Dark Days: Rabbit Pot Pie

Saturday, October 20, 2007

I put the garden to bed today.  Well, most of it.  The brussels sprouts are still out there growing.  It seemed crazy to tear up almost all the plants, though.  We’ve had an incredibly warm Autumn here in the Philly area and I had fresh buds on my tomatoes and lima beans, the herbs still looked good.  But I know what will happen if I don’t take the garden down now: it’ll go directly from 75 to 35 and I won’t want to get out in the garden.

The big highlight of the day was digging up the potatoes.  We have fairly heavy clay soil out here in my part of Delaware County, so I wasn’t sure if potatoes would grow for me without a lot of work.  Yes, I dug up the bed and amended it with all sorts of things.  All for naught, apparently: out of the 12 hills of potatoes I planted, we only got five potatoes.  Yes, really.  Five.  Weirdly, it was at least a sampling of all the varieties I planted. 

I was heartbroken over the sad, five potatoes, but it made me determined to use them well.  I started thinking about what else I pulled out of the garden today - lots of herbs and a few teeny little baby carrots.  I also had a single head of garlic left from my garden, and onions from the CSA share.  And a rabbit from a local source.  What else could I make but pot pie?  A Dark Days Challenge meal is born!

1 rabbit, cut into bite sized pieces
water
vinegar
salt and pepper
flour
1 red onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
3 carrots, diced
5 potatoes, diced
a bit of dill and basil, chopped
pizza crust (no, the crust wasn’t local - it was store bought)

Soak rabbit in equal parts of water and vinegar overnight.  Remove rabbit from water/vinegar mixture and dry. Season with salt and pepper to taste and roll in flour (I used Daisy Flour from Lancaster County).

In a large skillet, heat a little oil and brown the rabbit quickly on both sides.

Add enough water to cover the rabbit. Cover and simmer for 45 minutes.

Add the onions, garlic, carrots, and potatoes. Cover and simmer until carrots are tender.  Add in herbs.

Roll out pizza crust and press into a greased baking dish.  Bake for five minutes at 375 degrees.

Ladle the filling into the crust, and top with another layer of crust.

Cook at 375 degrees for about 30 minutes.

I know the idea of eating rabbit is unappealing to many people, but farm raised rabbit is really very mild and not in any way gamey.  It was tender and delicious, and the pot pie was fabulous!  It could only have been improved with a cooler night and a fire in the fireplace.

A peck of pickled… cucumbers!

Thursday, October 18, 2007

To supplement my garden and CSA tomatoes for canning, I bought a box of tomatoes from the Shoemaker’s road side stand.

A side note here, that the link will take you to the Shoemaker’s machine shop. The family has run their welding and machining business and lived on Leidy Road since the 1950’s. It’s been as long as I can remember that they’ve sold their garden crops out front. Out here in the ‘burbs, among all the McMansions and age-restricted townhome developments, there are occasional glimpses of realness that reflect the area’s agricultural, small town roots. The several front yard road side stands in town are probably my favorite of those reflections

While I was there, I couldn’t pass up a few delicious-looking cucumbers. I don’t usually see cukes so late in the season, and my mouth was watering at the thought of a crispy cucumber sandwich.

Shortly after, when my tomatoes and I headed over to my dad’s for canning, I was surprised with a bunch of local kirby cucumbers. Thanks pops, but yikes - what to do with them all? Naturally, pickles seemed out best option, though neither of us have preserved them before.

Thank goodness for the Pickle Preservation Society (seriously, who knew?!). They have several recipes on their site, and I copied the one we used below. We went with an easy, traditional kosher recipe that required no hot-packing, and also one that utilized local ingredients we had on hand. The recipe called for dill and garlic, which I received in my CSA share that week (though the dill was not flowering as the recipe recommends). Man, I just love it when things work out like that!

 

Kosher Pickles: The Right Way
From Mark Bittman, New York Times

1/2 cup kosher salt
1 cup boiling water
2 pounds small Kirby cucumbers, washed, and cut into halves or quarters
5 cloves or more garlic, peeled and smashed
1 large bunch dill, if desired, fresh and with flowers OR 2 tablespoons dried dill and 1 teaspoon dill seeds, OR a tablesoon of coriander seeds

1. In a large bowl*, combine the salt and boiling water; stir to dissolve the salt. Add a handful of ice cubes to cool down the mixture, then add all remaining ingredients.

