Archive for This and That

Radish Salsa Fresca

June 1, 2010 · Filed under Side/Salad, Spring, This and That · Tagged , , ,

While we bear through a pretty wet and cool spring here in the Willamette Valley, waiting for both the warm sun to come and stay for good as well as the vegetables such weather brings, we try to stay positive by focusing on things like not having to irrigate yet and the plethora of delicious, well growing spring veggies we get to enjoy.  On our tables, we see sweet, tender lettuces at almost every meal; and either mixed with those lettuces, or used in dishes where they stand on their own, we also see a lot of radishes.  The radish is both highly prized by some–we really can’t bring enough of these to sell at our Thursday Farmer’s Market–and much  maligned by others.  In some ways, they can be so mild flavored, especially when store bought, that aside from their crunch and color, they offer little to the palette.  But when grown well, they have a great flavor that tastes just like spring to us.

We have been out of our summer preserved salsa for about a month or so now, which isn’t too bad considering tomatoes really will be ready in just a couple of months.  We use most of our salsa on morning eggs, but have begun to have tacos a bit more frequently after once again becoming more strict about being gluten free; we use taco night now to replace pizza night.  We don’t mind tacos without salsa, but last week I was in a hurry getting things ready, so our tacos were going to the table with no sauteed onions or dark leafy greens, and I needed something to add to the slow-cooked beans to really make the meal.  I know I have made radish salsas before, but this one was especially good.  I think that I enjoyed it more finely processed in the food processor where normally I hand chop it and make it a bit more chuncky.  It was riduculously easy and fast and really, really delicious with the tacos.  We had the leftovers with fish the next night, it was perfect.  Since I have a glut of radishes over here, I  think I will even make a big batch and ferment it…I am really excited for that.  Either way, fresh is where it is at in spring, and radishes abound.  With dishes like this, waiting for the summer and its fruits doesn’t seem so bad.

Radish Salsa Fresca

  • 1 bunch radishes
  • 1 small spring onion OR 3-4 green onions OR 2 spring green garlic bulbs
  • handful parsley sprigs
  • juice of half a lemon
  • sea or kosher salt to taste
  • pinch cayenne
  • pinch ground coriander

Mix all ingredients in food processor until chopped and blended, but do not over-process as this will release excess liquid from the radishes.  Taste and adjust seasonings if necessary.  Enjoy!

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Through the door

May 11, 2010 · Filed under Meal Planning, Spring, This and That · Tagged , , , , , , ,

Posted by Sheila

I feel a little silly showing up back here.  It has almost been a year since I last posted on what began as a shared blog, and after so much time, I can’t help but wonder if there is a way back through the door.  There are, in fact, so many more reasons to not continue being a part of this blog than to start trying to contribute again, that it has made it doubly hard to get back at it.   There is the ever present busyness of life, the really boring (in a blog world kind of way) food we eat, the lack of recipes used or created to share, the willy-nilly-free-for-all that cooking is for me; I have had too much time to reflect on all this in the year since I last posted that I can’t help but feel that I was naive to think I would have anything worthwhile to write on a food blog.

No one that reads this blog now probably even remembers that when we started this project, it was going to be a collaboration.  I have felt a lot of guilt about asking Lisa to start this and then leaving all the work to her.  But life happens, and I happened to lose both my parents within days of each other in the worst week of my life last June.  When I got home, I didn’t want to write anything at all.  And although I had to keep up with things a bit more on our farm blog, my heart wasn’t in it. The same was true for cooking.  We all ate of course, and ate healthy, local, tasty food; but I was surprised to find that I was going to go through a grief process no matter how reasonable I tried to feel about death in my mind, and that part of this process meant feeling pretty lackluster about most things, especially food and farming.  Luckily, I felt a renewed and very intense joy in that which is most important of all, my children and our family.  That made for happiness in the midst of sadness, and that focused energy towards them has found us all in a more joyful place than ever as we start a new year.

Now that time has healed, I have been trying to find a way to start posting here again.  And although I can’t say I am convinced that my cooking in the kitchen is anything spectacular, it is homey, healthy, and a good picture of what eating locally looks like in a simple, down to earth style.  And that, coupled with the fact that I still have that nagging guilt about my absence from here and because Lisa surprisingly still wants me to contribute and because I really do love to write, has gotten me here.  I am going to try to find ways to share our farm and home’s little bit of mindful eating again.

