Kids Dish

We went berry picking last week at Linvilla Orchard, a local pick your own that has a wide variety of fruit available throughout the year. Last week was the end of strawberry season, the height of raspberry season, and we missed blueberries, which were closed for ripening after the first of the season were picked out.

This was Sam’s third trip to the orchard- fourth if you count a trip when I was pregnant. Last summer we picked blackberries, tomatoes, and peaches. In the fall we went with a group of friends and skipped the apple picking but we went for a hayride, drank apple cider and walked through the pumpkin patch. Sam remembered the place and kept insisting that he was picking strawberries in the pumpkin patch.

We got there later than we’d hoped and ate lunch at a picnic table before taking the hayride out to the strawberry patch. It was hot and humid and Sam hadn’t had a nap. Ben was strapped to my chest in a wrap with built in SPF. The rest of us were slathered in sunscreen and sweaty. Sam didn’t know where to find the strawberries so I picked up the leaves and showed him how to find them. We got to work with our separate boxes. Sam preferred to “pick” strawberries from mama and dada’s boxes, transfer them to his box, and eat them immediately. He was soon covered in strawberry juice.

Three quarts (and about a thousand strawberries consumed later) we took the hayride back to the raspberry bushes, adjacent to the parking lot. Sam was still in good spirits but he was tired. The raspberry picking appealed to him because the raspberries were at a good height where he could pick them without bending or searching. He ate a ton and ran up and down the rows before asking to go home. We got about two quarts of raspberries before paying and heading home.

It’s been a week and we’ve consumed all five quarts of fruit. I planned on freezing some of it, but I never got around to it and it was so good we just kept eating it. I’ve been eating granola with yogurt and berries every morning for breakfast and eating berries every time I open the fridge.

A few ideas for berry storage:
Berries should be washed before storing. Rinse them in 3 cups of water mixed with 1 cup of vinegar then run under fresh water from the tap. Drain in a colander. Line a salad spinner with several layers of paper towels and spin the berries until dry.

Store the berries loosely covered at the front of the refrigerator. They are cold sensitive and will last longer.

To freeze, put the berries on a baking sheet in rows so they’re not touching. Freeze, then transfer berries to freezer bags for storage.

It occurred to me last year that I may be the only person on earth who has never eaten anything with rhubarb in it. At least not that I know of. I never remedied the situation last year, but on our last trip to the farmer’s market, when I saw both rhubarb and strawberries fresh from Lancaster County for sale I couldn’t resist buying them both.

The problem was what to make. The strawberries were so perfectly ripe and sweet we ate one of the two quarts in the car on the ride home. I am not a pie person and strawberry rhubarb pie is the most popular dessert using the two ingredients. But once again, Smitten Kitchen came to the rescue with this fantastic crumble. It’s easy to make and it used ingredients I had in the kitchen except for the Demerara sugar which I substituted with dark brown sugar. Serve it with ice cream.

Strawberry-Rhubarb Crumble
For the topping:
1 1/3 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
3 tablespoons sugar
3 tablespoons Demerara sugar (or turbinado sugar, or Sugar in the Raw)
Zest of one lemon
1/4 pound (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted
For the filling:
1 ½ cups rhubarb, chopped into 1-inch pieces
1 quart strawberries plus a few extras, hulled, quartered
Juice of one lemon
½ cup sugar
½ cup flour
Pinch of salt

1. Heat oven to 375 degrees. Prepare topping: In a mixing bowl, combine flour, baking powder, sugars and lemon zest and add the melted butter. Mix until small and large clumps form. Refrigerate until needed.
2. Prepare filling: Toss rhubarb, strawberries, lemon juice, sugar, flour and pinch of salt in a 9-inch deep-dish pie plate.
3. Remove topping from refrigerator and cover fruit thickly and evenly with topping. Place pie plate on a baking sheet, and bake until crumble topping is golden brown in places and fruit is bubbling beneath, about 40 to 50 minutes.

Thursday’s box contained two quarts of shelling peas, a bunch of beets, a bunch of baby pak choi, a bunch of lacinato kale, and a bunch of shard. I still had some green onions, the entire bunch of turnips, some of the lettuce and a head of regular sized pak choi left from the week before when I was sick and couldn’t bring my feverish self to the kitchen.

