Green Pea and Pecorino Custard

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Green peas have been plentiful this rainy, early summer. Looking for a classy first-course recipe, I adapted the Green Peas and Parmesan Custard from Bittman’s How to Cook Everything Vegetarian to make it bit lighter, but still full of flavor. A good quality pecorino will make all the difference!

Green Pea and Pecorino Custard
serves 6

1 1/2 cups shelled fresh green peas
1 1/2 cups milk or rice milk
1/2 cup grated pecorino
3 local, organic eggs
2 Tbs. chopped fresh mint (from your garden, if you have it)
1/2 tsp. salt

1. Preheat the oven to 300F, and a kettle of water on the stove to boil. Combine the peas, pecorino and milk in a small food processor and pulse until the mixture is primarily smooth.

2. Place the eggs, mint and salt in a medium bowl and whisk until well combined. Slowly add the milk mixture while whisking to blend. Pour the mixture into 6 small ramekins (about 4 ounces each).

3. Place the ramekins in a baking pan and pour in the boiling water to surround the ramekins withing 1/2 inch of the ramekin tops. Bake until the custard is almost completely solid - 45 minutes to one hour. Cool slightly, and garnish with fresh peas and pecorino shavings. Can be served warm, cold, or at room temperature.

Spring Pea Soup Update!

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Yesterday I posted about my Keystone Farm CSA and put up a “spring pea soup” recipe from Alice Waters. Tonight I made the soup. I’m going to repost the recipe and provide a few notes in bold print about my experience in making the soup. This is a very delicately flavored soup. With the simplest of ingredients, the flavor is both subtle and complex. Creamy, but not heavy. The original recipe claims to serve 4-6. I can imagine getting 2 1/2 to 3 servings out of my batch - partly because I am eating very large bowls of this soup as an entree. It will stretch farther if you have an additional dish to serve.

Spring Pea Soup
from Alice Waters’ The Art of Simple Food

3 tbsp butter
1 large onion, sliced thin
2 tsp salt
5 cups water (Because I had fewer peas, I used 4 cups. In general I think max 4 and 1/2 cups should be used even with a full 3 cups.)
3 cups shelled sweet peas (ca 2 pounds) (I had about 2 and 1/2 cups of peas. These took FOREVER to shell, but it was worth it….)

Heat butter and over medium heat cook onion and salt, stirring often. When soft but not brown poor in water and bring to boil. When boiling add peas. Cook at simmer, stirring occasionally until tender, ca 5 minutes. Purée soup in blender (in batches) or carefully (very carefully and make sure to remove pot from hot burner) with immersion blender. Taste and adjust seasoning. Serve. OR: pour puréed soup into bowl and set over ice bath to preserve color (I would most likely pour into bowl and throw in freezer for 10 minutes, as I have no ice [I realize what a waste of electricity this would be and therefore filled the sink with cold tap water and called it an ice bath]). Stir frequently when reheating to prevent scorching. You can serve this soup hot or cold.

I think this soup would be really good cold, with just a tiny bit of yogurt or creme fraiche dolloped on top. I sprinkled some fresh parsley on top of mine, but other herbs could work too.

Enjoy!!

Keystone CSA Week 3

Sunday, June 21, 2009

I’m sure no one else has noticed that this has been an incredibly rainy spring. But it’s summer now, so let the sun shine!!
On yet another rainy Saturday, I picked up my half vegetarian share from Keystone Farm at Clark Park. I still have cheese from the last few weeks, so I skipped the cheese and got extra strawberries. Additionally, my share had lettuce, a zucchini, tomatoes, shelling peas, granola and half a dozen eggs. I still have a few peas from last week and a LOT of onions from the winter shares (oops! but they last forever, along with the garlic I’ve been collecting all winter). I think I am going to try to make a “spring pea soup” à la Alice Waters. I meant to make it today, but didn’t get around to it. I’ll post the recipe today, and I’ll report back when I actually make the soup!

Spring Pea Soup
from Alice Waters’ The Art of Simple Food

3 tbsp butter
1 large onion, sliced thin
2 tsp salt
5 cups water
3 cups shelled sweet peas (ca 2 pounds)

Heat butter and over medium heat cook onion and salt, stirring often. When soft but not brown poor in water and bring to boil. When boiling add peas. Cook at simmer, stirring occasionally until tender, ca 5 minutes. Purée soup in blender (in batches) or carefully with immersion blender. Taste and adjust seasoning. Serve. OR: pour puréed soup into bowl and set over ice bath to preserve color (I would most likely pour into bowl and throw in freezer for 10 minutes, as I have no ice). Stir frequently when reheating to prevent scorching. You can serve this soup hot or cold.

note: I doubt I have 3 full cups of shelled peas, so I will be dialing back the water when I make this.

