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.

The day after

It was sort of leftover day the other day.  I had a couple chicken legs leftover from the Shady Acres Farm pack I bought last week, and I had a few more bunches of Hakurei turnips in the fridge, both of which had to be used up quick.  What wasn’t a leftover were the garlic scapes I cut out of my garden about 20 minutes before dinner!

I cooked up the turnips in my usual way (I swear that one day I will try a different turnip recipe for these, but they’re so good!!), and baked the chicken legs with a pat of homemade butter under the skin and basted with buckwheat honey.

The scapes were sauted in butter with the very last of the red bunching onions from my CSA share.  And they were delicious!

Honey, Bee Natural - 59 miles
Turnips, Gottschell Farm - 52 miles
Onion - Landisdale Farm - 100 miles
Chicken legs, Shady Acres Farm - 99 miles
Butter, homemade from Dutch Way Dairy cream - 100 miles

Not local: salt and pepper, oil

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.

Good things come in small packages

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

I can’t resist anything new or new to me.  When the Fair Food Farmstand sent out their weekly email saying they had Natural Acres “Pee Wee” pullet eggs, I had to have them.  Had to.  And at 75 cents per dozen, who wouldn’t want to give them a try?  I figured they’d be really tiny, but they were only a little smaller than regular eggs.

From the email....

These tiny vibrant eggs are laid by “pullets” (chickens less than a year old). As hens begin to mature into their egg laying capacity, they lay what some consider their most flavorful eggs. With the industrialized food trend toward jumbo eggs, these miniature treats are hard to find, but worth the effort and incredibly economical.

So were the eggs more flavorful than regular Natural Acres eggs?  I couldn’t say with any real expertise.  But they were most certainly just as yummy, and the yolks were nice and orange!  I used them to make an all local breakfast on Sunday morning - eggs cooked in homemade butter, mixed with a little bit of spinach and red bunching onions from the CSA share.

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

The great e-scape

Friday, June 06, 2008

The garlic patch is growing like crazy.  I grew four varieties of garlic this year - Georgian Crystal Purple, German Extra Hardy, Musik, and German Red.  I can barely imagine what is going on under the dirt right now, particularly the German Extra Hardy.  Some of the stalks are super thick, much thicker than any of the garlic I grew last year.

But there were no garlic scapes in sight.  I kept checking, week after week, wondering when I’d see some stalks.  This week has been kind of crazy and I didn’t have a chance to really check the patch out for a few days.  Lo and behold, it’s scape heaven in there! 

I know that some of the local farmer’s markets are just beginning to get garlic scapes into stock, and I’m awfully glad of it.  I’ll get a few dozen scapes from the garden, but that’s never enough.  I’d really like to put at least two servings up to eat in the Winter - I can’t imagine anything better than eating garlic scapes in February!

Even though garlic scapes are becoming better known and more popular, many people still don’t quite understand what they are.  A garlic scape is simply the flower stalk of hardneck garlic varieties.  They sort of have a texture like green beans, but they’re a fantastic garlicky flavor.  There’s all sorts of discussion about when one is supposed to harvest the scape.  Everyone agrees that the answer is “early”, but some say you should cut it before the scape starts to curl.  As you can plainly see, my scapes have already started to curl.  Aside from the good eating, harvesting the scape encourages garlic to put its energy into developing big fat bulbs, rather than growing a flower.  It’s a win-win.

I like eating garlic scapes simply sauteed in olive oil with garlic, but there are other options.  I hear they’re excellent grilled and in stir fries.  I found these interesting recipes for using up those scapes (as if I’d have a problem!):

Garlic scape vichyssoise
Garlic scape green curry
Garlic scape pesto
Garlic scape hummus

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. 

A fine way to start the Summer

Last night I made my first official One Local Summer meal.  It was not without its drama, of course.  Let it suffice to say that I love the people who run the Fair Food Farmstand, and thank them for doing me a massive favor yesterday.  Thank you!

Anyway....my first OLS meal of the challenge is walnut and mashed potato croquettes with catsup.  The recipe is from a book given to me last year on my birthday by a good friend and her husband, the title of which is Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone.  I am not a vegetarian, but the book has some very excellent recipes in it and is a good source of inspiration for me when I’ve got 12 tons of corn and no inspiration!  In this case, I had some black walnut meats from Green Meadow Farm that I was dying to use, and I’m always happy to use up some of the homemade catsup I canned last season.