And for all my worry about what I will write about, I have at least started to try my hand at meal planning.  This winter was lean in our fields and freezers, and planning things for the week really helped me figure out what we were going to eat.  Right now, our fields are in transition.  We have tilled in most of our over-wintered produce, that we could still be harvesting from, in order to fill the space up for a big spring since we are not going to be harvesting for our CSA or Farmer’s Markets until the last week of this month.  We are excited for the farm business, but it has left less to harvest from for the family right now.  We normally don’t buy vegetables, but because we have had so little and because we are nourishing so many, I have been buying potatoes from a local farm and mushrooms grown in the county to round things out.  Here is what this week’s menu looked like, a picture of how we eat when we don’t have much new spring produce yet and have exhausted most of our preserved produce.  We normally eat, and encourage folks to eat, so many more vegetables than we are eating right now; but sometimes, we have found, that we have to give a little from our ideals, with both vegetable and meat amounts, in our effort to live off our land or our neighbors’.

Monday:

Breakfast–Fried Eggs and Rye Toast

Lunch–White Bean Soup with Spring Onion, Kale, and Sausage

Dinner–Polenta (made with chicken stock) with Sauteed Spring Onions and Kale

Tuesday:

Breakfast–Oatmeal and Sausage

Lunch–Leftover Polenta with Leftover White Bean Soup

Dinner–Gluten-Free Chicken, Mushroom, Onion, and Sage Pot Pie

Wednesday:

Breakfast–Egg Scramble with Chives and Kale

Lunch–Eating somewhere in Portland (suggestions accepted!)

Dinner–Lamb Sausages with White Bean and Savory Puree and Sauteed Kale

Thursday:

Breakfast–Poached Eggs with Hollandaise and Gluten-Free English Muffins, topped with Chive Blossoms

Lunch–Chicken, Mushroom, Onion, and  Mung Bean Noodle Soup

Dinner–Meatloaf with Mashed Potatoes and Spring Lettuce Salad

Friday–

Breakfast–Buckwheat Pancakes with Sunflower Seed Butter

Lunch–Salmon Cakes with Spring Lettuce Salad

Dinner–Taco Night (which has sadly replaced Pizza Night due to food allergies) with Sprouted Corn Tortillas, Refried Pinto Beans, and Sauteed Onion and Kale

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Tomatoes, in season and out

April 11, 2010 · Filed under This and That · Tagged

Posted by Lisa

Fresh summer tomatoes

Because I’m preparing a tomato dal this week that calls for fresh tomatoes, I just wanted to write a bit about the subject of tomatoes. I love tomatoes. I think they are one of the grandest and most versatile vegetables grown. (I know they are technically a fruit, but I think of them as a vegetable since they are primarily used in savory dishes.) That being said, I don’t buy tomatoes out of season. I’m not going to say I never buy them, because I will break down and purchase them on occasion if we are preparing something for a guests and the absence of tomatoes would be troubling or if my husband is having tomato withdrawal. However, this is so rare that it happens probably less than once per year. Out of season tomatoes don’t really taste much like fresh, seasonal tomatoes. Every time I eat an out of season tomato I regret spending money on such an inferior product.  They are usually mealy and dry and even if the texture is okay, the flavor is nothing in comparison to a fresh, ripe tomato.  On top of that, since we strive to eat local and seasonally not only to support our local farmers, but to lessen the miles our food travels to save resources, out of season tomatoes usually travel from very far away, probably Mexico or California, but perhaps even from China as they are the leading producer of tomatoes.  Store-bought tomatoes are picked green and artificially ripened using ethylene gas.  Even tomatoes that are sold on the vine are ripened with ethylene.  None of that process even sounds appetizing.

Since tomatoes are so widely consumed, how does our family cope with the absence of fresh tomatoes during the winter, spring and early summer?  I can a lot of tomatoes in the fall.  We can many quarts and pints of diced tomatoes and tomato sauce.  If we happen to run out of tomatoes before the next tomato season arrives, I will purchase small quantities of organic canned tomatoes, which I find tastier than out-of-season “fresh” tomatoes, but in general I will try to decrease the use of  recipes that require tomatoes.