2. Add cold water to cover. Use a plate slightly smaller than the diameter of the bowl and a small weight to hold the cucumbers under the water. Keep at room temperature.

3. Begin sampling the cucumbers after 2 hours if they are quartered, 4 hours if they are halved. In either case, it will probably take from 12 to 24 hours, or even 48 hours, for them to taste “pickly” enough to suit your taste. When they are, refrigerate them, still in the brine. The pickles will continue to forment as they sit, more quickly at room temperature, more slowly in the refrigerator.

Yield: About 30 pickle quarters.

*We went with pickling in one of those giant industrial-food-sized jars instead of bowls. We tried the bowls, the jar was just way easier to manage.

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These turned out quite garlicky, so next time we’d probably use only three or four cloves. I can totally see how people get into making their own “special recipe” pickles. With slight adjustments to so many different and easy-to-find ingredients (garlic, hot pepper, peppercorns, mustard seed, onion, celery, sugar), there are endless taste possibilities. This is definitely a project we’ll be doing again next season!

Comfort Food

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

I’ve been all about the comfort food lately, probably because it’s fall and even though it’s not all that cold outside when the temperature dips below 50 my 100+ year old house gets cold. And honestly, we’re a bit too cheap to turn on the heat when the days are still in the 70s. So comfort food it is, and most of it’s on the unhealthy side with lots of meat and cheese. But it’s still local!

My husband was thrilled that I’ve made Sloppy Joes with beef from Meadow Run farms (is that in the meat list on the sidebar?), and tomatoes and hot peppers from our garden. I think he may have actually pumped his fist in the air and shouted yes! when I served patty melts made with local beef, cheddar, and caramelized onions served on Le Bus bread with oven fries from local potatoes on the side. Getting away from the ground beef, I cooked a big sweet potato enchilada casserole with homemade enchilada sauce using all local veggies and cheese (though I did cheat with the black beans and tortillas) and a few days ago with homemade tomato sauce, local eggs,  freshly ground breadcrumbs from a day old loaf of local bread, basil from my garden and eggplant from Red Earth Farm, I made Eggplant Parmesan using an America’s Test Kitchen recipe.

The recipe is pretty similar to the ones I’ve used in the past, only it calls for baking the eggplant on preheated baking sheets rather than frying it, and dotting the top layer with sauce instead of drenching it so the eggplant stays crispy. I’ve made Eggplant Parmesan dozens of times before, but I’m definitely sticking to this recipe. A little bit of crunch goes a long way.

Eggplant Parmesan
from the America’s Test Kitchen Family Cookbook

2 globe eggplants sliced into 1/4 inch thick rounds
salt
1 cup flour
pepper
4 large eggs
4 cups plain dried breadcrumbs
3 oz Parmesan cheese grated
6 tablespoons vegetable oil
4 cups tomato sauce
2 cups shredded mozzarella
fresh basil leaves, torn

Toss the eggplant with 1 teaspoon of salt and let drain for 40 minutes. I take Lidia’s advice, and line the eggplant up the sides of the colander, place a heavy bowl over the eggplant, and weigh it down with a couple of cans of tomatoes.

Adjust the oven racks to the upper and lower middle positions, put a baking sheet on each rack and preheat the oven to 425. Combine the flour and 1 teaspoon of pepper in a large ziploc bag and shake to combine. Beat the eggs into a shallow dish. Combine the bread crumbs, 1 cup of Parmesan, 1/4 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper in another shallow dish.

Rinse the salt off the eggplant and pat dry with paper towels. When the eggplant is thoroughly dried, place a handful of slices in the ziploc bag and shake to cover with flour. Shake off excess flour, dip in the egg, then coat with breadcrumbs and let drain on a wire rack. Work in batches until all of the eggplant has been dredged in flour and breaded.

