Cherry Picking

Our wonderful neighbors asked us multiple times to come pick their fruit from trees in their yard.  This week it was cherries.  They asked us yesterday to send the boys but I told them one of the boys were sick.  They asked me today and I said that now both of them are sick.  They said, "It's time, all the cherries will fall tomorrow."  So Abigail and I went to pick them.  And they're beautiful!  We can't eat them, they're just for juice.  But yummy juice!  Anyway, we're going to pack our freezer.  We'll be set for a while.  :)

Getting Saucy!

I don't know if I'm in the minority here, but my contact with the cranberry has always been in the opening of a can. I'm a cranberry fan, but I was a little daunted by the real deal. Last fall I saw some nice red berries in a quart basket at Reading Terminal Market and thought, "Wow, pretty, but what would someone do with these?"

This fall, I was surprised by a windfall of cranberries. A good friend had bought two bags to make a bread and only needed half of one. She (erroneously) assumed I'd know what to do with them since she didn't.

Of course, I took the berries. I mean, I told her I didn't know anything about making cranberry sauce, but she was just happy to find someone who'd do something with them. And so I was introduced to the cranberry. I washed them, picked out what I assumed were bad berries (I figured if they were black inside and smelled really funky--or if they were super squishy--that it would be a safe bet to toss them), and then followed my friend, Rachel's, instructions explicitly. When I called her (frustrated by elaborate and rather icky sounding internet recipes) for advice, she read me the Ball Canning recipe and made me promise to use as much sugar as they called for (Who, me? skimp on sugar?) so we wouldn't end up with botulism.

The recipe was successful, I hit a farmer's market and bought the quantity pictured in my sink above, and made about a dozen jars of cranberry sauce. I don't know if this sounds exciting to anyone but me, but it tastes just like Ocean Spray! I love the cans, I was thrilled to replicate that taste.

I thought I'd post the recipe, and also encourage any other cranberry-phobes: You can do it! It's exactly like making any kind of jelly. (You can use a water bath canner if you're going to can it. If you weren't going to can it, you could skip all steps but boiling the ingredients below.)

Simple Cranberry Sauce Recipe:

Start your water bath and have sterilized jars ready.

Combine

4 c water,

4 c sugar, and

8 c cranberries

Put in a dutch oven and boil till they "pop." (You'll know, trust me.)

They need to hard boil for 10-15 min. You can add OJ or orange zest (I didn't), and if you're canning, leave 1/4" headspace at the top and waterbath can for 15 minutes (Ball's directions).

It was really empowering, let me tell you. If I can make cranberry sauce, what else can I do that I never realized was possible?! Who knows? Today the cranberry, tomorrow the world! . . . or, I don't know, maybe the kumquat, whatever that is.

Anyway, yum!

A Brussel Sprouts Recipe to Remember

So I'm going to be honest with you . . . I'm posting this recipe so I don't forget it again. Today I called to sheepishly ask for it once again. I think the last time I called Nathan was a few years ago, for the same recipe.

I come from Lancaster, the land of boiled vegetables. So while I have always liked brussel sprouts, I didn't really know what they were capable of until Nathan brought them to a potluck. I shamelessly ate almost the entire bowl of them. He told me how he prepared them, but I did not write it down, thinking that I'd remember. When I wanted to make them for Easter one year I had to call him to ask for the recipe. Today I wanted to make them again, since I'd bought a shoot of brussel sprouts. (Help me out here, is it a shoot, a cluster, a branch?).

I could not find the recipe, but Nathan was gracious and told me again. Here is Nathan's recipe for brussel sprouts. I figure if no one uses it, at least I'll be able to find it next time I want to use it. Seriously, this redefined my relationship with the brussel sprout.

Without further ado:

Nathan's Brussel Sprouts

Chop brussel sprouts into quarters (don't worry if some of the leaves come loose, loose leaves are good).

Saute in butter (with a few teaspoons of broth if you have any on hand).

Just before the sprouts look done (5 to 8 min.) add some capers and lemon juice.

Salt and pepper to taste.

I'm addicted to these . . .

Care to share a recipe that changed your relationship with a vegetable?

