Lancaster Farm Fresh #2

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

This is our second farmshare from Lancaster Farm Fresh, and below is the list Amy Crystle sent us to say what’s in it and who grew it:

1 lb Bloomsdale Spinach grown by Organic Willow Acres

1 pint strawberries grown by Green Valley Organics

2 bunches red radishes grown by Misty Meadow Acres

1 head Romaine lettuce grown by Riverview Organics

1 bunch scallions grown by Farmdale Organics

1 8oz pkg Cremini mushrooms grown by Mother Earth Organics

1 6oz pkg Portabella mushrooms grown by Mother Earth Organics

2 heads butterhead lettuce grown by Goshen View Organics

Of course, this is a two-box week, so double that!  M washed, steamed, and froze one pound of spinach.  It’s strange to feel that we’re just emerging from winter eating, and here we are, freezing food for next February. 

Spinach was one of the foods I thought we could stand more of in the freezer next year, so we’ll put up both pounds of it.  We still have fresh spinach from last week’s share, so we get to eat it, too!  The strawberries were AMAZING, and I ate them after a dinner of New Jersey asparagus and salad from the box.  The zing of the radishes was still on my tongue, and it mixed in beautiful and interesting ways with the sweet tartness of the strawbs.

Ahoy!  The season begins!

A quick jaunt through Headhouse Square

Monday, May 12, 2008

Over the weekend I accidentally ended up at the Headhouse Square farmer’s market with two friends.  For a Spring market, the selection wasn’t bad at all!  Some rhubarb, tons of salad greens of all varieties, bok choy, radishes, spinach...and herb and vegetable plants.  Tons of them!  So if you’re looking for herb plants, head over next weekend - I picked up some super healthy-looking parsley, dill, rosemary, and tarragon from one of the vendors.  Yoder Heirlooms, in particular, had gorgeous looking produce. 

Aside from produce, the market had at least two vendors of locally made bread, as well as cakes and quick breads, jam, honey, artisan sausage and pepperoni, and cheese.  I saw a sign for boneless duck, and noticed two other meat vendors.  There were lots of great eggs available, too.

The real star, though, was asparagus.  Quite a few vendors had really gorgeous asparagus, and from what I’ve been hearing the asparagus crop is stellar this year and extra early.  Last night I made asparagus risotto with the bunch I picked up yesterday at Headhouse Square market - it was delicious!

I really like asparagus, and am always disappointed by the crappy, tasteless commercially grown stuff available in the Winter, so my plan is to buy at least a dozen bunches or so while it’s in season and preserve it for later...in a few different ways.

My favorite method is freezing - it’s the preservation method that saves the most nutrients.  Trim the asparagus ends, sort by thickness, and blanch them in boiling water - 2 minutes for thin spears, 3 minutes for medium, and 5 minutes for thick ones.  And then give them an ice bath, let them dry, and freeze them.  They can be frozen for eight or nine months.

Asparagus can also be canned in a pressure canner.  The texture does suffer a bit, so I usually don’t can them.  However, I do like the look of nice, canned asparagus spears.  Blanch them for about three minutes after you’ve trimmed the ends, and pack them into canning jars while the asparagus is still hot.  Add 1/2 to 1 tsp of salt and boiling water, leaving about 1 inch of headspace.  Close up your jars and process at 10 pounds of pressure for 25-30 minutes.

I also plan on making some asparagus ravioli for a rainy day. 
Freshly made ravioli freezes nicely - just don’t make huge and overstuff ravioli.  Arrange them on a layer of wax paper on a cookie sheet covered in corn meal, freeze them, and then pack them into freezer bags.  They can go right from the freezer into some boiling water when you’re ready to cook them.

The air up there

I was looking through my most recent copy of Bon Appetit and found a recipe for Grits, Cheese, and Onion Souffle.  I had all the ingredients to make it in my kitchen.  But more importantly, every single one of the ingredients in my kitchen is local, with the exception of salt.  How could I resist what is obviously kismet?

I set about chopping the onion, leeks, and green onions I recently picked up at Fair Food Farmstand.  The grits were an early Winter purchase from Kauffman’s at Reading Terminal.  The milk and eggs are from Martindale’s Market.  The butter is some that I made a few weeks ago from some cream, also from Fair Food. And the cheese is from Oak Shade Farm.  Even the salt isn’t from too, too far away: Maine.

