The Book Tour Stops Here: A Review of "The Women in the Castle" by Jessica Shattuck, Served with a Recipe for German Sweet Braised Cabbage & (Vegan) Grilled Sausages

Happy Tuesday! On today's TLC Book Tour stop, I am reviewing the wonderful World War II novel, The Women in the Castle by Jessica Shattuck. Along with my review, I cooked up a plate of German Sweet Braised Cabbage inspired by the book and served it up with some (vegan) smoked apple sage sausages for a homey, German-themed meal.
 

Publisher's Blurb:

Three women, haunted by the past and the secrets they hold
 
Set at the end of World War II, in a crumbling Bavarian castle that once played host to all of German high society, a powerful and propulsive story of three widows whose lives and fates become intertwined—an affecting, shocking, and ultimately redemptive novel from the author of the New York Times Notable Book The Hazards of Good Breeding.
 
Amid the ashes of Nazi Germany’s defeat, Marianne von Lingenfels returns to the once-grand castle of her husband’s ancestors, an imposing stone fortress now fallen into ruin following years of war. The widow of a resister murdered in the failed July 20, 1944, plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler, Marianne plans to uphold the promise she made to her husband’s brave conspirators: to find and protect their wives, her fellow resistance widows.
 
First Marianne rescues six-year-old Martin, the son of her dearest childhood friend, from a Nazi reeducation home. Together, they make their way across the smoldering wreckage of their homeland to Berlin, where Martin’s mother, the beautiful and naive Benita, has fallen into the hands of occupying Red Army soldiers. Then she locates Ania, another resister’s wife, and her two boys, now refugees languishing in one of the many camps that house the millions displaced by the war.
 
As Marianne assembles this makeshift family from the ruins of her husband’s resistance movement, she is certain their shared pain and circumstances will hold them together. But she quickly discovers that the black-and-white, highly principled world of her privileged past has become infinitely more complicated, filled with secrets and dark passions that threaten to tear them apart. Eventually, all three women must come to terms with the choices that have defined their lives before, during, and after the war—each with their own unique share of challenges.
 
Written with the devastating emotional power of The Nightingale, Sarah’s Key, and The Light Between Oceans, Jessica Shattuck’s evocative and utterly enthralling novel offers a fresh perspective on one of the most tumultuous periods in history. Combining piercing social insight and vivid historical atmosphere, The Women in the Castle is a dramatic yet nuanced portrait of war and its repercussions that explores what it means to survive, love, and, ultimately, to forgive in the wake of unimaginable hardship.

Hardcover: 368 pages
Publisher: William Morrow (March 28, 2017)

My Review:

I do love a good World War II historical novel and I have worked my way through many of them over the years. I have come to seek out the books that give me a different perspective of the war and The Women in the Castle does just that, exploring the lives of three different German women, brought together and caught up in the war--each suffering and looking for redemption in their own way. The women--Marianne, Benita, and Ania, are unlikely to be friends outside of war, it is only a promise Marianne makes to look after the wives and children of the resisters who along with her husband and her best friend and past love, tried to stop Hitler by assassinating him. When that plan fails, the men are condemned to death and it is only the fact that Marianne is a woman and her husband was from a privileged and well-thought of family, that leave her able to survive, make a life for her children in the family's castle, and bring Benita, Ania and their children to stay with her. 

The women are very different--Marianne is bold and judgmental, Benita is fragile and shattered, and Ania is strong and practical. Each are flawed and human and through the chapters which move from 1938 and before the war, the horrible war years and the years afterward up to 1991. Shattuck portrays each woman through her story and her memories--giving glimpses of what led them to the role they played and how they ended up at Burg Lingenfels. Often times when you read about the war, it is easy to judge people for what they did or did not do. Looking at the German perspective was especially interesting to me as it isn't one I read about often. Shattuck makes these women relatable, giving me insights to their plight and allowing me to empathize with them and their sorrow and guilt--even if I didn't always like them or some of their actions and decisions. As in most books of war, not everything ends happily for everyone, but things are wrapped up in a satisfying way that felt authentic to the characters and story. I really enjoyed The Women in the Castle--it is absorbing, unique and it touched my heart. Highly recommended.