Remove the preheated baking sheets from the oven. Spread 3 tablespoons of oil over each sheet, tilting the sheet to coat evenly. Spread the breaded eggplant in a single layer over the hot sheets. Bake for 20 minutes, or until the first side is brown and crisp. Flip the slices over and return to the oven until the second side is browned, about 10 minutes more.

Spread a cup of the sauce over the bottom of a 9×13 inch baking dish. Put half of the eggplant over the sauce, overlapping. Cover the eggplant with a cup of sauce, a few torn basil leaves, and half of the mozzarella. Layer the remaining eggplant in the dish and dot with a cup of sauce leaving most of the eggplant exposed so it stays crisp. Sprinkle with 1/4 of Parmesan and the remaining Mozzarella.

Place the dish on the bottom oven rack and bake for about 15 minutes until the cheese is brown and bubbly. Remove from oven, top with the remaining basil leaves and let sit for 10 minutes. Pass the rest of the sauce and Parmesan around when you serve.

Wonton soup for the soul

Saturday, October 13, 2007

I’m not overly familiar with Asian vegetables like bok choi and joi choi.  I grew bok choi last year in the garden, but never got very creative with it.  In the past couple of weeks choi has shown up in the CSA share and it seemed like a good idea to try something a little different with it.  I came across a recipe for wonton soup and instantly decided to make it.  And, better yet, I was able to source the a lot of ingredients from local growers!

The recipe itself takes a lot of time to make.  Not active time, mind you.  But you’ll need eight hours, start to finish, if you choose to make it all in one day.  Stock can certainly be made on one day, and the wontons can be made in advance and frozen.  Don’t let the idea of an eight hour soup throw you - it’s easy to make and the end result is well worth the hour of active time this recipe calls for.

First off, you’ve got to make soup stock and this is what takes the longest.  Sure, you could use premade chicken stock but it wouldn’t have the depth of flavor in homemade stock.  Homemade stock is to ready made stock as Brie de Meaux is to Cheese Whiz, OK?  There’s just no comparison.  Gather the following:

2 lb country-style pork ribs
2 lb chicken, a combination of thighs, legs, and wings (picked up from Godshall’s Poultry at Reading Terminal Market)
3 heads of baby bok choi, coarsely chopped (from the CSA share)
4 scallions, coarsely chopped (found at the Fair Food Farmstand in RTM)
1 (2-inch) piece peeled fresh ginger, coarsely chopped
14 cups water (good old Philly tap water)

Throw it all in a giant soup pot and simmer the crap out of it for five hours.  Go knit or watch television or play with the dog or something.  Come back in five hours, pour the stock through a sieve to remove the solids (discard the solids), and refrigerate the stock for about two hours.

Unless you’re making the wontons in advance and freezing them, I recommend making the wontons about half an hour or so prior to the end of the stock refrigeration period.  The wontons will get a little sticky in places and dry out in others.  To make the wontons, you will need:

1/2 lb ground pork or turkey (turkey, from Harry Ochs in RTM)
1 large egg yolk (from Fair Food Farmstand)
2 scallions, finely chopped (from Fair Food Farmstand)
1 (1 1/2-inch) piece peeled fresh ginger, finely chopped
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon rice vinegar (not seasoned)
1/2 teaspoon Asian sesame oil
salt and pepper
About 30 wonton wrappers

Combine pork or turkey, yolk, scallions, ginger, soy sauce, vinegar, sesame oil, salt, and pepper in 1 direction with your hand until just combined (do not overwork, or filling will be tough).

Put 1 wonton wrapper on a work surface (keep remaining wrappers covered with plastic wrap). Spoon a teaspoon of filling in center of square, then brush water around edges. Lift 2 opposite corners together to form a triangle and enclose filling, pressing edges firmly around mound of filling to eliminate air pockets and seal. Moisten opposite corners of long side. Curl moistened corners toward each other, overlapping one on top of the other, and carefully press corners together to seal. Make more wontons in same manner.

When your wontons are all made, break out the chilled chicken stock.  Skim the fat off the top and bring to a simmer.  Grab another bunch of choi, maybe a pound or a pound and a half, and chop it all up into bite sized pieces.  Put the choi in the soup pot and simmer for four minutes.  Season with salt and pepper.  Add wontons and simmer three minutes.  Cut open a wonton to make sure the filling is cooked through and, if it is, serve!

