The promise of counter-top mushrooms has yet to be realized. The first attempt was a flaming disaster. Too warm I surmise, atop the kitchen 'fridge. Anyway...
This season we joined a Crop Share at a local farm. Tangle Town. Relative to the many Farmer's Markets, the 1/2 share has been quite cost effective. It has also taught us to eat with respect to the local environment. Implicit in this approach is the need to prepare foods that one might otherwise avoid. This lesson has already been learned by many of you, no doubt, and I have always made an effort to pertain to the seasons. In any case, the most abundant is the most cost effective food. No matter what so-called economic system one lives beneath. Or above and apart, as the case may be.
With the help of the Flavor Bible , suggested by Middleman's recent roommate in Chicago, I have come to terms with beets. Still can't quite stomach the red ones in a plain presentation. Borscht is out of the question.
Gulin has learned about beans. Specifically those mixed with greens. Solid meal, this. Especially with kale and/or collards. Crisp up a piece of bacon before starting the flavor symphony and you'll forgo heaven for a plateful of the Earth's green bounty.
The two recipes that follow were developed along the lines of the Flavor Bible and the early summer harvest of from Plano, MN.
Add on where you see fit. How does one pickle cauliflower? Conjure mead?
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Roasted Beet Salad
Roast 2-5 beets in the oven at 375 F for 30-50 minutes; until almost too soft. Cut into large pieces or leave whole, but peel off the hairs. Coat with balsamic, or any flavored vinegar. Tarragon vinegar is ideal. Let cool to room temp., then dice.
Thinly slice about 1/2 cup green onion or shallot. Add to diced beets.
Dice a 2-3 celery stalks. Maybe a carrot, too. Mix into the beet and shallot combo. Add a bit of olive oil, salt and pepper. Fresh tarragon is good too.
Dust with allspice and cool in 'fridge until serving. Could be days.
Just before serving, squeeze some lemon or lime, add zest if you feel energetic. Toss with a few red pepper flakes, if you like. Or a dollop of Tabasco.
Eat and become comatose with satiety.
Radish Guacamole
Slice 6-10 radishes into what ever small shape you favor. Peel away hairs and rough spots, but keep as much color as possible.
Braise these in salted butter, or vegetable oil with some chopped garlic. Cool.
Dice two soft medium avocados into a bowl and mash with a fork. Add some finely chopped sweet onion, if you can stomach it. Salt and pepper, plus whatever heat you prefer.
Squeeze a lemon or lime into the avocado puree, then add a few tablespoons of tahini, sour cream, or yogurt, whatever you prefer. Whisk, or beat well with a fork.
Fold in the radish. Add some fresh cilantro, tarragon, or parsley. maybe a bit more vinegar.
Finish with fresh lemon or lime. Eat with chips or flat bread. Use as a condiment with tacos, or serve in leaves of fresh lettuce.
Fresh Snap Pea, Carrot and Radish Salad
Trim and clean 2 handfuls of fresh snap peas. That's about 2 cups. Cut cross-wise into 1/2 inch pieces. These are bigger than the carrots and celery.
Thinly slice 5-6 radishes into disks. Half these if you wish. Be sure to remove the hairs from the outside of the radishes. Thin means thin - 5 mm at most. If you lack the patience or sharp knife, make match-sticks.
Thinly slice a couple of shallots. Scallions are OK, too. If you use onions, dice them finely.
Dice two medium carrots. The sweeter the better.
We got a couple of heirloom carrots from the CSA a few weeks ago. The skins were red and the flesh was yellow. They were softer than typical carrots and tasted like they had been soaked in honey. Amazing. First time I made this dish was with those carrots.
Dice 2 or 3 stalks of celery. Depends upon how much you like. I tend to use equal parts carrot and celery. These should be the same size pieces.
Just as an aside, the combination of these three ingredients - onion (shallot), carrot and celery - are so fundamental to building solid flavor and texture that they have a specific name in French, "mirepoix". My personal The Holy Trinity. In this dish they are fresh and uncooked. If you really want to finish this salad, make a broth of the trinity, splashed with dry white wine and reduced. Use this in the dressing and the layers of flavor will magnify.
Mix all these in a bowl big enough for tossing. Salt and pepper to taste.
Finely chop 1/4 cup fresh mint leaves. Measure before chopping. About 1 - 2 tablespoon after. Fold these into the salad. Set aside.
Make a quick dressing: 1/4 cup flavored, vinegar (2 TBLS Balsamic), 2 TBLS honey, molasses, or dark brown sugar, 1/4 cup olive oil. Pinch salt. Whisk hard to introduce air. If you have the trinity reduction, use it in combination with the vinegar. Tomato water works too.
Pour the dressing on the salad and toss with fresh squeezed lemon.