To make sure I’m using all of the vegetables in a timely manner I’ve been making a list on the fridge and crossing the vegetables I use off as I go. We didn’t do too badly last summer and so far we’ve only lost a bit of lettuce to the compost bin. Two heads of lettuce is more than we can eat in a week, but since that box was farmer’s choice I don’t blame myself.

The two year old has become quite the picky eater as of late, subsisting mainly on fruit and noodles. I’m not too concerned. I know that this will pass and until it does I’ll just keep offering. I don’t cook him a separate meal (though we do cook more pasta then we need so we’ll have leftovers at the ready) so he gets what we eat on his plate and if he doesn’t eat it I’ll bring out something from the fridge or cabinet so he won’t go to bed hungry.

So what do you do as an adult if you’re stuck with something in the CSA box you don’t like? I don’t like radishes and last summer our radishes (I ordered them once on a whim) ended up in the compost after a month or two in the fridge. This time I did a search and found a recipe for radish sandwiches. It sounded pretty awful- just baguettes, butter and thinly sliced radishes, but the reviews said they worked. And sure enough they did.

Here’s the recipe from epicurious.com

2 1/2 bunches radishes, trimmed
Unsalted butter, room temperature
20 1/4-inch-thick diagonal slices baguette
Maldon sea salt or coarse kosher salt

Place radishes in medium bowl of ice water and chill at least 30 minutes and up to 2 hours. Drain radishes and slice thinly. (use a mandoline or v-slicer if you have one)
Spread butter generously over baguette slices and sprinkle lightly with sea salt or coarse kosher salt. Arrange radish slices atop buttered baguette slices and serve.

I skipped the chilling, used 3 large radishes and salted butter. I also toasted the baguette. If you have radishes to use up this is a palatable way to do it.

I apologize for the long absence, but I went and had a baby. The arrival of number two basically put all cooking on hold and I’ve been relying on the freezer stash, pasta, and the kindness of others for meals these last four weeks. Now we’re in the middle of a god-awful heat wave and the idea of cooking makes sweaty, even in the air conditioning.

The good news is that last week was the first week of the Red Earth Farm CSA share for the season. We signed up for a partial share this season, since with a newborn in hand and a toddler underfoot I didn’t think I’d be able to preserve all of the extras we’d be unable to eat. My partial share included a bunch of pak choi, a bag of perpetual spinach, a head each of red leaf and green leaf lettuce, a bunch of radishes and green onions.

The CSA is also offering fruit, egg, herb/flower shares and yogurt shares this season. The herb/flower share is new this season and all flowers and herbs are organically grown on the farm. The yogurt share, also new, is a partnership with Pequea Valley Farm in Lancaster. The cows on the Lancaster farm are grass fed and hormone and antibiotic free. CSA members can choose from a plain share and a variety flavor share that includes two quarts of yogurt biweekly. The buying club through the farm is currently offering cheese from Oak Shade Cheese and medicines and other herbal products from Avena Botanicals.

I’m sort of sad that we didn’t go ahead and buy a fruit share, but last summer’s fruit share just wasn’t worth it until late summer/early fall when each share had tons of apples and pears. I guess there’s always the buying club and the farmer’s market up the street. No shortage of local produce, it just requires some extra legwork on my part.

Little by little I’m emptying my extra freezer of the fruits (and vegetables)of last year’s CSA share and the meat we ordered over the summer. I no longer have a deep, chest freezer in the basement. We sadly had to sell it after realizing it was costing us more than $30 a month in electric bills. We just have a regular sized refrigerator in the garage with a regular sized freezer. Our kitchen fridge is a side-by-side model, which I hate, so having the extra freezer space is a necessity. Without it there would be no frozen Trader Joe’s pizzas on hand, whole chickens, and a place to store freezer meals for when the new baby comes next month.

I don’t know when I’m going to be motivated enough to start cooking, or what exactly I’m going to cook. The meat pickings are slim right now, so I may have to stick to mostly pasta based meals, which is fine since they freeze well anyway. I do have a few whole chickens, so I can make some chicken dishes too. I think I’ll make lasagna, a dish of chicken enchiladas, eggplant parmesan, a baked ziti, and a chicken potpie. Other than the potpie, the other dishes can be cooked in advance then frozen in individual or smaller sized portions. That way we won’t have to defrost a lasagna then be stuck eating it for days in a row.