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Author Notes: Jessica Shattuck is the award-winning author of The Hazards of Good Breeding, which was a New York Times Notable Book and finalist for the PEN/Winship Award, and Perfect Life. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, New Yorker, Glamour, Mother Jones, Wired, and The Believer, among other publications. A graduate of Harvard University, she received her MFA from Columbia University. She lives with her husband and three children in Brookline, Massachusetts.
 
Find out more about Jessica at her website and connect with her on Facebook.

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Food Inspiration: 

Although much of the story takes place in the thick of war, there is food to be found in The Women in the Castle. Some examples include: At the castle in 1938 there is a party with champagne, potted fish, smoked meats, pork meatballs with parsley sauce, steamed dumplings, asparagus wrapped with ham, jelly molds, pineapple flambe, caviar on toast, pork roasts, apple tortes, and cake. During the war, the castle suffers food shortages but does much better than many with plenty of carrots, cabbage, and potatoes, as well as fresh raspberries, gooseberries, and other fruit in the summer. There is porridge, soup and broth, dried meat, bread, cookies, stollen and plum schnapps, shelled peas, eggs, spinach soup, barley, and pickled vegetables. Several German dishes are mentioned like schnitzel, various sausages and wursts with curry ketchup, pfeffernusse kuchen, kaiserschmarrn and kartoffelpuffer, along with weissbier to drink. Holiday packages from America included oranges, chocolate bars, gum, and Kraft cheese. Finally, a picnic at the castle (a happy day for the characters) featured cold meatballs, potato salad, pickles, fresh plums and cake with raisins.  

Ultimately I went to one of the three most mentioned foods for my inspiration. Along with carrots and potatoes, it seemed like every German garden contained heads of cabbage and dishes like cabbage, potato and carrot soup were a common meal. I looked online for a cabbage dish that sounded good and found a recipe for Sweet Braised Cabbage from Just Like Oma: Quick German Recipes. 

It seemed simple and interesting with its sweet and sour flavor. Being a meat-free eater, I was going to serve it with trout (a fish mentioned in the book) but then I saw some vegan Field Roast Smoked Apple Sage Sausages and since sausages were also mentioned frequently, I decided to serve them along with the cabbage for a German-inspired dinner. 

Just Like Oma says, "Bayrisches Weisskraut, aka Bavarian Cabbage, comes from the Bavarian region of German. Sauerkraut seems to be the most commonly thought of German cabbage recipe. This, however, is a very easy way how to cook cabbage and is often used as a side dish to accompany many German meals. There's a certain sweet/sourness to this braised cabbage dish that's like eating candy! It really does taste great with almost anything!"

German Sweet Braised Cabbage
Slightly Adapted from Just Like Oma: Quick German Recipes
(Serves 4)

2 Tbsp olive oil
1 onion, sliced
3 Tbsp sugar
1 garlic clove, crushed (I used 3 cloves, roasted garlic)
1/2 large white (green) cabbage, coarsely chopped
salt and pepper
1 tsp caraway seeds (I used 1 Tbsp)
1 cup water or broth (I used veggie broth)
1 Tbsp vinegar or to taste (optional) (I added)
(I added some chopped fresh parsley to serve)
(I thickened the sauce as noted below) 

Heat olive oil in a large pot over medium heat, add the onions and brown slightly--about 6 to 7 minutes. Stir in the sugar and let the onions caramelize, about 10 minutes. Add the cabbage, garlic, caraway seeds, and water or broth to the onions. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Bring mixture to a boil and simmer, covered, about 30 minutes or until the  cabbage is tender, stirring occasionally and adding extra water or broth if needed. Season with more salt and pepper if necessary and add vinegar to taste if desired.

*Note: To thicken the sauce, dissolve 1 Tbsp corn starch in a bit of cold water. Slowly add just enough to the simmering liquid until it thickens.