Souffle can be tricky.  I don’t make them often, but I can offer some tips:

1. Bring egg whites to room temperature before beating them.  You’ll get maximum volume out of your souffle that way.
2. Beat egg whites until they just begin to produce peaks.  Do not over-beat the eggs or they will get dry...which means your souffle will be dry.
3. When folding the beaten whites into your souffle mix, fold as gently as possible and as little as possible.  Yes, you want to make sure your whites are incorporated, but don’t worry about getting it perfect.

This souffle turned out fairly good.  I think I could have let the egg whites warm to room temp a little longer before beating them to get a little more air into the souffle - although 20 minutes after they came out of the oven, the souffle did collapse, which is a good sign.  It makes a nice breakfast dish, sort of high falutin’ scrambled eggs.  And, as you can see, I did not have appropriate souffle pans in the house, so my coffee mugs had to stand in.

Farmers’-Market Saturday

Sunday, May 11, 2008

When I got home from yesterday’s farmers’ market with a bunch of asparagus, I decided to try a version of the asparagus quiche that I’ve been seeing around the internet.  Mine contains spring onions and spring garlic as well as asparagus, and local yogurt instead of milk and cheese. 

Other foods (aside from the asparagus and spring garlic) available at the Clark Park market included rhubarb, kale, chard, dandelion greens, spinach, various lettuces and other salad greens, storage crops such as onions, potatoes, carrots, and cabbage, some jerusalem artichokes, mushrooms...and the usual assortment of meats, dairy products, baked goods, and chocolate.  The fresh flower stand is back, too, as is the booth of flowers and herbs to plant.  It’s really feeling like spring!

A Little Something In Advance

Saturday, May 10, 2008

Truthfully, I am not a very good meal-planner.  The moment I realize that I want chicken for dinner, I remember it’s still in the freezer.  Or, when I decide I want bolognese, it is going to be a couple of hours before dinner.  If these decisions occur on a weekend afternoon, so be it, but when they come at the end of a workday, it’s not nearly so leisurely and pleasant. 

As a solution, I am slowly training myself to some advance preparation.  I am always wondering what professional cooks (like my hero, Marc Vetri) do in a restaurant kitchen to prepare excellent dishes so quickly and consistently.  After reading Anthony Bourdain’s Les Halle Cookbook, I started to understand how much professionals do in advance.  While I am obviously not a professional, some of those concepts can still apply to an amateur’s home kitchen.  In this case, it’s caramelized onions. 

It started one night when I was making Nigella Lawson’s Lamb Ragu with buttermilk mashed potatoes (or mash, as she might say).  The recipe calls for store-bought onion confit (it is from her Nigella Express Cookbook, after all), but that’s not something we would ever buy.  Thus, before I do anything else, I have to make caramelized onions.  Instead of taking thirty minutes, it takes nearly an hour.  One of these days, it occurred to me that I could make the caramelized onions days in advance, store them in the fridge, and then just pull a few out when I need them.

So, what follows is my version of the Metropolitan Bakery’s caramelized onions.  They would use balsamic vinegar where I use wine, but the concept is still the same.  The key, I think, to caramelized onions is patience. It takes time to soften and sweeten, but it’s worth the wait.  The onions can compliment pasta sauces (particularly sauces with few ingredients and are not tomato-based), fill an omelette, or top off a thin-crust pizza.

Caramelized Onions

2 large yellow onions, sliced into quarter-inch think half-rounds
1/4 cup red wine
1 tablespoon butter
2 tablespoons olive oil
Pinch of salt
Pinch of sugar
(Note:  The measurements of the fat are my approximations, so use your judgment.  Also, you could use any combination of butter and olive oil you want - from all butter to no butter.)

1.  Bring a saute pan to medium heat and add the butter.  When it’s melted, add the olive oil and swirl together.
2.  Add the onions and stir to coat.  Allow them to soften at this heat (five to eight minutes), stirring occasionally.
3.  Add salt and sugar, stir, cover, and turn the heat to low.  Cook until complete soft and browned (twenty to twenty-five minutes).
4.  Uncover (typically there will so moisture in the pan at this point, which is fine - it’ll cook off).  Turn the heat to medium-high, add the wine, and stir.  Stir frequently as the moisture and the red wine cook off.  Once most of it is evaporated (the onions should be wet, but you should not see any liquid at the bottom of the pan), take off the heat.  Store in the refrigerator for up to one week.

Eating the front lawn

Thursday, May 08, 2008

Over the weekend I was spinning yarn in the afternoon, and my husband asked for my help outside.  “I went a little crazy,” he said “and I need your help cleaning up.”