I’ll probably make a few batches of muffins using the last of the grated zucchini and the sour cherries so I’ll have quick one-handed breakfasts. Pancakes also freeze well. If I keep making full-sized batches of pancakes over the next few weekends I’ll be able to build up a nice stash so I can pop them in the toaster oven and feed Sam without too much trouble.

What else do you make and freeze?

On a whim I picked up a bunch of leeks from the produce stand last week and now I don’t know what to do with them. I planned on making a nice, hearty, wintery leek and potato soup but then I used all of my potatoes to make a last minute Shepherd’s Pie. Ordinarily I’d just use the leeks in recipes that call for onions, but I’ve still got half of a five pound bag of organic onions in the pantry that look like they’re getting ready to sprout so I’ve been erring on the side of using them first.

Last week my mom came to visit and we took Sam to the bookstore to play with the trains. My mom went to the cafe to get some coffees for us and returned with a few stratas as well. Ordinarily I’m not a fan of most egg dishes, especially when I’m pregnant, but the strata, made with spinach, artichoke hearts and roasted peppers was delicious. Sam liked it too.

Back to the leeks. I’ve also got half a dozen eggs from local, pastured chickens in the fridge. I’ve been using them for cooking and baking as needed, but I keep reading that high quality eggs should be showcased in dishes that are egg focused. Again, I don’t love eggs, but perhaps this recipe for a Leek and Swiss Chard Tart that uses frozen puff pastry could help change my mind. I’m a sucker for anything in puff pastry. If I finely chopped the handful of baby carrots I have remaining from the five pound bag I bought (please someone remind me that I need to stay far, far away from five pound bags of anything perishable) I could add some color and texture and save some more veggies from the compost bin.

Double posted from Farm to Philly

One of the unfortunate side effects of pregnancy for me is an aversion to most vegetable matter. Ordinarily I cook several vegetable heavy meatless meals a week, but since learning I was pregnant in September we’ve mostly eaten take out pizza, meals involving ground beef, and cheesy pasta dishes. This does not bother my husband at all. My taste for vegetables eventually returned, but my desire to buy and prepare food other than pizza and cookies has been lackluster at best. I used to go out of my way to shop at the farmer’s market in Ardmore every week. Now I’m feeling ambitious if I manage to stop in to the Marketplace at East Falls on our way to the zoo or Smith Playhouse. Our refrigerator has never been so bare. One week we even forgot to get our Meadow Run Farm monthly meat order from the pick up site and sheepishly found it still on the porch the next day. It’s a good thing it’s cold outside.

Yesterday, after eating a cupcake and Utz (local!) pretzels with Bobbi’s (local!) hummus for lunch I figured it was time to cook something that wouldn’t be found on a school cafeteria menu. I knew I had a butternut squash still in the dark cabinet beneath the pantry and decided to use it. I found a recipe for Butternut Squash, Bacon, Rosemary and Phyllo Pizza on Epicurious and scoured the kitchen and freezer in the garage for the rest of the ingredients.

In the freezer I unearthed some bacon from Meadow Run and my rosemary plant is still thriving out back. I didn’t have scallions or red onion, but I had a regular onion that I sautéed in reserved bacon drippings with a clove of garlic from my CSA I found hiding behind the squash. There was half of a package of phyllo dough in the freezer, and to add some greens to the dish (since I had no intention of making anything other than the pizza for dinner) I pulled out some Swiss Chard I’d frozen early in the fall when I couldn’t bring myself to eat it.

I’m pretty good with phyllo so the whole thing took about an hour from start to finish. I wasn’t sure at first, but after my second slice I decided the pizza was delicious. It could have used a bit more rosemary, and the squash puree needed some seasoning other than salt and pepper, but on the whole it was good. Really, I’m a sucker for just about anything made with phyllo dough. (And it was a lot easier to make than the butternut squash and caramelized onion that filled my house with smoke last month.) I would definitely make it again as party appetizer using phyllo cups instead of sheets.

The local ingredients were bacon from Meadow Run Farm, butternut squash, garlic and Swiss chard from Red Earth Farm CSA and rosemary from my backyard.