If a recipe calls for fresh tomatoes, as this week’s tomato dal recipe does, I will substitute an equal amount of diced, canned tomatoes for the fresh tomatoes in the recipe.  I have another tomato dal recipe, called fresh tomato dal, and I wouldn’t even attempt to prepare this dish out of season, because it calls for fresh tomatoes to be added after the dish is cooked and the tomatoes don’t really cook so much as heat.  That texture and flavor profile just can’t be done with canned tomatoes, so it will wait for fresh tomato season along with tabbouleh and sliced tomato salad.

We didn’t always do it this way, but as we have changed our produce to a mostly local selection over the years, our taste buds have become accustomed to eating fresh, flavorful food and anything else doesn’t really do much for us anymore.

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No Meal Plan: 6/26-7/2/09

July 2, 2009 · Filed under This and That

Posted by Lisa

I’m breaking with routine and not having a meal plan for this week.  With a meal leftover from last week’s plan, visiting family departing, more visiting family dropping in, fruit picking and preserving taking up kitchen space and time,  and lots of lettuce for hearty salads, I’ve been throwing together what I can.  I’ll be back to my regular meal planning next week!

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Spring Radishes and Salad Turnips Sauteed

May 27, 2009 · Filed under Side/Salad, Spring, This and That · Tagged , ,

tunrips and radishes

Radishes are a given in spring, and if you are getting produce from local farmers, you are likely to begin seeing salad turnips in your CSA share or at farmer’s market right about now too.  Unlike the more common fall and winter purple top turnip which works its way into those cold weather roasted root vegetable dishes, salad turnips grow quickly and are sweet and tender.  After months of vegetables that are more often than not served cooked rather than fresh, spring’s first radishes and these lovely salad turnips are hard not to simply eat off the greens in the case of radishes, sliced like apple in the case of the turnips.

But maybe you don’t care for that bit of spice a fresh radish wields or you want to make the most of those sugars encircled in those sweet round turnips.  There is a simple and delicious solution to either of these dilemmas.  A quick saute of either of these spring roots or both combined softens their crunch just a bit, dissapaits the heat from the radishes, and allows for those sweet turnip sugars to caramelize, making for a great side dish or stir-fry starter.   Just start with some green garlic, garlic scapes, or storage allium and saute until translucent, add these spring eats and continue to saute until  you see the sugars from the roots begin to turn a lovely golden brown.

my children's plate Quick Post CSA harvest day dinner:

plum purple and cherry belle radishes sautéed with turnips

with chicken and hummus, salad w/ balsamic vinegar

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Eat your greens!

May 10, 2009 · Filed under Main Dish, Side/Salad, Spring, This and That · Tagged

Posted by Sheila

kale

The harvests from early spring can seem the farthest removed from the most commonly consumed vegetables in the United States.  It is the season of greens, especially if you are shy on overwintered root crops.   Still, greens have been making a comeback because of their nutrient dense profile, and they are a staple in many other culture’s diets.A simple tip on using all your spring greens up–add them to most dishes you cook and they will be good!

Greens cook down quite a bit, and although all of the different greens have different characteristics (especially in regards to cooking time, the thicker the cell wall the more cooking they can take and still be good), most are interchangeable in recipes.  A little quality olive oil or organic butter, some leek, onion, or garlic, and a light cooking for chard and kale and young turnip greens, a bit longer for those collards. and they really are great just like that…by themselves or added to most anything you are cooking!  There are delicious recipes for greens all over the internet if you aren’t finding any in the cookbooks around your house, and if a recipe doesn’t include greens in it, don’t be afraid to just add them in.

chard

Simple Sauteed Greens/ Italian OR Asian Style

This saute can be eaten as a side, or prepared as such and then served over pasta, bread, or rice.

