Dark Days: Rabbit Pot Pie

Saturday, October 20, 2007

I put the garden to bed today.  Well, most of it.  The brussels sprouts are still out there growing.  It seemed crazy to tear up almost all the plants, though.  We’ve had an incredibly warm Autumn here in the Philly area and I had fresh buds on my tomatoes and lima beans, the herbs still looked good.  But I know what will happen if I don’t take the garden down now: it’ll go directly from 75 to 35 and I won’t want to get out in the garden.

The big highlight of the day was digging up the potatoes.  We have fairly heavy clay soil out here in my part of Delaware County, so I wasn’t sure if potatoes would grow for me without a lot of work.  Yes, I dug up the bed and amended it with all sorts of things.  All for naught, apparently: out of the 12 hills of potatoes I planted, we only got five potatoes.  Yes, really.  Five.  Weirdly, it was at least a sampling of all the varieties I planted. 

I was heartbroken over the sad, five potatoes, but it made me determined to use them well.  I started thinking about what else I pulled out of the garden today - lots of herbs and a few teeny little baby carrots.  I also had a single head of garlic left from my garden, and onions from the CSA share.  And a rabbit from a local source.  What else could I make but pot pie?  A Dark Days Challenge meal is born!

1 rabbit, cut into bite sized pieces
water
vinegar
salt and pepper
flour
1 red onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
3 carrots, diced
5 potatoes, diced
a bit of dill and basil, chopped
pizza crust (no, the crust wasn’t local - it was store bought)

Soak rabbit in equal parts of water and vinegar overnight.  Remove rabbit from water/vinegar mixture and dry. Season with salt and pepper to taste and roll in flour (I used Daisy Flour from Lancaster County).

In a large skillet, heat a little oil and brown the rabbit quickly on both sides.

Add enough water to cover the rabbit. Cover and simmer for 45 minutes.

Add the onions, garlic, carrots, and potatoes. Cover and simmer until carrots are tender.  Add in herbs.

Roll out pizza crust and press into a greased baking dish.  Bake for five minutes at 375 degrees.

Ladle the filling into the crust, and top with another layer of crust.

Cook at 375 degrees for about 30 minutes.

I know the idea of eating rabbit is unappealing to many people, but farm raised rabbit is really very mild and not in any way gamey.  It was tender and delicious, and the pot pie was fabulous!  It could only have been improved with a cooler night and a fire in the fireplace.

Comfort Food

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

I’ve been all about the comfort food lately, probably because it’s fall and even though it’s not all that cold outside when the temperature dips below 50 my 100+ year old house gets cold. And honestly, we’re a bit too cheap to turn on the heat when the days are still in the 70s. So comfort food it is, and most of it’s on the unhealthy side with lots of meat and cheese. But it’s still local!

My husband was thrilled that I’ve made Sloppy Joes with beef from Meadow Run farms (is that in the meat list on the sidebar?), and tomatoes and hot peppers from our garden. I think he may have actually pumped his fist in the air and shouted yes! when I served patty melts made with local beef, cheddar, and caramelized onions served on Le Bus bread with oven fries from local potatoes on the side. Getting away from the ground beef, I cooked a big sweet potato enchilada casserole with homemade enchilada sauce using all local veggies and cheese (though I did cheat with the black beans and tortillas) and a few days ago with homemade tomato sauce, local eggs,  freshly ground breadcrumbs from a day old loaf of local bread, basil from my garden and eggplant from Red Earth Farm, I made Eggplant Parmesan using an America’s Test Kitchen recipe.

The recipe is pretty similar to the ones I’ve used in the past, only it calls for baking the eggplant on preheated baking sheets rather than frying it, and dotting the top layer with sauce instead of drenching it so the eggplant stays crispy. I’ve made Eggplant Parmesan dozens of times before, but I’m definitely sticking to this recipe. A little bit of crunch goes a long way.

Eggplant Parmesan
from the America’s Test Kitchen Family Cookbook

2 globe eggplants sliced into 1/4 inch thick rounds
salt
1 cup flour
pepper
4 large eggs
4 cups plain dried breadcrumbs
3 oz Parmesan cheese grated
6 tablespoons vegetable oil
4 cups tomato sauce
2 cups shredded mozzarella
fresh basil leaves, torn

Toss the eggplant with 1 teaspoon of salt and let drain for 40 minutes. I take Lidia’s advice, and line the eggplant up the sides of the colander, place a heavy bowl over the eggplant, and weigh it down with a couple of cans of tomatoes.

