Don’t Put Away Those Garden Tools Yet

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Summer is over, but there’s still much to do in the garden. It may be time to plant a cover crop, but that’s not the only thing to put in the ground in October. Garlic and shallots are cold-hardy and winter over easily. Come harvest next year, your early planting will reward with bulbs 50% larger than if you wait until Spring to plant. Some spinach varieties mature from seed in 45 days. If the spinach doesn’t mature before the ground freezes, mulch over the plants with some hay. When the ground thaws, they’ll resume growing and you’ll be able to harvest them that much sooner.

Fall planting isn’t limited to vegetables. Blueberry bushes can also be planted this time of year, as can strawberries. Just be sure to mulch around the roots. Come spring, you’ll have a jump-start on your bounty.

Using Up Your Habaneros

Saturday, October 15, 2011

The first threat of frost usually has pepper growers praying—or at least fervently hoping—that the bumper crop of peppers will turn red or orange soon. Whether it’s bell peppers or chile peppers, no one wants to leave food in the garden when fall turns into winter.

My husband wanted to grow habanero peppers this year, something I was confused about because he’s not a fan of spicy food. If you’ve never bitten into a habanero, they’re fairly fiery. An orange habanero ranges from 130,000 to 325,000 on the Scoville scale (the scale that measures chile heat). As a point of reference, the trinidad scorpion pepper is at the top of the scale—900,000 to 1,463,700—while a cherry pepper comes in at 0 to 500. I like spicy foods, but I must admit I’m somewhat nervous of cooking with vegetables so hot I have to wear latex gloves to avoid a capsaicin burn.

You can pick green habaneros, but they will be slightly less spicy (possibly a good thing, all things considered). You can also force green habaneros to ripen to orange by putting them in a paper bag and letting them sit for a few days—of course, it doesn’t make them any hotter.

One of the things I came up with for using habaneros is to make butter sauce, which is fantastic over roasted chicken. Yes, it’s spicy. My husband tried it and immediately ran for a glass of water.

10 orange habanero peppers, seeded and halved
1 orange bell pepper, seeded and halved
zest from one orange
4 Tbsp. of white wine
2 Tbsp. of salt
1 glove garlic, smashed
1 c. of white wine, apple cider, or champagne vinegar
2 tsp. cornstarch
3 Tbsp. butter, softened

Toss chiles, bell pepper, orange zest, 2 Tbsp. wine, 1 Tbsp. of salt, and the garlic clove in a blender and puree; let it sit in the blender at room temperature for at least 4 hours but up to 12 hours. When you’re ready to continue add vinegar and remaining wine and 1 Tbsp. of salt to the blender and puree until smooth. Place a mesh strainer over a saucepan, and transfer the contents of the blender to the saucepan. Press the solids with the back of a spoon to get as much liquid out as possible; discard the solids (add them to your compost pile). Heat the liquid in the saucepan to a simmer over medium heat. Place the cornstarch in a small bowl and mix with 2 tsp. of water to form a slurry. Pour slurry into saucepan and whisk until the mixture thickens, around 3 minutes. Whisk in butter and season with salt.

This makes a cup or two of butter sauce. Use it to spice up any dish.

Other interesting ideas for using your habanero peppers:

• Habanero brownies
• Orange Habanero Vinaigrette
• Habanero Salt Water Taffy
• Habanero Cashew Brittle
• White Chocolate Habanero Ice Cream
• Spicy Grapefruit Margarita
• Garlic Habanero Chicken Meatballs With Kale Polenta
• Cranberry Habanero Jelly
• Pickled Habanero Peppers

What’s your favorite way to use up your late-season habanero peppers?

Apple Hand Pies

Thursday, October 13, 2011

Autumn to me means apple pie. I’m really a sucker for a good pie… but apple pie is by far the quintessential fall treat for me. It’s totally cliche.

Lately, in an effort to have on hand a healthy after-school snack for my kids and still fill a craving for apple pies I’ve been baking little apple hand pies. Who can resist?!? Portable, tasty, cute… YUM. These are labour intensive ... but I imagine if you make a big batch you can freeze them to have on hand (no pun intended!) as a quick snack.

The recipe below is a somewhat cobbled-together version of various apple pie recipes. If you have a favourite recipe then go ahead and use that.