Notes/Results: I realize cabbage isn't always a popular food but this preparation is quite good--it has plenty of flavor between the onions, vegetable broth and caraway seeds and the sugar and vinegar give it a lovely balance of sweet and sour tastes that perfectly offset the meaty flavor of the vegan sausages. I love caraway and added extra seeds, as well as thickening my 'sauce' with the cornstarch and adding a bit of parsley for color. Vegan 'meat' substitutes are an infrequent choice for me because I don't always love the texture or the processing, but these Field Roast sausages are not bad--especially when grilled on all sides so the outside is a bit crisp. Of course you can pair this cabbage with regular sausage or anything really. All together, it made for a not-too-heavy, but still satisfying lunch that (vegan sausages aside) ;-) captured the spirit of the book. I will happily make this cabbage recipe again. 

I'm also linking this post up to the Weekend Cooking event at Beth Fish Reads, a weekly event that is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share. For more information, see the welcome post.

 

Note: A review copy of the "The Women in the Castle" was provided to me by the publisher, Harper Collins, and TLC Book Tours. I was not compensated for this review and as always, my thoughts and opinions are my own.

You can see the stops for the rest of this TLC Book Tour and what other reviewers thought about the book here.

 

Local (Opah) Fish & Shrimp Stew with Garlicky Rouille & Garlic Toasts for #4theloveofgarlic and Souper (Soup, Salad & Sammie) Sundays (+ a Giveaway)

I do loves me some garlic so when the awesome Camilla of Culinary Adventures of Camilla came looking for food bloggers to try the fantastic Garject garlic press from Dreamfarm to create a garlic-filled recipe, and then Melissa's Produce offered us a box full of garlic, I will confess I was in a bit of garlic heaven.

As my posting date fell on a Sunday (Easter Sunday no less) and Sundays mean celebrating soup for Souper Sundays here at Kahakai Kitchen, I knew I had to make a soup or stew with my garlic bounty. 

A couple of years ago, I tried Diana Henry's Nicoise Vegetable Stew with Rouille and I especially loved the garlicky French condiment. I decided to make a seafood stew using local fish (opah {moonfish} in this case), Kauai shrimp and a bounty of vegetables and make a variation of her rouille recipe. 

And of course there was garlic! In addition to the rouille (for which I used elephant garlic, 'roasted' and caramelized in the slow cooker), I added garlic to the stew and served it with the rouille spooned on top of grilled bread toasts, rubbed with a garlic cloves.

Local Fish & Shrimp Stew with Garlicky Rouille & Garlic Toasts
By Deb, Kahakai Kitchen--inspired by Diana Henry
(Makes 6 Servings)

For the Stew:
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 sweet onion, chopped
1 large leek, well-cleaned, trimmed, halved and sliced
2 large stalks celery, chopped
1 large carrot, chopped
2 small fennel bulbs, chopped
3 garlic cloves, crushed
2 Tbsp tomato paste
3 Roma tomatoes, diced
3 sprigs of thyme
2 bay leaves
a pinch of saffron threads
1.5 lbs of baby potatoes--red & yellow mix, halved or quartered depending on size
6 cups vegetable, shrimp or fish stock
8 oz fresh green beans, trimmed and cut into thirds
salt and pepper
2 1/2 lbs of firm, mild fish of choice, chopped and/or shrimp, peeled & deveined--tails removed 

To Serve: 
Garlicky Rouille (recipe below)
Garlic Toasts 

Heat the olive oil in a large, heavy soup pot over medium heat and add the onions, leeks, carrot, celery and fennel and saute for about 10 minutes-stirring occasionally to make sure nothing is sticking. Add the garlic and tomato paste and sauté for another minute, then add the thyme sprigs, bay leaves and saffron threads, and continue sautéing for another minute or two. 

Add the potatoes and the stock and bring to a boil. Reduce stew to a simmer and cook about 10 minutes--until the potatoes start to become tender. Add the green beans and cook another 10 minutes until beans and potatoes are tender. Remove bay leaves and thyme sprig stems. Taste stew and add salt and pepper as desired. 