Nothing could have prepared me for he did: half of our front lawn was completely bare.  He ripped up everything.

We do not have a traditional front lawn, all flat with a lovely expanse of green grass.  Rather, we have a steep front yard covered in ivy and other ground cover.  It often looks messy and sort of overgrown.  There’s a 6 feet by 5 feet section to the left of our front steps, and a 15 feet by 5 feet section to the right of our front steps.  My husband decimated the smaller section.

As we threw the detritus into lawn bags, we talked about what to do to the plot.  My husband wanted to put in some nice, flowering ground cover.  Vinca perhaps.  Or maybe Phlox.  The more I think about it, though, this might be the perfect time to introduce some edible ground cover.  It makes perfect sense - I’ve been trying to convert more and more of our lawn into garden space.

And as it turns out, there are a lot of options available.

Perennial herbs are readily available - oregano, chives, mint, thyme, bay, lavender, lemongrass, rosemary, just to name a few.  And there are also edible ground covers to choose from.  Lingonberry is viable option.  This low growing, spreading, evergreen ground cover produces edible berries in late Summer.  Cranberries are another interesting option.  Cranberries are a low-growing, spreading ground cover that, New Jersey being the cranberry capital, does very well in our area...and a bog is unnecessary.

Alternatively, lowbush blueberries are another option.  Lowbush blueberry bushes, also known as Maine blueberries, only get about a foot high at maximum.  They are also native to Pennsylvania and tend to spread like crazy.

Coincidentally, I recently discovered three local nurseries that specialize in native plants: Edge of the Woods, Red Bud, and Yellow Springs.  All three are a rich source of native edible landscaping!.

What are your suggestions for plants to include in an edible landscape?

To bee or not to bee

Wednesday, May 07, 2008

We’ve been concerned about bee populations for a while now, since the minute the reports of colony collapses began to be reported.  Those of us who garden truly understand the benefit of bees, and by now I think most of us appreciate the impact of bees on our food sources.  It’s said that Einstein predicted the end of mankind within four years without bees.

A report out yesterday indicates that bee health in commercial colonies has declined even since last year.

A survey of bee health released Tuesday revealed a grim picture, with 36.1 percent of the nation’s commercially managed hives lost since last year.

Last year’s survey commissioned by the Apiary Inspectors of America found losses of about 32 percent.

As beekeepers travel with their hives this spring to pollinate crops around the country, it’s clear the insects are buckling under the weight of new diseases, pesticide drift and old enemies like the parasitic varroa mite, said Dennis vanEngelsdorp, president of the group.

This is the second year the association has measured colony deaths across the country. This means there aren’t enough numbers to show a trend, but clearly bees are dying at unsustainable levels and the situation is not improving, said vanEngelsdorp, also a bee expert with the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture.

Pennsylvania has committed an additional $20,400 into Colony Collapse Disorder research at Penn State, bringing the total funds dedicated to investigating CCD to $86,000.  That doesn’t seem like nearly enough money to me to investigate something that could impact us all so radically.

Just last year Pennsylvania apple growers, as well as fruit growers throughout the region, had trouble getting enough bees to pollinate their acreage.  The cost of renting commercial bees increased by 60%.  With the greater decline, rental prices will likely increase again, and farmers will be forced to pass on the extra costs to consumers.

So what can you and I do?  No one really knows exactly what’s killing off the bees, but we can support wild bee habitats.  Honeybees are not the only good pollinators - bumblebees and Mason bees are also prized for pollination.  To make your yard or patio bee-friendly, grow plants that have plenty of nectar and pollen.  Feed the bees!  Avoid pesticides and other harsh chemicals.  And be sure to give bees a place to live.  You can purchase bee habitats, but you can just as easily build your own.

Spring supper

A lovely spring supper with new potatoes, salmon on a bed of local spinach, and New Jersey asparagus.  M and I have been sick, and sad that we haven’t cooked as much local stuff lately, so this asparagus was a treat.  (I’ll be posting soon about what’s left in our freezer, Emily!)

We got our first CSA box on Monday, which was a joyful occasion.  We’ve eaten some of the mushrooms, Asian greens, scallions, lettuce, and spinach.  Left is a bag of baby spring greens and a couple of things I’m forgetting.  I ate all the radishes standing over the sink as I washed them (M’s not a big fan), which was a zingy, wet, crisp delight!