Also, I’m not going to go into pastry recipes—just use a pastry recipe that you like and go from there, rolling the pastry out and cutting into rounds. Try and use a pastry that is not too flaky, or your little hand pies won’t hold together too well.

Recipe
2 lbs apples, peeled, cored, diced
1/2 c. brown sugar
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tbsp. lemon zest

Start with about two pounds of baking apples (I used the Galas from my CSA). You can use a mix of apples for a mix of textures if you want.

Peel, core, and dice them. The smaller you dice the apples the easier it will be to fill your hand pies.

Mix the apples with the brown sugar, cinnamon, and lemon zest (this is the secret ingredient!) and cook gently for about 10-15 min., or until the apples are just a little soft. Doing this step will keep your handpies from getting soggy!

Spoon out the apple mixture onto your pastry rounds—leave the juice produced from the cooking process behind. It’s sad, I know… but if you don’t want soggy pies then you have to say goodbye to the juice.

Fold your pastry rounds in half, wet the edges, and press together. I used the tines of a fork to do this.

Bake in a 350F oven for about 20min. If you wanted to, you could brush your handpies with a little egg to make the crust shiny, but this is purely aesthetic.

Enjoy!

Local Apples: Perfect With Curry

The fall season calls out for curry dishes, but curry powder—which is usually a mix of coriander, turmeric, cumin, fenugreek, and red pepper as well as ginger, garlic, asafoetida, fennel seed, caraway, cinnamon, clove, mustard seed, green cardamom, black cardamom, nutmeg, and black pepper—is not exactly local. You can easily grow fennel seed, mustard seed, coriander, and garlic in Pennsylvania, but many of the other spices require humidity and long growing seasons. More tropical climes. Of course, there’s a way around nearly every problem, so perhaps some adventurous soul will start a curry garden in a greenhouse.

Curry dishes, whether you use local ingredients or not, are often spicy, but they don’t have to be. Take, for instance, today’s Apple a Day challenge dish, curry and apple couscous. Yes, it calls for curry powder, but you can use mild or hot curry. Many of the ingredients can be locally sourced, including the apples. Now is the time of year to scrounge all you can out of your garden, so those scallions and mint lingering in your garden go to good use here, and it’s not hard at all to find locally produced butter (or make your own).

For this simple dish, the star is the apples. Use an apple variety that’s going to hold up under cooking—look for Fujis, Mutus, Granny Smith, or Rome Beauty apples. You can find almost all of these varieties at local orchards in October; the apples used for this recipe are Mutsu apples picked at Linvilla Orchards.

2 tablespoons butter
1/2 tablespoon hot curry powder
1/2 a Mutsu apple, cored and chopped
2 scallions, washed, trimmed, and sliced into thin rings
1/2 cup pearled couscous
1/2 cup water
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup pine nuts, toasted
1/4 cup chopped mint

Heat 3/4 of the butter and all the curry powder in a saucepan over medium high heat. Add a few pinches of salt and heat until the curry gives off a fragrant aroma. Add the apples, and cook down for two or three minutes (until apples have softened somewhat). Remove the apples to a bowl. Add the remaining butter to the pan with the curry and add scallions; stirring, allow to cook for approximately one minute. Add water and salt, bring to a boil, and add couscous. Cover the pan with a lid and remove from the burner. Allow the couscous to steam for five to minutes. Return the apples to the pan, along with pine nuts and mint.

This makes enough for two side dish servings or one main dish serving.

The result: a filling meal with a spicy sweetness. Perfect for fall, and a great way to use local apples.

The Sweet Spot: Apple Cheddar Sandwich

Monday, October 10, 2011

For FTP’s Apple Challenge Month, I give you the apple cheddar sandwich—

I’m a big fan of grilled cheese sandwiches in general (House in Media, PA is one of my faves for this reason—six types of grilled cheese? Oh, yeah), but I tend to keep it simple. A little bread, some decent cheese, and I’m a happy girl. So I forget sometimes that adding apple to a cheese toasty is a gorgeous thing. It’s especially good when the apples and the cheese are local.

