January Garden Soup

Sunday, January 13, 2008

While last week’s frugal winter soup focused on ingredients frozen from our summer garden, this weekend’s soup used some fresh stuff I picked yesterday thanks to the disturbingly warm winter temperatures we’ve been having.  I meandered out to the garden to dump some compost scraps and was a bit surprised to see that the kale plants had a lot of young leaves on them.  I guess a week of temperatures in the 60s got the plants going again.  I grabbed some scissors and snipped a bunch of the leaves to add to my baked potato soup along with fresh parsley, rosemary and thyme from my kitchen garden. 

Since my soups are usually improvised, I didn’t write down the exact measurements.  I started with some melted butter and sautéed celery, onions and garlic.  I then added about ¼ c. of spelt flour from Small Valley Milling (see story about the farm here from Farming Magazine [available at the Fair Food Farmstand], about 4 cups of veggie broth and some milk.  Then, I added some baked potatoes that I had mashed and some that I diced along with the fresh herbs.  In the last ten minutes, I added the chopped baby kale. 

Because my husband is a big guy that isn’t necessarily satisfied with just a bowl of soup, I try to bake up something to go alongside.  This time, I found a recipe for wheat germ muffins in one of my favorite cookbooks for practical, frugal cooking using whole foods:  American Wholefoods Cuisine by Nikki and David Goldbeck.  I understand that there is a second edition of this cookbook, but my copy is one that my husband found for me at a used bookstore a few years ago.  I’ve gotten many basic vegetarian recipes from it.  I substituted the spelt flour for half of the whole wheat flour called for in the recipe with good results.  I’m going to keep experimenting with this flour, but so far it’s been great.

All in all, it was a simple supper.  I’m glad I happened to spy the kale because I’m sure the forecasted snow will kill the plants. Then again, who would have thought that they’d be alive and producing in January?

Decisions, decisions: choosing a CSA program

Thursday, January 10, 2008

It’s around that time when people who have opted to participate in Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) programs have to choose a program and buy a share.  Last Summer, contributors wrote about their CSA shares through Lancaster Farm Fresh, Blooming Glen Farm, and Red Earth Farm.  There are a huge number of CSA programs in the area, though - when I plugged in my zip code to Local Harvest, 31 listings popped up!  No doubt, there are many other CSA programs not listed on Local Harvest, too.

If you’re not familiar with the concept of a CSA, the quick and dirty is that you pay the farmer up front for a share in what the farmer produces during the typical produce farming season and then you pick up your share for the week at a specific location.  The benefits to the farmer are that he/she/they get a fair price for the food they grow and it enables them to maintain their farms far better than more traditional sales models.  The benefits to you (the CSA member) are insane amounts of super fresh produce (usually picked within hours of your share pick up) that is often grown organically and sustainably, plus you know exactly where your food is coming from.  Sometimes you can find a CSA who offers other things for sale through the share program - eggs, meat, and milk, for instance.

Sadly, many CSA programs get overlooked simply because they have no online presence.  The information about crops typically included, price, duration of share period, pick up locations, etc. might not be readily available on the farm’s website and we move on until we find a program that does have all that stuff easily accessible.  I’m as guilty of that as anyone - I picked my CSA program last year not based on reputation or crops typically included in a share, but simply because Lancaster Farm Fresh had the most information available online and the pick up spot was super convenient for me.

I think the majority of FTP contributors are really happy with the CSA programs they participated in last year (and years prior).  I had a pretty good experience with Lancaster Farm Fresh, but variety is the spice of life and all that - I think we’re going to try something new this year.  Right now we’re waffling between Landisdale Farm’s CSA program (that offers a pick up on Saturday mornings at the Clark Park Farmer’s Market) and the CSA program at Red Hill Farm (the share is picked up at the farm, which isn’t too far away from our house…I’m just not sure yet what day of the week it is).  Obviously, I still have lots of homework to do before the final decision is made!