1 bunch greens, chopped, tough stems removed
1 leek, chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed
pinch crushed red pepper
sea salt or tamari (or regular soy) sauce to taste
1⁄4 cup or so red wine for Italian style, dry white wine for Asian style (for deglazing pan)
grated Parmesan for Italian style, sesame oil for Asian style
olive oil OR coconut (or peanut) oil
Gently heat either your olive oil for Italian style greens or coconut or peanut oil for Asian style. Add your leeks, garlic (and ginger for Asian greens) and saute until the alliums are translucent and soft. Add your greens and either sea salt (Italian) or tamari or soy sauce (Asian) plus crushed red pepper to taste. Add more oil if necessary, and saute until greens have almost reached the desired tenderness. Add wine of choice and deglaze pan  using the wine to remove what has cooked onto pan, intensifying flavors). The greens should be just right at this point. Now you can either top with grated Parmesan or sesame oil and serve quickly or add to the dish you are cooking. The Italian style is great on top of pasta or inside cannelloni or manicotti or lasagna, on crusty bread and pizza or under chicken Parmesan. The Asian style is great on oriental rice or tossed with Asian noodles, or stuffed into spring rolls, fresh or fried and dipped in your favorite Asian style sauce.

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This week from the farm table…

April 29, 2009 · Filed under This and That · Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Posted by  Sheila

spring rapini

Ok, things have been cooking pretty slowly for me and this blog.  As my about info relates, we are not usually meal planners so can’t share a weekly meal plan.   However things are heating up now that we are back to harvesting for the CSA.  Now we begin to just  harvest for ourselves on the same day, and either suggest recipes for that week that we have tried, or often find new ones that we then try that week.  This will make it easier for me to serve up tasty blog posts to complement Lisa’s hard work here!  The second ingredient that has been missing for me here has been taking decent pictures of the food we make.  I have come to have a great appreciation for the well taken pictures on food blogs.  Like Lisa mentioned to me, it is hard when everyone is ready to eat and you are trying to get a picture in, and then add in a dash of poor lighting in the kitchen and it just becomes a fiasco.  So I have decided, photo or not, words can go a long way (pictures do help) with wetting your appetites!  Here’s some of what we ate from our fields last week.

  • Goat and Barley Soup with Leek Tops (cut leek tops into 1 inch pieces and used as their own veggie–these were soft and delicious by the time the soup was finished!)
  • Salad Mix of baby lettuces, crisp baby Russian kale, blood red beet leaves, borage flowers, perpetual spinach, and wild sorrel tossed with nettle pesto, italian-style homemade vinaigrette, and coarsly chopped Oregon hazelnuts
  • Braised Rack of Goat with Sauteed Rapini
  • Pizza Night:  Nettle Pesto w/ sheep’s Feta AND Carmelized Leeks and Rapini, w/ Parmesan and Olive Oil
  • Coconut Red Beans and Rice w/ baby perpetual spinach leaf salad with oil, vinegar, feta
  • Falafel and Chard Cakes (ours somewhere between these and these )
  • Rice Noodles with with sautéed Kale, locally fished Tuna, and Buttery Leeks

lettuce heads

Things we plan to try this week:

And lots of different salads:

  • Baby Perpetual Spinach with warm dressing of some sort (maybe we will splurge for some bacon…our piggies had none) and poached egg.
  • Baby Perpetual Spinach w/ balsamic vinegar/olive oil, walnuts, and Oregonzola (Rogue Creamery blue cheeses-yum!!)
  • Ceasar-inspired Lettuce Salad with our Rogue D’Hiver lettuce (a Romaine type)
  • And maybe this Butter Lettuce and Pumpkin Seed Salad with our Winter Density lettuce (a butter/romaine style)

Otherwise it might be more of our old stand-bys: kale and eggs in the morning, greens smoothies, collards and rice and buttery leeks and white beans, more slow cooked goat (it is the only meat in our freezer right now), and probably another rapini pizza on pizza night!  Who knows, maybe this week a great picture will come out of a great meal and it will grace this table here!

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A weed by any other name…

April 8, 2009 · Filed under Side/Salad, Spring, This and That · Tagged , , , , ,

Posted by Sheila

spring herbs

There are two things that have struck me this spring as we eat and live more seasonally than we ever have.  One Lisa has already touched on–wild foraging–and in the hope of not being redundant, I must too share some of our foraged food fun.  The second thing that I have taken for granted until now is the regrowth of our perennial herbs.  These two things have brought just enough newness to our plates to see us through to those first radishes and peas and strawberries.