Enjoy!!

Fourth Charlestown Farm Pickup

Friday, June 19, 2009

This week at Charlestown Farm, we got lots of greens again - mixed loose leaf lettuce, Asian greens, arugula, two heads of butter lettuce and some baby bok choy. We also took home more turnips, radishes, and garlic scrapes. We also picked a pint of strawberries. New for this week, the share featured beets. My husband and I aren’t really beet people, but we seem to be in the minority. There are many beet dishes that we’ve tried, and generally we like them just fine - the first time. It’s the leftovers that get us. However, I haven’t given up hope yet (and of course we can always make pickled and canned beets for my mother-in-law). These are small baby beets, and I’m planning on roasting them and serving them on a salad - something we haven’t tried yet.

The bok choy have already been eaten - in a risotto.

Bok Choy and Pinto Bean Risotto
1/2 - 1 lb of bok choy (or cabbage)
1/2 c pinto beans (or other red beans)
1 c arborio rice
1 onion, diced
2 oz pancetta, diced
1/2 c carrot, diced
4 garlic scrapes, diced
1/2 c white wine (preferably dry)
3 c stock
3 T oil
2 T butter
1/4 c freshly grated Parmesan cheese
Fresh Sage Leaves

1. Soak the beans for 8 hours or overnight.
2. Drain the beans and cook in about 6 cups of water with a handful of fresh sage leaves for 45-60 minutes until done.
3. Slice the bok choy in to 1/4 inch ribbons
4. Either steam the bok choy separately, or be lazy like me and put them in a metal colander over the simmering beans (it’s the environmentally friendly way - just keep in mind that this will turn the water a not-so-attractive color). Steam for 5 - 10 minutes until bright green, keeping the stems crisp.
5. Heat up the oil in a large sauce pan. Add the pancetta and cook for 5 - 10 minutes until brown. Add the onions and carrots and cook until soft. Add the garlic scrapes and cook 2 more minutes.
6. Put stock into a small sauce pan and bring to a simmer.
7. Add the rice, and cook, stirring constantly for 2 minutes making sure the rice is coated with oil.
8. Add the white wine, and simmer until the liquid is almost gone.
9 . Add 1/2 cup of the stock, the beans, and bok choy. Cook, stirring frequently until the liquid is almost gone. Repeat the stirring until liquid is absorbed process with the rest of the stock, 1/2 cup at a time.
10. Test the rice to make sure it’s done, then add the butter and Parmesan cheese, cook until melted.
11. Serve. Makes excellent leftovers.

Farm to Philly in the June-July GRID magazine!

We were pleased a couple of months ago to have been asked by GRID, a new and really quite excellent magazine about sustainable living in Greater Philadelphia, to contribute a few recipes to the June-July issue. It’s now out and available online (free!) and in independent retailers around the region (also free!). And you can try out more recipes in the August issue available in, well, August. A big hand to our ringleader Nicole for making this all happen!

Rhubarb!

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

I picked up a bunch of rhubarb at the Lancaster County Farmer’s Market in Devon (I don’t really recommend it as it’s not a producers only market and most of the veggies are shipped in from all over). For some reason no one at the Phoenixville Farmer’s Market sells rhubarb, so I have to get my fix elsewhere.

I was just going to make pie, and jam, and some rhubarb sorbet from Simply Recipes, and maybe another pie - but then I saw this recipe for rhubarb syrup at Food in Jars, and this one for rhubarb chutney posted by Naomi, and this one for rhubarb mustard at Planet Green (although I know I saw it somewhere else as well, so apologies to whomever that was!) - and the next thing you know I spent much of the weekend canning!

From left to right in the picture: one row of rhubarb syrup (for canning I followed directions for canning fruit juice, and this is four batches of the recipe); two rows of rhubarb jam (with pectin); two rows of rhubarb sauce (no real recipe I just cooked 5 c of rhubarb with 1 cup water and 3/4 c of sugar, and canned as for apple sauce); one row of rhubarb chutney; and one of rhubarb mustard.