For this sandwich I combined thin slices of a freshly picked Fuji apple from Linvilla Orchards in Media with shavings of a local cheddar picked up at 320 Market Cafe in Swarthmore. Even the butter is stuff I made myself from locally produced milk. Sadly, the bread is not local.

The heat of the pan heats the apple, but doesn’t make it mushy, and the whole thing becomes this gooey, warm, and sweet treat. Just talking about it makes me want to go make another one.

While any melty cheese will do when making apple grilled cheese, cheddar and brie are my favorites.

Feeding the Chickens

Wednesday, October 05, 2011

I have chickens in my Kensington backyard. It’s the dream of any homesteader. And they are worth the noise, the occasional destruction of my plants, and the slight smell. However, the other day after running a few numbers on chicken feed, I realized that we were paying way more for chicken feed than what the eggs would cost at even the highest end farmer’s market. So I weighed a few options. Put the chickens on diets, get a slingshot to fight off the sparrows who steal the feed. But before I resorted to violence or starvation, an idea occurred to me while drinking a beer at Dock St. in West Philly and reading the menu about their “Beer Grain Fed Chicken Sandwich”. I could do the same thing. So as you can see in the picture above, the folks at my local brewery were nice enough to allow me to come on their brewing days and collect grain. 

Before you go trying this at home with your backyard chickens, here are a few disclaimers and tips. First is that you should obviously set up a relationship with your local brewery. Some are actually already giving a bunch of their grain to large scale producers, so they may not have any extra. Others may just not want you in the way of their operation. I apologize for being mysterious about what brewery I use. I don’t want to broadcast to the world that they do this for me since this is not a normal service they provide. However, a pleasant call and a lot of mindfulness of staying out of the way and cleaning your mess will usually make this relationship work. The second, and most important tip I can give is that spent grain is wet, and often times very hot when it comes out of the vats. I made the mistake the first week of taking a huge rubbermaid container full of it and thinking I could store it in there and dispense it out as I would the feed I buy in the store. You’re probably reading this thinking, “Of course your hot, wet grain would start to get funky in a sealed plastic container for a week.” But in my excitement, I overlooked this fact. As you can see in the picture above, I have planned my pickups around stretches of sunny days. I now only get two 5 gallon buckets worth and I lay it out on a tarp in the yard. This way the grain dries and the chickens can graze at will. Maybe in the winter I may start experimenting with drying it in my oven. But for now, this is my method. And the third fun fact I have is that chickens respond better to certain kinds of grain. Every time I go to the brewery, I ask them what batch the grain came from. I’ve noticed that my chickens like more complex beers with subtle hops and a little more sugar content. Oh, what a classy bunch.

So give it a try. Your chickens and your wallet will be all the happier for it.

An Apple a Day Challenge

Sunday, October 02, 2011

It’s October, and here at Farm to Philly, that means one thing: challenge month!

All month long, please join Farm to Philly writers for the An Apple a Day challenge. If it involves locally grown apples—and this area has some of the tastiest apple varieties imaginable—you’ll see it here. We welcome you to join in the apple challenge!

Beet Salad!

Friday, September 30, 2011

I have a thing about beets. Well, actually it’s not so much a thing about as a thing with. You see, when first presented with a beet I always think I don’t like them. I will never go out of my way to buy beets and when I get them in my CSA share my first reaction is always a resigned oh, beets.

But then I force myself to do something with them—so I take the first step and either steam or roast them.

And then I force myself to take the next step and eat them because one must not waste food.

And then my reaction is always an elated ah, beets!

In the interest of time, the next time I get beets I should really just skip to the ah, beets! reaction.

In my last few weeks of CSA deliveries I’ve received beets and lots and lots of wonderful cilantro, garlic, and chives. I also had lounging in my fridge a block of fresh goat cheese from Sunny Side Goat Dairy and a baguette from Big Sky Bread. In a desperate act of eating all this produce and the cheese before it became un-usable I went ahead with making a beet salad. And it was awesome. So awesome, in fact, that I had two platefuls of it along with some sliced baguette to mop up the juices.

I highly encourage you to try this. It will change any negative thoughts you may have about beets.