The soup turned out delicious - a true comfort food!

 

If the shoe fits

Friday, October 12, 2007

I know this is very un-local eating of me, but it has never really occurred to me to make pumpkin pie from scratch.  Don’t get me wrong, I’ve made many a pumpkin pie…but only using canned pumpkin puree.  And there’s nothing wrong with it - pies made from the canned stuff taste just fine to me.  But since I’ve never tasted a pumpkin pie made from homemade pumpkin puree, how would I know the difference?

As luck would have it, the opportunity to find out has presented itself.  Last week there were two baby pie pumpkins in the CSA share, and this week there was one (grown by Green Acres Organics and Countryside Organics).  Pie pumpkins in hand, there was only one thing to do: roast them.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.  While the oven is preheating, cut the pumpkins in half and remove the pulp and seeds.  While you wouldn’t use a big jack-o-lantern type of pumpkin for a pie (they’re too watery), you can save the seeds out of pie pumpkins and roast them - so hang on to those seeds!  Place pumpkin halves cut side.down on a baking sheet, and roast them for about an hour.  Peel off the skin, puree in a food processor, and voila: pumpkin puree!  It’s all ready for the addition of sugar and spices for a pie.

My three baby pie pumpkins yielded about four or five cups of puree.

Busy bee!

Monday, October 08, 2007

You know that FedEx commercial?

“Worky work! Busy bee!”

God, that cracks me up

Are you a busy bee preserving some of this fantastic fall food? I’ve scheduled the last four weekends around dates with my Foodsaver and Ball jars. I’m sure there’s a joke somewhere in there.  Maybe something about “cold” versus “hot” dates? 

Anyway, so far I’ve preserved pumpkin, peppers, pears, peaches (what’s with the P theme?), butternut squash and tomatoes. Details to be forthcoming - as soon as I can slow down on all the worky work! This is the most food preservation I’ve done and I’m open to any tips, suggestions and/or recipes. Share ‘em, if you got ‘em!

You say ketchup, I saw catsup

Sunday, September 30, 2007

The table on my back patio was a sea of red as far as the eye could see.  Or, at least as much as the table would allow.  Tomatoes!  Tomatoes from my garden, tomatoes from the CSA share.  Too many tomatoes!

You know, maybe next year I’ll learn my lesson and plant a few less tomato plants.

I have made tomatoes in every conceivable way this year - sauce to salsa to dried tomatoes.  But I have not made catsup.  Until yesterday, that is.  Now I can say that I’m a catsup-making fool.

Nearly 12 pounds of tomatoes gave me two pints of ketchup.  It’s a good amount for our house - I barely eat catsup on anything, whereas my husband eats it pretty often.  After our current bottle of store bought catsup runs out, I think two pints of catsup should last us awhile.

Here’s how to make it:
4 pounds tomatoes
1 large onion, chopped
1 teaspoon ground cloves
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon allspice
1 cup vinegar

Peel tomatoes, then drop 2 or 3 tomatoes at a time into boiling water. Leave them in the water for a minute, or until the skins begin to split. Remove them to a bowl until they are cool enough to handle. Peel and chop the tomatoes, making sure to catch all the juices. Simmer tomatoes and onion in a heavy saucepan until tender, about 10 minutes.

Puree the tomato-onion mixture in a food processor and return to saucepan [if you really want that uber-smooth consistency, run the puree through a food mill before returning to the saucepan]. Add spices and vinegar and simmer on low heat, uncovered, for 2 hours, stirring frequently.

Spoon into jars and process in a water bath for 35 minutes.

For Those Short on Space

Thursday, September 27, 2007

Let’s face it, a lot of us in the city are operating in small kitchens that have limited shelf space and even more limited freezer space.  Canning and freezing fresh produce to use over the winter isn’t nearly as feasible under these conditions.  Still, you don’t want to be left out of the “eat local” revolution for six whole months until Mother Nature decides to dust off her chilly shawl.  Cooks in by-gone days solved a similar problem (their’s being more along the lines of “I have a fireplace and an ice box”) by drying much of their summer harvests.  Once vegetables are dry, they’ll keep for several months and can be used much as you would the fresh version once they’re reconstituted after a soak in hot water.  I’ll be trying my hand a various drying techniques over the next few weeks on www.straightfromthefarm.net.  Let’s start here with some corn since its season is winding down fast. 