I haven’t eaten something called a “croquette” since I was very young and my mother foisted store bought, frozen chicken croquettes with that nasty chicken gravy on us.  I’m pleased to say that the walnut and mashed potato croquettes were a whole other animal - very light and yummy.  Not surprisingly, my husband took one bite, made a face, and declared them awful - he does that with just about half the things I make.  And in this case, he heard “croquette” and expected them to be just like those gross frozen chicken croquettes of his youth (apparently, nearly everyone of our generation knows the horror of the frozen croquette) - and was sorely disappointed that they weren’t.  As you can tell, dinnertime is often a point of contention at our household.

So how did I do on keeping it local and following the rules of One Local Summer?  Pretty well…

Walnuts, Green Meadow Farm - 50 miles
Potatoes, Green Meadow Farm - 50 miles
Butter, homemade from Dutch Way Dairy cream - 100 miles
Cream, Dutch Way Dairy - 100 miles
Bread crumbs, made from Le Bus bread - 10 miles
Sage and rosemary, my garden - 0 miles
Eggs, Natural Acres - 100 miles
Onion, Landisdale Farm - 100 miles
Catsup, my garden - 0 miles

Not local: salt and pepper, oil for frying

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!)

Beware the chives

When Craig and I first moved into our house, which was about four or five years ago, one of the first things I planted in the garden were two chive plants.  Ever since, they have reliably over-Wintered and provided me with more chives than I know what to do with.  Really, what can be done with chives?  Oh, I know, lots of things.  But I never really use them for much other than sprinkling them over a baked potato or garnishing something every now and then.

This year I’m determined to try some new things with chives.  I don’t want to be the person who continually gives away big handfuls of chives to my friends and co-workers just because I don’t know what the heck to do with them!  No doubt my friends and co-workers will wonder where their chives are this year...but I will feel better for making better use of what comes out of my garden!

The first idea for chives involves pesto.  Nearly any herb can be made into pesto, so why not chives?  I found several varieties, one of which is a very classic version that simply substitutes chives for basil.  Another version combines chives with mint, basil, and red onion.  Yet another version combines chives and parsley.

If you make your own butter, you can make chive butter.  You can add chives to homemade mayonnaise.  Or make chive oil.

Whether cooking or baking, chives can go in just about anything.  Here are some recipes to try that involve chives:

• buttermilk biscuits with goat cheese and chives
• cheesy chive crisps
• chive bread with smoked salmon
• cheese and chives scones
• carrots with chive cream
• thyme, onion, and chive muffins
• chive vichyssoise
• camembert, chive, and apple scones

My chives are going crazy right now and there are lots of flowers - chive flowers are useful and edible, too!  Try chive blossom vinegar, or one of these interesting recipes: aspargus with sesame and chive blossom, fennel and chive blossom souffle, or chive blossom tabbouleh.

Sweet, sweet leather

Thursday, May 29, 2008

There’s a brand new dehydrator sitting in my kitchen - a Nesco American Harvest FD-61WHC Snackmaster Express Food Dehydrator All-In-One Kit with Jerky Gun.  I’ve been dying to try it out, so I bought a very non-local bag of cherries, pitted them, and soaked them in white wine and amaretto overnight, and then dried them.  And they turned out pretty well, I’m happy to say.

It was only this week that I was able to try my hand at drying something locally-grown: the rhubarb compote I made last week. 

The dehydrator came with two fruit leather trays.  I couldn’t quite imagine making my own fruit roll ups, but I assure you that it worked like a charm!  I just spread the compote out over the trays thinly, plugged in the dehydrator, and about ten hours later I had two massive sheets of super fresh-tasting rhubarb fruit leather.

Yes, ten hours.  I’m thinking that I will only use the dehydrator when it is loaded with stuff to dry - otherwise, I feel like I’m using too much energy just to dry a few things.

Still, I’m really excited that making fruit leather is so easy.  I’ll be overrun with strawberries in a few weeks - normally I just freeze bunches of them, but this year I’ll definitely puree a bunch and make fruit leather.

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.