Beet Salad with Goat Cheese

6 beets—cooked, peeled, sliced and chilled
2 tsp. sugar (or to taste)
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 bunch of chives, chopped
1/4 c. chopped fresh cilantro
1/4 c. apple cider vinegar

Combine the vinegar, sugar, garlic, chives, and cilantro.
Pour over sliced beets.
Add some fresh goat cheese just before serving.

Just for fun, at the last second I threw on some pickled garlic scapes that were hanging out in my fridge and it was a nice way to spice things up. Totally optional, of course.

Cusp of Fall Produce

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

As much as I love the berries, stone fruit and corn of summer, I honestly think the best time for produce in this area is early fall. This time of year, you can find both the best of the late-summer fruits and vegetables and the apples, pears and pumpkins of autumn.  In my garden, I have a handful of straggling green tomatoes and peppers turning red right beside the hard squashes swelling on their vines.

This baked dish is the perfect thing to make with the fruits of this season, since it’s just a little bit heartier than I would want in the heat of August, when I’d be wanting to make a salad instead.  This is a more comforting and warming configuration for those same ingredients, much more suited to the somewhat drippy weather we’ve been having this month.  I’m especially pleased with the fact that everything is local except the wine and the feta, and a fair bit of it was even home-grown.  The twisty red frying peppers, green bell pepper, tomatoes and herbs all came from containers on my patio, while the onion and darling little pale-purple fairytale eggplant came from the Saturday Chestnut Hill farmers market.  Later this fall, it can be made instead with big Italian eggplant and good canned tomatoes, but for the next few weeks, I urge you to take full advantage of the fact that the ingredients can still be found fresh in the markets!

Fairytale Eggplant Baked with Peppers, Tomatoes and Feta
(Adapted from Diane Kochilas, The Greek Vegetarian)

¼ cup olive oil
1 large yellow onion, peeled, halved and sliced thinly
1 green bell pepper, sliced in thin rounds
2 red frying peppers, thinly sliced
¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes
2 garlic cloves, minced
¾ cup chopped tomatoes (approximately 4 small)
½ cup red wine
2 tablespoons fresh oregano leaves
1 quart fairytale eggplant
4 ounces feta cheese
Salt to taste

Heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a large skillet over medium low heat and add the onions, cooking until wilted.  Add the peppers, red pepper flakes and garlic, cover and cook for another 8 minutes.  Add the tomatoes and wine and bring to a simmer, cover again, and cook 10 more minutes.  Stir in the oregano leaves and salt to taste.

Trim the tops off the eggplant and cut into wedges about an inch wide.  Heat the remaining 2 tablespoons of oil in a nonstick pan over medium heat and fry the eggplant pieces until golden and beginning to turn tender.

Preheat the oven to 350 F.  Brush a medium-sized baking dish with 2-inch sides with oil, and layer the bottom with half the eggplant.  Cover with half the sauce mixture, and repeat with the remaining eggplant and vegetables.  Crumble the feta in an even layer on top. 

Cover loosely with foil and bake until the eggplant is fully tender and the sauce is bubbling, about 45 minutes to an hour.  Remove the foil for the last 15 minutes if you’d like the feta to brown a bit.

Hillacres Pride Puddle Duck Creek

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Oh, Hillacres Pride—I could kiss you right now.

Grid Magazine named Hillacres Pride Puddle Duck Creek its Cheese of the Month, and no wonder—it’s really, really good. This pasteurized cheese is made from milk that comes from free range cows, and it has a nice, bloomy rind. The inside is reminiscent of a tangy Brie—when allowed to get to room temperature, it becomes gooey and, dare I say, a little smelly.

Smelly cheese is usually yummy cheese, and the Puddle Duck Creek is no exception. I’m ashamed to admit it, but I devoured an entire round of it in a single day. I purchased the cheese directly from Hillacres at their booth at Headhouse Square, but you can also find it at the Collingswood, NJ farmer’s market. I’ve also seen Hillacres Farm cheese available at the Fair Food Farmstand.

A little about Hillacres Pride:

Hillacres Pride in southern Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, consists of about 100 cows and heifers, managed by Tom and Mandy Arrowsmith. The cows of Hillacres are their first love and pride is taken in providing excellent care.  Cows pasture on a variety of grasses through out the warm months. Tom and Mandy started Hillacres Pride as a way to sustain the family farm and raise their 4 children as farm kids.