The Garden

So we're in the red finally. We've got ripe tomatoes. We've had to pull most of the zucchini (except a few "8 Ball" variety which I think are not really zucchinis but look like little round ones--and I did actually find a few squash bugs on those so I'm sure their days are numbered) and all of the cucumbers (how sad is that?!).

The star of the season has definitely been the swiss chard and kale bed this year. Beautiful. So beautiful. I pick a bunch once or twice a week to steam and blend for Abigail (the poor girl--I mean the lucky girl, obviously--gets it added to everything from her morning oatmeal to her PBJ sandwiches). And then sometimes I saute some for supper. Tonight we had sauteed chard with our split peas and sausage and rice, and it just made the meal. Even Abigail wolfed it down, and she is way pickier than the boys ever were.

Red beets are some of my new favorite vegetables (up from the bottom of my list) because I found an awesome way to prepare them. I don't know if I mentioned this on my blog before, but Mollie Katzen's book was a gift from my aunt and I cannot tell you how amazing her recipe for "Complete Beets" is. She has you boil the bottoms and then toss them (cut up in segments) in with the sauteed greens. They are amazing. I had grown a few in early summer, but I was sad I didn't have more planted once I tasted it. In honor of that recipe, I planted a whole slew of red beets for my fall garden. Complete beets, here we come!

The next exciting feature of my garden will be the red raspberries. I know I mentioned my black raspberries, I was totally enamored with those in July. But I have to say, I may be just as excited in a few months to be eating the red ones. I almost pulled out the red raspberry plant I had when I got my black ones. I was afraid that I'd end up having them cross-pollinate, and my black ones were my priority. But I didn't get any blooms last year on the red when the black were in bloom, so I let the plant stay. The trick this year (since the canes were bigger and healthier) was to make sure I pinched off the few flowers it got earlier in the summer. That way I could avoid the cross-pollinating and also guarantee a better fall crop of raspberries. I got a few the last couple of days, but it looks like late September we should really get some. I will be sure to include pictures. Micah said today that the red ones are even better than the black ones. But I think the fruit just coming into season always seems like the sweetest fruit. That's my favorite part about seasonal eating.

Farmer's Market Schedule for Philly

So there are two different groups sponsoring farmer's markets in Philadelphia, and they list their schedules separately.  Here they are in case anyone is interested:

Food Trust Market Schedule

Farm to City Market Schedule

Bibimbop!

I was encouraged by Rachel on her blog ("My Imprecise Life" ) to write about the meal I made on Saturday.  I will, though I invite my far more knowledgeable Korean friends to write comments on it.  The basis for the recipe was in the cookbook "Dok Suni," written by a Korean-American woman who learned from her mother and now runs a restaurant.  It's a great cookbook. 

I made Bibimbop.  It's a build-your-own kind of creation.  Your table is covered by bowls of prepared veggies and proteins. 

Everyone starts with a bowl of rice, and adds from the bowls.  Here's what I had:

• Shredded carrot (blanched or sauted for just a minute and lightly salted and maybe a dash of sesame oil)
• Fried egg (one per person)
• Ground beef
• Sauted zucchini (with a touch of garlic and sesame oil)
• Shredded lettuce
• Hot sauce (with garlic, sesame oil, rice vinegar)
• Bean sprouts (sauted)
• Shredded daikon radish

An Unusual Dinner Inspiration . . . to a Seasonal Feast

I forgot to take a picture of dinner . . . but it was really rather a local seasonal veggie feast, if anyone would care to try to replicate any of it without visual stimulation.  I realize no one cooks from recipes they can't see a picture of, but I'm going to describe it anyway, and just kick myself for taking no pictures.  I mean, really, when the three and five year-old are carrying the plates and glasses (full) and silverware to the dining room table, and I'm running into that scary too-late-the-kids-will-probably-wet-the-bed dinner hour, and Owen's getting in later than usual, and the three month-old is about 15 min. past ripe for a nap, I can't imagine how I forget to photograph our food before we eat it.

The Background . . .

So we actually grew some lima beans this year in my neighbor's yard (thank you, Jean and Scott).  They watched me frantically cultivating my 1/1000 of an acre (or so) of land and offered to let me use part of their garden (their yard is about four times larger than ours).  I said, "Hmm, how about lima beans?  We could split the crop."  And lima beans it was.  My mom started the vines from seed, and we planted about five plants at the base of big poles making a teepee.