Pantry Confessional

The tomatoes are gone. The frozen peaches are long gone. Even the carnival acorn squash in this photo are gone- unceremoniously roasted in early March. I know I’m not the only hoarder in the Farm to Philly community, and could you blame us? Other Philadelphians are sipping margaritas on Sunday afternoons in July while we’re sweating over a canning bath. We soldier on like an army of urban, modern-day Laura Ingalls Wilders: oven drying tomatoes, freezing blueberries on sheet trays, and putting up preserves for what sometimes feels like the whole neighborhood. In the spirit of this kind of down and dirty local food heroism- especially since we’ve got so much interest in One Local Summer!- I’m confessing the local foods that have somehow managed to escape my snacking, baking, party-throwing maw.

1 quart bag grated zucchini, frozen
at least a gallon of sour cherries*
2 quarts black raspberries, frozen (a birthday present for my Mom that I’ve been sneaking into for smoothies)
1 pint concord grape puree, frozen
1 dozen jalapenos, frozen
6 pints blueberry jam
5 pints strawberry jam

*which I stupidly froze in one giant plastic container after I nearly had a nervous breakdown pitting them with a paperclip. I treated myself to an OXO cherry-pitter at Foster’s this very week.

Time to ‘fess up, people. What’s in your freezer?

Spring Salad

This beauty has got to be one of my favorite spring meals which, like a tomato salad with basil in August, is a natural fit to spring produce in the Delaware Valley. It has become something of a weekly ritual for Lindsey and I to pick up produce at the Saturday Clark Park Market, followed by a lunch salad paying homage to whatever season we’re in. This one, while firmly rooted in the optimistic green of Spring, keeps the not-so-distant winter in sight with the rich underpinnings of smoky bacon and tangy shallot.

Spring Salad with Asparagus, Bacon and Hard-Cooked Egg
-serves two as a meal, four as an accompaniment

two good handfuls of lettuce mix, mesclun, or young spinach
one shallot, thinly sliced
one pound asparagus, tough ends snapped off
1/2 pound smoked bacon, sliced
4 eggs
salad dressing- spicy, mustardy vinaigrette is great with this rich salad

1. Begin by laying strips of bacon on a rimmed baking sheet. Place bacon in a cold oven and turn on to 350ºF*. Check on your bacon periodically as you prepare your eggs and wash your greens. It is ready to come out when it has little white bubbles on top. Drain bacon slices on paper towels or torn up paper bags.
2. Submerge eggs in water in a small saucepan. Place pan over high heat. Just as water begins to boil, turn off heat and cover pan. Time ten minutes and rinse in cold water to stop cooking.
3. While you wait for your eggs and bacon to cook, wash your salad greens. Fill your salad spinner or a large bowl with cool water and swish the greens around gently to allow any grit to settle to the bottom of the bowl. Drain by pulling handfuls of greens into the basket of your spinner (or into a clean pillowcase). Dump out water (look at all that grit!) and either spin dry, or take your pillowcase outside and swing gently overhead to fling water from the greens. Set aside however many greens your would like for this salad and store the rest in an airtight container in the fridge.
4. Rinse your asparagus and snap off tough stem ends that have a purple or white appearance.
5. Once your bacon is cooked and happily draining away, pour off your expertly rendered bacon fat into a jar for later use. Spread asparagus on the same baking sheet and give it a shake to distribute the residual bacon grease. Pop them back into the oven to roast for 8-10 minutes.
6. Peel and thinly slice your shallot and peel your now-cooled hard-cooked eggs.
7. Remove asparagus from oven and allow to cool slightly on the pan as you finish readying your ingredients.
8. Customize each bowl of greens with a sprinkle of shallot, several stalks of asparagus, crumbled bacon and egg.
*Starting the bacon in a cold oven allows the bacon fat to render instead of sear and you’ll be able to use it as a nice [local] cooking fat later.

Book Festival: Ellie Krieger

Tuesday, May 06, 2008

For those of you interested in low-fat cooking and natural foods, don’t miss Food Network celebu-chef Ellie Krieger‘s appearance at the upcoming Philadelphia Book Festival! Krieger will talk at noon on May 17 at the Skyline Salon.

Healthy eating shouldn’t hurt, argues Food Network star and registered dietician Ellie Krieger. A proponent of good, fresh food prepared simply but deliciously, Krieger eschews the use of supposed “healthy” non-fat food substitutes, because when the fat goes out, the additives go in. The 200 recipes collected in The Food You Crave celebrate natural foods–including butter!–in moderate amounts as the keystone of a healthy lifestyle.