Now that I’ve gone one season participating in a CSA, I can’t imagine not being in one.  I truly loathe the grocery store, and I like the surprise of not knowing exactly what you’ll get in your share from week to week.  It definitely encouraged me to be more creative, try new recipes, and spend time preserving what I couldn’t eat in a week.

No doubt one day all of our local CSA programs will have an online presence with plenty of information immediately available.  Until that time, though, we’re going to have to do things the old fashioned way: pick up the phone.

Did You Do It?

Way back in September of last year(!), I wrote a post about drying your own sweet corn, an age-old method of preserving the summer’s harvest in a manner that didn’t take up nearly as much space (or require any fancy equipment) as canning or freezing.  It was something my grandmother had told me about, a story you can read here if you’d like to learn more about food traditions in my Pennsylvania Dutch farming family. 

Now the question is, did you do it?  Did you dry your own corn?  I hope the answer is “yes”, because I have a delightful dish to share that features that crunchy dried corn.  The resulting chewy-but-not-soft texture is very unique and compliments the rather nutty flavor nicely. 

OLD-FASHIONED CREAMY (dried) CORN

2 c. dried sweet corn
2 1/4 c. fat free milk
1 1/2 c. heavy cream
2 t. sugar
2 T. butter
dash of cayenne pepper
freshly ground nutmeg
generous pinch of salt and freshly ground black pepper
3 or 4 strips of cooked (soy) bacon, crumbled
1/4 t. dried marjoram


Place corn in a large heavy saucepan and stir in milk and heavy cream.  Cover and refrigerate overnight.

When ready to use, stir in the sugar, butter, cayenne, nutmeg, salt and pepper. Bring to a boil.  Reduce heat to low and simmer, stirring occasionally, for 35-40 minutes until the liquid is absorbed.  Taste and adjust seasoning if necessary.  Place in warmed serving dish and top with crumbled bacon and marjoram.  Serve immediately.

Michael Pollan at the Free Library

Wednesday, January 09, 2008

If you’re looking for something to do tomorrow night, Michael Pollan is speaking at the Free Library of Philadelphia.  Pollan is the author of a book that influenced many of us, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, as well as The Botany of Desire.  He’ll be discussing his latest book In Defense of Food.  You might know Pollan’s treatise: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

Pollan’s talk is scheduled to begin at 7:00 pm at the 1901 Vine branch.  Pollan will also be speaking tomorrow morning at the White Dog Cafe, but that’s been sold out since mid-December at least (trust me, I tried to get in).  If the White Dog event is any indication, the Pollan event at the library will be packed!

Dark days: the perfect burger

Tuesday, January 08, 2008

Sometimes you just want a burger.  And since the weather has been so incredibly wacky and totally unseasonable this week, we felt compelled to grill.  With a couple of Angus burgers in hand from Buck Run Farm, I looked around to see what else I could throw on a burger.  Some of the provolone from Cherry Grove Farm was the perfect cheese for it - it melts perfectly!  And I had nearly forgotten about the bag of cute, little baby shiitake mushrooms from Oley Valley Mushrooms I purchased.  They got a quick saute in local butter and went on top of the burger.  The bun was a roll from Le Bus.

And the perfect finish: a bit of my homemade catsup.

It was the best burger I’ve had in a long time!

Coincidentally, I discovered something of interest when I was looking around the Buck Run Farm website.  They only have a license to sell Angus burgers…but if you want steaks or a roast or something, Buck Run is willing to sell you a market-ready steer or part interest in one.  I’ve heard of farmers doing this in other places, but I didn’t realize that any local farms offered this.

Curried Squash and Potato Soup

Monday, January 07, 2008

One of my favorite winter vegetables is butternut squash, and one of my favorite ways to prepare it is in soup, especially now that we’ve had some actual winter weather.  Last week, I made a batch of soup with squash, potatoes, and carrots, which came out well enough to inspire envy among my coworkers.  The measurements for spices are all approximate—I never really measure things in cooking—but I think the proportions are about right.