Bring soup back up to just a boil, add the fish and shrimp and cook about 4-5 minutes until fish and shrimp are opaque and just cooked through. Taste and adjust seasoning as needed.

Serve stew in warmed bowls, topped with garlic toasts and a healthy spoonful of the garlicky rouille as desired. Enjoy!

Note: There is raw egg yolk in this rouille, so I used very fresh, local eggs. (It does make the soup even more special so definitely do it if you can get your hands on good eggs.) If you don't want to use raw eggs, omit egg yolks and olive oil and replace with 1 cup of good mayonnaise. 
 
Garlicky Rouille
By Deb, Kahakai Kitchen, adapted from Diana Henry
(Makes about 1 cup of Rouille)  
 
3 large elephant garlic cloves, *roasted until soft & caramelized & garlic pulp squeezed out of paper skins
3 egg yolks
4 tsp tomato paste
2/3 cup olive oil
1/4 tsp smoked paprika
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
lemon juice to taste
salt and pepper to taste
 
In a small mixing bowl, add the roasted garlic paste, egg yolks and tomato paste and mix together well. Add the oil, very slowly, just a bit at a time while continuously beating with a fork or hand mixer on low. Mixture should thicken and emulsify--don't add the next bit of oil until the previous oil is incorporated fully and the mixture has thickened.
 
Add the paprika, cayenne, lemon juice salt and pepper to taste, adjusting the seasoning to your liking. 

(*Slow Cooker Caramelized Elephant Garlic: It was humid out and I didn't want to bother with the oven, so I used the slow cooker. I chopped the clove in half, horizontally and placed it on a large piece of aluminum foil (I used 1 head per piece of foil). I drizzled exposed part of the cloves with olive oil and sprinkled with a bit of salt and pepper and added a few thyme sprigs. I closed up the foil into packets and placed in the slow cooker. I cooked it on low for 7 hours--until garlic was brown, soft and easily squeezed from the skins.)

 
Notes/Results: OK, this stew is really delicious and well worth the extra effort and steps of making the rouille. The garlic is present but does not overpower and the rouille adds flavor and a creamy texture as it melts into the soup. Roasting the elephant garlic makes it sweeter and more mellow and keeps the rouille from being too pungent. For the toasts, I just brushed the cut baguette with olive oil and toasted it in a grill pan until lightly crisped and browned, then rubbed it lightly with the cut side of a garlic clove. The whole recipe made me happy and made the most of the wonderful garlic we were given. 

About the Garject: I used the Dreamfarm Garject to crush the garlic for the stew and I have been using it for pressing garlic since receiving it. It puts my flimsy old garlic press to shame (probably why I never use that one!) as it is heavy, solid and essentially cleans itself with almost no effort with it's eject button. No peeling cloves or trying to scrub it out afterward. Bliss! It definitely has become a new favorite gadget! (You can see it in action here.)

Many thanks to Camilla for organizing us and to Dreamfarm for the Garject and Melissa's Produce for all of the garlic.

Visit the following blogs and bloggers to see the garlic dishes they created:

A Day in the Life on the Farm

A Kitchen Hoor's Adventures

Café Terra

Culinary Adventures with Camilla

Famished Fish, Finicky Shark

Kahakai Kitchen

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The Event Sponsors

You can find Dreamfarm: on the web, on Facebook, on Twitter, and on Pinterest.

You can find Melissa's: on the web, on Facebook, on Twitter, on Pinterest, and on Instagram

*Disclosure: Bloggers received complimentary items from Dreamfarm for the purpose of review and complimentary ingredients from Melissa's Produce for the purpose of recipe development. Dreamfarm also provided prizes for the rafflecopter free of charge. Comments are 100% accurate and 100% our own. We have received no additional compensation for these posts.

The Garject is an amazing tool and there is an opportunity for six readers to win one for themselves: Enter here!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Now we have some good friends in the Souper Sundays kitchen who shared some delicious dishes last week--so let's have a look!