The Philadelphia Book Festival is a free event that runs the weekend of May 17 and May 18.  In addition to a long list of author readings, a Book Fair is held with more than 70 literary exhibitors.

One Local Summer - now with buttons!

Monday, May 05, 2008

Wow!  The response to One Local Summer has been amazing!  From Friday to Sunday, 36 people signed up.  Add that to the 20 people who signed up prior to that and we’ve got the makings of an exciting OLS!  There are still three weeks until the deadline for signing up - it’s impossible to guess how many participants we’ll have this year!

Over the weekend I got busy and made a couple of buttons for participants to take.  There’s on the left hand corner of this post, and the other two will appear at the bottom of the post.

Thanks to everyone who volunteered to coordinate a region.  We definitely have enough for the six regions, but we can always use more volunteers in case a region is too big for a single person to coordinate!  One Local Summer is very much a volunteer-driven effort and we appreciate your willingness to help out!

Please note: the deadline to sign up for One Local Summer is Sunday, May 25.

Breakfast of Champions

Dear French Toast,

I love you.  I know I didn’t always, but now I do.  The line of crispiness around your edges, the squashy eggy goodness of your middle, your teamwork with local blueberries (frozen from a pick-your-own place in 2007) and local syrup.  I made your bread, and the phenomenal eggs are from a local farm for Winter Shares.  You are cozy and cheery and you made my day.

Love,
Eliza

Let them eat cake

Saturday, May 03, 2008

Last Saturday I was waiting in line to buy asparagus from Daryl Rineer at the Clark Park Farmer’s Market. Making it’s shocking debut as the only red in a sea of spring greens, the rhubarb was a popular item on that particular morning. Daryl was weighing out handfuls of it for two little boys in spangled superhero capes. Apparently, a pie was going to grace someone’s dinner table on that particular weekend. They boys handed Daryl their cash and cackled maniacally as they made off with their take, “We have so much RHUBARB!” I smiled at one of my fellow line-waiters and wondered whether I could have identified rhubarb at the age of eight or nine.

The only way I can think to describe springtime is as the ultimate annual relief, a reward for a long winter of chapped lips and turtlenecks. Feeling the warm sunshine and the easy air, and seeing the return of fresh things to the markets is enough to make those among us who have outgrown our sequined capes heft a sigh and breathe easier. Fickle Springtime is also an ideal season for baking. The days are warm but the early hours still call for a pair of socks and a twilight beckons a sweater. Whenever I see a recipe for oven-roasted anything in July or August I can’t help but wonder who these cooks are that they can bear to have a 400 degree oven anywhere near them with insects and air-conditioning units humming outside. Aside from the occasional pie - because what would summer be without pie?- I believe that oven usage should be reserved for the other seasons, which is where this coffee cake comes in.

Please excuse this yellow, slightly blurred photo of rhubarb on cake batter. This rushed shot does not do the finished coffee cake justice so I will refer you instead to Deb’s lovely photos of Melissa Clark’s recipe. My excuse for posting this shoddy photo is one of logistics: by the time I thought to snap a shot of the finished product it had already been devoured as breakfast, snack and dessert. 

Cowtipper cheese from Calkins Creamery

Thursday, May 01, 2008

Recently, the Fair Food Farmstand in Reading Terminal Market started carrying cheese from Calkins Creamery.  Calkins Creamery is in Honesdale, which is a bit outside the 100 mile radius that many of us use to count as ‘local’.  That said, I’m not considering this a cheat - it’s a farm worth supporting.  The Bryant family has been farming in Wayne County for 125 years.  The current Bryant farming family spent some time in California learning about artisan cheese before returning, and now produce cheese using hormone-free raw milk from their pampered herd of Holstein cows.

You know what they say: happy cows make happy cheese.  Or something like that.  It’s no joke.  I picked up a piece of the Cowtipper cheese the other day and can’t say enough good things about it.

Cowtipper is Calkins’ version of a Gouda-style cheese.  It’s soaked in Nevada Pale Ale for 48 hours, encased in wax, and then aged for sixty days or more.  I’m pretty sure I must have looked really silly eating the cheese - before eating each slice I felt compelled to take a good long whiff.  Because of the beer the cheese smells amazing.  And it tastes good, too.  It definitely has a Gouda-esque way about it.

I’m not as crazy about Calkins’ 4 Dog Dill, a Havarti-style cheese flavored with dill.  The cheese is tasty and all, but I really never got any of the dill flavor.

There are many more Calkins Creamery cheeses to be tried, and they all look really interesting.  But the Cowtipper is my early favorite!