Adjust the oven racks to the upper and lower middle positions, put a baking sheet on each rack and preheat the oven to 425. Combine the flour and 1 teaspoon of pepper in a large ziploc bag and shake to combine. Beat the eggs into a shallow dish. Combine the bread crumbs, 1 cup of Parmesan, 1/4 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper in another shallow dish.

Rinse the salt off the eggplant and pat dry with paper towels. When the eggplant is thoroughly dried, place a handful of slices in the ziploc bag and shake to cover with flour. Shake off excess flour, dip in the egg, then coat with breadcrumbs and let drain on a wire rack. Work in batches until all of the eggplant has been dredged in flour and breaded.

Remove the preheated baking sheets from the oven. Spread 3 tablespoons of oil over each sheet, tilting the sheet to coat evenly. Spread the breaded eggplant in a single layer over the hot sheets. Bake for 20 minutes, or until the first side is brown and crisp. Flip the slices over and return to the oven until the second side is browned, about 10 minutes more.

Spread a cup of the sauce over the bottom of a 9×13 inch baking dish. Put half of the eggplant over the sauce, overlapping. Cover the eggplant with a cup of sauce, a few torn basil leaves, and half of the mozzarella. Layer the remaining eggplant in the dish and dot with a cup of sauce leaving most of the eggplant exposed so it stays crisp. Sprinkle with 1/4 of Parmesan and the remaining Mozzarella.

Place the dish on the bottom oven rack and bake for about 15 minutes until the cheese is brown and bubbly. Remove from oven, top with the remaining basil leaves and let sit for 10 minutes. Pass the rest of the sauce and Parmesan around when you serve.

Wonton soup for the soul

Saturday, October 13, 2007

I’m not overly familiar with Asian vegetables like bok choi and joi choi.  I grew bok choi last year in the garden, but never got very creative with it.  In the past couple of weeks choi has shown up in the CSA share and it seemed like a good idea to try something a little different with it.  I came across a recipe for wonton soup and instantly decided to make it.  And, better yet, I was able to source the a lot of ingredients from local growers!

The recipe itself takes a lot of time to make.  Not active time, mind you.  But you’ll need eight hours, start to finish, if you choose to make it all in one day.  Stock can certainly be made on one day, and the wontons can be made in advance and frozen.  Don’t let the idea of an eight hour soup throw you - it’s easy to make and the end result is well worth the hour of active time this recipe calls for.

First off, you’ve got to make soup stock and this is what takes the longest.  Sure, you could use premade chicken stock but it wouldn’t have the depth of flavor in homemade stock.  Homemade stock is to ready made stock as Brie de Meaux is to Cheese Whiz, OK?  There’s just no comparison.  Gather the following:

2 lb country-style pork ribs
2 lb chicken, a combination of thighs, legs, and wings (picked up from Godshall’s Poultry at Reading Terminal Market)
3 heads of baby bok choi, coarsely chopped (from the CSA share)
4 scallions, coarsely chopped (found at the Fair Food Farmstand in RTM)
1 (2-inch) piece peeled fresh ginger, coarsely chopped
14 cups water (good old Philly tap water)

Throw it all in a giant soup pot and simmer the crap out of it for five hours.  Go knit or watch television or play with the dog or something.  Come back in five hours, pour the stock through a sieve to remove the solids (discard the solids), and refrigerate the stock for about two hours.

Unless you’re making the wontons in advance and freezing them, I recommend making the wontons about half an hour or so prior to the end of the stock refrigeration period.  The wontons will get a little sticky in places and dry out in others.  To make the wontons, you will need:

1/2 lb ground pork or turkey (turkey, from Harry Ochs in RTM)
1 large egg yolk (from Fair Food Farmstand)
2 scallions, finely chopped (from Fair Food Farmstand)
1 (1 1/2-inch) piece peeled fresh ginger, finely chopped
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon rice vinegar (not seasoned)
1/2 teaspoon Asian sesame oil
salt and pepper
About 30 wonton wrappers

Combine pork or turkey, yolk, scallions, ginger, soy sauce, vinegar, sesame oil, salt, and pepper in 1 direction with your hand until just combined (do not overwork, or filling will be tough).

