutes to cool. Then slip off the skins.

Put the tomatoes, chile, and garlic in the blender jar, and blend until smooth. Alternatively, transfer them to a large bowl and use an immersion blender to puree the mixture. Either way, be careful when you’re blending hot ingredients: if using a blender, cover the top with a kitchen towel, hold the top firmly in place with your hand, and start blending using short pulses before going on full speed, to avoid an explosion.

Heat the oil in a medium heavy saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring, until the onion is translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the tomato mixture, and bring to a boil. As the tomato mixture is cooking, swish 1/4 cup of water around in the blender jar and add it to the pan. If you used a bowl and immersion blender, you can do the same, and use a spatula to scrape the bits of sauce from the bowl into the pan. Reduce the heat, stir in the sugar, salt, and cinnamon, and simmer the sauce, stirring occasionally, until it has thickened slightly, about 20 minutes.

The sauce will keep for at least a week in the refrigerator; Santibanez says it keeps in the freezer for one month, but I think that estimate is conservative.

Ranchera Sauce

My usual version of enchiladas starts with a glance in an empty fridge, a brief utterance of four-letter words, a recollection that the pantry has both a jar of salsa and a jar of tomato sauce, and a dash to the corner bodega for corn tortillas. It's not glamorous, but it gets the job done.

These days, though, I'm making them from scratch. Turns out, it's not all that complicated. All you need is a batch of Roberto Santibanez's ranchera sauce, and you're most of the way there.

Back in 2012, Santibanez wrote a book called Truly Mexican. In the quarterfinal round of Food52's cookbook contest, The Piglet, Truly Mexican lost to Nigel Slater's Tender (one of my favorite cookbooks), and the judgement seemed unjust: the cartoonist Roz Chast drew the most absurd, unconsidered evaluation of the book, dinging it for making her roast chilies (the smell made her cough - the horror!), and for calling for smoky ancho chilies: she substituted plain green chilies and the recipe came out bland, go figure. I -- along with many Food52 loyalists - was angry. Here was a cookbook that others had lauded for its best-ever guacamole and excellent, instructive corn tortilla recipe, and Chast made a recipe for which she didn't have the proper ingredients, then blamed her failure on the book. Correcting the injustice in my tiny way, I went out and bought Truly Mexican.

This was not a mistake. Santibez takes what often feels like a confounding cuisine and makes it approachable. His prose and instructions have none of Diana Kennedy's chiding; instead, he recommends substitutions where appropriate, and tells you frankly when an alternative just won't do. He also has a section on salsas and another on moles and pipians, both of which are so thick that the entire middle of his book is devoted to sauce. As someone who sees solid food as a vehicle for flavored liquid, this delights me.

It also makes the book feel like a reference guide. A few times now, I've made a big batch of one of Santibanez's sauces, poured it into a jar, and used it across the week on any number of things (folded tortillas, fish, scrambled eggs, etc). I love cooking this way.

Santibanez's ranchera sauce is simple, but it's perfectly balanced. When you lean over the stove and take a sniff, it smells authentically Mexican, i.e. nothing like the hack job I used to use for my enchiladas. And because it really is so versatile, I also use it for migas, and for chilaquiles, which I'll tell you about later this week. First things first: make a batch of the sauce. Better yet, make a double. Then let's talk about how delicious it is.

Ranchera Sauce Adapted lightly from Roberto Santibanez's book Truly Mexican Makes a little more than 1 pint

1 1/2 pounds tomatoes (about 4 medium-large)
1 fresh serrano or jalapeno chile, coarsely chopped, including seeds
1 large garlic clove, smashed and peeled
2 tablespoons mild olive oil 
2/3 cup diced white onion
1/2 teaspoon sugar
3/4 teaspoon kosher salt, or rounded 1/4 teaspoon fine salt
1 (1-inch) piece canela (Mexican cinnamon) or regular cinnamon, or 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Set the oven or toaster oven to broil and preheat. Alternatively, you can preheat the oven to 500 degrees F. If you’re using the broiler, position the rack 8 inches from the heat source.

Core tomatoes and cut a small "X" through the skin on the opposite end of the core. This will make it easier to slip off the skin. Roast the tomatoes (Santibanez recommends cored sides up but I did the opposite) on a foil-lined baking pan until their tops have blackened and the tomatoes are cooked all the way through, 20 to 30 minutes. Remove from the oven and set aside for 5-10 minutes to cool. Then slip off the skins.

