summer in a jar

A breakfast of peaches canned from D's father's trees, with raspberries picked at Rosby's Farm and frozen: this bowl is the reason we'll be canning again this year, even though it was hot and sweaty and sticky work.

one local summer #8: pot luck

My featured local meal this week wasn't actually a meal. I made locally grown food the star of my potluck contributions (as it turned out, I wasn't the only one--there were some homegrown tomatoes in the salad and, I believe, local eggplant in the main dish).
I made 2 things--a kind of tapenade with garlic toasts and a fruit crumble. The tapenade was all local except for the olive oil and spices, and the bread was from a local bakery. The crumble (or was it a crisp?) had local plums and cherries and local butter from Hartzler's Dairy in the crumble topping. I made it with very little sugar because one of the potluckers is a diabetic.

Tapenade
1 small tomato, seeded
1/2 medium onion
8 oven-dried tomatoes (from last year)
1/2 mildly hot pepper
1 garlic clove
handful of local black walnuts, chopped
handful of mixed basil from the garden (green, purple, lime, and Thai)
pinch of salt
1/2 tsp of smoked paprika
1/2 tsp of chipotle powder
drizzle of olive oil
I put everything except the oil into the food processor and let it go for a minute. When it was chunky, I started adding the olive oil in dribs and drabs until it started to look spreadable (probably about 1/4 cup). It tasted fine, and was popular enough that it was half gone before I took a picture of it.

Plum-Cherry Crumble
about 15 prune plums, pitted and sliced
about twenty cherries, pitted
5 tbs white (divided use)
pinch of ginger
pinch of nutmeg
1/8 cup of red wine
1/4 cup oatmeal
1/2 cup flour
2tbs demerara sugar (although you could use brown)
3 tbs butter
pinch salt
I roasted the plums a little first after tossing them with 3 tbs of the sugar, the ginger and the nutmeg--about 10 minutes in a 350 degree oven to draw the juices out a little. I put the plums and their juice in my baking dish (a smallish 5-cup pyrex) along with the halved cherries. I added the wine and tossed them a little. (I had some rose petal syrup leftover from something else and added a couple of spoonsful, but this was optional.) I put the oatmeal, flour, butter, salt, and the rest of the sugars in a dish and mixed it with my hands (although you can use a pastry cutter if you want to). Then I spooned it onto the fruit and put it in the 350-degree oven for about 35 minutes (or until you can see the fruit juices bubbling up a little.
At the potluck we had this with Hartzler cream, and it was universally commended. It turned out very red/purple, despite the prune plums--some powerfully colored cherries, I guess.

The Local Spice is Right

Local spice, local ingredients. This is my entry for The Spice is Right 5: Fresh and Local. Barbara at Tigers and Strawberries this time asked us to come up with a locally grown spice if we could and pair it with as much local produce as possible, in honor of the lush and prolific growth of summer.
My local spice is coriander, the seeds of cilantro, and their terroir is my backyard. I've been growing cilantro for more than ten years, and sometimes now it reseeds itself, which I love. But I don't take any chances--I plant it every year, somtimes twice, because I love it so much.
The cilantro wars have been fought fiercely at my house, because D is one of those people who are genetically disposed to dislike the taste of cilantro. To some of these unfortunates, cilantro tastes like soap; D says it tastes like wet cardboard. I used to think he was just giving me a hard time, or that if I snuck it into enough dishes he'd get to like it. But I can't fight a genetic disposition.
In doing a little research on coriander/cilantro, I was glad to find out that its name derives from the Latin coriandrum, which in turn derives from the Greek corys, a bedbug, supposedly referring to the scent of the crushed leaves (I'm not going to tell D about this). It's both a spice (the seeds, whole or ground) and an herb (the leaves). The seeds have been found in Egyptian tombs (I've noticed this is claimed for a lot of plants--those Egyptians must have been fiends for seed burial). It was one of the 1st herbs grown by the American colonists, and the Roman legions carried it along on the march to flavor their bread. It is still used in cough medicine in India. There's a website for cilantro haters: I Hate Cilantro! And it's the name of the title character in I, Coriander.
I got my recipe from The Serendipitous Chef's Fiery Cool Cucumber Soup. Here's my version, only a little different:

about 3 medium cucumbers, seeded and cut in large pieces
(I peeled them, but left a little on for green flecks)
half an onion, cut in chunks
1 tbs dill
a small handful of basil
a small handful of mint
about 1 tbs of green coriander seeds, smashed a little with a knife
3 cloves garlic
1tsp chipotle chile powder
1 tsp paprika
pinch of sea salt
a pinch of cumin seeds
a splash of olive oil
and another of white wine
about 2 cups of yogurt
I put everything except the last 3 ingredients in the food processor and whirred it up until it was small-chunky. Then I put in the olive oil and white wine, and started adding yogurt about a quarter cup at a time. When it got to a nice soupy, not-too-thick consistency, I stopped (hence the imprecise measurement). I chilled it in the freezer for about 20 minutes (since it was very close to dinnertime), and brought it out and garnished it with mint sprigs (forgot them in the picture).
As for locality--the cucumbers was from D's father's garden, the onion from the farmers market. The herbs and the garlic were all from my garden, the white wine was a local wine, leaving only the salt, chile powders, olive oil, yogurt from out of town.
It was great--so good that I ate some for a bedtime snack later that night--chilled and icy, with a snap of spicy pepper and the pleasant tang of the yogurt--so good that I'm planning on adding the Chef to my blogroll--I don't want to miss anything else this good.