Put 1 wonton wrapper on a work surface (keep remaining wrappers covered with plastic wrap). Spoon a teaspoon of filling in center of square, then brush water around edges. Lift 2 opposite corners together to form a triangle and enclose filling, pressing edges firmly around mound of filling to eliminate air pockets and seal. Moisten opposite corners of long side. Curl moistened corners toward each other, overlapping one on top of the other, and carefully press corners together to seal. Make more wontons in same manner.

When your wontons are all made, break out the chilled chicken stock.  Skim the fat off the top and bring to a simmer.  Grab another bunch of choi, maybe a pound or a pound and a half, and chop it all up into bite sized pieces.  Put the choi in the soup pot and simmer for four minutes.  Season with salt and pepper.  Add wontons and simmer three minutes.  Cut open a wonton to make sure the filling is cooked through and, if it is, serve!

The soup turned out delicious - a true comfort food!

 

If the shoe fits

Friday, October 12, 2007

I know this is very un-local eating of me, but it has never really occurred to me to make pumpkin pie from scratch.  Don’t get me wrong, I’ve made many a pumpkin pie…but only using canned pumpkin puree.  And there’s nothing wrong with it - pies made from the canned stuff taste just fine to me.  But since I’ve never tasted a pumpkin pie made from homemade pumpkin puree, how would I know the difference?

As luck would have it, the opportunity to find out has presented itself.  Last week there were two baby pie pumpkins in the CSA share, and this week there was one (grown by Green Acres Organics and Countryside Organics).  Pie pumpkins in hand, there was only one thing to do: roast them.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.  While the oven is preheating, cut the pumpkins in half and remove the pulp and seeds.  While you wouldn’t use a big jack-o-lantern type of pumpkin for a pie (they’re too watery), you can save the seeds out of pie pumpkins and roast them - so hang on to those seeds!  Place pumpkin halves cut side.down on a baking sheet, and roast them for about an hour.  Peel off the skin, puree in a food processor, and voila: pumpkin puree!  It’s all ready for the addition of sugar and spices for a pie.

My three baby pie pumpkins yielded about four or five cups of puree.

The beautiful Butternut

Sunday, September 23, 2007

Winter squash, like Butternut, Delicata, Sunshine, Spaghetti, and Kabocha, have been finding their way into our CSA shares and farmers market trips lately.  I’ve had lots of Butternut, in particular.  In the past couple of weeks, I’ve roasted at least three of them.

I do prefer Butternut roasted, no matter what I’m doing with it - it’s just easier to peel that way.  Peeling and chopping uncooked Butternut is hard work, and I like to take the easy way out whenever possible!  To roast a Winter squash, just preheat your oven to 400 degrees, cut the squash in half, scoop out the seeds, and roast (cut side down) for about 20 minutes or so.

Some of my Butternut was cubed and frozen.  Some of it was used immediately.  Like in this soup I made last week…

There’s nothing quite like soup to use up all your extra produce!  And temperatures were cool enough around here last week to actually make some soup.  The soup contains Butternut squash, onions, and swiss chard from my CSA share, tomatoes from my garden, and some homemade chicken stock I made last month from a local chicken.  I also used some non-local parmesan rinds to flavor the soup up a bit.  It was delicious!

Tonight for dinner, I made Butternut and mushroom bread pudding.  A lot of people are familiar with sweet bread puddings, but hardly anyone traffics in savory bread pudding.  It’s a lot like bread stuffing, and is a great way to use up whatever veggies you’ve got lying around the house.  In this case, there was a Butternut from last week’s CSA share, and some mushrooms from Mother Earth Mushrooms in West Grove.  In fact, everything I used for the bread pudding was local, except the parmesan cheese, salt, and pepper.