Tomorrow is the day that I pick up my monthly meat order from Meadow Run Farm. Meadow Run, a local farm, offers humanely raised, pastured meats, the only kind of meat I feel comfortable buying to prepare at home. I’ll admit that since I’ve been pregnant I’ve been pretty lax about eating meat out and about, but on the whole I prefer to eat meats that come from animals who eat the things they’re meant to eat and are treated as respectfully as animals meant for food can be treated.

The New York Times reports that a California company issued a recall of 143 million pounds of beef, the largest recall in history. Some of the meat recalled was to be used in school lunch programs.The recall was spurred by the Humane Society of the United States who distributed an undercover video on Jan. 30 that showed workers abusing sick cows.

It was prompted by a Department of Agriculture investigation that found that Westland/Hallmark did not always alert federal veterinarians when its cows became unable to walk after passing inspection, as required.

Cows that cannot walk are banned for use in the food supply because they pose an added risk of mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy, a fatal disease that eats away at the brain. There have been three confirmed cases of infected cattle in this country since 2003.

I don’t know if the abuse in this particular case was an isolated incident, or if this type of animal abuse is widespread. I’m just glad I know where the meat I purchase comes from. The idea of my son eating meat that comes from the sick, abused animals in this video is horrifying.

You can find locally raised, pastured meats through Eat Wild.

In the past few weeks I’ve seen carbonara recipes all over the place and for the first time ever they started to appeal to me. Carbonara is basically bacon and eggs pasta. I’ve heard rumors that it’s Italian hangover food. I love bacon but I’m not a huge fan of eggs which is why the idea of carbonara never intrigued me. But lately? I don’t know, for reasons I can’t explain I needed to give it a go. I’m so glad I did.

Carbonara is not a recipe for people on low fat, low cholesterol diets or for people who live in permanent fear of getting sick from what they eat. The three eggs used in the sauce are not fully cooked. The recipe I used calls for heating an oven-proof serving bowl in the oven while the rest of the dish is prepared so the combination of hot pasta and hot bowl cooks the eggs just enough. I recommend using the freshest, locally grown eggs from humanely raised chickens you can find for this dish. The whole thing takes about 30 minutes start to finish. Heat up a loaf of fresh bake Italian bread along with it and serve with a salad and a simple steamed vegetable. We skipped the salad last night and inhaled the entire bowl of pasta with some leftover steamed broccoli and half a loaf of bread.

Sam, after deciding the fork was entirely too much at the pasta by the handful. He ate two and half bowls crying “More noonoos” each time his bowl was empty. Since he was eating by the handful, we refilled his bowl using spaghetti spilled on his tray and bib three or four times. Seriously, he loved the pasta. Loved it. This is the first thing he’s loved since my leftover pot pie and it took him two or three days to warm up to that. This he couldn’t get enough of from the first bite.

Spaghetti Carbonara

When the pasta is still slightly firm (al dente) drain in a colander, first reserving 1/2 cup of pasta water. Leaving the pasta slightly wet, add it to the pan and toss it with the bacon and reduced wine. Add in the egg and toss with tongs until well combined. Transfer to warm serving bowl, add fresh parsley if using and salt and fresh ground pepper to taste and serve hot.

I loved this pasta, but I plan on modifying the recipe the next time I make it. I don’t think the bacon needs to cook in olive oil. Well, perhaps it does if you’re using pancetta or another more authentic Italian bacon, but I used locally raised cured bacon and it didn’t need any extra oil. I’ll skip the oil, drain the crisp bacon on paper towels, pour off all but a tablespoon of the bacon grease and follow the recipe as written from there.

Because it’s all I have in the house I used whole wheat spaghetti. Next time I want this I’m going to use regular spaghetti to make it more like comfort food. And if you don’t have white wine you can substitute vermouth or chicken or vegetable broth. If you use broth, add a tablespoon of vinegar or lemon juice to the egg mixture.

If you’re sketched out by the barely cooked eggs, this recipe from Emeril calls for cooking them slightly.