The truth of the matter is that most of what we can harvest from our own first season overwintered field is much more of the same, with rapinis being the only true “new” crop of this season.  Being back in chives is a real treat, and even though our thymes and rosemaries and such can be cut all winter, they can not be the stars in any dishes as we gingerly tend them through the winter waiting for their new growth to signal larger and more frequent harvest.  Taking steps to plant some perennial herbs can help round out a year long seasonal and local diet nicely.

Still,  it is the dandelion greens, the nettles, the wild violets, all perfect and good for harvests for such a short time before the dandelions get far too bitter, the wild violets shrivel up, and well, the nettles get too tough and overgrown unless you stay on top of them.  Summer has its own crop of great foraging options, wild sorrel and lamb’s quarters delicious even when summer heat makes other cultivated greens bitter. But in summer, there is so much to be had from the fields, the feeling is not quite the same.

dandelion greens

And really, there is something to the feeling of foraging anyways.  A different kind of satisfaction (different, I say, not better) than comes from harvesting what you yourself have sown (also deeply rewarding).  I hope to always have the means to do the latter, but the former gives one the feeling of being provided for in quite a different way.  It is an activity I highly recommend, and there is no better time than in the spring to take advantage of these “weeds” while you wait for your own garden to get going or for most farmer’s to begin selling their goods.  And in case you needed another push to peruse through an edible weed book, in all cases that I have looked into, wildings far surpass all of our cultivated vegetables on a nutritional level.

wild spring salad

Dandelion greens must be picked from fresh growth before flower stalks have sprouted to be tasty and not bitter.  These are the best for salads.  We also have enjoyed them in soups and quiches when they are slightly bigger, but if you harvest any that have that milky white substance oozing from them when you cut them, they will be bitter, bitter, bitter.  Wild violets are like candy, delightful in a salad, but equally sweet for eating out of hand; like the first fruit of the season, my kids love these!  Nettles are perfectly edible and like dandelion greens and all wildings, incredibely nutritious.  Definately use gloves to harvest these!  The sting goes away after steaming or cooking, and these can be used in any greens recipe, but here is a recipe we always use, the first thing we were shown to do with nettles years ago.  As always, we don’t use a recipe when we make it, so I am posting this recipe so you have specifics.  I almost never use pine nuts since I get large quantities of organic walnuts from an area farm and it is great with walnuts.

Nettle Pesto

2 cups stinging nettles, blanched and chopped (figure 6 cups raw)
1/2 cup Parmesan
1/2 cup pine nuts, roasted
4-5 large garlic cloves
1/2 cup olive oil
1 tbsp lemon juice
salt and pepper, to taste

Don’t forget the blanching part, to get out the sting, but just for a minute or so, then dry them as best you can, throw everything in a blender or food processer and process.  We enjoy this pesto on pizzas and pastas per the usual, but also as a soup garnish and with both lamb and beef.

And if you are one of the many who suffer from seasonal allergies, then forage and eat as many nettles as you can while they are good fresh, then collect the larger, thicker leaves for tea through the rest of the season.  Besides bee pollen from where you live (and cutting dairy out of your diet during allergy season), nettles are the best way to self correct your bodies immune response to seasonal pollens.  Now, go forage!

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Local Breakfast: Blueberry Filled Crêpes

March 27, 2009 · Filed under This and That · Tagged , , , ,

Posted by Lisa
Crepes

Crepes

What did a local breakfast look like today?  Crêpes filled with a blueberry honey sauce and drizzled with yogurt mixed with honey.

Crêpes are made with eggs, flour and milk.  Our eggs come from a friend who pastures her chickens on her vineyard.  Our milk comes from friends who primarily raise chickens for meat and eggs and are adding a small CSA to their offerings this year.  Only the flour came from a non-local source.  The blueberry filling was made with blueberries that my girls and I picked ourselves last summer.  We still have a good sized stash in the freezer, so a blueberry breakfast was in order.  Into the small saucepan with the blueberries went a few tablespoons of water and a couple tablespoons of local kiwi honey, which was a Christmas present from another friend (we’ve been stretching it for special dishes!).  These were simmered together until the blueberries started to soften.  The crêpes were finished off with a drizzle of homemade yogurt (which I make from the local milk) mixed with a bit of kiwi honey and a splash of pure vanilla extract.