3 cups Butternut squash, roasted and cubed
1 c. sliced mushrooms
1 tsp olive oil
1 c. chopped onion
1 garlic clove, minced
2 c. milk
1 c. aged parmesan, shredded
salt and pepper
3 large eggs
2 large egg whites
9 c. day old bread, torn up into bite-sized pieces (I used Le Bus brioche)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Heat oil in a skillet over medium-high heat.  Saute onion, garlic, and mushrooms for about five minutes.  Remove from heat and cool slightly.

Combine 1/4 tsp salt, a pinch of pepper, milk, 1/2 c. cheese, eggs and whites; whisk lightly.  Stir in squash and onion mixture.  Add bread and stir gently to combine.  Let stand 10 minutes.  Spoon into a large baking dish coated with cooking spray or butter.  Sprinkle with remaining cheese.  Bake for 45 minutes.

This is some great comfort food and makes excellent leftovers!

Keeping it simple

Saturday, September 22, 2007

After my last attempt at an all-local meal proved frustrating, I decided not to overthink things the next time around. And I didn’t. I’ve made a number of all-local meals the past few weeks, from an almost entirely local brisket dinner for Rosh Hashanah to a quick spaghetti squash garlic and cheese bake. Last night I was in the mood for potatoes and and I knew my husband was dying to eat the sausage that came in our meat delivery the day before.  I have a habit of pairing sausage with tomato sauce and pasta which I never serve with potatoes but I decided to throw caution to the wind and do something different. I’m a mad woman, I know.

The result was Italian fennel and garlic sausage (Meadow Run Farm) with sauteed onions and multi-colored bell peppers(Red Earth Farm), roasted red potatoes with garlic (Red Earth) and rosemary(my garden), and steamed broccoli (Lancaster County). I picked up the broccoli at the farmer’s market because it was the first local broccoli I’ve seen since spring. My poor son has been deprived of broccoli, which he loves, all summer long. The only non-local ingredients were the olive oil, salt and pepper. 

We all got what we wanted. My husband must have eaten more than half a pound of sausage, my son ate almost all of the broccoli, and I couldn’t get enough of the potatoes and continued snacking on the leftovers as I cleaned the kitchen after dinner.

The recipe for the potatoes came from a cookbook by the editors of Cook’s Illustrated. Though their recipes aren’t the most imaginative or exotic they are always reliable. I’ve found their potato recipes have been superb. In the past when I’ve roasted potatoes tossed with garlic the garlic burns and doesn’t always stick to the potato. This recipe calls for tossing the hot potatoes with a garlic paste rather than cooking the potatoes and garlic together.  The potatoes come out crisp and garlicky (though I have to admit I was feeling lazy and cut the potatoes badly so they didn’t cook as evenly as I would have liked.)

Roasted Potatoes with Garlic and Rosemary
from The Best Vegetable Recipes

2 lbs red bliss or other low starch potatoes, scrubbed halved and cut into 3/4 inch wedges
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
salt and ground black pepper
2 garlic cloves
2 tablespoons chopped fresh rosemary

Adjust the oven rack to the middle position and preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Toss the potatoes with the olive oil in a medium bowl to coat; season generously with salt and pepper and toss again to blend.

Place the potatoes flesh-side down in a single layer on a shallow roasting pan. Cover tightly with aluminum foil and cook for 20 minutes.  While the potatoes are roasting mince the 2 medium garlic cloves. Sprinkle them with 1/8 teaspoon of salt and mash with the flat side of a chef’s knife blade until a paste forms. Transfer the garlic paste to a large bowl and set aside. Remove the foil from the potatoes and roast until the side of the potato touching the pan is crusty brown, about 15 minutes more. Remove the pan from the oven and with a metal spatula carefully turn the potatoes. (Press the spatula against the pan as it slides under the potatoes to protect the crusts.)  Return the pan to the oven and roast until the side now touching the pan is crusty golden brown, 7 minutes more. Sprinkle the potatoes with rosemary and cook another 3 minutes. Remove the potatoes from the pan with the metal spatula (again taking care not to rip the crusts) and transfer to the bowl with the garlic paste. Toss to distribute and serve warm.

The dastardly Daikon

Thursday, September 20, 2007

No, I didn’t spend the day slaving away in my kitchen to make handmade pasta.  This is the ‘something new’ with Daikon radish I alluded to in my CSA report.  Yes, those noodles are really ribbons of radish!