The teepee soon became covered with leaves and vine, occasionally even flowers.  But by August, we had nary a bean.  It wasn't until September that we started seeing some, but they weren't big enough to pick.  But on Sunday we finally realized the beans were big enough to pick.  So the neighors banded together for a good ol' city-dwellers bean pickin'.  We got enough for about a small pot of beans each--and there may be about that many in two weeks again.  Anyway, these beans were in very different size categories, ranging from babies to big chokey pig food (as Owen described some of them).  Jesse and I separated them into two piles and combined them with some we had bought from the farmer's market.  I was left with a small pot of big hoggy limas that I knew I couldn't just boil (well, ok, I tried to anyway out of laziness and they were gross).

The Inspiration . . .

So the inspiration for the entire meal was basically chokey lima beans.  I realized that the "big ones" were probably tasting close to the rehydrated dried ones they put in baked lima beans, a dish they sell at the local grocery store in Lancaster.  So, unable to follow a recipe to save my life, after browsing through recipes of baked lima beans and not liking any of them, I made one up:

Baked Lima Beans

Boil fresh (or overnight-soaked dried) lima beans in salty water for about 20 minutes or until soft. 
While boiling, cut up leeks or scallions (I used leeks) into thin slices.
Strain and put beans into a small casserole dish.  Add leeks.
Pour tomato sauce (homemade or store bought will work) over beans.
Add a dollop of maple syrup and stir mixture.
Bake for at least an hour.

I don't measure, but I had a small pot of beans, and I added 2 leeks and about 15 oz. of sauce and a few tablespoons of syrup.

The Spaghetti Squash

Now it so happens that I bought a spaghetti squash about a month ago, and while it looked very fall-like sitting on my counter, I thought I might just want to go ahead and cook it with the beans.  So that I threw in the oven whole, with holes poked in it, with the beans.  I will say that next time I will revert to hacking it in half and removing the seeds first and baking faces down in an inch of water like I did last time, it took too long this way.  It's really easy to remove the strands of squash with a fork and it really does look like angel hair pasta.  Hmm, maybe they should call it angel hair squash.  I salted the squash and tossed it with butter, parmesan cheese, and chives.

The Roasted Potatoes

Not too profound.  I wanted a starch.  I cut up small red and yellow potatoes in small chunks, put them in a roasting pan (uncovered), tossed them with olive oil, salt, rosemary, and a few tablespoons of water, and roasted them next to the squash and the beans.

The Main Dish . . . 

Then I thought, oh dear, I'm running out of time and I need a main meal.  Luckily, I had meatballs in the freezer.  My friend Rachel had wowed me with a meatball in barbecue sauce kind of dish, so I thought I'd wing it and try for something similar.  The meatballs were made of ground beef and cornmeal and onion and egg, and they'd been in the freezer for a good long time since I'd made extra with spaghetti some months back.  I took them out of the freezer, and put them in a small glass baking dish.  I covered them with tomato sauce.  Then I sauteed red onion and green pepper in a saucepan and mixed that in with the sauce.  Finally I sweetened it with a little maple syrup.  I put it in the oven until it heated through.

We ate all this in the dining room, the height of fancy living at my house.  The kids call it eating at a restaurant when we do it.  Sad commentary on our kitchen-centered life perhaps.  :)  It was great!  I thought I'd share it in case anyone else wants to try something similar.

Pizza Night!

Seasonal pizza, here we go!  So, I've highlighted the seasonal pizza Fridays in the past as a really great way to eat local and with variety (I got my idea from the book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver).  With the birth of little Abigail, pizza night was abandoned.  It's returned now for the second week in a row.  Here's tonight's, play by play:

Step One:  Slice up tomatoes (while we've still got 'em) and spread over a raw pizza dough (this one is stone ground whole wheat from Trader Joe's, refrigerated section).

These were Mr. Stripey yellow tomatoes, two of the few that escaped the clutches of my squirrel arch-rival.

Step Two:  Fresh basil (still going strong in the garden)

Steps Three and Four:  Mozzarella cheese, torn and arranged; red peppers.