Summer’s Last Fruit Salsa

Sunday, September 25, 2011

The first day of autumn almost tastes like the crisp, tart apples that have just appeared at the market in their wooden crates.  In spring, I remember the first day the sun seems to actually warm rather than just provide wan light.  Although those days may be harbingers of the months to come, they are usually a few weeks ahead of their compatriots. Inevitably, there is a quick regress to the season’s status quo.


I had the first taste of autumn a couple of weeks ago.  Standing at the Sunday Headhouse Market and looking at the first apples - blush, chartreuse, pale gold, or some mixture of the three - I knew what was coming.  There soon followed warmer days, and once again, I was reminded that the transition from season to season is not nearly the clearly defined event my memory conspires to make it.


So, as the early autumn days closely resemble late summer days, here is a quick recipe from one of the more pleasant discoveries of our summer’s gardening: ground cherries.  I picked these randomly out of a seed catalog in February, and we were pleasantly surprised at the outcome.  They grow on extremely homely plants about three feet high, which promptly drop the ground cherries (hence the name?) in papery husks similar to a tomatillo’s.  The yellow pearl of fruit inside balances acidity, tartness, and sweetness like a perfectly ripe pineapple. 


We have tossed them with homemade granola, baked them into spelt-flour scones, and, as here, turned them into a quick salsa.  While we enjoyed this with some pan-grilled white fish, it could easily accompany grilled pork, chicken, or even some vegetables fritters.  They will not be here much longer, but they were wonderful while they lasted. 

Ground Cherry Salsa
1 cup ground cherries, husked
1 small red onion
1 small jalapeno, stem removed
¼ cup green herbs (garlic chives, parsley, cilantro)
salt
olive oil

Combine the ground cherries, onion, jalapeno, herbs, and a pinch of salt in the bowl of a food processor.  (If you want to mitigate the heat of the jalapeno, remove the seeds first.)  Pulse a few times to incorporate.  Add olive oil, 1 tablespoon at a time, and pulse after each addition, until you reach the desired consistency.  Taste again for salt and add if necessary.

Social Networking for The Common Good

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

It’s good to be blogging again for Farm to Philly after a brief hiatus. What I love about this blog is the diversity of writers and flow of information that comes from the site. Although I have plenty to write about in the vein of farming and sustainability, I thought I would make a fresh beginning by talking about the proliferation of information. This past month local web designer and sustainability activist Jaques Sapriel launched the website phillyecocity.com. This site has the traditional components of articles and event calenders, but Sapriel takes the site a step further by introducing the concept of social networking.
When navigating to the website phillyecocity.com, you are prompted to join and create a profile. Although you don’t have to join to access the calendar of events or articles, by creating a profile the user has the ability to socially network with other like minded people who are either active or aspiring to be active in Philadelphia’s vibrant sustainability movement.
I love this concept for two reasons. This first is that not everyone has the time or resources to find out where this community exists or how to access it. I often encounter people who are interested in this movement, but have no idea where to start looking for like minded people. As we’ve seen with social networking sites from music to dating, the internet (when used with good intentions) can be a very helpful way to connect people. The second reason is that people also often want to volunteer at one of my garden sites all the way across the city when there is a project that is just a few blocks from their house that needs help. The beauty of this site, much like Farm to Philly, is that the information that people access from the site doesn’t just keep them in cyberspace. Just as people can take a recipe or gardening tip from this site and manifest it into something tangible (like food), people can physically take these connections into the streets of Philadelphia.
So please check out the site and keep on reading Farm to Philly. I promise to have a good growing tip on my next entry.

A Day Trip to Maple Acres Farm

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Though the weather forecast warned of more rain this morning, I woke up to a beautiful day. I was surely not going to let it pass me and my son by. After walking our dog, we hopped in the car for a ride over to Maple Acres Farm in nearby Plymouth Meeting. I was on a mission for some hearty stew vegetables and my son was on another mission: to pick some flowers.