Was the experiment a success?  It depends on who you ask.  I thought it was really good - an unusual taste combination, but light-tasting and yummy.  My husband was not as delighted.  That’s really not very shocking, though.  He’s a lovely person, but not very adventurous when it comes to eating and trying new things.  If it looks like pasta, it should taste like pasta.  The Daikon most certainly does not.  The homemade pasta sauce is very comforting and familiar, and the radish is crisp and slightly bitter.

I am not an evil genius who dreamt this up on my own - we have Iron Chef Morimoto to thank.  While searching for something interesting to do with my latest batch of locally-grown Daikon, I came across his recipe for Daikon Fettucine with Tomato-Basil Sauce.  I monkeyed around slightly with the recipe, and here is what I made:

1 pound diakon
About two cups of crushed tomatoes with juice
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 small onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 c. chopped fresh basil
salt and pepper

• Trim the daikon of its outer skin and then use a vegetable peeler or mandoline to cut fine strips of daikon into ribbon-like slices.  Soak the daikon in water for about 15 minutes and then drain and dry on a towel.
• Heat oil in a skillet over medium-high.  Saute onion and garlic for about five minutes.  Stir in tomatoes and juice, and a bit of salt.  Cook for 10-15 minutes or until sauce gets thickened.  Stir in basil, salt, and pepper.
• Add daikon to skillet and gently combine with sauce.  Cook for about one minute until heated through.

What’s even better than learning something new to do with Daikon radish?  Being able to use all locally grown ingredients in the recipe, with the exception of the olive oil, salt, and pepper. 

Beet and goat cheese stacks

Friday, September 14, 2007

We are a one beet-eater household.  I adore them; my husband thinks they’re vile.  Because the opportunity to make lunch or dinner only for myself rarely materializes, I don’t make beets very often.  Today, though, I took a sick day off from work and started to feel better toward lunchtime, so I figured I’d make something soothing and comforting.  There just happens to be a bag of beets from Paradise Organics and a big old chunk of Shellbark Hollow Farms sharp goat cheese in the house right now, so it seemed a clear choice: roasted beet and goat cheese stacks with sorrel from the garden.

Eating this made me feel loads better - it’s pretty to look at, didn’t take a lot of effort to prepare, and has a lot of flavor without being hard on the stomach.  It’s the perfect sick day food!

I started by roasting the beets in a 375 degree oven for about 30 minutes.  After peeling the skin off the beets, I sliced them up and let them cool.  A quick walk to the garden procured a bit of the sorrel, which was then cut into chiffonade using kitchen shears.  The cheese was warmed to room temp, making it very easy to handle.  Putting the layers together was a snap.  The only ingredient that wasn’t locally grown was the balsamic vinegar I drizzled over top before eating.

Challenge meal week one

Thursday, September 13, 2007

For the first week of the September Challenge I wanted to make something simple. I’ve had some short ribs from Meadow Run Farms in the freezer so I figured what’s easier than braising some beef for a couple of hours. I found a couple of recipes and narrowed it down to the simplest. I set the meat out to defrost, decided I’d roast some potatoes to go with it and steam some green beans. I went out and bought a couple of bottles of local Cabernet. Then around 3.30 I got home and realized I’d lost the stupid recipe. I searched my browser history hoping it would turn up but it didn’t so I browsed my cookbooks and epicurious until I found a similar recipe and a good hour after I wanted to I got to work.

The biggest problem was that I didn’t RTFR. (thank you Smitten Kitchen for the perfect acronym.) I spent hours slaving over a hot stove in my un-air conditioned kitchen on a hot, humid Philadelphia summer day. The initial recipe called for all of the cooking on the stove top in a dutch oven, but the other recipes all called for the short ribs to braise in the oven. Never having made short ribs before I wasn’t willing to mess around. My dutch oven’s so large that cooking the potatoes in the oven was out so I decided to use my leeks and make mashed potatoes with leeks and thyme instead. Since I had a leek or two left over I found a recipe for swiss chard with leeks and made that instead of the green beans.

