Duck duck goose

Saturday, June 21, 2008

Last weekend when I stopped by Headhouse Square market, I picked up a lovely duck breast from Griggstown Quail.  I’m always a little hesitant to cook duck at home.  I’ve cooked it a few times and it’s always very good, but I’m a little out of my element and just not very confident about it.  This time around I decided to follow the instructions for pan-roasting a duck breast at Cookthink.

I served the duck with cherry sauce, using fresh cherries I picked up from Linvilla.  Also included in the meal: roasted cipollini onions and sauted garlic scapes.  I rarely make cipollini onions, but when I saw them at the farmer’s market I couldn’t resist picking them up.  They’re so cute!

Roasted Cipollini Onions

One handful of cipollini onions
2 sprigs of rosemary
1/2 c. red wine
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 Tbsp honey

Preheat oven to 475 degrees. Boil a saucepan full of water and drop in onions; boil for 30 seconds.  Drain, cool, and peel onions.  Arrange in a single layer in a roasting pan and top with rosemary sprigs.  Whisk together the remaining ingredients and pour over onions.  Roast for 30 minutes, flipping onions halfway through.

Strain cooking liquid into a saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for three minutes - you should get a slightly thickened sauce for the onions.

Where it all came from:
duck, Griggstown Quail Farm, 56 miles
apple cider, Linvilla - 10 miles
red wine, Chaddsford winery - 20 miles
cherries, Linvilla - 10 miles
thyme, my garden - 0 miles
cipollini onions, Culton Organics - 86 miles
rosemary, my garden - 0 miles
honey, Bee Natural - 59 miles
garlic scapes, my garden - 0 miles
butter, homemade from Dutch Way Dairy cream - 100 miles

not local: olive oil, salt and pepper

Easy peasy stir fry

Friday, June 20, 2008

I’m happy to report that the concept of eating local and vegan is difficult can be put to rest with this recipe:

Bok Choy, Snow Pea, Spring Onion and Seitan Stir Fry

1 package Ray’s Seitan
1 head bok choy
1/3 pound snow peas
4 - 5 spring onions, sliced
2 tablespoons oil
1+ teaspoon red pepper flakes (I used about two teaspoons)
1/2 cup water mixed with 1/2 tablespoon Bragg’s (or replace Bragg’s with soy sauce or tamari, or use 1/2 cup stock)

Heat one tablespoon of oil in a skillet over medium heat. Using scissors, cut seitan to bite-sized chunks into the pan and stir. Liquid from the seitan will drip into the pan as you cut, which is just fine. Once all the seitan is added, stir and increase heat to medium-high. Brown seitan, stirring every few minutes, until edges crisp, about ten minutes. Set aside.

Cut the bok choy stems into roughly one-inch pieces; slice leaves into strips and and put aside. Trim or pull the little “hats” of the snow peas. Heat remaining oil in large skillet over medium heat. Add the bok choy stems, snow peas, onions and red pepper flakes and cook, increasing heat to medium-high and stirring occasionally, until the bok choy loses its crunch, about five minutes. Add the bok choy greens and 1/2 cup water and Bagg’s, and mix well. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the liquid evaporates and the stems become very tender, about ten minutes. Add a little more liquid if necessary.

Add seitan to veggies and mix well, cooking until seitan heats through, about a minute.

Feel free to substitute the veggies with others that you have on hand or that are in season.  Kale, collards, chard, arugula for the bok choy, and carrots, tomatoes and snap peas for the snow peas will all work.  Get crazy.  See what you have in the fridge, calculate the cook time and substitute away! 

Naked salad

With the large varieties of lettuce everyone has been receiving in their CSA boxes recently (myself included), it gets hard to make salads interesting or even remotely appealing (see Eliza’s break up letter to lettuce for proof of how bad it’s getting around here!).

The other day I was staring glumly at a head of lettuce, wondering how I could face yet another salad.  It occurred to me that maybe it was all about the dressing.  I have a garden full of fresh herbs and enough olive oil to...well, I have a lot of it.  What kind of dressing could I make?  Apparently, the question is more like what kind of dressing couldn’t I make.

I decided to go with a multi-herb vinaigrette with Dijon mustard.