Step Five:  Red onions sliced as thinly as possible (sweet when baked).

Steps Six, Seven, and Eight:  Broccoli; Mushrooms.  Bake at 425 deg. for ~15 min.



Yum!  Serve!

Peas, strawberries, and RASPBERRIES!

Sugar peas and pod peas are actually on their way out, after that hot, hot sunny weather we had in Philly the last few weeks (it's finally cooling off tonight, but it's too late for my peas, I'd guess).  But I was really pleased this year with my pea success.  The kids would pick sugar peas on the way to or from the car (since they're growing along the fence in the front) and we'd eat them raw in the car or for a lunch addition.  But the last two weeks my kids have really been excited by the pod peas.  Those we grew on the back fence behind the house, and if my mom hadn't stood up for them I was actually in favor of ripping them out for more tomato space.  I'm so glad I gave them a chance, my kids were ecstatic to pop them open and pull the peas out (partly because they were so sweet, I'm sure). 

Strawberries have been averaging about a quart a week from our plants (which translates to about $7 worth in Philly).  And now the really exciting development is the raspberries ripening.  I thought they'd be a July crop for some reason, but here we go!  I put 2 or 3 in everyone's granola yesterday, but today I decided to save them.  When we get a pint (or at least half of one) I promised the kids what I consider to be the ultimate dessert: black raspberries on vanilla ice cream.  It's the only way to eat them, as far as I'm concerned (though I've never complained about eating the jelly or pie made from them either). 

I don't know if I can properly express my excitement and thankfulness to be able to produce real crops that actually affect our family's diet a little (especially some of these more expensive items: pod peas and strawberries were selling for $7 a quart at the farmer's market this weekend, black raspberries will likely sell for $5 a pint if they have them at all, and after our major construction needed in our basement due to water and termite damage, we need to cut corners where we can).  I think our strawberry crop would have been substantially higher had I not inadvertantly planted their enemy crop, arugula, around about a third of my plants.  I searched online after both plants were so stunted and yellow that I suspected I had found enemy crops.  Next year I will not make that mistake. 

Tomatoes are forming on my plants, so they should start coming a little bit before Baby Davis #3 arrives.  That will save us a fortune.  Ever since I read about BPA in cans of tomatoes I've felt like I should buy fresh, and anyone who reads my blog will know I feel like I have to get local ones, so I've been buying these early expensive ones to tide us over until mine are ready.  Why do I feel like tomatoes are essential for about half of what I make?  And how much better are sandwiches with a good old slice of ripe red tomato?  Oh boy, am I ever ready for ours to ripen!

Easy and Tasty Dinner Idea in 20 minutes!

We were sent home from a barbeque with a leftover steak and some grilled squash for Memorial Day.  Then last night I sauteed some other veggies and had some broccoli rabe and asparagus left over.  So tonight for a lovely 20 minute leftover twist dinner I boiled pasta (brown rice), drained most of the water, added the veggies and 2/3 of the steak all cut into small pieces, added part of a small fresh tomato, and sprinkled it with a little salt and parmesan cheese.  It was really good and REALLY easy and did not involve much time in my hot kitchen.  Just thought I'd pass the idea along now that we are in the season of grilling.  Yum!

Freezing Strawberries

We took the kids to Linvilla Farm to pick strawberries this weekend.  They weren't organic, but they assured us that they hadn't been sprayed for three months (since the berries were on the plants).  I'm not sure if we should have, but we decided to believe them.  So we picked about 15 pound of strawberries (not counting the pound or two that Jesse and Micah ate).  "Can I eat this one, Mommy?  I eat this one, Daddy?"  I called both of our moms and looked online, and this is what I did to freeze them.  I washed them and then lay them on towels to dry on the counter with the overhead fan on.  After a few hours, I put them on cookie sheets in the freezer.  Once they were frozen, I transferred them to bags.  Easy, schmeasy.  Now they're all set for strawberry milkshakes, additions to oatmeal and pancakes, and baking in the winter.  I promised myself I would freeze more than just peaches this year.  I got a little peached out this winter.  :)  We saved a bowl of strawberries for the rhubarb sauce that's on the stove as I type.  Our strawberry plants are producing about a quart a week, so we're enjoying the trickle of fresh berries, too, on cereal or pancakes, etc.