Curried Squash and Potato Soup

1 onion, chopped into squares
2 large cloves of garlic, minced
1 square inch of ginger, minced
1 medium butternut squash, cubed
2 medium potatoes, cubed
3 carrots, chopped
3 cups of vegetable stock
1/2 T cumin seeds
1/2 T brown mustard seeds
1-1/2 T cumin
1 T coriander
1 t cardamon
1-1/2 T garam masala
1/4 t salt
1/2 t black pepper
1 dried chile
2 T dried parsley (approx. measure before crushing)
1 T turmeric
1/2 t fenugreek

Heat the oil with cumin seeds and mustard seeds.  When the seeds start to pop, add the onion; when the onion is almost clear, add the garlic and then the ginger.  Start adding ground spices at this point.  Add the potatoes, dried chile, squash, and stock to cover.  Simmer for a few minutes, mostly covered, and then add the carrots.  Adjust spices to taste, and simmer until the veggies are fork-soft, adding stock if necessary.  Purée and serve with a slice of homemade bread. 

Makes approximately 6 main-dish servings.

 

I’m fond of soup that I can eat with a fork, but it wouldn’t be hard to make this thinner if your tastes are different.

Frugal Fanny

One of the reasons why eating with the seasons and preserving the harvest to enjoy when fresh, local foods are limited appeals so much to me is because it requires resourcefulness. There’s something reassuring and satisfying about reaching into my freezer in the basement and defrosting pumpkin puree for muffins or grabbing a container of applesauce for my toddler to enjoy during the week. It’s also good family economics for us.  Growing a lot of our own produce means that I really hate to waste anything; I know exactly how much time and energy went into growing all of our plants and wasting parsley stems, for instance, seems counterproductive (I save them in a ziploc bag to add to my stock pot). 

My frugal tendencies mean that soup is a nearly ideal winter meal for us.  I can use some homemade stock from the freezer along with veggies frozen from our garden.  Some of them, like the green beans pictured (along with some frozen parsley cubes and lima beans that were also added to last night’s soup), weren’t the best for eating fresh because they had gotten too big on the vine.  They are perfectly suitable for a winter soup though where texture is not paramount.  My basic freezer/clean out the fridge/use-up-some-inexpensive-pantry-items soup starts with carrots, celery, onion and garlic sauteed in oil before veggie stock is added. From there, I may add some canned or dried beans, various vegetables from the freezer and the crisper, a handful of grains or pasta and various herbs and spices.  The result is always different but usually very tasty, especially when served with a homemade biscuit like the savory scallion scones we had last night.  I must admit that I feel virtuous using up those some of those homely ingredients and turning them into a delicious, healthy meal for my family for pennies.

A trio of cheeses

The Fair Food Farmstand recently got some new cheeses into stock from Cherry Grove Farm.  Cherry Grove is located in Lawrenceville, New Jersey.  In addition to cheese made from raw milk from grass-fed cows, you can also get eggs there and grass-fed beef and pork.  Interestingly, they also raise the cutest Tamworth pigs, a heritage breed, I’ve ever seen in my life.  The farm is certified organic, and is committed to sustainable agricultural practices.

The Harvest Toma, pictured above, is cave-aged for two months.  It’s a hard-ish rind cheese and Cherry Grove says its “semisoft texture makes it meltable, spreadable”.  We gave it a try during my volunteer shift at the farmstand on Saturday and I thought it was pretty good - nice texture and just the slightest bit smelly.  Sarah thought perhaps the cheese might be improved by bringing it to room temperature, and I did give it a go at home - opinions may vary, but I don’t think these cheese’s texture was helped.  The texture did change a little, but it seemed rubbery.  I definitely prefer this cheese cold.  I didn’t not test out whether it was a good melting cheese, but it wasn’t super spreadable.  I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing.

Cherry Grove’s ‘provolone’ was my favorite of the three new cheeses.  It’s texture and taste scream ‘provolone’ and it melts perfectly [I used some on a burger for dinner last night].  The provolone is also aged for two months.  This cheese is definitely more dolce than piccante.  I think the provolone will end up being a regular resident in my fridge.