Put the tomatoes, chile, and garlic in the blender jar, and blend until smooth. Alternatively, transfer them to a large bowl and use an immersion blender to puree the mixture. Either way, be careful when you’re blending hot ingredients: if using a blender, cover the top with a kitchen towel, hold the top firmly in place with your hand, and start blending using short pulses before going on full speed, to avoid an explosion.

Heat the oil in a medium heavy saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring, until the onion is translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the tomato mixture, and bring to a boil. As the tomato mixture is cooking, swish 1/4 cup of water around in the blender jar and add it to the pan. If you used a bowl and immersion blender, you can do the same, and use a spatula to scrape the bits of sauce from the bowl into the pan. Reduce the heat, stir in the sugar, salt, and cinnamon, and simmer the sauce, stirring occasionally, until it has thickened slightly, about 20 minutes.

The sauce will keep for at least a week in the refrigerator; Santibanez says it keeps in the freezer for one month, but I think that estimate is conservative.

Sweet Cherry Rhubarb Crumble

This site's been down on and off for the last week or so, due to technical problems that definitely are over my head in terms of complexity. But you know me, I tried to fix them anyway. After one full day of head cold-induced stupor and a second, semi-conscious day of tinkering around, I seem to have solved most of the issues, at least for now. My header still isn't showing up, but a) that may be the last little kick in the derriere that I needed to change the thing, and b) you're the best readers ever: you know where you are.

Meanwhile, I'm glad the site's up again, because I finally can share the stockpile of delicious things I've been cooking that you need to cook, too.

We hosted our monthly wine club on Friday night. Dinner was gazpacho and a big nicoise salad, but for dessert, I had two quarts of the sweetest sweet cherries an no plan. I'd had my sites set on a slab pie, but the head cold nixed my grand plans. That's when I remembered about the freezer bag of chopped rhubarb that I'd put away in early spring, and I got nervous that the cherries would be too sweet and one-note on their own, so I combined them into a spontaneous and really good crumble.

The cherries needed no help; they're perfect alone, and if you make this crumble with just cherries, as long as they're good ones, you'll be very happy. (I will also add that if you happen to have a mix of sour and sweet cherries, that combination is lovely, too.)

But if you have the rhubarb, the combination is truly lovely. I'm so used to the classic strawberry-rhubarb combination, but sweet cherries round our rhubarb's astringency even better than spring strawberries. Depending on where you live, rhubarb and cherries don't overlap for all that long, but I saw both at our market on Sunday, so now's the time. Make this pronto.

Any crumble topping you like will work, but the oats and the tiny hint of cinnamon here work particularly well. What's most important is that you fill that basket with all the berries you can, and then go eat a lot of them, and make some of them into jam, and make some of them into a crumble. It's happy summer time.

Sweet Cherry Rhubarb Crumble serves 6-8

This amount fits in a standard 9x13" baking dish. If you'd like to make a smaller crisp, halve the ingredients and bake it in either an 8x8" or -- even better -- an 8x6" baking dish. It's thinner in the 8x8, thicker in the 8x6.

1 1/2 lbs. sweet cherries, cleaned and pitted 1/2 lb. rhubarb, stems trimmed, sliced into 1-inch pieces 1/2 cup sugar 1 teaspoon corn starch (or tapioca starch)

1 stick butter, softened 1/2 cup sugar 1/2 cup brown sugar 1/2 cup flour 1 cup oats 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 375° and set out a 9x13 baking dish.

Combine cherries, rhubarb, and 1/2 cup of sugar in a saute pan and set over medium heat. Cook for 5-10 minutes, until the cherries and rhubarb have softened but not disintegrated. Use a slotted spoon to strain the fruit into your baking dish, leaving behind the liquid. Reduce the heat to low, add the corn starch, and use a whisk or a for to mix it into the cooking liquid. In a matter of 1-2 minutes, the liquid should have thickened. Drizzle the thickened liquid over the fruit.

In a separate bowl, mix the butter, remaining 1/2 cup sugar, and brown sugar. Use a fork to combine completely. Add flour, oats, salt, and cinnamon, and stir until the mixture forms little clumps.

Pour the crumble topping onto the fruit and spread it evenly. Transfer the baking dish the oven and bake for 30 minutes, until fruit is bubbling and crumble is golden. Set out to cool for at least 10 minutes before serving, preferably with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Delish.