¼ cup of olive oil
2 tablespoons of red wine vinegar
1.5 tablespoon of finely chopped herbs
1 teaspoon of whole grain Dijon mustard
salt and pepper

Whisk it all together (or, in my case, pack into a recycled jar and shake) until it’s all combined.

There are, apparently, about twelve billion varieties (give or take) of easily made salad dressings.  Here are a few:

• creamy parmesan vinaigrette
• balsamic vinaigrette
• Basil and garlic vinaigrette
• carrot ginger vinaigrette
• green goddess dressing
• bleu cheese dressing
• cucumber dill dressing

Round is good

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Last weekend I picked up three small round zucchini from Culton Organics at Headhouse Square market.  It was kind of silly.  I mean, what do you do with three golf ball-sized zucchini?  Well, maybe not that silly: it’s just my husband and I.  Three of them actually makes a perfect side dish size.

Because of their pleasing shape, one of the only things to do with round zucchini is to hollow them out and stuff them.  Before stuffing, though, you have to boil the zucchini for about three minutes and then blanch.  I made risotto last week using the last of last Fall’s butternut squash and some kale from the CSA share (the only non-local part of the risotto was the arborio rice and white wine) and had a little left, so I stuffed the squash with spoonfuls of risotto.  And then the stuffed zucchini got baked for about seven or eight minutes, as my honey-glazed pork cutlets from Country Time Farm finished baking.

Along with that, I served up an onion and swiss chard saute.  The onion came from Landisdale Farm, as did the chard (through my CSA share this week).

While it’s cheating just a little to count this as a One Local Summer meal (on account of the non-local wine and arborio rice), I think I will anyway.  It’s pretty darn close!

The details:
round zucchini, Culton Organics
butternut squash, Lancaster Farm Fresh
kale, Landisdale Farm - 100 miles
butter, homemade from Dutch Way Dairy cream - 100 miles
onions, Landisdale Farm - 100 miles
chicken stock, homemade from local carcass - 50 miles
parmesan cheese, Hendricks Farm - 39 miles
swiss chard, Landisdale Farm - 100 miles
pork cutlet, Country Time Farm - 81 miles
honey, Bee Natural - 59 miles

not local: salt and pepper, arborio rice, white wine

Two Verbs

Saturday, June 14, 2008

In Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking, Marcella Hazan explains the origins of the word pesto, “Genoese cooks insist that if it isn’t made in a mortar with a pestle, it isn’t pesto…the word comes from the verb pestare, which means to pound or to grind, as in a mortar.” As I was flipping through Essentials… recently, I was reminded that pesto is not a recipe so much as a method - though I suspect Marcella would disagree (she insists that the purpose of pesto is to exhibit Genoese basil).  Thus, we have the first verb of our title: pestare. 

The second verb - from English, thankfully - is improvise, as I have been (re)reading Sally Schneider’s The Improvisational Cook.  Schneider’s premise is that improvisational cooking stems from taking recipes as starting points and then moving beyond them.  She takes a basic recipe, explains its inner workings, and then provides variations of and uses for it (obviously useful for cooking local, seasonal food).  Naturally, I began wondering how I could improvise with pestare. 

Using my typical pesto recipe to create a general formula, we get the following:  2 1/4 c. of herbs, 1/2 c. cheese, 3 tbsp. nuts, aromatic, salt, and a fat to emulsify.  This formula then frees us to do all sorts of variations:

Herbs (mint, chives, marjoram, fennel, basil, lemon balm, parsley)
Cheese (aged hard cheese and young semi-soft cheese)
Nuts (walnuts, pine nuts, hazelnuts, cashews, pecans)
Aromatics (garlic, garlic scapes, green onions, red onions, cippolini)
Salt (sea salt, kosher salt, herb salt)
Fat (I’m still sticking with olive oil and butter here)

A couple of notes:

1) I’ve found that some semi-soft cheese adds a nice, mellow note (not to mention texture) to the pesto.  Originally, I would use something like pecorino toscano or fiore sardo.  However, a local raw milk farmer’s cheese works well.
2) Depending on what type of nuts you use, you may want to toast them first.  If I’m using walnuts or pine nuts, I won’t, as I find the toasted flavor predominates.  However, I will toast cashews or pecans. 