I read in Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle how we are out of touch with the seasons because we just ship in whatever fruit and vegetables we want all year long.  And I must say, we have been making more of an effort to eat truly local produce as much as possible (as much as I felt up to pregnant and nauseated during the winter, and as much as I am up to now with having inadequately prepared last summer).  And that meant eating apples almost every day for the fall and winter and into the spring.  (We did eat some oranges--I tried to buy from Florida, since that's closer, California grapes, and bananas--not from the U.S., of course.)  Her point is that we truly appreciate strawberries, for example, when we only eat the local ones in season.  She also points out that if you really go gung ho on asparagus and strawberries and rhubarb in the spring, you won't need it the rest of the year.  I'm really finding that to be true.  We're fully entering into the produce (fruit especially) of each season and then we're ready for a break and to get excited about the next crop coming.  It's pretty fun!

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life (P.S.)

Strawberries from the Garden

Micah and Jesse helped me pick 8 strawberries from our garden this afternoon.  That actually made a rather significant yield.  Added to the local strawberries I bought over the weekend, they made a lovely strawberry milkshake.  The family agreed that it was an amazing milkshake (Micah called it a miracle).  Here's the simple and extremely tasty recipe:

Strawberry Milkshake

Wash and trim a generous pint of strawberries (that's a little over 1/2 quart), then lay out on a plate to freeze.  Leave in the freezer at least an hour (I did more like 45 minutes, but they weren't frozen enough and I had to add more ice).  Put about one cup of whole milk and one cup of kefir (or plain yogurt) in the blender (do 2 cups milk if you're not using the yogurt).  Add the frozen berries.  Add a few ice cubes (or if your berries are really frozen you could skip the ice).  Add about 1/8 to 1/6 cup sugar (I used a little more than 1/6 of a cup because kefir is a little bitter and because I had to add a fair amount of ice--and it turned out very sweet.  If I'd planned ahead and had very frozen berries and been able to skip the ice I'd have used a little less.)  

Next for the raspberries!!!

RHUBARB!!!

Finally!  Local fruit besides apples!  Well, what is rhubarb?  Does it count as a fruit?  With enough honey and sugar and strawberry added, it sure tastes like fruit.  So I wanted to use rhubarb, honey, a tiny bit of sugar, tapioca starch to thicken, and to stir in strawberries at the end.  But I couldn't find a recipe for rhubarb sauce with all of those ingredients (why are so many people hung up on pie?), so I got some basic ideas from talking to my mom; remembered what my friend, Juliane, told me about stirring in the strawberries at the end; looked online at Cat's Kitchen website (http://web.mac.com/catherinehaug/iWeb/CatsKitchen-Recipes/Rhubarb.html), and then did a little improvisation.  Here's the final product.  I'm halving the recipe, assuming that most people won't be starting with 5 lbs of rhubarb.

Rhubarb Sauce
Cut 2 1/2 lbs rhubarb stems into 1/4 to 1/2 inch slices (after washing stalks and removing all leaf, which is poisonous).  Put in pot and sprinkle with a little bit of sugar (or skip it and add more honey at the end) and just a little bit of water in the bottom of the pot.  Simmer for 45 min. or an hour (until the pieces start to fall apart when you stir).  Add about a cup of cut up strawberries (or raspberries).  Stir in some tapioca flour/starch (or corn starch), a teaspoon or so.  Next time I actually will try mixing it with a little bit of water first so I won't get clumps in it.  Add about 1 generous cup of honey or however much sugar or honey you need to until it tastes really good and not like a vegetable.  (Actually, if you're using sugar, you can add it right from the beginning.  I mostly just used honey and added it at the end.)  It's really good.  Enjoy!

Dinner Tonight

I was excited.  Between the local grass-fed beef burgers, fries made from local potatoes, and the toppings (sauted mushrooms, lettuce, and greenhouse local tomatoes) all local . . . the only "grocery store" parts of the meal were the ketchup (I toyed with the idea of making some but ran out of time), mayo, and wheat rolls.  It was pretty cool.  We've been doing really well at Clark Park on Saturday mornings lately, they have a great selection, and I've been getting a lot of things from a farmer that lives near my parents. 
Can't wait for the farmer's markets to open closer to my house!