Lastly, there is the Jersey Giovane.  It’s Cherry Grove’s handmade mozzarella.  It does string like mozzarella, but I wasn’t wild about it.  I think I might prefer it if it came packed in water, rather than plastic wrap.  The cheese seemed a little dry to me…and not nearly soft enough for good homemade mozzarella.  Don’t get me wrong - the cheese isn’t bad and is far superior to the crappy mass-produced mozzarella you can get at the grocery store.  It’s just not the best mozzarella I’ve ever tasted.

Going green

Sunday, January 06, 2008

Environmentalism is hot right now.  I’m certainly glad to see it, but I hope that it’s just not something trendy that people do for a while and then move on to the Next!Big!Thing!  The same can be said for the idea of eating local.  Many of us have been trying to eat seasonally and locally as often as possible for years, but now that ‘locavore’ is the New Oxford American Dictionary’s word of the year, well…I worry that it’s going to get overplayed and that people will get burnt out on it.

It seems that foodies are already being saturated by the message.  Bon Appetit’s latest issue, The Green Issue, is filled with information about eating seasonally and lists of ‘eco-friendly restaurants, even a brief interview with Alisa Smith and J.B. MacKinnon (the 100 Mile Diet folks).  I thoroughly enjoyed the issue and found lots of great recipe ideas, but other readers are not so excited.  They want something new, and eating local is old news.  ‘Green’ style has been the topic of nearly every food, decorating, design, and clothing magazine in existence over the last six months.

The good news is that it does not appear that Philadelphia’s wide variety of farmer’s markets and farmstands are a trend.  Many people have spent years building the network and going through a lot of trouble to make locally grown produce from ethical growers available here in the city and its surrounding areas.  That’s some comfort, at least. 

Clark Park Market report, 1/5

Saturday, January 05, 2008

On this first Saturday of 2008, I made it to the Clark Park farmers’ market for the first time in close to a month.  I was impressed by the continuing availability of apples, cabbage, and kale, among other things, but I was trying to limit my purchases.  I bought carrots, onions, and spicy beef sticks from Landisdale Farm, lentils from Margerum’s, apples (Gold Rush and Northern Gold) from Keystone Farm, and spinach from a farm whose name I didn’t see and forgot to ask (oops!).

I also stopped to consider the very nice looking chicken and chicken products (eggs, sausage [turkey or chicken with pork casing], and quarts of soup) from Mountain View Poultry Farm.  If I’m feeling brave enough in two weeks, when they’ll be back—they alternate between Clark Park and a market in Phoenixville—I think I’ll buy a whole chicken.  (I’m comfortable cooking pieces of chicken, or tofu or seitan, but I’ve yet to do more than watch the cooking of an entire bird.)

Local Food Buying Club at Mugshots Coffeehouse & Café‘s Manayunk Location

Friday, January 04, 2008

Already known as an environmentally friendly business that only serves fair-trade, organic coffee, Mugshots Coffeehouse & Café is keeping it local by offering community members the opportunity to buy produce, meats, cheese and dairy products, eggs, and baked goods grown, raised and prepared within 100 miles of the city through the buying club at their Manayunk location. Not all of the items offered through the club are certified organic, but most are organically grown and all are hormone-free, antibiotic-free and sustainably raised.

Orders are placed on Mondays and picked up at the store on Friday afternoons or Saturdays. An order form from December had an impressive variety of produce available, including apples, squash, bok choi, radishes, sweet potatoes, leeks and Brussels sprouts. The dairy selection includes Pequea Valley yogurt, a local favorite, and goat’s milk as well as chocolate milk. The meat selection is varied- bison and veal are on the menu. Other local products on the list are pickles, fruit butters, honey, granola, and one of my personal favorites, Bobbi’s Hummus. You can also buy organic, fair-trade coffee and tea through the buying club.