All of the cooking was extremely hands on and hot and by the time it was ready to eat I’d lost interest completely.  The worst part was that the ribs weren’t even all that good. The chard and potatoes were fantastic, but the ribs just weren’t as flavorful as I would have hoped. And seriously, braised short ribs with mashed potatoes would have been fine on a crisp, almost fall day like today, but it was not an appropriate meal for last Saturday’s stickiness.

At least my husband liked it.

Braised Short Ribs with Red Wine

Short ribs- Meadow Run Farms
Chicken stock- made from chicken from Meadow Run farms
Cabernet- Chadd’s Ford
Rosemary- my garden
basil (instead of sage)- my garden
Carrots- Lancaster, Pa via Farm to City farmer’s market
Onion- Red Earth Farm
Garlic Red Earth Farm
not local- salt, pepper, tomato paste, oil, bay leaf

Mashed Potatoes with Leeks and Thyme

Potatoes- Red Earth Farm
Leeks- Red Earth Farm
Thyme- my garden
Milk- Merrymead Farm
not local-salt, pepper, butter

Seared Rainbow Chard with Leeks

Chard-Red Earth Farm
Leeks-Red Earth Farm
not local, butter, oil, salt, pepper

Baking the Green Zebras

Monday, September 10, 2007

I was trying to think of some way of using the Green Zebra tomatoes that didn’t involve putting them in a salad. As much as I love fried green tomatoes, I’m trying to cut down on fried foods, so that also wasn’t an option. I decided to bake them, thinking that the high heat would temper the tartness.

I sliced the tomatoes, put them in a baking dish, sprinkled them with salt and pepper, and drizzled some olive oil. In a saucepan, I sauteed an onion, a clove of garlic, and a bell pepper (all from a previous CSA share) in a little olive oil until they were soft, then I spread them over the tomatoes. I then covered the top with grated Pecorino Romano cheese and put it in a 400-degree oven to bake for 25 minutes. When they were done, I sprinkled some chopped fresh basil (also locally grown) and served the tomatoes as a warm side for dinner.

To my surprise, baking the tomatoes brought out the tart taste rather than mellowing and sweetening them. They were still delicious, though. Green zebras might just be better for pickling if you like sour pickles, I think, but give them a try if you can get hold of them.

Cucumber Salad, and About My Heritage

Thursday, September 06, 2007

As promised, here’s the cucumber wakame salad that I make every summer. The recipe is on a slip of paper that I had transcribed from talking to my mom, many years ago.

Ingredients:
1 long cucumber (preferably one with minimal seeds. I used the cucumber I got from my CSA)
4 T rice vinegar
4 T soy sauce
1/4 t salt
1 1/2 T sugar
a handful of dried wakame (found in Asian groceries, or health-food stores)

Directions:
Soak the wakame in a bowl of cold water. The seaweed will expand—be sparing with the amount you put in.
In another bowl, combine the vinegar, soy sauce, salt, and sugar until blended.
Peel, de-seed (if necessary), and thinly slice cucumber. Add to the vinegar mixture.
Drain and squeeze wakame and add to the cucumber. Lightly toss, and refrigerate for about 30 minutes. Serve cold.

**********
I am a second-generation Japanese-American. My parents and I came to the States when I was very little. My mom often cooked washoku (Japanese food) for meals, and I learned a lot of her recipes by watching her cook. There are some things I can cook that almost taste like my mom’s, and there are some things that I just can’t quite make the way she does.

One thing about cooking Japanese, or really any Asian cuisine, is that many dishes call for ingredients that just aren’t readily available here, let alone locally produced. There was a time when my grandmother used to send us care packages of seaweed, tea, and other foodstuffs because they were difficult to find here. Nowadays, more interest and awareness of Asian culture makes it easier to get many of these items at a neighborhood grocery store. However, I haven’t heard of or seen items like wakame, like Asian short-grain rice, being locally harvested. And to be honest, I would be loath to give up things like these for the sake of being a pure locavore.

As it says in my description on the About page of this site, I do enjoy many cuisines from all over the world. I am often creative in the kitchen, mixing and matching tastes. When it comes to the food that my mom made, my comfort food, I choose to use local items when I can, and the ingredients of my culture’s cuisine when needed.