I also made a rhubarb-ginger galette. The sorbet and the next pie are on the menu for this week.

Rose Ice Cream

Tuesday, June 09, 2009

We have a lovely climbing rose at the corner of our house. Every spring it starts the year by covering its self in beautiful flowers. The variety is called Joseph’s Coat because the buds start off orange, then change to sunset, peach, rose, and eventually a deep ruby as the flowers unfold and age. This rose also grows about 4-6 feet a year (we planted it two years ago and it’s almost to the roof!), so this year we had an 8 foot tall avalanche of roses. Once they all started to fade, I decided to do something with all of the petals. After clipping all of the flowers and removing the petals I had a gallon zip-lock bag full.

We decided to use them to make rose ice cream - and it was fantastic! It had an extremely complex and rich taste - we really couldn’t eat more than a scoopful at a time. I highly recommend it! We did have to use a drop of food coloring though, the mixture of pick and red petals with yellow egg whites was not at all appealing.

Rose Ice Cream
Adapted from The Perfect Scoop by David Lebovitz (excellent book!)

1 c whole milk
3/4 c sugar
2 c heavy cream
pinch of salt
2 - 4 c lightly packed rose petals
5 egg yolks

1. Warm the milk, sugar, 1 c of the cream, and salt in a sauce pan. Add the petals and stir until they are slightly wilted. Cover, remove from heat and let stand 1hour.
2. Strain the petals out of the mixture, pressing to extract as much flavor as possible. Discard petals.
3. Put remaining 1 c of cream into a separate bowl. Put the egg yolks into yet another bowl and whisk. (The bowl with the cream will eventually be in an ice bath, so prepare now!)
4. Rewarm the rose infusion, and slowly pour the rose mixture into the egg yolks, whisking constantly. Put the yolk-rose mixture back into the sauce pan.
5. Stir the yolk-rose mixture constantly over medium heat until the mixture thickens and coats your spoon or spatula.
6. Pour the yolk-rose mixture into the remaining cream. Stir until cool in an ice bath. Add food coloring if necessary.
7. Chill thoroughly in the fridge, then freeze in your ice cream maker according to the directions.

You can make this with any other infusion - we also tried it with chocolate mint from Charlestown Farm - it was divine! (That also needed food coloring - very pale green + orange-ish yellow do not mix well).

Second Charlestown Farm CSA Pickup

Sorry I’m a bit late with this one - camera issues. Last week I brought home two heads of lettuce, 1/2 lb of leaf lettuce, 1/3 lb of arugula, 1/3 lb of mixed Asian greens, one bunch of turnips, and 1 1/2 quarts of u-pick strawberries. I also picked up some mint. Amazingly we managed to eat all of the greens in the week! I know many of us struggle with eating all of the greens that come in most CSA boxes - and we were the same last year.  However, I recently figured out a way to eat them all - and without eating huge salads for breakfast, lunch, and dinner!  My secret - Tabbouleh! This tasty Middle Eastern salad works as well with arugula as it does with parsley.  My recipe is below - you can use any flavorful greens that are edible raw (so arugula, mustard, tat soi, and mizuna are in, but this won’t work well with lettuce or kale). Enjoy!

Mixed Greens Tabbouleh
* = optional ingredients

I prefer my Tabbouleh to have equal amounts of bulgar and greens, feel free to adjust the proportions if you’d like.

Ingredients
2 c bulgar wheat
~2 1.2 c boiling water
2 roasted red peppers* (I used some we have packed in oil from last year, you can use canned if you like)
6 T oil
4 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 T lime juice* (or use lemon)
2 T lemon juice* (or use cider vinegar)
2 T mint, chopped*
3-4 green onions, chopped* (use any allium)
8 kalamata olives, pitted and chopped
salt and pepper
1 lb mixed greens, chopped finely (I use the food processor)

1. Put the bulgar in a boil and cover with the boiling water to reach about 1 inch above the buglar. Let soak up to an hour, until most of the water is absorbed and the bulgar is al dente.
2. Whisk the oil, garlic, lemon, and lime juices together.
3. Mix the olives, mint, onions, red pepper, and greens.
4. Combine the greens mixture, bulgar, and dressing.
5. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Adjust the oil and acid if necessary.

As it gets later in the season you can add tomatoes and cucumbers to this as well.

