11 August 2009, Tuesday Lunch

This week's lunch was based on pie dough. Yep. The old butter crust. Nothing beats it. I had many admirers after this lunch.

I wrote a piece on rustic tarts or galettes for Edible Grande Traverse and Barb and Charlie, the editor-owners wanted a photo to see what they looked like. So I made my basic pate brisée and brought it to the farm. Ella rolled out the dough into 15 or 16 small rounds and we filled them with a mixture of cooked, chopped kale, flat leaf parsley, sautéed onions, garlic and Parmigiano Reggiano cheese. Dee-lightful.

Perfect Pie Crust

1/2 pound cold, unsalted butter, diced into 1/2-inch cubes
2 1/2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoons salt
Ice water

Cut butter into flour and salt. I use a food processor. Leave butter pieces pea-sized. Dump into bowl and smear butter into flour into flakes the size of cornflakes. Slowly, tossing and pressing flour-butter all the while, pour in ice water. Be careful. Too much will make dough soft. Drizzle in just enough water for dough to hold together, no more.

Bring dough together into a ball, flatten into a thick log and slip it into a plastic baggie. Refrigerate 30 minutes.

For rustic tarts:
Cut thick log into 6 to 8 equal pieces. Roll each out on flour dusted surface to about 7 or 8 inches diameter. Fill with whatever filling you desire, sweet or savory, leaving an inch or inch and half border. Wet this lightly. Bring it up and pleat it around. Then cup your hands around it and press lightly to seal the pleats.

Chill 30 minutes in refrigerator. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Bake tart until golden, 30 to 45 minutes.

We also had carrot salad with almond mayonnaise and lots of fresh dill and two cold zucchini soups: one was yogurt thickened, the other was walnut thickened, in the spirit of the first gazpacho--white gazpacho--which is white grapes, bread, almonds, garlic and water puréed together. The almond mayonnaise is from Marilyn Diamond and has long been a vegan favorite.

Jane the Salad Lady

This is Jane Watts. She is a busy, active person--I always see a swimsuit hanging from her car mirror--young for her years. Plus she is active at Unitarian Universalists. Jane is also Jon's mother and she helps to wash, spin-dry and bag the salad mix. It's a huge job. Since the C.S.A. serves around 200 shares and sells wholesale to markets and restaurants, Jane is a busy salad lady. The salad people are the last ones to trickle in and eat. Here is Jane with her washing-machine-turned-salad-spinner. I wish I had one of them, don't you?

7 August Friday 2009

This Friday was squash blossom Friday. Robert picked a lot of them--45 I think. We pick only the male plants--without zucchini. When you pick them and use right away they don't close up and are easy to stuff. I take out the stamen inside, pull off the tiny spiky green leaves on the outside, chop off the stem and shake out bugs, maybe lightly rinse, though I hate to.

I made a stuffing with cooked quinoa, olive oil sautéed onions, thyme, currant, toasted pine nuts and Italian Parmigiano Reggiano cheese. Then I baked them for 45 minutes, covered, with a little broth and olive oil poured over to steam them. Breadcrumb, herb and cheese stuffings or ones with meat are common in Italy. We all loved the lightness of the quinoa.

I also made White Bean Soup (yep we have lots of white beans and Robert especially likes them) with potatoes and kale. I started with a sofrito of onions, leeks, carrots and sliced garlic cooked in lots of olive oil. I added the cooked beans, their cooking water, rosemary and salt and simmered it for 30 minutes. When I was ready to serve the soup, I brought it to boil and add chopped kale. That I cooked for 4 minutes. A dollop of lemon juice and freshly ground black pepper finished it off.

I also made a traditional Dijon mustard emulsified vinaigrette. It went over green salad--and I tossed it with raw chopped vegetables--Swiss chard and chard stems, carrots and green beans with minced garlic for the salad.

Jenny gave me 3 of her prized heirloom tomatoes, which I sliced and set out next to the vinaigrette.

Here's a recipe for the vinaigrette. I made it in a blender.

Mustard Vinaigrette

1 heaping tablespoon Dijon mustard
3 tablespoons red wine vinegar
6 ounces oil: half olive half sunflower or canola
salt and pepper

Whisk together mustard and vinegar in bowl. In a SLOW and THIN stream, SLOWLY add the oil, whisking constantly. The vinaigrette will thicken as you add oil. If it "breaks" or separates, place more mustard into a clean bowl and slowly this time, whisk broken vinaigrette into it.

This is great on vegetables or fish. Purée herbs into it or add chopped things. I added minced garlic. Yum.

7 August Friday 2009

Maureen came to help me again this week. After the stuffed kitchen of last week I was a little worried she wouldn't. Maureen is a huge help--together we can actually get the meal on by 12.30. She faithfully, and without complaint, scrubs mud encrusted potatoes, sweet, but dirt dusted carrots, peels shallots, does dishes and chops a dance of vegetables. Here she is working in the kitchen. I love having her lilt of a Brit accent surrounding me as I work.

Thai Veg Curry Day 28 July

The Meadowlark Farm kitchen was packed with help on Tuesday 28 July. Meg Staley of Fake Rock Farm, her step daughter Nelle from Brooklyn, Nelle's daughter Violet and her friend Sultana from Brooklyn came to aid me and Maureen.

We had a lot of vegetable chopping to do. We made Thai Coconut Vegetable Curry, Fluffy Brown Basmati Rice, Steamed Vegetable Medley with Sesame Oil, Ginger and Soy Sauce and my favorite bean dish--I vary it constantly--Cold Bean Salad. This time I made it with cooked white beans, cooked onions, carrots, sugar snap peas, lots of cilantro or parsley--olive oil and rice or red wine vinegar.