The delicate Delicata

Tuesday, September 04, 2007

Like lots of people on Labor Day, my husband and I had ourselves a little cookout.  We grilled up some nice steaks from Natural Acres.  I wanted something different as a side, though.  And with the four Delicata squash grown by Green Valley Organics that have come in my CSA share over the last two weeks, it seemed like a good idea to cook those up.

Winter squash at an end of Summer cookout?  Well…as strange as that seems, it worked.  After cutting the squash in half lengthwise, removing the seeds, and slicing up the halves, I tossed the pieces in olive oil and roasted everything for 20 minutes at 400 degrees.  The roasted slices of squash then were tossed in the last of my tulip poplar honey from Linvilla and some sea salt, and roasted another five minutes.

The result was a sweet and salty squash dish that was hearty enough to stand up to steak, but still light enough for a cookout.

I roasted all the squash, but only about 1/3 of it got the salt and honey treatment.  The rest has been packed into freezer bags to puree for soup when it gets a little cooler outside.  I can barely wait!

Head to Headhouse and Make this Soup

Thursday, August 30, 2007

The bounty of the much-touted Headhouse Farmers Market inspired this soup recipe.  Make a list of the ingredients and head to the market to see if you can get one item from a different stand to spread the love around.  Or, just stop by our table, Weavers Way Farm, and buy everything but the corn.  Deliciously fresh, this soup can be served hot or cold so it’ll make the transition between seasons with you.  To stock up for the colder months, buy extra fresh corn to cut off the cobs and freeze.  Then buy bushels of tomatillos to make salsa verde to also freeze or can.  That way, when winter settles in, you can call upon your stockpiles to make this hearty soup to remind you of the freshness of summer.

Corn and Tomatillo Chowder
Adated from The Cook’s Encyclopedia of Soup

2 T. peanut or corn oil
4 large shallots or 1 medium onion, diced
1 hot pepper such as Hungarian Hot Wax, diced
1 sweet pepper (purple, red or green), diced
2 ears of fresh sweet corn, kernels cut off (about 2 cups)
12 or so tomatillos
3 c. of vegetable or chicken stock
1 c. light cream
salt and freshly ground black pepper


Husk tomatillos, place in a small sauce pan and cover with water.  Place on high heat until water boil and then reduce to a simmer for 10 minutes until tomatillos loose their bright color and float to the top.

Meanwhile, heat oil in large deep skillet.  Add the diced onion and peppers, reserving a tablespoon or so of the pepper for garnish later, to the hot skillet and saute over medium-high heat for about 5 minutes until they get soft and brown on the edges.  Add the corn kernels to the skillet and saute for 2 minutes until softened and the color pales.  Finally, drain tomatillos from their hot water and add to skillet to toss with sauted vegetables.  Stir to incorporate.

Carefully pour contents of skillet into a blender (or use an immersion blender for extra ease) and process until smooth, adding a little stock if needed to loosen it up.  Transfer blended contents back to skillet and slowly add in stock over low heat.  Allow soup to simmer for 10 minutes, stirring every few minutes to scrap up any corn sticking to the bottom of the skillet.

Remove skillet from heat and stir in cream.  Serve soup chilled or warm.  If serving warm, gently reheat - never allow soup to come to a boil.  Garnish each bowl of soup with diced pepper and thin slices of an uncooked tomatillo.

(makes 4 large servings)

take the tomato

Wednesday, August 29, 2007

I’m glad Nicole wrote out those 10 things you can do with tomatoes. I was already plotting and planning what recipes from the NYTimes I would make. I really loved the idea of a tartlett. But I am not one to follow recipes if I can use what I already have in the house.

So I took the tartlett idea and made something yummy of my own. Tomatoes on filo. They were probably the tastiest thing I had this week.

The same concept from the NYTimes recipe is there, instead of using puff pastry I used filo dough. I put it on a silicon matt and brushed each layer with butter. Then I took equal portions of riccotta and goat’s cheese and mixed them with fresh basil. I spread it on the filo much like you would pizza sauce or if you were icing a cake. Then I put my very yummy fresh cut tomato rounds on it. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, top with parmesian. Fold the edges up if you like the more picturesque tartlett picture, or leave it as it.. the cheese really doesn’t run over the sides. Pop it in a 425 degree oven for 10-12 minutes. It was absolutely delish!