Roasted Beet Risotto
The beets keep coming. Red ones, golden, white, fancy striped ones - they all have distinct sub-flavors. Like I said, I'm coming to terms with beets. They smell and taste like clean dirt, I think. That is, fresh loam drying in the sun just after a spring rain smells like beets taste.
Anyway - roast them just like for the salad recipe above. The combination of tarragon and beets is really aromatic while roasting.
Retain and devein the greens. I save the fat ends of the stalks for stock, and finely chop the tender mid-sections for use in the dish.
1 cup Arborio or Carnarolli rice. The type of rice is important if you want the creamy texture to develop. Experiment. Long grain rice doesn't work. Neither does wild rice. I used barley the other day, too. It was OK, but I wouldn't call it "risotto".
2 chopped cloves of garlic
1/4 cup red wine
Grated Parmesan cheese.
2-3 TBLS chopped parsley
4-5 cups stock, prewarmed, salted and peppered. Sometimes I toss a couple bay leaves into the stock pot, too.
Get a big skillet. Non-reactive is probably the best, but my iron skillets are very well seasoned. The all-clad skillets are not nearly as stick-free as the old fashioned ones. There is one ceramic coated iron skillet that I inherited from Mom that would be great, but its kind of small.
Heat up the oil and cook the onion over medium heat until its almost translucent. If you're using the beet stacks, add them now. Add the rice and garlic. Cook until the rice starts the crackle. Stir often.
Add the wine. Let it bubble and evaporate off the alcohol, then stir until the rest of the liquid is absorbed. When the rise is almost dry - no liquid pools in the pan - add 1/4 cup or so of the warm stock. Stir and gauge the heat so that the liquid is absorbed over about 10 minutes. Stir almost constantly, but don't smash the rice grains. Add another 1/4 stock and cook it down too.
Stack the dried green leaves and chop crosswise into strips about 1/2 inch wide. Dust with allspice.
Add the diced beets and greens to the risotto and add enough stock to just cover the rice, not the greens. Cook it down again. Check the rice. Is it soft outside by slightly hard at the center? Not crunchy, but not soft. Yes? Great. No? Add more stock and cook it down.
Salt. Pepper.
When the rice is done, add 1/4 cup stock, cheese, and parsley. Fold these in and remove from heat. Squeeze some fresh lemon on it and let it rest for 5 minutes or so. It retains heat well.
The consistency is like a runny rice pudding, with little clouds of rice grain. The texture of the rice and the celery should be similar, the celery should retain a subtle crispness. The onion and garlic have dissolved, as have the beet stalks, all of which adds to the creamy part of the rice to make the sauce. The greens should be full, not clumped up like cooked spinach. I think over cooking leads to clumping. So far I've made this dish 3 times and the greens clumped once. Might have something to do with the barley, though. Next time, I think I'll slice them thinner and add them later to try and retain the shape and prevent clumping.
In a sense, the beets are standing for the carrot in this trinity. If you used diced carrots instead, you'd have classic risotto, I think. Maybe some peas, too.
Latest challenge from the CSA has been dill. We got a huge pile of the stuff last Friday. This week it was cilantro. Anyway, the dill experience.
I really used to like dill weed. I grew it and it was literally a weed. The flowers are very tasty. Just eat 'em right off the plant. Ate it in everything - popcorn, fish, potatoes- made dill laced burgers and even grilled cheese. Then I lost the taste for it. Until last week.
It was very good in the beans and greens last week, as well as the white beet risotto (with barley). It enticed me to use more fresh lemon than usual. The mixture of mint and dill with raspberry vinegar sweetened with buckwheat honey very nicely complemented the crisp snap beans and the subtle bite of thin raw shallot in that dish.
But the most intriguing was with the fresh green beans that came this week. First steamed with a little butter melted over afterwards. Then doused with finely chopped fresh dill wet with tarragon vinegar. Salt and pepper, for sure.
Today, sauteed in butter with a large green/white onion, with finely chopped dill added after removing from flame, then 2-5 drops tarragon vinegar added and tossed.
Good combination, dill and tarragon. I'm thinking of making a dill vinegar, then blending it with the tarragon I have already concocted with the winter-acclimatized tarragon that grows next to the house. There are also a form of oregano that is most decorative. It works in tea, but that's about it. Even dried. It is so abundant that it can be routinely cut during summer grilling season and used to scent/flavor the smoke. Garlic chives are like weeds. I wait for them to flower and cut the tiny blossoms for use in fresh dishes. They are flowers that taste powerfully of garlic. Wonderful things. Nice lemon balm bush. Some sage that tastes good, but grows slowly.
How do you all cook? Do you cook?
Post Modern Angst
3 generations of disappointed idealists. In general, the older varieties will be more bitter, but in some legacy strains the sweetness and depth grows with age.
2 generations of optimists. The fuller the glass the better. These should bracket the generations above for the most volatile melange.
As much oil as you can stand.