Thus far, my improvisations have been dictated by what we find at the Headhouse Square Market and what comes in our Red Earth Farm CSA herb share. The uses (a condimento for pasta, meat, fish, poultry, or bruschetta) are as equally diverse. 

Dear John Lettuce…

Friday, June 13, 2008

Dear Lettuce,

It’s over.  I’m sorry, but you are overwhelming me, crowding me.  I need my fridge space.  I’m not sure I love you anymore.  I’m not sure if I ever loved you.  I know it sounds wrong, but I am passing you on to my mother, who will make you into soup.  Frankly, I don’t even like you in soup (because I don’t like my veggies pureed), but as everyone I know enjoys it, I will include the recipe below.  I’m sorry this letter is so brutal, but our spring romance had to end.  Don’t call.

Eliza

Spring Soup of Lettuce and Peas
8 servings

6 large lettuce leaves
3 cups fresh or frozen green peas
3-4 sprigs fresh mint or 1 tsp dried mint
1/3 cup sliced green onion
2 cans chicken or veggie broth (13 3/4 oz cans)
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
1 cup heavy cream (optional)
mint leaves or green onions (garnish)

1.) Line a large saucepan or Dutch oven with lettuce leaves.  Add peas, mint, onion, broth.  Bring to boil.  Lower heat and cover, simmer until peas are tender.
2.) Puree one half at a time in an electric blender.  Return soup to saucepan; stir in salt and sugar.  Bring to a boil again.  Gradually stir in cream.  Serve hot in mugs or soup bowls.  Garnish with mint or chopped green onions.  Can be served chilled.

CSA Report: Red Earth Farm

The second CSA share of the season was a selection I was able to choose myself. This week, from the items available, I chose one bunch of swiss chard, a bunch of lacinato kale, Fuyo Shumi (baby pak choi), a bunch of beets and two quarts of shelling peas. (I love fresh peas.) From the buying club I ordered two blocks of cheese- Oak Shade Jack, and Oak shade Cheddar and Pequea Valley included a sample of their lemon yogurt.

The toddler was sick last week so of course I came down with what he had this week. Three days of fever seriously hindered my ability to cook so I still have last week’s pak choi, radishes and green onions, as well as some of the lettuce. The green onions will be used with the peas (recipe to follow) and the pak choi I’ll stir fry with dinner tonight but I don’t know what to do with the radishes. I don’t particularly enjoy radishes. I know some people enjoy snacking on them and they make pretty rosettes in crudités, but I’ve never seen (or tasted) the appeal. My husband doesn’t particularly like them either so any suggestions for how to prepare them to make them more appealing would be appreciated.

Now for the recipe. I found this recipe last year when I was looking for a way to prepare fresh peas I picked up at the farmer’s market. The America’s Test Kitchen cookbook told me that frozen peas were generally better than fresh and easier to prepare. I found that difficult to believe. After the shelling, how hard could it be? This recipe found at Food and Paper proved them wrong. Fresh peas are far superior to frozen. They still have crunch and barely resemble their mushy, frozen counterparts.

Peas with Green Onions, Basil and Parmesan

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 1/2 cups fresh shelled peas
2 green onions, white and light green parts, chopped into 1/4 inch pieces
a pinch of dried pepper flakes
1 teaspoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/4 cup basil leaves, torn into pieces
parmesan cheese, shaved with a vegetable peeler
coarse salt and fresh ground pepper

Have all of your ingredients ready when you start...everything comes together fast, and you don’t want to overcook your peas.

1. In a medium skillet, heat olive oil and pepper flakes over medium heat.
2. Add peas and cook, stirring, for about 2 minutes.
3. Add chopped green onions and cook, stirring, for an additional 2 minutes.
4. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Add lemon juice and basil. Remove from heat, and stir to combine.
5. Divide between two bowls. Top with shaved parmesan cheese, and serve.

Crazy from the heat

Monday, June 09, 2008

Every once in a while I get these ideas in my head about making pasta dishes from scratch, pasta and all.  Most of the time I get distracted by some shiny, glittery object and forget all about it.  But yesterday it was just too hot to do anything outside, and I was got all motivated - so I made swiss chard and ricotta cannelloni.  Just about the only step I skipped was making the ricotta cheese by hand.  And I was happy to let that go since I’ve been wanting to try the goat ricotta from Shellbark Farms that the Fair Food Farmstand is now selling.

