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Mystery Food Week 4

8 Jul

…was a really busy week, but here’s the loot from last Wednesday (7/1):
Salad mix, sorrel, Italian basil, garlic scapes, radishes, and a big purple kohlrabi!

Most of this week’s goodie bag ended up in various parts of our early 4th of July cookout on Friday. It was a wonderful meal with friends, and we supported some excellent local farms in the process. On the menu: Hot spinach dip, cool Italian bean dip, fresh vegetable crudite, brined smoked chicken breasts, bison-beef burgers, braised barbecued pork shoulder, and whole wheat peanut butter chocolate-chip cookies and fruit sorbet for dessert.

Unfortunately, class calls, so that’s all I’ve got for now. Oh, except that we went to a really cool pig roast with the good folks from Slow Food DC….yum!:

Mystery Food Week 2 (and Bonus Bread!)

22 Jun

Sorry it’s taken me so long to report on Week 2’s goodies. I’ve been very busy with schoolwork. Anyway, here’s what I got:

Included in last week’s bag was an enormous head of Chinese cabbage, more garlic scapes, parsley, basil, sage, oregano, rosemary, and mustard greens. Again, I ended up making some delicious soup (recipe available here) and a hearty whole-wheat rosemary-garlic focaccia.

Focaccia, for those who may not be familiar, is an Italian flatbread made using a method similar to that for making pizza dough. I make mine entirely with whole wheat flour, which has a reputation of making bread turn out dense. Fortunately, there are ways to combat this:

Bloom the yeast: Begin with 1 cup of warm (105-110 degrees F) water and then sprinkle in 2 tsp. of dry active yeast and 1.5 tsp. of sugar. Let it sit for 5-10 minutes or until it looks foamy on top. This is a sure sign that the yeast is active and ready to work.

Flour: Add to the water 1 tbsp. of olive oil, 1.5 tsp. of salt, and about 3 and a half cups of flour. I use about half regular whole wheat flour and half whole wheat pastry flour. The pastry flour is finer and helps the bread remain more tender. Since this was to be rosemary bread, I chopped up the leaves from a sprig of rosemary and added it to the dough.

Knead, knead, knead: Once the ingredients are mixed together well, turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead for at least 10 minutes. Give those forearms and hands a good workout! Kneading helps activate gluten in the dough which will make for a better final rise. When the dough is smooth and elastic, roll into a ball, coat lightly with oil, and put it in a bowl to rise.

Rise: The rising time for whole wheat dough is significantly longer than that for all-purpose flour dough. Leave the dough in the bowl covered with a damp tea towel for a few hours in a warm place. Overnight is best. I usually sit mine on top of the stove because it’s far away from any drafts and is likely the warmest place in the house (except for the attic in the summer…). You want the dough ball to double in size. After the long rise, punch the dough down and allow it to rise for another half hour.

Oven Prep: Pre-heat the oven to 400 degrees F. Press the dough out onto a lightly oiled baking sheet (a 1/4 sheet pan works well for this amount) and very lightly brush the top with oil. I usually also add a few spices and herbs here depending on the batch. For the one I made this week, I added a little bit of coarse salt, cracked pepper, some finely chopped garlic scapes, and some more crushed rosemary leaves. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until golden on top and lightly browned around the edges.

Makes about 20 pieces at 80 calories each. Cut in half if you plan to use them for dip or fondue. I like to top pieces with sautéed peppers and onions for a really filling snack. Mangia, mangia!

NoVa/DC loca-vores, cherries are now in season and they are a-MAZing. I picked up some from Toigo Orchards at the Penn Quarter FreshFarm Market last week and can’t wait for more. I suggest getting some before I eat them all…

Have a happy Monday all!

Mystery Food Week 1!

11 Jun

Ah yes, nothing says summer harvest season like a mystery bag full of fresh-picked vegetables and herbs.

This year, I’ve purchased a small farm share from Bull Run Mountain farm (www.bullrunfarm.com) and will be receiving a bag of produce each Wednesday until the end of October. Whatever is ready to harvest each week is what ends up in the bag, which I find really fun. I also bought a fruit share and will start getting fruit along with the vegetables in mid-July. Most fortunately, one of Bull Run’s weekly delivery spots is less than 2 miles from my house.

Anyway, I thought it might be fun to share with my readers what’s coming into season here in Northern Virginia each week. I would love to hear from folks in other areas about what’s growing in their neighborhood, so please leave a comment if you’d like to be involved.

Week 1: 1 very large head of pac choi, a handful of Italian basil, several sprigs of oregano, some chives (fatter than any I have ever seen before!), baby onions, garlic scapes and a potted parsley plant. I was also offered pick of some of the farm’s excess seedlings and chose a red cabbage plant and a purslane plant. I do love a good red cabbage shredded on top of barbecued pork. Purslane I have never grown or used before, so I’m looking forward to trying something new.


A very green harvest this week! The only supplements to this batch that I plan to pick up at the farmer’s market are a head of cauliflower and a pepper or two. I chopped and sauteed the head of pac choi in a small amount of fat left from a slice of bacon along with one of the baby onions, some cannellinni beans and some of the garlic scapes. That’s currently waiting in the fridge because it is to become soup later today. (I’ve been saving some vegetable/herb scraps to make vegetable stock and today finally have time to do so.)