Throw in copious amounts of lead, radiation and white phosphorous to taste. You really can stand more than you might think. This is not a recipe for the faint of heart.
Beat everything until compliant. Not so hard as to raise a suspicion, but hard enough to make a point.
Filter undesirable bits and store the remnants in lock-down or poverty until needed to spice things up.
Dust with ash and water with questionable springs.
Whatever grows is yours. You earned it and labored to squeeze it through your loins. Why would you abandon us now?
Sweet Summer Corn
Shuck. Boil/grill/roast/microwave. Eat.
Butter, salt, black pepper to taste - or whatever you like.
Don't know about your parts, but round here the corn is almost like candy.
Tomatoes
Are the latest challenge from the CSA. Not much of a challenge, actually because they are a common form of ambrosia. The variety from the farm has been enlightening. We had tried the heirloom breeds at the grocery store - locally produced and all - but found them sadly lacking. Only one exception had I found - yellow grape tomatoes from the Hmong at most Farmers markets. Now, the Tangletown CSA has added two more varieties - deep purple/green nuggets and a yellow/red striped monster.
These are so sweet and so much the essence of tomato - the Forbidden Fruit Apple. We've been using them for breakfast. Diced with a little onion and sauteed in vegetable oil, bacon grease, or sage butter until half dissolved at high heat. Then dropped to med/low as eggs (also from Tangle Town, but not part of CSA - $3/dozen) are cracked on top. Cover with herbs (Parsley; Basil; Thyme) and cheese (white cheddar or whatever) then cover skillet with lid.
Let eggs cook as desired. If you don't like runny yolks, break them before covering pan.
Scoop onto toasted bread, or roasted potatoes.
Of course, there is the marina sauces and other reds with pasta.
Still, there are more tomatoes in the 'Fridge and voice mail from friends threatening to bring more. Good thing we have that dehydrator. Its been preserving green beans and zuchinni quietly in the basement all summer. Now its concentrating MN tomato flavors into intense fragments that even make the dog flinch. There are apples that are not as sweet as these Edenesque tidbits. Nowotimean?
Late at night, I can feel these taste buds all the way to my evolutionary roots; they vibrate in sympathy like a 12 string guitar or my spinal cord. Through these fruits I lick the ground upon which I live always in search of new milk I tend aphids with gusto. Do you not feel the same? Am I so estranged that this ground has ceased to be common? Com'on.
Com'on. You can't bullshit your DNA no matter how fervently you pray, no matter how elegantly you bear the beanbags beneath your knees. Pain is not yours alone no matter how satisfying that conclusion is for your mind.
The world does not revolve around us. the Universe (multi-Verse if you insist) does not care about you or me or your kids. We are the only constellation that has any weight and most of us resist unified movement within this so-called "family".
Tomatoes -the bounty of this place where I have come to build a life. Not a life of negation like my Brother, but something as positive as a crippled monkey like myself can manage. If that includes the rest of you is your decision; I exclude no one. You exclude yourself and I will respect your decisions.
Can we all see why tomatoes got Eve and Adam banished? Eat them with care. They have seeds that connect to lineages you might rather forget or preserve in ancient images. I like to follow them until something like an end has become possible.
There it is.
More Beets
The harvest continues.
Some red and white striped beauties. Roasted them with a sprinkle of home-made tarragon vinegar. Tarragon from my own "garden", middleman, it has been acclimatized to Minnesota - this is its 4th year in the ground. Added a few bay leaves harvested from my Turkish mother's garden.
After roasting, covered at 325 F for 35-45 minutes, uncover and turn up to 425 for 10 more minutes. Remove from oven, loosely cover again and let cool. Dice.
Chop a few stalks of celery and a green onion or two. Add to chopped beets.
Pears were on sale at the market, so I chopped up two of those small, hard nuggets and mix into the salad.
The CSA gave us some intensely flavored, leathery black-skinned radishes, so I peeled and diced two of those, then added these to the beet salad. Made a vinagrette with tarragon vinegar and some dark brown buck wheat honey (from WI via the VA Farmer's Market) and olive oil. Salt and black pepper to taste.
One of the benefits of visiting Turkey is that we get cheap pistachios - in fact, Gulin's mom bought them, so they are free. I shelled two handfuls and chopped some walnuts, too. The crunchy nuts are a welcome texture in this salad and the buttery smoothness of the pistachio meat is wonderful. I also added a new spice - chericota. Small black seeds from a flower related to coriander. They add a smokey depth and a licorice twist.
This salad will blossom overnight.
Tomato powder and flakes
This is an idea I got from the TV.
Find some big, sweet tomatoes.
slice thin and place on a dehydrator rack.
Dehydrate slowly. Start at 115 F and finish at 125 F two days later. Remove only when very dry and brittle. Powder in a food processor. This will generate tomato smoke - breathe it into your mouth. Delicious.