Rhubarb Chutney

Sunday, May 31, 2009

Although my first thought upon acquiring rhubarb is usually something sweet, like cobbler or pie, rhubarb also makes excellent chutney.  Today’s batch is based on Boxwallah’s chutney; though the recipe says to leave it at least a month before eating, the sample left over after I canned four half-pints is already quite tasty. 

Rhubarb chutney

Combine rhubarb, onion, whole spices, and vinegar in a saucepan and slowly bring to a boil.  Cover and simmer for half an hour, then add the dried fruit, sugar, and ground spices.  Simmer, uncovered, for two hours or until rhubarb has completely disintegrated and the desired thickness is reached.  Transfer to sterile jars and process in a boiling-water bath. 

Pork Ribs for the Summertime

I’m not sure exactly where (though I suspect it was years ago on Molto Mario) I heard that Tuscan cuisine prefers one (or, at most, two) herbs as opposed to more elaborate combinations.  Though Lynne Rossetto Kasper (from whose The Italian Country Table I learned this recipe), writes of this as a dish for winter, I tend to cook it only from late Spring until early Fall.  It’s worlds away from the muted flavors of roasted or braised meats, the dutch-oven specialties of winter.  Here, the emphasis on rosemary is simple and direct - something that I more often associate with the bright, fresh tastes of summer.  Perhaps that’s why I’ve found it to work well with warm-weather staples like grilled asparagus, potato salad, or a salad of tender summer lettuce. Of course, I can rationalize all I want about how the flavors are why I reserve this for warmer weather; the real reason is probably that I feel more at liberty to eat with my fingers when I’m eating outside. 

One final word - it is essential that you do not overcook them.  To that end, I recommend a using a meat thermometer if possible. 

Pork Ribs

4 cloves garlic
2 tablespoons fresh rosemary
1 teaspoon olive oil
1 rack pork ribs
salt and pepper

1.  Mince together the garlic cloves and rosemary; alternately, you could use a mortar and pestle or a food processor.  Combine with the olive oil and rub over the ribs.  Cover and refrigerate anywhere from six hours to overnight (the longer the better, though, obviously).
2.  Preheat the oven to 300.  Lay out the ribs on sheet pan and season with salt and pepper. 
3.  Roast for 30 minutes or until the internal temperature reaches 150.  Meanwhile, preheat the grill.
4.  Brown on a medium-low grill, 5-7 minutes per side. 

Radishes and Radish Greens

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

My CSA is filled with radishes right now. While I don’t dislike them, I just never really eat them or know what to do with them. A bit of searching around on the web found numerous recipes for radish greens soup - the greens! Of course! I made the soup below for a quick and easy dinner. I also had green garlic and baby kale, so I made a sort of very chunky “tapenade” for the top of some crusty Metropolitan bread. Radishes, when cooked (especially in butter) take on a milder, buttery flavor. A great accompaniment to the soup, together using the whole radish!

Radish Greens Soup
serves 4

1 Tbs. butter or Earth Balance
1 Tbs. olive oil
3 medium potatoes, peeled and diced
1 small yellow onion, diced
3 green onions, chopped
2 bulbs of green garlic, chopped
Greens from 2 bunches of radishes
zest of half a lemon
6 cups of vegetable broth
juice of one lemon
salt and pepper
1 cup local or homemade low-fat yogurt

Heat the butter and oil together in a thick sauce pan over medium heat until the butter melts. Add the potatoes, onions and garlic. Cook, stirring often, until the yellow onions become golden in color and the green onions soften. Add the greens, stirring well. Add the lemon zest and vegetable broth. Raise the heat to medium high and cover the pan. Cook the soup at a low boil until the potatoes soften, about 7 minutes. Remove the heat from the pan. Add the lemon juice, salt and pepper. Blend the soup with an immersion blender, or in two batches in a blender. Return soup to the pan and stir in the yogurt until the soup takes on a creamy consistency. Garnish with sliced fresh radish.

Radish and Baby Kale on Toast

1 Tbs. butter or Earth Balance
1 bulb green garlic, diced
6 small radishes, thinly sliced
2 small handfuls of baby kale
1/4 cup vegetable broth

Heat the butter in a large sauce pan until melted. Add the radishes and garlic, cooking over medium heat until the radish softens. Add the baby kale and the vegetable broth and stir well. When the kale wilts and most of the broth evaporates, remove from the heat. Serve over good buttered toast.