(Neither of the photos do it justice--I swear it didn't look that brown in real life!)

a return to one local summer

The above is an action shot of D putting together a 90%-local stirfry: his father's carrots, squash and onions broccoli and corn (not visible) from the farmer's market, some herbs from our garden, various condiments, and rice (which is the unlocal 10%, or so I declare). We had guests, and dinner was running late, so no photo of the finished product. It was whisked onto the table and we fell up on it. Very good.
Working quite hard on my novel, plus time out for a high school reunion--when will I get to cook anything interesting again? D is having all the food fun this summer, with his Wonders of Wok Cookery cookbook. And of course, it's been hot. I have a wistful desire to make some muffins, or a batch of chocolate chip-pecan cookies. But I'm not prepared to turn on the oven until the temperature dips substantially below 90.

one local summer, redux

Our second meal was heavenly-delish, but maybe a mite unbalanced. I was brought up with dinners that always included meat (or occasionally fish), potatoes (very rarely replaced by rice or dumplings), two vegetables, and salad. So sometimes when we make guacamole for dinner accompanied only by chips, or a solitary baked potato, I feel as if I ought to be explaining something to my mother.
The slightly unbablanced meal was fresh pea soup, and potatoes fried with onions and chives--my first time with this soup (although I've made split pea a number of times).
I couldn't find a recipe that I felt happy with (or that I had all the ingredients for), so I used one in Joy of Cooking and one in a Martha Stewart book as my foundation and took flight from there.
It came out wonderfully--a beautiful color of green, with a very fresh taste. The fried potatoes were basically just potatoes fried with onion and chives (and a little home-grown garlic)--no need for a recipe.

Fresh Pea Soup Garnished with Croutons and Mustard Flowers
1/2 onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, chopped
2 tbs olive oil
2 cups shelled peas
a handful of beet (or other) greens, cut in thin strips
a handful of fresh mint leaves, ditto ***forgot this in 1st draft, sorry)
2 cups chicken broth
1/4 cup white wine
1/2 cup cream
1/4 cup yogurt
pinch of ginger
1/2 tsp ancho chile powder
1/2 tsp paprika
1/4 tsp nutmeg
a few shakes of pepper
salt to taste
croutons and mustard flowers
(or other garnish)
I sauteed the onion and garlic in the olive oil. When they were softened I added the peas, beet greens, broth, and wine, and brought it to a simmer. I'm not sure exactly how long I let it go, because I kept taking one pea out to see if it was done; I'd guess about 4 minutes.
I added the seasonings and the cream and let it go a little longer, 2 more minutes about. (The spices gave just a hint of heat to the soup--but some might like it more purely pea in flavor--if so, I'd use only the salt, pepper, and nutmeg.)
I tried my immersion blender on this mixture, but it didn't work so well, so I put it in the regular blender and gave it a whiz. When it was smoothly and deliciously green, I added the yogurt, and then garnished our bowls with the flowers and croutons. This was meant to be a cold soup, but in fact, I ate it at room temperature (very good), and D ate it warmed up (because he can't see the point of cold soups) and had no complaints.

The mustard flowers are from my garden--I have mustard growing wild, which I more or less like, and I often eat the flowers raw when I'm out in the yard--they're very hot and sharp. They're not too noticeable when you put them in something, so they were just the tiniest piquant note in the soup, and also very pretty. The croutons were homemade: sourdough bread cut up and heated over a low flame in a cast iron pan to dry them out; then I added a little oil and tossed them around in the pan until they were coated and crispy.
My mother would have liked each element of this meal (although she would have perhaps questioned the mustard flowers), but she would probably have recommended that we add a nice sauteed chicken breast or a stuffed pork chop.

one local summer

Liz at Pocket Farm cleverly came up with One Local Summer, to keep us eating locally in a non-pressured way: commit to at least one purely local meal a week over the summer. I had to beg off last week (here's the round-up) because I was traveling, but it's week 2, and I'm on it.
My local meal last night was simple and delicious--no thanks to me, because it was a total D production. Lately, he's been obsessed with our wok, but this meal celebrates a return to the good old iron skillet.
He made some deer burgers: meat from last year's hunting season, in SE Ohio, lettuce from his father's garden, local Amish cheese, locally baked bread. The cherry tomatoes are local produce from the Mustard Seed Market, as were the vegetables in the coleslaw.
I actually have lettuce in my own garden, but mine is more in the micro-green stage. D's father claims this is because he waters his every day, and I don't. It's true, I believe in tough vegetable love.