Mugshots is located at 2100 Fairmount Ave (across from the Eastern State Penitentiary in Fairmount and at 110 Cotton Street (just off of Main St.) in Manayunk. Check out their website for the store menu at www.mugshotscoffeehouse.com  and check out their buying club brochure for more information about how to and why to order. 

Hobby Horse

    I’ve been thinking a lot about my hobby lately.  Food has really been my only consistent, center-of-my-life hobby for the past several years. 

Vegetables are certainly not a recent love.  Even when I was a single-digit youngster I ate my greens, my brussels sprouts, my artichokes, and almost everything else plant with glee.  When I was 12 or 13, I signed up (with five dollars of my allowance) for a community garden allotment plot around the corner from my folks’ house in Germantown. 

    Both sets of my grandparents were avid gardeners: my grandfather in West Virginia going crazy in his kitchen creating Currazzy Jam with blends of his currents and raspberries; my grandparents in Welwyn Garden City, just north of London, with their paradise of a backyard – lawn for badminton and clothes drying, netted room for fruits, vegetables, flowers, apple tree, poplars.  My British grandfather liked to experiment too, planting corn in honor of his daughter’s adopted home in America.  When he planted asparagus, I remember running my hands along the tops of those beautiful ferny plants, soaking in the news that this is what asparagus looks like in the ground.  I wanted to be a farmer for a really long time, and so did M.  We’re now working on getting a bit of land in Germantown to build a house and grow almost everything we eat.

    Sometimes I’ve been frustrated with how far I need to go in order to get where I want to be, and sometimes I’m amazed at far I’ve come.  For instance, my record keeping on our preserved items goes back to 2003, when we first adopted Amy Dacyczyn’s method (as discussed in The Tightwad Gazette). In the left column we list the preserved items and put the non-summer months across the top.  If we have 12 quarts of blueberries frozen, 12 xes get distributed across the months.  Then each time we use a quart, we cross off an x.  This keeps us from running out, but also from hoarding.  It’s such a treat to say, “Three quarts of blueberries this month!”

    What strikes me from the first list is the focus on fruit (although no blueberries), and the lack of canned tomatoes, which we were still buying.  2004 has barely any notes, but by 2005 we have picked 17 pounds of blueberries (at Emery’s in New Egypt, NJ), and 128 pounds of tomatoes (at Linvilla Orchards in Media).  There are still only 13 items, but a column has been added to indicate if the food is organic.  Also, I list Emery’s, Linvilla, Willow Creek Orchards (near Collegeville), and our CSA as our sources of food.  In 2006, the variety of foods has expanded, but due to illness and vacations, the number of units of each food is minimal.

    2007’s list is pictured above.  There’s a lot of variety, from strawberries to tomatoes to corn to sorrel, and our methods of preservation have expanded to include dried food and juice.  Also, there’s a nod to my American grandfather with “black and blue” jam (blackberries and blueberries) and, yes, grape crapple sauce (grape, cranberries, apples).  I’ve stopped using the column for organic, because most of the places we get our food now are organic, and we’ve decided local is a higher priority for us.

    Our goal of eating only locally has sometimes seemed far away, but it’s easy to forget that once upon a time I didn’t know what “eating in season” meant.  I always understood that summer tomatoes were the best, but it didn’t occur to me not to eat the pink ones in the winter.  M and I don’t have children, and my time is limited only by my energy level, so eating locally has been a perfect hobby for me.  In the summer M and I go picking about three weekends out of four, and I usually go once or twice a month during the week.  Most of our summer spare time is spent picking, canning, freezing, drying, juicing, and, of course, eating, usually to the sweet sounds of Phillies’ baseball on the radio.  Every year I learn a little more, and every spring I hope to learn something new!

I can bring home the bacon

Thursday, January 03, 2008

I am not the biggest fan of bacon there ever was.  I hate the smell of it, its mouthfeel, and - most of the time - the taste of it.  And that’s generally worked in my favor - it’s not like your doctor wants you to run around eating pounds of bacon at every opportunity.  We tend not to have bacon in the house, and I have been known to hit a butcher shop and ask for one or two ounces of bacon if I need it for a recipe.