When life deals you tomatoes, make Bloody Marys

Friday, August 24, 2007

From the sounds of things, Farm to Philly contributors (including me) have been up to their eyeballs in gorgeous, locally-grown tomatoes recently!  Yoko made pasta sauce.  Anj made pizza sauce.  And, judging by the look of the tomato plants in my garden, the onslaught of tomatoes will continue for at least a few more weeks!

There’s nothing better than lovely tomatoes right out of the garden or from your favorite local farmer, but there comes a time when there might be too much of a good thing.  If the other contributors are like me, another bite of tomato sandwich or gazpacho or salsa or tomato sauce would send me over the edge.  And with two dozen tomatoes sitting in my kitchen right now, I need something new and exciting, something I haven’t eaten entirely too much of this Summer!

With that in mind, I give you ten things to do with tomatoes (other than salsa, gazpacho, sauce, or sandwiches):

1. Grilled tomatoes with blue cheese and pine nuts.  This [recipe] was one of the winning entries for a Washington Post tomato recipe contest.  There are more recipes to be had, but this one appealed to me.  I don’t know that there are any sources for locally grown pine nuts, but one can certainly find good local blue cheese!  Birchrun Blue, for instance, from Birchrun Hills Farm.  I’m drooling just thinking about it.
2. Sofrito.  If you’re drowning in cherry tomatoes, consider making a little sofrito [recipe] for a rainy day.  For the uninitiated, sofrito is a sauce that used as a base for many Spanish and Latin American dishes.  A friend of mine uses hers to mix with mashed potatoes.  You can use it for a million things - to add flavor to sauces, mixed with yellow rice, anything!
3. Tomato gelato.  Paired with basil gelato (a personal favorite of mine available sometimes at Capogiro) and ricotta gelato [recipes for all three here], who could resist kicking back during the dog day’s of Summer with this little treat?
4. Roasted Tomato Bread Pudding.  When I make bread pudding, my husband screws up his face and denounces it.  If I call it stuffing, he eats it.  Whatever you call it, it’s good and roasted tomatoes make it better!  The recipe [recipe] utilizes both regular and cherry tomatoes.  I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that stale Le Bus bread makes fabulous bread pudding.
5. Dill Green Tomatoes.  It’s not the end of tomato season yet (not by a long shot), but I do always find myself with a smattering of small green tomatoes at that time.  I like the idea of using them green to make pickles [recipe], and it’s also a great way to use the last of the dill, garlic, and hot peppers!
6. Tomato, Basil, and Brie Spread.  Being a total cheesehound, the very idea of brie mixed with anything makes me swoon.  If I can get my hands on the new brie from Green Valley Dairy, so much the better.  The spread [recipe] smeared on a baguette from Metropolitan?  Yes, please!
7. Roasted Tomato Hummus.  Aside from the glut of tomatoes in my house right now, I also have the dregs of the roasted garlic I made recently from my first ever batch of garlic.  What better way to use them both than to make hummus [recipe]?  Mmmmmmm mmmm!
8. Baked Stuffed Tomatoes with Goat Cheese Fondue.  There are several excellent ideas for using too many tomatoes in this NY Times article, but go directly to #2 on the list.  Holy crap.  Using the stellar goat cheese from Shellbark Hollow Farm, this little slice of cheese lover heaven would be awesome!  I might need to make this tonight.  Or I might need to eat lunch before I chew off my own hand.
9. Garlicky Tomato Tart.  As a rule, I’m not a fan of deliberately low fat cooking.  There’s something to be said for eating well, but just not going overboard, you know.  That said, the Garlicky Tomato Tart [recipe] from Cooking Light is pretty excellent.  It’s comfort food around my house.
10. Oven dried tomato oil.  I’m a big fan of anything that involves sun-dried tomatoes, but I’m a little squicked out about the idea of leaving food outside to dry.  Oven-drying tomatoes [recipe] works great and there’s less possibility of animals wreaking havoc with them.  And oil with sun-dried tomatoes seems like such a useful thing to have around the house!

There you go!  Ten things to do with tomatoes that you maybe haven’t made this Summer!  Go forth and eat more locally grown tomatoes!