Ali of Fix Me a Little Lunch made Vegetarian Asparagus Soup and said, "This might be the best tasting recipe I’ve ever made.  I did make my own veggie stock this go around, and highly recommend you do the same. I’ve been gathering mushroom stems, asparagus bits, onion peels, and leftover celery leaves and stems. I throw it all in a freezer bag in the freezer and then make stock once I have a full bag.  The stock gives this soup a really rich flavor.  I also used a leek.  So – it’s a very simple soup: veggie stock, asparagus, a leek, a few chives and some salt."

Judee of Gluten Free A-Z Blog shared Roasted Tomato Carrot Soup and said, "My Roasted tomato carrot soup is perfect. With just 3 major ingredients, it is rich in color, nutrients, and flavor. It takes about 5 minutes to prep the vegetables, 25 minutes to roast them, and 3 minutes to blend the roasted veggies with some vegetable broth. Of course this soup is naturally gluten free as are all of my recipes."

Mahalo to Ali and Judee for joining in this week! 

Souper Sundays is back with a new format of a picture link each week where anyone interested can post their soups, salads, or sandwiches any time during the week and I post a recap of the entries the following week.)

(If you aren't familiar with Souper Sundays, you can read about of the origins of it here. 

If you would like to join in Souper (Soup, Salad, and Sammie) Sundays, I would love to have you! Here's how...

To join in this week's linkup with your soup, salad or sandwich:

• Link up your soup (stew, chili, soupy curries, etc. are fine), salad, or sandwich dish, (preferably one from the current week or month--but we'll take older posts too) on the picture link below and leave a comment on this post so I am sure not to miss you.

On your entry post (on your blog):

• please mention Souper (Soup, Salad & Sammies) Sundays at Kahakai Kitchen and link back to this post.
• you are welcome to add the Souper Sundays logo to your post and/or blog (optional).

An InLinkz Link-up

 
Have a Happy Easter and a happy, healthy week!
 

Pickled Turmeric Eggs

I seldom dye Easter eggs anymore--too much bother--but these Pickled Turmeric Eggs from Heidi Swanson are a fun and easy way to add some sunny color to your Easter or weekday egg snacks and egg-salad sandwiches.

Heidi says, "The turmeric swings some nutritional weight, and brings an electric yellow hue to the outside of each egg. The apple cider vinegar delivers a nice bite and tang to the situation, and also tightens up the texture of the egg. You have to give these a try!"

She also says that you can use them in all sorts of ways. "As a component in a quick lunch you can't go wrong, or to top off a Buddha bowl, or just as a stand-alone snack. You can eat them halved and topped with whatever you have on hand...  or ... grate them on a box grater for a vibrant shredded egg salad. You can also use the shredded version as a protein-boost on top of a green salad, or as the main event on an open-faced sandwich."

Pickled Turmeric Eggs
From Heidi Swanson via 101Cookbooks.com
(Makes 6 Eggs)

1 1/3 cup apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup water
2 Tbsp sugar
1 tsp fine grain salt
2 tsp ground turmeric
1/2 onion (or 4 shallots), thinly sliced
1 Tbsp whole peppercorns
6 hard-boiled eggs. peeled (your favorite method--I use this one)
Assorted toppings to serve (as desired): chopped walnuts, scallions, radish, cilantro of other herbs, the pickled onions, or whatever else you like.

Bring the apple cider vinegar, water, sugar, salt, and turmeric together in a small saucepan and bring to a simmer. Stir so the sugar dissolves and remove from the heat.

Place the onion, peppercorns and hard-boiled eggs into a glass quart jar. Pour the vinegar mixture over the eggs and tightly secure the lid. Gently rotaate the jar to shift the onions and peppercorns around.

Refrigerate until cold and for up to 10 days to 2 weeks.
 