DRIED CORN

Use fresh sweet corn, husked and silk removed with a brush.  Six ears will fill up one standard baking sheet and yield about 2 cups of dried corn.

Cut corn off the cob using a sharp knife and a shallow bowl or cutting board.  Be sure to cut as close the cob as you can to remove all the kernels and juice possible.  Line a baking sheet with foil and give it just a very light coat of nonstick spray.  Spread corn kernels out on the baking sheet into an even layer.

Turn oven onto 150 F and place tray on the middle rack.  The drying process will take several hours (up to 12, depending on the freshness and juiciness of your corn) so be sure to check on it every 2 hours or so, turning it and shaking the tray gently to loosen any kernels that are sticking together or to the tray.  You’ll begin to notice the kernels shrinking and eventually becoming much darker and hard.  When all the moisture appears to be out of the corn, remove the tray from the oven and allow to cool off completely.

By the way, if you don’t really feel like monitoring the stove for 12 hours straight, you can turn off the oven, letting the tray sit inside, for several hours and come back to it later.  Or, if you have an older gas stove with a large oven pilot light, you might not even have to turn the oven on - just leave the corn sit in there for a day or so to dry on its own.

When the dried corn is cool, place in a paper bag and hang in your kitchen to dry out any remaining moisture.  After about a week or so, transfer dried corn to a ziplock bag and store in your cupboards for use later this winter.

An Inadvertent Local Meal

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

I’ve been traveling the last couple of weeks, which means that I haven’t been able to get myself over to the Headhouse Square Farmers Market in at least three weeks.  The next few weeks don’t look much better either, as I’m going to be in Iowa this weekend (I’m hoping to get to eat some corn) and next weekend I’ve got a jumble of weddings, wedding celebrations and visits from my younger sister. 

But I thought I’d tell you about the inadvertent local meal I had a couple of weeks ago.  I do try to eat local, but I’m not perfect at it.  Most often at least one item in my meal is local, but rare is the day that every element comes from within spitting distance.  But one afternoon I was sitting down to a lunch of scrambled eggs, sliced tomato and steamed beans, when I realized that everything on my plate had been purchased directly from the farmer.  The eggs and tomato had been purchased at the Headhouse market and the beans were from the Tuesday morning Rittenhouse Square market.  The realization made the meal just that much more delicious. 

Herbalicious

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

My coworker-slash-friend, LM, surprised me with a bouquet of herbs from her garden this morning. Of course, they’ve totally livened up my office, both visually and nasally:

Spearmint, sage, tarragon, rosemary, thyme.  Can you help a sister out?  Any suggestions as to what to do with it all?  If I have to preserve some, which ones preserve the best?  Should I freeze or dry?  I don’t want to waste a single leaf

The beautiful Butternut

Sunday, September 23, 2007

Winter squash, like Butternut, Delicata, Sunshine, Spaghetti, and Kabocha, have been finding their way into our CSA shares and farmers market trips lately.  I’ve had lots of Butternut, in particular.  In the past couple of weeks, I’ve roasted at least three of them.

I do prefer Butternut roasted, no matter what I’m doing with it - it’s just easier to peel that way.  Peeling and chopping uncooked Butternut is hard work, and I like to take the easy way out whenever possible!  To roast a Winter squash, just preheat your oven to 400 degrees, cut the squash in half, scoop out the seeds, and roast (cut side down) for about 20 minutes or so.

Some of my Butternut was cubed and frozen.  Some of it was used immediately.  Like in this soup I made last week…

There’s nothing quite like soup to use up all your extra produce!  And temperatures were cool enough around here last week to actually make some soup.  The soup contains Butternut squash, onions, and swiss chard from my CSA share, tomatoes from my garden, and some homemade chicken stock I made last month from a local chicken.  I also used some non-local parmesan rinds to flavor the soup up a bit.  It was delicious!