Although everyone loves Thai coconut curry--the flavors of cilantro, shallot, lemongrass and lime leaf infused into luscious coconut milk--the recipe everyone wanted was this simple bean salad. I make it over and over again. It's my stock dish for potlucks. I never make it with canned beans--the beans need to be sweet and freshly cooked. If you forget to soak beans, quick soak them for one hour in boiled water, drain and cook as usual.

Any Bean Salad

4 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium red onion, finely sliced or slivered
3 to 4 tablespoons red wine vinegar, more to taste
2 cups dry white, kidney or pinto beans, soaked or quick soaked, drained and cooked till tender
1 to 2 tablespoons chopped oregano leaves
Salt and freshly ground pepper
1 large bunch flat leaf parsley, large stems removed, 1 or more cups chopped

Heat oil in large pot. Cook onion over medium heat until soft. Add vinegar and remove pan from heat. Pour in drained, cooked beans, oregano and season with salt and pepper. When beans have cooled to warm, fold in parsley. Allow dish to sit for 30 minutes. Come back and taste again: season with more oil, vinegar, salt and pepper until you can't stop at one bite.

This is Augustus Finch Gossett. He's very kissable. His mom and dad are Jen and Berkeley who work at Meadowlark. The A-man has been getting an education on farm life. He spends most of his days suspended on his mother's body. Lucky guy. Augustus doesn't eat with us yet but I swear he smells the food and will be moved by it as he ages. What shapes us. I like to think Aug is shaped by green growing things and the community of warmth that is Jenny and Jon's farm. It's a haven for neurotics like me. Like my rat terrier Xena, I've gone to ground. I hope that dirt and green growing things can offer the big A the same comfort. He looks pretty comfortable don't you think?

Fennel Friday

Cool and rainy weather hovered over us Friday. We had a really simple, but satisfying meal of De Cecco linguine tossed with steamed broccoli, carrots and garlic oil. I wanted to make garlic chips, but the garlic hadn't cured yet--the crew and volunteers just harvested it two days before--so it was really moist. Eli peeled and finely sliced mammoth garlic cloves from 6 heads of garlic on the mandoline finger-eating slicer. No blood.

For the chips I heat about 1/4 inch of olive oil in a deep pot to fry chips. This just turned to garlic mush, which was awfully tasty. I also made chile oil from dried red chiles. Heated the oil and dropped in the chiles. I tend to remove stems and seeds so there is less heat.

I tossed the just boiled pasta with lots of salt and the garlic oil, steamed broccoli and carrots. Since Eli prefers non-spicy hot food I left the oil on the side to spoon over the pasta. Any vegetable, grain or legume goes better with garlic and chile oils. And salt.

I also made my ubiquitous bean salad. I take this to potlucks and parties. I love it after it's had time to sit and marinate. Here's the recipe--you can make it with any legume but it's prettiest with white beans or chickpeas.

Nancy's Queen Bean Salad
It's GOOD for you.

2 cups dried beans like Great Northern or navy, washed and drained
1 large red onion, finely slivered
1/4 cup olive oil
3 to 4 tablespoons very good red wine vinegar (I favor the "live" Eden red wine vinegar available at health food stores)
1 bunch flat leaf parsley, coarsely chopped (I separate the stems and finely slice them if the parsley is fresh)
2 or more tablespoons chopped fresh oregano leaves (you can use dry, but use less)

Either quick soak beans with 1 tablespoon sea salt for 1 hour in boiled water or soak overnight with 1 tablespoon sea salt. (The salt will act as a bean tenderizer for those of us with hard water.) Drain and cover with cold water. Bring beans to boil, lower heat and simmer beans covered until tender, 45 minutes to 1 hour.

Meanwhile sliver the onion: cut off the stem and root ends, set the onion on one flat side and cut through it in half. Peel and rinse onion. Lay it on your cutting board and slice perpendicular to cut edges, in other words, slice through an uncut edge.

Heat the oil in a large pot over medium heat and add the onion. Cook until tender and transluscent, about 5 minutes. No color. Add the vinegar and season with salt. The onions will turn a lovely violet red. Remove the onions from the heat.

Drain the cooked beans and pour into a mixing bowl. Scrape in the onions, parsley and oregano. Mix and taste, seasoning with salt and freshly ground pepper and more oil or vinegar to get an attention getting sharp flavor.

For lunch I added just dug raw carrots and sugar snap peas, but this is great without any other adornments. You can add garlic to the just cooked onions if you like. I like to add loads of parsley--I think of Jenny's parsley as a green, not an herb. It wilts a bit when it hits the warm beans.

Oh, I almost forgot. There was a lot of fennel. Jenny's gotten so good at growing fennel. Last year I made a salad of it by finely slicing it on the finger-eater mandoline and tossing with lemon, olive oil and salt and pepper. So Eli and I decided to grill it this year. I sliced it in half, rubbed each half with olive oil and salt, then we grilled it over medium heat. I would have finished it in a 350F oven with a little white wine or broth (covered) because it was still a little tough, but I wanted to get lunch on the table. Eli was so great: he kept at me to cook it further so we steamed it. Softened it just enough for eating. The oven method tenderizes it so beautifully--you can cut it with a fork!

I think it was Dean Ornish who said the best way to lose weight is to stock up on vegetables, grains, beans and fruit.