Notes/Results: When I went to grab an onion for this recipe I had one shallot, a Maui sweet onion and a red onion and I picked the one in most need of being used--the red onion. Flavor-wise, it is fine and pickled up nicely but it did muddy the yellow color of the turmeric a bit--giving me a different hue than I think I would have gotten with the lighter shallot or yellow onion. Not a big deal. These eggs are fun--they have a nice bite from the vinegar that I like and are firmer than a regular hard-boiled egg. I think they could be addicting to a hard-boiled egg fan like me. So far, I have just eaten them as a snack. Using some of Heidi's topping suggestions and some of my own, I topped them with smoked sea salt, black pepper, chopped toasted walnuts, fresh cilantro, and some of the pickled onions. Tomorrow I am going to make an egg salad sandwich---I am thinking with some curry mayonnaise and naan bread. ;-) A fun and tasty kitchen experiment that I will happily make again.  
 
Linking up to I Heart Cooking Clubs where this week's theme is Eggs--our Monthly Featured Ingredient Challenge. You can see the egg dishes that everyone made from our current chef or any of our previously featured chefs by checking out the picture links--here. 

Happy Aloha Friday!

 

The Book Tour Stops Here: A Review of "The Forbidden Garden" by Ellen Herrick, Served with a Recipe for Asparagus Risotto with Sorrel-Spinach Pesto

Happy Tuesday! On today's TLC Book Tour I am reviewing the lush and magical novel, The Forbidden Garden by Ellen Herrick. To make things even more delicious, I'm serving up today's book review with an original recipe for Asparagus Risotto with Sorrel-Spinach Pesto, inspired by my reading. 

Publisher's Blurb:

Every garden is a story, waiting to be told…
 
At the nursery she runs with her sisters on the New England coast, Sorrel Sparrow has honed her rare gift for nurturing plants and flowers. Now that reputation, and a stroke of good timing, lands Sorrel an unexpected opportunity: reviving a long-dormant Shakespearean garden on an English country estate.
 
Arriving at Kirkwood Hall, ancestral home of Sir Graham Kirkwood and his wife Stella, Sorrel is shocked by the desolate state of the walled garden. Generations have tried—and failed—to bring it back to glory. Sorrel senses heartbreak and betrayal here, perhaps even enchantment. Intrigued by the house’s history—especially the haunting tapestries that grace its walls—and increasingly drawn to Stella’s enigmatic brother, Sorrel sets to work. And though she knows her true home is across the sea with her sisters, instinct tells her that the English garden’s destiny is entwined with her own, if she can only unravel its secrets…

Hardcover: 400 pages
Publisher: William Morrow (April 4, 2017)

My Review: 

"Hiraeth: a homesickness for a home to which you cannot return, a home which maybe never was: the nostalgia, the yearning, the grief for the lost places of your past."

The Forbidden Garden had me with the above epigraph. I have always believed the old adage, "you can't go home again"--at least not expecting it to be the same home that you left. Sorrell Sparrow hasn't left home quite yet when we meet her at the beginning of the book, but with some traumatic events that have occurred at the Sparrow family home and nursery in New England and her sisters both finding love, she hasn't felt at home lately. This makes the letter she receives from Sir Graham Kirkwood, offering her a professional opportunity to spend six weeks resurrecting the Shakespearean garden on the Kirkwood estate outside of London an opportunity to find her wings and she sets off on an adventure. It turns out that the garden is a disaster, there are dark secrets being kept at the manor along with a potential curse--but there is also a new group of friends, a potential love interest, and perhaps more than a little magic in the works.   