Tonight for dinner, I made Butternut and mushroom bread pudding.  A lot of people are familiar with sweet bread puddings, but hardly anyone traffics in savory bread pudding.  It’s a lot like bread stuffing, and is a great way to use up whatever veggies you’ve got lying around the house.  In this case, there was a Butternut from last week’s CSA share, and some mushrooms from Mother Earth Mushrooms in West Grove.  In fact, everything I used for the bread pudding was local, except the parmesan cheese, salt, and pepper.

3 cups Butternut squash, roasted and cubed
1 c. sliced mushrooms
1 tsp olive oil
1 c. chopped onion
1 garlic clove, minced
2 c. milk
1 c. aged parmesan, shredded
salt and pepper
3 large eggs
2 large egg whites
9 c. day old bread, torn up into bite-sized pieces (I used Le Bus brioche)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Heat oil in a skillet over medium-high heat.  Saute onion, garlic, and mushrooms for about five minutes.  Remove from heat and cool slightly.

Combine 1/4 tsp salt, a pinch of pepper, milk, 1/2 c. cheese, eggs and whites; whisk lightly.  Stir in squash and onion mixture.  Add bread and stir gently to combine.  Let stand 10 minutes.  Spoon into a large baking dish coated with cooking spray or butter.  Sprinkle with remaining cheese.  Bake for 45 minutes.

This is some great comfort food and makes excellent leftovers!

Apple-tomatillo chutney

After my week of canning with my dad, Nicole asked for my recipe for apple-tomatillo chutney.  Since I’m sure a few other people would be interested, here it is.  (Please note that it’s an approximation of what we did this year.  It varies from year to year, but I have yet to encounter a version I didn’t like.)

2 qt processed* tomatillos
5 med apples, chopped & cored
1/2 c cider vinegar
1 c sugar
1 t each of mustard seeds
          cumin seeds
          coriander seeds
          fenugreek seeds
2 onions, diced
2 t cinnamon
2 t granulated garlic
1 c currants

Start by toasting the seeds and then cooking the onions to translucence.  Add the tomatillos and then the apples and the rest of the ingredients.  Cook until the apples have fallen apart, then jar and seal in a standard water bath.  I think this batch made two pints and six or eight half-pints. 

*processed=chopped and cooked enough so they won’t go bad if you leave them in the fridge a few extra days

Keeping it simple

Saturday, September 22, 2007

After my last attempt at an all-local meal proved frustrating, I decided not to overthink things the next time around. And I didn’t. I’ve made a number of all-local meals the past few weeks, from an almost entirely local brisket dinner for Rosh Hashanah to a quick spaghetti squash garlic and cheese bake. Last night I was in the mood for potatoes and and I knew my husband was dying to eat the sausage that came in our meat delivery the day before.  I have a habit of pairing sausage with tomato sauce and pasta which I never serve with potatoes but I decided to throw caution to the wind and do something different. I’m a mad woman, I know.

The result was Italian fennel and garlic sausage (Meadow Run Farm) with sauteed onions and multi-colored bell peppers(Red Earth Farm), roasted red potatoes with garlic (Red Earth) and rosemary(my garden), and steamed broccoli (Lancaster County). I picked up the broccoli at the farmer’s market because it was the first local broccoli I’ve seen since spring. My poor son has been deprived of broccoli, which he loves, all summer long. The only non-local ingredients were the olive oil, salt and pepper. 

We all got what we wanted. My husband must have eaten more than half a pound of sausage, my son ate almost all of the broccoli, and I couldn’t get enough of the potatoes and continued snacking on the leftovers as I cleaned the kitchen after dinner.

The recipe for the potatoes came from a cookbook by the editors of Cook’s Illustrated. Though their recipes aren’t the most imaginative or exotic they are always reliable. I’ve found their potato recipes have been superb. In the past when I’ve roasted potatoes tossed with garlic the garlic burns and doesn’t always stick to the potato. This recipe calls for tossing the hot potatoes with a garlic paste rather than cooking the potatoes and garlic together.  The potatoes come out crisp and garlicky (though I have to admit I was feeling lazy and cut the potatoes badly so they didn’t cook as evenly as I would have liked.)