If you’ve never made pasta at home, it can seem like a pretty big production.  In truth, it only added about 15 minutes to the total time it took to make the cannelloni.  I use my KitchenAid mixer with the dough hook to make the dough, which takes no time at all.  The real issue with making pasta is getting the right dough consistency.  I’ve found that many recipes don’t include enough liquids to fully integrate the amount of flour called for.  You don’t want the dough to be too dry, the kind of stuff you have to press together to make it work.  You want it to be stretchy, but not too soft.  If it’s too dry, you can add a little bit more olive oil, or another egg if you’re sure it’s not too much egg.  Today I used three cups of flour, a little over a Tablespoon of olive oil, and four eggs.  In the end, I needed to add another egg, but it was a very small egg - just perfect.  Then just let the dough rest for at least 30 minutes wrapped up in a kitchen towel or plastic wrap.

Rolling pasta really can be a big pain if you’re using a rolling pin, simply because it’s hard to get a consistent thickness.  Years ago my husband bought me a hand crank Atlas pasta maker, and it’s been the gift that keeps on giving.  KitchenAid makes a pasta attachment that does the same thing, but I can’t bring myself to retire the Atlas.  It’s such a workhorse!  I rolled the dough out and cut into sheets roughly 5” by 6”.

The filling is mix of that goat ricotta, one egg, sauteed onion and red scallion, and wilted down thickly chiffonaded swiss chard.  I made a quick bechamel sauce, put down a layer, and started stuffing the cannelloni.  They go seam side down in a baking pan with a little more bechamel over top, and bake it for 40 minutes at 350 degrees.  Perfection.  And, for all that I made my own pasta, pretty quick and easy.

What really makes me happy is that I can count this as a One Local Summer meal for this week: except for salt, pepper, and olive oil, it’s all local.  No, really!

pasta
flour, Daisy Flour - 60 miles
eggs, Natural Acres - 100 miles

filling
goat ricotta - Shellbark Hollow Farm - 19 miles
onion, Landisdale Farm - 100 miles
red scallion, Landisdale Farm - 100 miles
swiss chard, Paradise Organics - 50 miles
egg, Natural Acres - 100 miles

sauce
milk, Kingfisher Diary - 99 miles
flour, Daisy Flour - 60 miles
butter, homemade from Dutch Way Dairy cream - 100 miles

Playing chicken

Thursday, June 05, 2008

I recently finished Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.  Admittedly, I was super jealous about all the poultry they were able to raise on their land.  Out here in Aldan (that’s Delco), we are not zoned for farm animals so I have to live vicariously through others.  My mother laughs at me - she spent her formative years trying to avoid egg duty on the farm: she and the chickens had a hate-hate relationship.

Even if I weren’t interested in supporting the local foodshed, I’d probably still go out of my way to purchase locally grown, pastured poultry.  The difference in taste is astounding.  The texture is way, way better than commercially produced chicken, not to mention true pastured chickens are less fatty and have higher nutritional value - like cows with cheese, happy chickens make happy...chicken meat.

The Fair Food Farmstand carries chicken parts from Shady Acres Farm in Elizabethtown, PA - they’re a small family farm who raises pastured poultry.  Also cool is that they supplement their poultry flock’s diet with locally grown grains.  Not surprisingly, a package of the chicken legs came home with me the other day, and featured in my second One Local Summer meal of the week: onion stuffed chicken legs, mashed potatoes, and asparagus..

Chicken legs, Shady Acres Farm - 99 miles
Onion, Landisdale Farm - 100 miles
Garlic, the last of my preserved garlic from last year - 0 miles
Rosemary, my garden - 0 miles
Butter, homemade from Dutch Way Dairy cream - 100 miles
Cream, Dutch Way Dairy - 100 miles
Chicken stock, homemade from a local chicken carcass - 0 miles (sort of, maybe 50-60 miles if you count the chicken)
Potatoes, Green Meadow Farm - 50 miles
Asparagus, Rineer Family Farms - 69 miles

not local: salt and pepper

Here’s a recipe for the chicken (for two servings):

1/8 c. finely chopped onion
1 Tbsp melted butter
1 Tbsp fresh chopped rosemary
1 clove garlic, minced
2 chicken legs
1/2 c. chicken stock

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Mix onion, butter, rosemary, garlic.  Season with salt and pepper.