I was recently asked how I plan out meals for the week with what most people would consider fairly scant information about what I might/might not have. So, here it is, a brief venture inside of whatever part of the brain does meal planning…

Wednesday: Get CSA share and start looking at recipes for whatever is in the bag.

Saturday: Visit the Arlington Farmer’s market:

Meat: Weekly I usually get 2lbs. of ground bison (or 1lb. of ground bison and 1lb. of steak/hot dogs), and 1 lb. of pork loin chops or a small tenderloin. Every two weeks, I pick up a whole chicken and sometimes a few extra assorted chicken pieces. Sometimes, if there is a special deal on a particular cut of meat, I’ll grab that in lieu of extra chicken to save money.

Dairy: Weekly I pick up yogurt and ricotta cheese. Every few weeks I might get some milk or cream to make ice cream, and I get butter about once a month. A tub of butter stored properly lasts us a good while since we use it sparingly.

Produce: I like to grab some fruit and a vegetable or two to supplement the CSA share. This will probably change once the fruit portion of my CSA share starts and more vegetables (as opposed to greens) come into season.

Other stuff: There’s a lady who makes amazing apple dumplings, cookies, and doughnuts, so sometimes I stop to get Joe something special for Saturday morning breakfast. I also get a jar of honey about once a month.

And the rest? Right now I shop at two small markets (MOMs and YES!), both of which have nice “bulk bin” sections. These are a great thing to look out for because you’ll pay less to buy grains by the pound than you will to buy them pre-packaged. I store grains in a cool, dark closet usually in mason jars. This has never failed me, so I don’t need to buy frequently. As a bonus, mason jars have measurements on the side so you always know exactly how much volume of something you have. On hand, I like to have whole wheat pastry flour, brown rice flour, spelt flour, graham flour, rolled oats, steel cut oats, quinoa, some type of multi-grain hot cereal, and durum semolina (for pasta). Occasionally, I’ll get something like arrowroot, soy, or sorghum flour to experiment with, but the above list is what I try to keep in the house regularly.

I also pick up things like nuts, nut butter, dried beans, and a few little snack foods that I haven’t mastered making on my own (yet). I try to buy from companies that are local, or at least in the Northeast/Mid-Atlantic regions. That said, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t love to get a juicy Florida orange as a treat from time to time.

Anyway, I hope this is helpful for anyone who is looking to get more local food into their diet. It does take some planning, but it’s really worth it at the end of the day.

That’s all for now, but for those of you who’ve been following the Stanley Cup Finals, I think that Rex (a creation of the Art Institute of Pittsburgh) describes fairly well what I have to say about tomorrow’s Game 7…
GO PENS!!!!

-Neen

Clean BBQ? It’s True…

28 May

When Joe and I decided to have folks over for Memorial Day this year, I decided that I wasn’t going to prepare a bunch of food that I couldn’t eat. For one thing, I knew that there would be leftovers and I wasn’t tossing away my grocery money on food that wasn’t in my plan. Furthermore, I thought my guests deserved food and not “food-like products.”

Here I am hanging out with Mr. Stripey ready to grill, so what was on the (mostly) clean menu?

Clean Eating Magazine’s Caramelized Onion, Spinach, and Artichoke Dip served with Trader Joe’s natural corn tortilla chips, chopped carrots, toasted whole grain bread, and sugar snap peas (from Westmoreland Berry Farm—so delicious!).

Dry rubbed chicken legs grilled to perfection and then glazed with a natural BBQ sauce.

Grilled portabella mushrooms, green peppers, and tomatoes tossed with olive oil, red wine vinegar, kosher salt, lemon-thyme, pepper, and garlic.

Not pictured: Dry rubbed smoked spare ribs that I had hanging out in our freezer for awhile. I was saving them for a special occasion. I warmed them over low heat in the crock pot for a few hours with a bit of cider vinegar and sucanat in the bottom. It made its own sauce and tasted absolutely fantastic!

Chocolate sour cream cupcakes, modified from Clean Eating’s recipe. I replaced the skim milk with unsweetened chocolate almond milk the second time I made these and never looked back. Best chocolate dessert ever.

I also made classic and in no way clean vanilla ice cream using the base for Cliff’s ice cream recipe from the Top Chef cookbook. It was some really great stuff. I used heavy cream and milk that was practically fresh from the dairy and the rest of the eggs that I gathered from the farm. Joe is still savoring the final container of it.

Sunday evening I realized that my berries from Westmoreland were on the verge of over ripening. Not wanting to let them go to waste and having cold/sweet stuff on the brain, I made some frozen yogurt. That vanilla ice cream might be decadent, but this stuff is sweet, tangy, cool, and 94 calories a serving.

Fresh Strawberry Frozen Yogurt

2 cups good quality low-fat plain yogurt (I buy mine from Blue Ridge Dairy Co.)

1 cup pureed fresh strawberries

1/3 cup raw, natural honey

Pinch salt

Combine all ingredients in a blender and then chill in a lidded container in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours. This really improves the texture and flavor quality of the final product, so don’t skip the rest period!

Churn for approximately 25 minutes in a countertop electric ice cream maker and then transfer to a lidded container and freeze for at least 3 hours before serving. On his show Good Eats, Alton Brown often says, “Your patience will be rewarded.” Listen to these wise words.

(Makes 6 servings)

I really would have taken a picture of it’s awesome pink color, but it didn’t last long enough! I guess I’ll just have to make it again soon…

Stay local!

-Neen

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