The Forbidden Garden is a lovely book from the beautiful garden descriptions (it's strange since I don't have any kind of green thumb but gardens and novels with gardens always fascinate me) to all of the detailed food descriptions, making it a book I can easily curl up and get lost in. Ellen Herrick has a way of describing things that had me smelling the sweet peas and lavender and tasting the delicious bounty of fruits and vegetables in my mind. Not a book to read on an empty stomach! I took over three pages of food notes, so I am putting it on my foodie fiction shelf. The magical realism is woven into the story well--both the garden's magic and the magical gifts that Sorrel and her sisters seem to have. I like books where the magic is there but not too the point where it is too unbelievable. Sorrel is a likable character, as are the supporting characters--the Kirkwoods and their friends and family--even when they are not behaving at their best. My only real disappointment is that although I knew that Herrick had a previous book, The Sparrow Sisters, I for some reason didn't pay attention enough to realize that this book picks up where that one leaves off. It's a pet peeve of mine to read things out of order so I usually avoid it--but it's my own fault. I actually have The Sparrow Sisters downloaded on my Kindle to read but The Forbidden Garden was a bit late to arrive and by the time I figured out that reading the first book before The Forbidden Garden would make me happier, I didn't have the time. There is enough background given by the author that you have the gist of what happened to the sisters in the previous book, but that kind of bummed me out as now I know the outcome before I read that one. Anyway, all of my bookish OCD issues and need for order aside, it's a wonderful story that I recommend if you like stories set in the English country side, mysterious gardens, delicious food, and a little magic and mystery thrown in--I would just make sure to read The Sparrow Sisters first.

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Author Notes: Ellen Herrick was a publishing professional in New York City until she and her husband moved to London for a brief stint; they returned nearly twenty years later with three children (her own, it must be said). She now divides her time between Cambridge, Massachusetts, and a small town on Cape Cod very much like Granite Point.
 
Find out more about Ellen at her website and connect with her on Facebook and Twitter.



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Food Inspiration:

There is really no end to the food inspiration in this book--all lovingly and deliciously described. Since I took three pages of notes to use in deciding on a book-inspired dish, I will just share some of the highlights rather than recount it all. There were mentions of both the Sparrow sister's bounty and all of the food produced on the Kirkland estate, including: all manner of fruits and vegetables like early stalks of hardy green and white asparagus, pears, cherries and apples for Nettie Sparrow's tarts, honeycomb and damson plum jam, fields of strawberries and edible flowers, beds of tomato, green leaf lettuce, spinach, and arugula, a basket of root vegetables to roast under a chicken, wonderful butter, cream and cheeses from the Kirkland's goats, and home-baked breads. There was a dinner including a bowl of steaming, lemony artichokes to be dipped in butter, a lunch of bread, Camembert, leftover lamb with garlic and rosemary, spicy arugula, green apples and caramel shortbread, a delectable shepherd's pie, a take-away dinner of butter chicken, balti, dahl, and naan, a basket of sugar snap peas, a Citron Pressé with fresh lavender, assorted pastries and éclairs, raspberry clafouti, Coq au vin with white wine instead of red, and an outdoor celebratory lunch of bowls of strawberries, frosty buckets of champagne, iced platters of salmon and dill, sliced cold flank steak, "a salad composed of all the kitchen garden's earth-bound magic," and a tiered cake stand with "scores of macarons--pistachio, chocolate, raspberry and the more exotic lavender and vanilla, thyme and honey, rose and tea, each topped with the corresponding herb or flower," zucchini blossoms stuffed with mozzarella and salty anchovies, and Croque Madame sandwiches.

Recipe Inspiration: 

Rather than a specific dish in the book, I took my inspiration from Sorrel herself, along with some of the green garden bounty mentioned in the book. My local grocery has been carrying bags of locally-grown sorrel lately and that keeps tempting me to cook with this herb and it's lemony, sour-ish flavor. There were several mentions of asparagus--one of my favorite vegetables, and the perfect way to welcome spring. I have been craving risotto lately and thought it would be fun to make an asparagus risotto and add some pesto made from sorrel. I decided to add spinach to the pesto for extra nutrients and to mellow out the sorrel's flavor just a bit. It turned out to be perfectly lovely and I think it captures the essence of this book.

Asparagus Risotto with Sorrel-Spinach Pesto
By Deb, Kahakai Kitchen
(Serves 4)

6 cups of good, well-seasoned vegetable of chicken stock
2 Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
2 shallots, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
2 cups aborio rice
1/2 cup dry white wine
1 bunch asparagus, trimmed and spears cut into thirds (about 2-inch lengths)
1/2 cup Sorrel-Spinach Pesto (recipe below), or to taste
1/3 cup freshly-grated Parmesan + extra to serve
salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Heat broth in a saucepan, bringing it to a simmer and keep it at a low simmer. 