Carefully loosen the skin on the chicken leg.  Rub half the onion mixture under the skin and mound the other half over the skin.

Place chicken in a roasting dish.  Pour the chicken stock over the legs, being careful not to knock the onion off.

Roast for 50 minutes, basting every 10 or 15 minutes.

Yes, There Are Even Local Artichokes

Wednesday, June 04, 2008

In our house, we try very hard to maintain a food budget, and, for the most part, we succeed.  Yet, there are occasions that call for indulgence – a Friday night out to dinner after a long, hard week, or that weeklong holiday between Christmas and New Year’s.  We can safely add the reopening of the Headhouse and Passyunk and South Farmers’ Markets to that list.  In this lull between the end of Winter Harvest and the beginning of our CSA, we have wallowed in Rineer Farms’ strawberries, Livengood’s spinach, and Weaver’s Way herbs.

Unquestionably, our favorite indulgence this season has been artichokes from Culton Organics.  Good artichokes are rare enough even at Whole Foods, but locally grown artichokes were, for me, an unheard-of rarity.  Culton Organics alternates between the smaller artichokes and the larger, globe artichokes pictured here.  Not wishing to appear snobbish, we purchase whatever is offered. 

For the larger artichokes pictured here, we trimmed off the uppermost and outermost leaves and the stalk, stood them upright in a pot of water and olive oil, and braised them for an hour.  To eat them, we plucked each leaf and scraped the meat off the base.  (Once I had finished with all of the leaves, I even went so far as to cut out the chokes, and then gnaw on what remained of the base and stem - it was every bit as good.)

For the smaller artichokes, I used a recipe from my erstwhile, original hero Mario Batali (sorry, Mario, but Marc Vetri has surpassed you) that makes a wonderful condimento of artichokes, garlic, parseley and, of all things, sweet vermouth. 

I used to think of artichokes as nearly being too labor intensive to justify cooking at home (about some things, I am very lazy), but less so anymore.  I suspect much of it had to with the very foreignness of the artichokes and how rarely I prepared them.  With a little indulgence, that is changing. 

Something to do with all the greens

Tuesday, June 03, 2008

There are so many varieties of greens at the markets and in our shares these days, I thought I’d share one of my favorite (and most flexible) recipes for a mixed bunch of them. I’ve adapted this from Paula Wolfert’s Mediterranean Greens and Grains.

Leafy Greens, Garlic, Yogurt, and Red Pepper Swirls

3 C loosely packed mixed greens (in the photo are red mustard greens, arugula, and some leftover lettuces)
handful of mixed greens herbs (I used parsley, dill, and mint)
6 oz yogurt (I used Pequea Valley, so it was already thick; my suggestion is this or Greek/Greek style or already drained regular)
1 small clove garlic, crushed (start with this and let it sit a few hours before you decide to add more)
2 T olive oil
1/4 t dried oregano or a few leaves fresh, minced
generous pinch Aleppo pepper (a sweet paprika w/red pepper flakes will work, too)
pinch herbes de provence (if you have it)
salt to taste

Wash the greens and fresh herbs. Get a large pot of water boiling. Add the toughest greens first to the boiling water to soften them (the mustard went in for about 2 minutes), then the arugula, then the lettuce bits (these for about 30 seconds). Drain. Cool in cold water or, if your hands are diner server tough, plop the hot greens in a dishtowel and squeeze out as much liquid as possible. Finely chop them. Also chop the fresh herbs. Mix the herbs, greens, yogurt, and garlic together. Then heat the olive oil and add the oregano, herbes de provence, and pepper and swirl together until fragrant. Mix this with the greens mixture, salt to taste, and refrigerate. I eat this the way it is, or last night I slathered it on some crusty bread.

Enjoy! I highly recommend Paula Wolfert’s cookbooks—many of the spices are available at Bitar’s, or if you visit NYC, at Kalustyan’s.

chives, continued!

Saturday, May 31, 2008

This month has marked the beginning of my second summer managing farmers’ markets, and in fact this very week was my one-year anniversary of working for Farm to City.  It’s been rewarding and challenging in ways I couldn’t imagine before I had a job that I loved, but one of my favorite things about my job is that there are always new vegetables to discover!