Maple Acres is a quaint little farm market that is open year round. It offers the feel of a road side stand with the variety one usually finds in bigger markets. I found some amazing carrots, each one as thick as three fingers, beautiful Poblano peppers that were just barely touched with red, some okra, two gorgeous (and HUGE) mushroom caps, and of course, the season’s first apples. I’m eager to hit the kitchen tonight and get my beef stew simmering with all of those local ingredients. But finding all of that fresh produce wasn’t even the highlight of my morning out. That came after our stroll through the little market, while my two year old and I meandered through the rows of Zinnias that Maple Acres opens to the public for fresh clippings.

There’s my little guy, picking out the perfect bloom for his older sister. He loved knowing that he could pick any of the flowers that he wanted, without a stodgy adult (me) telling him that we don’t pick flowers from gardens. Everything was fair game! The look on his face was priceless and we got a really healthy looking bouquet to bring home as well. If you’re looking for a Farmer’s Market that offers something fun for the kids as well, consider a trip to Maple Acres. The fruit and veggies will be worth the drive and the fun you have picking your own flowers will last a lot longer than the blooms themselves.

Headhouse Square Farmers Market Report - 9/11/2011

Sunday, September 11, 2011

Even though it’s technically still summer, post-Labor Day always feels officially fall-esque to me. The farmer’s markets reflect the change in that they start featuring more in the way of the things I associate with fall and winter—hard squashes, leeks, apples, root crops. I ran down to the market at Headhouse Square this morning, and sure enough, lots of those things. But it’s also the end of tomato season, and at least a few stands featured some really fantastic looking heirloom tomatoes.

I was curious to see what kinds of stuff would be at the market considing all the rain and flooding Pennsylvania and New Jersey have suffered over the last few weeks. Culton Organics was missing this week, which is a shame—I always love to see what they’re offering up. Blooming Glen had a little of everything—greens, bell peppers, potatoes, radishes, and squash. Savoie Organics had a huge selection of potatoes. Margerum’s, of course, offered up dried beans, herbs, and spices.

My own purchases . . . well, I went with the intention of getting duck breast from Griggstown Quail Farm, which I did, but I only wanted to get enough food to make a single meal. As it turns out, I have enough for, well, probably three:

• Cipollini onions from Root Mass
• Lacinato kale from Blooming Glen Farm
• Russian blush potatoes from Savoie Organics
• Puddle Duck Creek cheese from Hillacres Pride
• Butternut and Red Kobocha squash from, I think, Root Mass
• Duck breast from Griggstown
• Challah rolls from Wild Flour Bakery

I’ve been thinking about what to make since the second I left the market.

Tomato Pie

Saturday, September 10, 2011

As much as I loved the Food Network back in the days when we had cable, I could never really get into Paula Deen’s recipes because of all the mayonnaise. I don’t like mayonnaise. I don’t eat mayonnaise. I don’t buy mayonnaise. So when some friends started talking about a Paula Deen tomato pie recipe I didn’t think much of it. I have plenty of tomato pie recipes in my arsenal. Some eggy, some tart-like on puff pastry, some like the cheese-less pizza tomato pies popular in Philly. But people kept talking about the Paula Deen recipe and I decided to put my mayonnaise issues aside and give it a go.

Her recipe is pretty straightforward: a prepared pie shell, cheese, green onions, tomatoes, basil and mayonnaise. Keeping with my “complicate everything” philosophy I tweaked the recipe using a homemade all-butter pie crust, homemade mayo, both Amish Paste and grape tomatoes from my garden, and caramelized red onions from Red Earth Farm along with the other ingredients. It was as good as everyone said it was. I just ate the crumbs off of the bottom of the pie pan taking a picture.

Tomato Pie

One 9 inch pre-baked pie crust, store bought or homemade
3 or 4 tomatoes peeled, seeded and chopped ( or cherry tomatoes halved and squeezed to drain some of the moisture)
1/2 cup of green onion, chopped (or 2 red onions caramelized)
10 basil leaves, sliced
3/4 cup of mayonnaise
2 cups of shredded cheese ( I used one cup of Hillacres Pride cheddar, and one cup of shredded mozzarella- I bet it would be great with Pecorino Romano or Parmesan too)
salt, pepper, and hot sauce to taste

Combine the mayonnaise and cheeses with salt, pepper and hot sauce. It will be thick and gloopy. Layer the onions, tomatoes, and basil in the pre-baked pie crust. Spread the cheese mixture evenly across the top. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 30 minutes or until browned.