Meanwhile, heat the olive oil over medium heat in a large, heavy-bottomed pot or saucepan. Add the shallots and a pinch of salt and cook gently until the shallots start to get tender (about 3-4 minutes.) Add the garlic and the aborio rice and stir so that the oil coats the rice grains. Once the rice begins to crackle, add the wine and stir until it is absorbed and no longer visible.

Begin to add the simmering stock, a ladle (about 1/2 cup or so) at a time. Watch your heat to ensure the stock bubbles, but not too quickly and stir until it is just about absorbed. Add the next ladle of stock and repeat the process, adding each ladle and stirring (often--so it doesn't stick to the bottom of the pan) until the rice is almost dry.  

After about 10-12 minutes, add the asparagus pieces and continue to add stock and stir for another 10 to 15 minutes--until asparagus is tender crisp and rice is cooked through but not mushy. Once it has reached that consistency, add another ladle of stock to the rice and stir in the pesto. Allow the rice to mostly absorb the liquid, then remove the pan from the heat and stir in the Parmesan. The risotto should be creamy, so stir in a bit more stock if it isn't. Taste for seasoning--if your stock is well-seasoned it shouldn't need much salt, but add if needed and add freshly ground black pepper to taste. 

Serve as soon as possible in shallow bowls, along with extra Parmesan cheese to garnish. Enjoy!

Pesto Note: This makes more pesto than you need so you can reduce the recipe or store in an airtight container in the fridge (for a few days) or the freezer (up to six months) with a thin layer of olive oil over the top of the pesto. 

Sorrel-Spinach Pesto
By Deb, Kahakai Kitchen
(Makes About 2-ish cups of Pesto)

2 cups loosely-packed sorrel leaves, chopped
2 cups loosely-packed spinach leaves, chopped
1/2 cup chopped walnuts (or nut of choice)
2 Tbsp lemon juice + zest of 1 lemon
about 1/2 cup olive oil, more or less as needed
1/3 cup shredded fresh parmesan cheese
salt and pepper to taste

Put sorrel leaves, spinach, walnuts, lemon juice and zest and about 1/2 the olive oil into a food processor and process until blended but still a bit coarse. Add parmesan and salt and pepper and process until smooth, drizzling in the remaining olive oil (add more if needed) until the pesto is mostly smooth and creamy. Taste and add more salt, pepper, or lemon juice as needed. 

Notes/Results: This made such a yummy risotto--creamy, fresh and green and with a wonderful flavor--rich but bright from the lemony sorrel. I believe that you can pesto any herb and/or herb and greens combination and it is fun to experiment with different combinations. If you wanted to make this dish vegan, you could leave out the cheese and add a bit more of the nuts to give it a similar texture and quality. If you have nut allergies, you could replace the walnuts with sunflower or pumpkin seeds. You could sub in another green for the spinach and if you can't find sorrel, you could just use spinach or kale with some arugula and lemon juice. You could also sub in a different veggie like beans, peas, artichoke hearts in place of the asparagus. So many options! I however remain very happy with this one and intend on eating up my leftovers (maybe an egg on top?) and using the extra pesto (I can never make just a little bit of pesto!) ;-) on eggs, avocado toast and pasta. I would happily make this again. 

This book is so food filled that I am linking it up with Foodie Reads 2017 as my third entry. You can check out the April Foodies Read linkup, hosted by Heather at Based on a True Story, to see what everyone is reading this month.   

I'm also linking this post up to the Weekend Cooking event at Beth Fish Reads, a weekly event that is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share. For more information, see the welcome post.

 

Note: A review copy of the "The Forbidden Garden" was provided to me by the publisher, Harper Collins, and TLC Book Tours. I was not compensated for this review and as always, my thoughts and opinions are my own.

You can see the stops for the rest of this TLC Book Tour and what other reviewers thought about the book here.