Okay, I know I’m cheating, but I never got a chance to recap Thanksgiving dinner over the weekend. Dinner went really well. On Wednesday I prepared the brine for the turkey (kosher salt and brown sugar dissolved in water with whole coriander seeds, whole black peppercorns, thyme sprigs, rosemary sprigs and a few sage leaves) and placed the turkey in a huge ziploc bag in a cooler lined with trash bags in case of leaks. My refrigerator is a stupid side by side model (HATE side by side) so I don’t actually have room to accommodate a brining turkey before a holiday so a cooler has to suffice. Once the turkey was properly submerged it needed to be rotated every few hours so it brined evenly. I left it breast side down overnight.

After the turkey was safely in the cooler I started the rest of my tasks. I started the dough for the rolls and set it out for the first rise. Next I started the pie dough, a recipe that called for vodka. I’ve never made pie dough before. Honestly, I’ve never made it because I don’t love pie. I’ll eat it if it’s the only thing around, but I’ll take cake over pie any day. The only reason I made a pie was because I still had a dozen apples left from my CSA share and no one volunteered to bring a pie. For some reason even though I don’t love pie, it doesn’t feel like Thanksgiving without one.

Once the pie dough was refrigerated I peeled and cut the sweet potatoes. I ignored the part of the recipe where it tells you to steam the sweet potatoes first since I knew I’d be reheating them in the oven the next day and didn’t want them to be too soggy. I made the glaze for the sweet potatoes but it took much longer to thicken than the recipe said it would. I don’t know if I didn’t have the heat up high enough or if it was because I increased the recipe. When it seemed thick enough I poured it over the sweet potatoes (a mixture of yams and sweet potatoes, I discovered once I peeled them) and put them in the oven to bake. While the sweet potatoes cooked I blanched the green beans, plunged them into ice cold water, drained them and put them in a large ziploc bag with paper towels.

I cut the herbs from my garden- chives, rosemary and thyme- and made herb butter for the turkey by combining chopped herbs with softened butter. I put the mixture in a small ziploc bag and smooshed it down to the bottom so it would form a log.

The sweet potatoes were done, but they never really seemed glazed. The glaze seemed too runny and saucy. I didn’t know what to do, so I poured out the glaze and set it aside, figuring I’d try to thicken it up the next day before reheating.

The bread, which took forever to rise, finally rose enough, so I punched it down, formed it into dinner rolls and set it to the side to rise again. After about an hour it had risen enough so I baked it and sampled one to make sure I liked the recipe enough to actually serve the rolls. I did and decided that I was pretty much done with cooking for the day.

This is getting way too long, so I’ll finish my recap tomorrow.

Timing is everything. Just a day after posting a recipe for beef stew I saw this article where inspectors admit to selling contaminated meat.

Inspectors admit to ‘E. coli loophole’ at plants

One federal inspector calls it the “E. coli loophole.” Another says: “Nobody would buy it if they knew.”

The USDA denied this. Department officials said the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service “collects its own random samples without waiting for test results from the plant.”

Articles like this make me glad I made the decision to stop buying supermarket meat and only buy humanely raised, pastured meat from local farms.

Grass fed, or pastured animals, are an alternative, a safer, more trustworthy alternative to supermarket meat, even the meats with organic labels. The health benefits of eating pastured animals are many. Grass fed animals are eating a natural diet so they don’t need the hormones and antibiotics automatically administered to factory farmed animals. They’re also lower in fat and calories than grain fed animals and contain more Omega 3s than their factory counterparts. The farmers who raise grass fed animals are environmentally friendly by necessity- their animals need to eat healthy grass so they in turn have to make sure the soil and pasture is healthy for them.

I’ve been buying meat from the farm for five months now. There has not been a significant increase in our food bills. Support local farmers. Support the humane treatment of animals. Keep your family healthy and safe. Eat wild.

Holy crap, how did Thanksgiving get to be two weeks away? This year it looks like the crowd’s going to be significantly smaller than years past. Right now it looks like we’ll have just about a dozen people, though my brother-in-law and his wife (and baby) usually arrive late and have already eaten Thanksgiving dinner earlier in the day. Not that it stops them from eating more, but they don’t eat as much as everyone else. My mother-in-law is working this year and I’m not sure if my sister-in-law and her fiance will eat with us or her fiance’s parents. The smaller numbers means I pre-ordered an enormous turkey when a large turkey would have sufficed. *problem solved! I called and changed the order and the farm was accommodating*

Aside from the turkey which I already know will be brined, stuffed and roasted, it’s time to start planning the menu. I’d like to keep the menu as local as possible, using vegetables bought from local farms. The potatoes and sweet potatoes should be easy. Pumpkins or other winter squash and apples are also easy. I slacked on preserving green beans, eating them instead, so I don’t have any of those and I know from last year that my family doesn’t love Brussels sprouts. Broccoli should still be available, so that’s an option for a green veggie. Everything else is up for grabs. Cranberries should be around and I know I’ll have no trouble getting local bread for stuffing.