Last weekend during my volunteer shift at the Fair Food Farmstand, I was weighing and pricing some double smoked bacon from, I think, Country Time Farm (no doubt someone will set me straight if I’m wrong on that).  The other two volunteers were practically waxing poetic over the bacon.  One claimed that the bacon was so good it had turned many a vegetarian back into a meat eater.  Well.  How could I pass up this magical bacon?

Well…the bacon is good.  I’m still not bacon-crazy, but at least I found a bacon I don’t mind.  It’s much thicker than normal bacon, so it’s a little chewier (as opposed to crisp) with a nice flavor.  My husband thinks it puts off more grease than the bacon he normally buys.

While I still don’t intend to have bacon in the house all the time, the double smoked bacon will be my go-to bacon when I have to buy it.

Undersize Me

Wednesday, January 02, 2008

M and I watched Super Size Me last weekend.  It was 7:30 by the time we were done and we realized it was time for dinner.  But what to eat?  We didn’t want to eat anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought, or processed, etc. (to paraphrase John Cusack in Say Anything). 

The movie was really good, I thought.  I avoided it when it came out because it looked like it was just intended to gross people out.  I didn’t want to watch a guy eating McDonald’s for thirty days.  But it turned out to be a real documentary with good interviews and not too much grossness for the sake of grossness.

However, we were definitely hesitant to eat afterwards.  So we said, Let’s make a meal that is quick but happy—local, light, good.  Here is what we came up with:

It’s half of a two-egg omelet (did I mention we weren’t very hungry?) with spinach and mushrooms, with a side of our canned toms and a glass of cider.  Every item is local except salt and pepper.  A truly anti-Super Size Me meal (and about as quick!).  Sigh…  Joy.

Spiced blueberry pancakes

Over the holiday break, my son had a friend who, last time he was over, I promised blueberry pancakes for breakfast. The blueberries I had on hand were of the preserved Delaware Valley College grown organic sort.  Lucky us!

During the spring and summer weeks, I usually make it to The Market at DelVal College once every week or two to stock up on locally-grown fruits and veggies.  Although some of what I purchase on these trips supplements my CSA produce for meals, I mostly go with a mission to find foods that I will preserve.  Berries and peppers are ridiculously easy to freeze, so often I’ll search for them first.

Choosing foods that are easy to put up makes the weekly chore of preservation simple and fast.  Of course, simple and fast means that my chances of burning out halfway through the season are lessened.  I like the efficiency of this system

The blueberries I used for the boys’ pancakes were purchased in June, on sale for $2.99 for two pints.  Taking them out of the freezer,  I remembered just what a fabulous idea it was to stock up on six pints of these organic, locally-grown dark blue lovelies.  They were absolutely divine, literally bursting with flavor inside the piping-hot pancakes.

Spiced Blueberry Pancakes
Serves 4 (eight pancakes)

1 1/4 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg
2 tablespoons canola or safflower oil (plus some for pan)
1/3 cup water
1 cup plain rice or soy milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons real maple syrup (plus some for serving)
1/2 - 3/4 cup blueberries (plus some for serving)

Mix dry ingredients together in a large bowl.  Reserving the berries, add all other remaining ingredients in a separate bowl.  Add to the wet mixture to the dry mixture, taking care to not overmix.  Let batter sit for ten minutes.  Stir in berries.  Using a ladle, pour scoops of batter into a preheated, well oiled pan or skillet.  When the pancakes start to bubble (about three or four minutes, depending on their size), flip and fry the other side for a minute or two.  Stack pancakes and top with all natural maple syrup and whole blueberries.

In my kitchen, making pancakes is reserved for the less-scheduled and less-rushed weekend mornings.  I usually double or triple the recipe however, so we can eat homemade pancakes during the next couple school/work days.  You know, that way we at least have the illusion of calm and leisurely mornings.  Enjoy!