After powdering, sift to separate flakes from fine powder. The powder is like a tomato paste, sprinkle over pasta, or add to any simmering dish to make an instant broth. The flakes are similar, but you can also use them on salads.
These are very good additives for beans and greens.
Trouble with Radishes
There has been a clash of sorts. Well, of vegetables - root veggies - to be more precise.
Dark black radish met striped beets and the beets lost. Big time.
These radish are intense. Almost like the horse variety, but not quite. Juicy, too. If one cared for radish, they would be excellent I suspect. Plus, they are huge.
I ate one the other day - like a small apple. Until roughly 10 minutes after I had eaten it, I truly believed that I liked radish.
Even so, 3 of the lunkers sat confident and firm in the crisper, daring me to eat them again. Of course, I wanted to tame them - subdue them with my tongue. Make them yield that hot juice.
Instead, I chopped them and tossed them into the latest roast beet salad. There, they had their revenge and wafted an ill scent over the tasty dish. The heat of the radish is no more - something I've noticed with vinegar based (?)dressings, kills the radish heat.
Where did I go wrong?
Squash Risotto
The sweet, succulent tomatoes are pretty much done for the year. I managed to put down a good supply of tomato powder and some flakes, too.
Last week, it was an abundance of red potato, onion, garlic, shallot, scallion, and one small acorn squash.
I've been playing with risotto this summer. With beets, corn, and carrots. Even tried a couple of "rustic" versions using barley.
So when the Newsletter suggested squash risotto, I decided to try it out. Here's how it went:
Peeled the squash with a vegetable peeler and a paring knife. Not as bad as it sounds. Cut it in half and took the seeds and fibers out. This one was pretty small, so few seeds and the center was like a dry cucumber. If yours has good seeds, think about cleaning and toasting them. These can be eaten directly, or chopped and added to this dish with the cheese and sage.
Anyway, dice the squash into cubes, roughly twice the size of a typical rolling die. While you are doing this, warm up 3-4 cups of broth over low heat in a sauce pan. Add the squash innards for some more complexity. Don't forget to strain the broth before using if you do this.
On med/high flame, cook the squash nuggets until softened and browned. Roughly 15 minutes. Remove to a bowl.
Add some unsalted butter to the skillet and brown 1 cup of onion, garlic and shallot mix. Saute until translucent and browned at the edges. Add 1.5 to 2 cups Arborio rice and get it good and hot. Increase the heat a bit to compensate for the next step.
Add half of the diced squash. Get it warmed through, too.
Add 2/3 to 1 cup dry white wine. Cook over medium flame until all wine is absorbed. about 7 minutes.
Add the warm, squash infused stock to the rice dish and allow it to absorb slowly, with a lot of stirring, over the next 20 minutes or so. Don't go too fast. If you use too hot of a flame, you'll end up with crunchy risotto. Some people like it that way. Getting the a small bit at the center to remain hard, while surrounded in a cloud of soft rice is my as yet unrealized goal.
When it is almost done, add the rest of the squash. When almost dry, remove from heat and add 1/2 cup shredded parmesan cheese and as much chopped fresh sage as you like. Let it rest a bit, then serve.
Oh yeah, you should salt and pepper to taste at various stages.
Beet Bits
I've been meaning to type this one up for a while. This year, I finally got a food dehydrator. Its a boon.
The basic theory here is not so much preservation, as it is flavor. That's the entire point of tomato powder, BTW.
Been working on parsnip powder, too.
I used to do this kind of thing with a toaster oven and/or the sun, but dehydrators have the benefits of speed and control. We can make preserved foods that retain a fresh flavor and a good portion of the "live" nutrients.
In terms of flavor and coloring agents, you can't beat beet bits. These are the celery-like stalks that occur between the beet meat and the beet green. I've been dicing them (about 5 mm width) and dehydrating them (around 100 degree F. What you end up with are crunchy nuggets of beety goodness - clean, concentrated dirt.
Sprinkle on salads, or into hot dishes - particularly beans and greens. Awesome stuff.
I suppose these could be rehydrated, too - but I've yet to do so. We do,on occasion, snack on these, too. A pinch between your cheek and gum goes a long way.
Squash, onions and potatoes were the caboose of our CSA. Also some delicious bok choy that is possessed of the most tender, juicy and flavorful contrasting colors between leaf and stalk.
This will be a long, drab winter I fear. Sure, I've put down some Minnesota apples (not from CSA -from Apple Junction in Afton) by drying them, then soaking in a brown sugar/brandy/ginger preservation fluid. We have about a dozen powered tomatoes and the herb jars are overflowing. I even dried a bunch of potatoes - pink ones, white ones, and yukon golds, too. But the winds from the North have been yelling about blizzards for a week, at least. All that is missing is the snow.
It will come soon enough and I will love it. Every shovelful.
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