Rheally Versatile Rhubarb

Like Garrison Keillor, I grew up on rhubarb pie in the early summer. (It was Wisconsin, so the rhubarb’s not quite ready til then.) Not strawberry rhubarb—just the rhubarb. We also ate sort of a stewed rhubarb like applesauce after dinner, as a snack, or at breakfast, although we didn’t call it “rhubarb sauce”; it was just “rhubarb.” Tonight I tried it in a bundt cake, and it’s pretty good. The recipe I adapted from Savoring the Seasons in the Northern Heartland published by University of Minnesota Press. Instead of sour cream, I used plain Pequea Valley yogurt. And tonight I picked up my Meadow Run Farm buying club order which included a dozen eggs from their pastured hens.

What’s my point? Don’t get freaked out by rhubarb. If you’re not used to it yet, chop it up and treat it like cranberries: tart, red, and good for cooking and baking. Nutritionally, it’s very high in vitamin K, and high in C, potassium, calcium, and manganese.

Dill, and a recipe

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

I am not a fan of mayonnaise potato salads. This year I’m growing dill so that I can make my favorite and really simple potato salad.

Yogurt & Dill Potato Salad

Handful of fresh dill, chopped fine
Cracked black pepper (a couple of full cranks)
Sea salt to taste (a little at first)
Freshly snipped chives
1 garlic clove, crushed (optional)
6 to 8 oz Greek-style yogurt (no less than 2% fat; how much depends on absorption by the potatoes)
1 pound small new potatoes

Mix everything together except potatoes. Boil the potatoes until tender (peeled or skins on, or remove skins after they’ve boiled and are cool enough to handle). Combine. Taste after a couple of hours in the fridge and adjust the salt and add more yogurt if necessary. Keeps well for a 2-3 days.

Grid Magazine: The 100% Local Food Issue

Thursday, May 07, 2009

Just 6 months old, Grid Magazine, a free glossy about creating sustainability in Philadelphia, has put out some great thematic issues on energy, bicycling and gardening. The newest issue, hitting the streets or your internet today, is all about local, sustainable food practices. Alongside recipes from restaurant superstars Pumpkin and Tria and Denise Balcavag of http://www.urbanvegan.net, and interviews with Talulah’s Kitchen luminaries and the Lancaster Farm Fresh Cooperative, There’s also a piece about a West Philly High student making a nutritional difference in her community. Add to that a guide to composting, and an expose on the difficulty of finding fresh produce in North Philly, an outline of how to eat local on the cheap and an interview with farm-loving rockers Hoots and Hellmouth, this issue has it all! Pick up a copy at your local business (or ask them to carry it) or read it paper-free online!

Give me sorrel or give me death

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

This is simultaneously a great time of year and a frustrating time of year for seasonal eaters.  On the positive side, the first asparagus and rhubarb is starting to become available.  Sometimes you can find some Spring greens…but it’s so frustrating because it’s getting warmer and so many of us just want something new on the menu. 

I always have a substantial supply of sorrel in the garden each Spring, something that isn’t exactly the easiest thing to find for sale in markets.  And so even though I would gladly trade my entire garden for a sun-ripened, heirloom variety tomato right now, sorrel really is something different and I’m always looking for new ways to use it.

Last year I searched for some things to do with sorrel and came up with some recipes that I really liked.  This year I found some new ideas:

• A bunch of recipes from Mariquita Farm, including sorrel risotto, penne with mushrooms and sorrel, and leek and sorrel pancakes.
• Dauphine Potatoes with Sorrel
• Onion Sorrel Tart
• Sorrel Tomatillo and Gruyere Panade
• Tabbouleh with Sorrel and Mint
• New Potatoes with Salami and Sorrel

Of course, one of my favorite ways to use sorrel is also the simplest: sorrel mashed potatoes.  I think everyone has their own favorite way to make mashed potatoes, so I won’t bother to describe my own preferred method.  To get the sorrel in there, just grab a handful of sorrel out of the garden and give it a good wash, then cut into chiffonade.  Saute the sorrel in olive oil or butter until it’s slightly wilted and then mix it in with your mashed potatoes.  They are delicious!!

My sorrel mashed potatoes (potatoes from Lancaster Farm Fresh) were served with a chicken (Meadow Run Farm) roasted with sage (right out of the garden!) and the last of last year’s corn (Lancaster Farm Fresh).