A truly local breakfast full of the surprisingly strong fragrant taste of blueberries mixed with the creamy, cool yogurt and the rich egginess of the crêpes.   (Notice how golden they are.  You can only get that kind of color from eggs which have been pastured.  The yolks from pastured eggs are so orange!)

Crêpes filled with blueberries and topped with honeyed yogurt

Crêpes filled with blueberries and topped with honeyed yogurt

Brittany Crêpes

from Sunset’s Country French Cooking

  • 3 eggs
  • 1 cup all purpose flour
  • 1 1/2 cups milk
  • butter or coconut oil to grease pan

In a blender blend eggs and flour.   Add milk and blend until smooth.  (I tried to do this with a whisk and just couldn’t get it smooth, so I had to resort to a blender.)

Place a crêpe pan, non-stick skillet or cast iron griddle over medium high heat.  (I used cast iron.)

Rub surface of pan with butter or oil.  When pan is very hot, pour batter onto pan and tilt to cover the entire surface.  Use 1/4 cup of batter for an 8″ pan, 1/3 cup for a 10 to 12″ pan and 1/2 cup for a 14″ pan.  Cook crêpe until it is golden brown on the bottom and the top feels dry.  Run a wide spatula around the edge to loosen and then flip crepe over and cook for another 30 seconds to 1 minute.  Turn out onto pan.  Repeat until you have used all your batter.   Serve warm and with your desired fillings and toppings.

*I used two cast iron griddles and that worked wonderfully to get all the crêpes done quickly.

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Into the belly of spring

March 20, 2009 · Filed under Main Dish, Spring, This and That, Winter · Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

Posted by Sheila

shamrock cookies

St. Patrick’s Day came and went with Irish Pork Chops braised with stout and leeks, served with roasted cabbage, turnips, and more leeks (leeks, leeks, leeks…our winter staple which we are still enjoying even as we size up the Walla Wallas as they work their way towards spring harvests).  We also had this gluten-free Irish soda bread, ours made with sweet sorghum rather than teff flour.  Our gluten free baking is usually reserved for just such special occasions, and the littlies in the house revel in the treat–we had the leftover bread as French toast the following morning, it was as if they had woken up in heaven.  Dessert was rice flour shamrock shortbread drizzled with mint chocolate and for the adults,  Irish Cream Coffee with the whiskey but not the Creme de Menthe, just another drizzle of the mint chocolate on the top of the whipped cream.

St Patrick's Day

With the passing of this holiday that we love and feel a bit akin to having our own fair share of Irish blood between the two of us and vested in our kids, we invoke a celebratory mood that we keep with us to mark the coming of Spring (and our son’s birthday) just a few days later.  As we make the move from winter to spring, we also begin to shift from winter to spring eating.  The changes have already begun on our table with a handful of lovely baby lettuce salads for a few dinner parties and to round out some weeknight meals for the first time since early December!  We have also begun harvesting our kale, adding  it either lightly sauteed or just tossed and rubbed in oil and vinegar  with just about every meal we can because it is beyond delicious harvested now, after the winter’s cold has sweetened it more than you can imagine when you try to recall summer’s more biting kale and even when compared to the fall’s first frosted leaves.

The mustards and Asian greens have begun to flower, sending up tender rapinisthat we eat out of hand for snacks or saute just a moment to toss with pasta or to top a simple olive oil/aged cheese pizza (we are using Willamete Valley Cheese Co.’s Borenkaas, a raw cow milk aged gouda), this replacing our regular winter pizza of arugula and sun dried tomatoes or sauce tomatoes from the freezer.  The arugula, too, now budding, no longer the base of our simple, winter side salads.

We are only three years into our lives on this farm, two years into eating really seasonally, and just one year into growing vegetables through the winter.  Still, more than ever, we mark the circle around the sun in vegetables.  The trees, leaves or not, flowers here or gone, birds, bees, rain or sun…these things we feel and keep time by with great enthusiasm, even more so since we began to farm; but as we see the dishes on our table wax and wane the varying season’s bounty, we feel even more deeply connected to this cycle. And so we march forth towards the equinox with bellies full of winter and ready to be filled with spring.

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