more on eating locally

Fact from Michael Pollan's book The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of 4 Meals: a single strawberry contains about five calories. To get that strawberry from a field in California requires 435 calories of energy.
The book is full of such interesting bits of information--also some disgusting ones (don't ask about fecal dust in cattle feedlots--or rather, do, if you are interested in what goes into your food). I'm reading it along with eating locally this month, and it's eye-opening.
He follows the food chain back to its sources--a corn field in Iowa, a feedlot in Kansas, farms that practice Big Organic (Earthbound Farms, for instance, from whom you have probably bought lettuce) and Small Organic (family-type, sustainable farms). In the last section, he forages and hunts his dinner--I haven't gotten that far. I'm just past the feedlots (fecal dust!), starting on his dinner from Whole Foods.
Here's an excerpt. If you're interested in this kind of thing, it's required reading. His earlier book, The Botany of Desire, which focuses on 4 particular plants (potatoes, apples, tulips, and marijuana) is also very good. (Check out that organic smile, right.)
For more diverse and interesting opinions on the local eating challenge, check out the ELC website.

dinner at chez local

Today I went to the Mustard Seed Market, a great local chain (2 stores) with an emphasis on organic and healthy food. I love it there--I sometimes feel as if I get healthier just by walking in the door. I went today looking for local products, and although I came away with some good buys, I was surprised to find that local stuff was the exception, not the rule. (Check out my post on the Eat Local Challenge blog for more on the shopping trip.)
But I did buy some great Amish chicken and asparagus, both local, and these were the basis of dinner. Full disclosure: I didn't cook. D did, a nonrecipe type of cooking. He cut up the chicken breast (just one, because it was so big), sauteed it with some red onions (nonlocal!), added a couple of tablespoons of flour to coat the chicken pieces a little, then splashed in some red wine and put the lid on for a while to cook it through. Final additions, a bit of vinegar and a bit of honey--sour and sweet to balance the flavors.
We had it over rice (nonlocal, one of my exemptions) and the asparagus, steamed until it was bright green and tender. Not only very tasty, but it made the house smell great. Shouldn't there be food perfumes? Eau de beef stew? Tomato parfum?)

first local meal

Pleased to report that I have one local meal under my belt. I know that I'm not going to be able to eat totally locally (and don't even want to: the chocolate factor), but I took pleasure in looking at my plate and saying, "You belong to my foodshed." Saying mentally, you understand.
I had rye bread (baker at the farmers market) toasted, with butter from the Hartzler Family Dairy (Wooster, Ohio), and a scoop of cottage cheese from the Amish guy in the straw hat at the farmers market.
I always have tea with breakfast, and I'd decided that I'd be drinking mint tea, dried from my garden mint, for the duration. But I couldn't find my tea ball. I ransacked the kitchen as quietly as I could (D still sleeping), but no tea ball. My intense desire to avoid drinking a cup of hot water led me to MacGyver-like inspiration--I made an impromptu tea bag with a coffee filter and a twisty-tie.
Thanks to Richard Dean Anderson, local eating is saved.
Check out the Eat Local Challenge group blog for more measured and informative prose on the subject.

at the farmers market

Today was my 1st farmers market visit this year, the North Union Market at Crocker Bassett. I'm particularly interested in the market this year because I'm doing the Eat Local Challenge, a movement to increase awareness about the perils of eating unseasonally and having our food trek around the globe to arrive on our plates weary and travel-stained (so to speak). I'm also going to be posting on a blog with other eat-local-challengers: more on that later.
I'd never been to the market this early in the year, and I was curious about what I'd find. What is there to eat in Ohio in May? There are some onionish things coming up in my yard, and some micro lettuce, but nothing much to put on a plate. Happily, the North Union farmers are more on the ball.

I bought the following
ramps
2 kinds of lettuce
2 loaves of bread (rye and some kind of multigrain)
a dozen eggs
cottage cheese (eggs and cottage cheese from an Amish farmer in a straw hat)
raw milk cheddar
a plastic bag of nettles (I don't know what to do with these yet)
a giant bunch of kale
Fuji apples
some bison sausage
a paper bag full of mushrooms
2 basil plants, one green, one green
and a chocolate-almond croissant
every single thing either grown or produced or baked or preserved in northeast Ohio: amazing.
I was most excited about the ramps (see left)--I'd read about them, but never had any before. They're a wild food, very seasonal (only early spring), supposedly very smelly, in the onion family. I'd read that they'd totally stink up your car on the way home, but neither my sister nor I noticed this. I've double-bagged them in the veg drawer--we'll see how aromatic they are tomorrow.
As often, D looked doubtful when I spread out this bounty. He worries that we won't be able to use everything when I buy a lot of stuff. He's already imagining the vegetables as slime in the bottom drawer of the fridge (and it's not like this has never happened), so I must prove him wrong.
Here's Sally of Summit Croissants--hers was the chocolate-almond croissant I bought (and almost immediately ate: mmm). I forgot to ask her why she'd named them Summit. Because they're from Summit county? they're the peak of croissants? Not sure, but they were excellent.

For more information about eating local, check out here or here.