One of my newest discoveries is chive blossoms.  I had never paid particular attention to chives themselves, but on the first Saturday of the Rittenhouse Square farmers’ market, I found myself unable to resist the light purple thistle-resembling blossoms at the tent of Crawford Organics (one of the partner farms in Paradise Organics, if that name is familiar to people).  I’d heard that people often put them in salads, and since buying that first little bag of chive blossoms, I’ve done that myself.  I slice off the stem end of the blossom, to let the blossom fall into individual petals so the taste isn’t overwhelming, and sprinkle it over the lettuces and other salad greens that are so plentiful at this point in the season.

But what I happened to do the first morning after I’d bought the blossoms—and what I think is so far my favorite, tastiest way to use them—was sauté a chopped blossom or two in butter, then scramble eggs in. 

Perhaps it’s an idea for tomorrow’s brunch. 

(I promise I was thinking about the entry all week, before seeing Nicole’s entry about chives in general!)

Roux the day

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Last week I bought a bunch of very pretty mustard greens from Willing Hands Farm at the Swarthmore Farmer’s Market.  I decided to make creamed mustard greens, something I love but rarely make.  As you can see from the photo, I served it with mashed potatoes and meatloaf (both 95% local).  You can also see that the mustard greens are a little more creamed than I would normally make - that’s because that nice big bunch of greens cooked down to barely two servings and I hate wasting good bechamel!

Speaking of bechamel - or white sauce, it’s come to my attention that very few people know how to make a good, basic bechamel.  My own mother didn’t even know what I was talking about (not to mention that she wrinkled up her nose at the mustard greens).  In the interest of making the world a better place, this is how you make a standard bechamel:

1. Melt 2 Tbsp of butter in a heavy saucepan over low - medium heat.
2. When the butter has just started to foam, add 2 Tbsp. of flour gradually while whisking.  Note: you have just made a classic roux.
3. Slowly pour in 1 cup of milk, continuing to whisk.
4. Throw in a pinch of grated nutmeg
5. Continue to cook (and whisk) until the sauce has thickened, maybe 15 minutes.  Do not let the sauce brown or stick to the bottom of the pan!

Your sauce should not be at all lumpy, but should be a nice thick-ish white sauce.

There is some disagreement about whether or not it is necessary to use scalded milk in the making of bechamel.  I say no - it is easy and effective enough to heat the milk after you combine it with the roux.

So what can you do with bechamel sauce?  It’s not what you can do with it, it’s what can’t you do with it.  If you’re a fan of the creamed spinach at Boston Market, combining bechamel sauce with lightly steamed spinach will give you a nice (better!) approximation of it.  I combined the bechamel I made last week with blanched mustard greens and then threw it in the oven at 350 degrees for 10 minutes to get some fantastic creamed mustard greens.  Bechamel is also the base for cream sauce, Sauce Mornay, and Sauce Aurore.  It’s great served on chicken or with eggs, or served over pasta.

Rhubarb compote

Monday, May 19, 2008

I have a couple of rhubarb plants in my garden.  I never know quite what to do with the harvest.  Sure, I like a good strawberry rhubarb pie as much as the next person, but I always wish I knew what else to use it for.  Earlier this week there was a pork tenderloin staring at me from my fridge - after a little bit of research I discovered that rhubarb compote would make a good sauce for a nice fennel seed crusted tenderloin.  Sold!

Making fruit compote is super simple, no matter what fruit you use.  But making rhubarb compote is ridiculously easy: cut up about two pounds of rhubarb, combine it with a little over a cup of sugar and 1/3 cup of water, and bring it to a boil.  Stir until the sugar dissolves, reduce the heat to medium-low, and cook it down for 20 minutes.  Give it a stir every now and then.  The rhubarb sort of falls apart and you’ve got yourself a nice compote.

It was tasty with the tenderloin (served with a nice side of sauted locally-grown Lacinato kale and garlic), but I’m also thinking I might try to make fruit leather with it in my new dehydrator.  I’m not sure how that will work, but it’s worth a try!  It also has me thinking that I could freeze some of it and use it to mix in with applesauce.  It can be spooned over ice cream or cake, too, or maybe even used as a cake filling.  I might even can a bit of it to have on hand later in the season.

The air up there

Monday, May 12, 2008

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.