Back into the Local Foods

Today we drove to Plymouth Meeting to a farm called Maple Acres Farm (http://www.mapleacresfarmmarket.com/) to try once again to eat local seasonal foods.  They had apples, lots of them, and we bought about a bushel of mixed fuji and rome apples for $20 (which is at least good for Philadelphia).  Then we bought a 1/2 bushel of sweet potatoes for $10.  We also bought some turnips, redbeets, cauliflower, and broccoli.  Now I just have to figure out how to cook all that in appealing ways (turnips may be the challenge).  I would have bought some rutabagas and made myself cook those, too, but they were almost $3 a piece.  I doubt I could possibly cook them well enough to justify that price.  Anyway, now that the nausea has mostly passed, I feel some responsibility to live up to my environmental eating goals.  I'll let you know how we fare with all of these root veggies.  Hopefully I will also be able to report that I made and heat-sealed a whole bunch more applesauce.  :)

About that Pizza . . .

That mozzarella, tomato, basil, thin-sliced red onion pizza with olive oil drizzled and parmesan (we used romano) sprinkled on top . . . was some of the BEST pizza I've ever had.  Even accounting for the gluten-free crust.  I have actually discovered that Trader Joe's brown rice tortillas work perfectly as crusts.  I just eat two mini pizzas each time.  Anyway, just didn't want anyone to miss out, you gotta try this recipe.  Hopefully while all the ingredients are still local.

Seasonal Pizza

In my attempt to eat local foods year round (which will of course include my canned and frozen additions in the winter months), I'm instituting Friday pizza day. We're on our third or fourth Friday this weekend. So far we've done summer squash pizza, broccoli pizza with roasted red peppers, and mozzarella with basil and tomato pizza. This one looks similar to that last with the addition of thin sliced red onion. I'm trying it this Friday.

Summer Pizza Recipe Food & Wine

If any locavores are going to try a similar idea this winter, it's a good idea to roast and freeze some peppers while they're in all the farmer's markets in cheap and plentiful quantities right now (an idea, I should add, I got from Animal, Vegetable, Miracle). Rachel Ray showed me how I can roast them right on the gas stove top, just turning them as I go. And then I pit them and throw them in a ziplock in the freezer. I also arranged with a farmer to get a bushel of onions that store all winter, so at least I'll have onion and roasted red pepper and tomato sauce all stored up for my winter pizzas.

Happy pizza eating!!

It's Freezing!

The freezing of produce has rather taken over all of my free time these days (well, free time and time that should be spent sleeping or cleaning or something besides stirring, slicing, or squishing). Over the last week or so I've frozen:

• spaghetti sauce
• tomato sauce
• diced tomatoes
• sliced peaches
• grated zucchini
• free range chicken and broth

I've also harvested pears off of a neighbor's pear tree (she knew about it, it wasn't in the dark of night). They turned out to be very green and will mostly all have to be thrown away. I'm new to this foraging thing. (Let's not revisit the horse chestnut scenario from last year.)

There has absolutely got to be an easier, lazy version of tomato sauce (than boiling diced tomatoes and squishing them gradually through a collander with a rounded wooden squisher), though Owen pointed out that if I blend it it will no longer be sauce, since the seeds and skins will make it just blended tomatoes. Hmm, well, maybe I'll have to do it again next year, but OH BOY, what a lot of work. It felt very un-modern-American. Micah helped cut up rome tomatoes with a butter knife.

It felt like a bit of a ripoff to spend 5 hours on the spaghetti sauce and only have 10 gallon bags to show for it.

The easiest freezing item was the grated zucchini. Now I have to find some recipes that use grated zucchini.

My broccoli rabe is almost ready (the first of three mini beds to be planted). The rutabaga could be ready soon, who in the world knows. And I planted swiss chard, kale, sugar peas, spinach, brussel sprouts, carrots, red beets, tatsoi, and endive.

I found a possible source for apples (for applesauce) and potatoes and buttercup squash that haven't been sprayed much and possibly a quarter of a grass-fed cow . . . if the Amish woman from the produce stand does actually call me as she said she would. I'm also going to try to get some onions that are dried for longer term storage.

The local eating adventure continues.