Based on previous years I know there’s no point in trying any new, interesting recipes. No one in my husband’s family cares too much about the sides as long as they are warm, sweet or salty and filling. Last year I tried a few new vegetable recipes and they were practically untouched, so I’ll keep it simple this year. I’m still missing my chest freezer. I don’t know how I’m going to manage cooking in advance with no place to keep everything.

Frugal Mania is trying to feed a family of five for $30 this Thanksgiving. I have a feeling my expenditures will easily quadruple that. It’s a good thing my dad’s bringing the wine!

The CSA is winding down for the season. There are only two weeks left after today. It’s the end of October but you wouldn’t know it from the variety of peppers still available on the order form. The order for next week is the first order in months that doesn’t have some sort of tomato on it. Here’s what was in this week’s box.

1 lb of green snap beans
2 large sweet potatoes
1 bunch Lacinato (dinosaur) kale
5 mixed sweet peppers
2 heads of broccoli
1 bunch Fuyo Shumi (baby Pac Choi)
1 bunch Swiss chard
2 8 oz bags salad greens mix

This week was a fruit share week and the bag had 8 or 9 each of apples and pears and a quart of apple cider.

I still have more potatoes from the last few weeks than I know what to do with and at least 8 large sweet potatoes. I still have a bunch of chard from last week, five or six beets, some turnips I may as well just compost, and half a bag of mixed salad greens. I’m probably forgetting something, but at least with the garden I don’t have to feel too badly if some veggies go to waste.

Last night I roasted a head of cauliflower. Tonight I’m going to use the two bunches of chard in a gratin with gouda and panko breadcrumbs. I’m also going to cook some potatoes, at least a pound of them, but I haven’t quite decided whether to roast them along with a chicken I’m brining or if I should mash them with buttermilk I’ve got leftover from Bob’s birthday cake.

The September Eat Local Challenge has come and gone and with the help of my CSA, meat buying club, local farmer’s markets, and other resources I think I did pretty well.

1. Eat one meal per week during the month of September that is made using locally grown ingredients. Non-local oil and spices are allowed.

I think we probably ate more than one local meal each week. I seemed to do much better with the meals I didn’t think about too much like stir fries and the Sloppy Joes. Another success was the Ribollita which was probably the best meal we ate all month. Except for the the Eat Local Rosh Hashanah. That meal was awesome. Even Sam ate the brisket.

One dinner in particular took more than four hours to cook and was a complete and utter disaster. By the time it was ready Sam was in bed and I’d lost interest completely. But the mashed potatoes with leeks were superb.

2. Can, freeze, dry, or otherwise preserve two things during the month.

I didn’t manage to can anything, though I did actually buy a canning set for the water bath method. I did freeze plenty of tomatoes, eggplant, green beans and a couple of sweet potatoes.

3. Utilize one new resource for locally grown food during September - that could be a new restaurant, farmer’s market, etc.

We joined a coop for this one. The coop we joined sells a number of local foods, has their own farm and is part of the Buy Fresh Buy Local PA campaign. We also went to a restaurant that serves local meat and produce. The meal was awesome, though since it was restaurant week the menu was limited. The dessert, raspberry and peach crisp with pistachio crumble and basil ice cream was to die for.

Now that it’s over I realize I probably could have eaten just about every meal locally. With the coop only a ten minute drive from my house I’ve got easy access to local milk, cheese, eggs, meat, bread and produce if I can’t get to the farmer’s market. I feel bad that I didn’t preserve more, but my freezer is full to overflowing as it is and we still haven’t replaced the ancient chest freezer in the basement. Now I need to start planning my local Thanksgiving.

eat local, September Eat Local Challenge, CSA, coop, locavore