Roasted Potatoes with Garlic and Rosemary
from The Best Vegetable Recipes

2 lbs red bliss or other low starch potatoes, scrubbed halved and cut into 3/4 inch wedges
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
salt and ground black pepper
2 garlic cloves
2 tablespoons chopped fresh rosemary

Adjust the oven rack to the middle position and preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Toss the potatoes with the olive oil in a medium bowl to coat; season generously with salt and pepper and toss again to blend.

Place the potatoes flesh-side down in a single layer on a shallow roasting pan. Cover tightly with aluminum foil and cook for 20 minutes.  While the potatoes are roasting mince the 2 medium garlic cloves. Sprinkle them with 1/8 teaspoon of salt and mash with the flat side of a chef’s knife blade until a paste forms. Transfer the garlic paste to a large bowl and set aside. Remove the foil from the potatoes and roast until the side of the potato touching the pan is crusty brown, about 15 minutes more. Remove the pan from the oven and with a metal spatula carefully turn the potatoes. (Press the spatula against the pan as it slides under the potatoes to protect the crusts.)  Return the pan to the oven and roast until the side now touching the pan is crusty golden brown, 7 minutes more. Sprinkle the potatoes with rosemary and cook another 3 minutes. Remove the potatoes from the pan with the metal spatula (again taking care not to rip the crusts) and transfer to the bowl with the garlic paste. Toss to distribute and serve warm.

Pickled carrots

Friday, September 21, 2007

I feel a little silly about waxing poetic about a bunch of carrots, but the carrots I picked up yesterday at the Fair Food Farmstand in Reading Terminal Market were absolutely gorgeous!  They were fat and bright orange and weirdly shaped and the greens were fresh and just lovely.  I’ll spare you the actual poetry, but they really were fabulous.  I had to have them!

And since putting food up for the Winter is the special focus of the September Eat Local Challenge, I could not resist making these little beauties (grown by Lancaster Farm Fresh) into pickles.

If you’re anything like me, anything other cucumber pickles is sort of scary.  For me, I should say ‘was scary’.  I’m not grossed out by other kinds of pickles anymore.  But I used to hear the word ‘pickled’ and think of my grandmother’s disgusting homemade bread and better pickles (sickeningly sweet) or the wretched pickled eggs my mother makes (just plain sickening).  And let’s not forget those nasty store-bought pickled beets!  Argh!  Just this Summer, though, I found out how good pickled vegetables can really be…and now I find I crave them.

The best thing about all this is that making pickled vegetables is a total snap, and some of the stuff I need can be found in my garden.  Dill and garlic, for instance.

1 lb. carrots, peeled and cut into small lengths
1/4 cup minced dill
3 large garlic cloves, sliced
pepper flakes
1/2 teaspoon peppercorns, crushed
1 1/2 teaspoons pickling salt
1 cup white wine vinegar
1 cup water
1/4 cup sugar

Blanch the carrots for 2 minutes in boiling water, then immerse them in cold water until they have cooled.

Pack the carrots and dill into a canning jar or two. In a saucepan, bring the remaining ingredients to a boil. Pour the liquid over the carrots. Cap the jar, and let it cool to room temperature.

Refrigerate the jar for 2 days or longer before eating the carrots. Refrigerated, they will keep for at least 2 months.

Alternatively, you can give these a water bath to seal.

This jar was made last night, and I tried a pickled carrot this morning - wonderful!!

Stir Fry, CSA Style

Thursday, September 20, 2007

I’ve been in a funk recently, and didn’t have much motivation to cook. As a result, I had lots of vegetables in the fridge, as the CSA shares keep coming in, funk or no. This evening, I decided to make a stir fry and use as many vegetables as I could. I don’t really have a recipe—it’s mostly improvised.

This stir fry has the following local vegetables: green beans, pimiento peppers, bok choy, napa cabbage, turnips, and garlic. It also has red pepper flakes, soy sauce, and shirataki, which are noodles made from a type of yam called konnyaku.

Served over rice, this turned out to be a good dinner. Perhaps it’ll be the spark to get me cooking again.