Superb with squash, mushrooms, marinara, kale, chicken, almost any cheese, but a certain mystique surrounds the making of risotto. It’s misrepresented, I think, as being fussy and time-consuming.
I would argue that it’s fairly simple, but does require the cook’s attention for 30 minutes or so. OK, maybe that is a bit fussy. Other supper making tasks can be accomplished while the risotto bubbles away and the cook has a sip of something. In the end you have a steamy, savory blending of beautiful flavor and color. When it walks into the room people pay attention.
I stocked up on several varieties of squash at my Farmer’s Market a couple of weeks ago. Whistling Train Farm provides good selection right now and for a while longer I think. Any hefty-flavored deeply colored squash like Acorn, Red Kuri or a pie Pumpkin will work - they keep for weeks, months even, when kept in a cool dark place. Make risotto with chicken, vegetable stock or water, add a little cream and cheese at the end. Voilà.
Furthermore, risotto mixes deliciously with an array of ingredients. Once you have the basic risotto *protocol down you can embellish with herbs and all kinds of vegetables in addition to squash. Like squash, some of these need to be precooked before adding to partly cooked risotto. Mushrooms, tomato sauce, leeks, zucchini, kale, chicken, marinara sauce . . . use water or any broth you like, and finish the risotto with almost any cheese imaginable.
Many of us are growing food in the backyard, sometimes a few heads of lettuce and kale for winter, sometimes a serious year-round vegetable garden.
You’ll find this video interesting and important to know about if you’ve ever fantasized about your own vegetable garden, even on a small scale. A twenty-first century version of the victory garden is a powerful action to take regarding sustainability at the family table and of the planet. We can grow some of our own, or provide a backyard plot for other urban farmers to plant. Either way, if our edible gardens supplement what farmers produce they’ll still have a daunting task keeping up with the demands of a megatropolis for locally grown food.
Thanks to Cooking Up a Story for another great sustainability-related video: Organic Foods, Backyard Agriculture. (Your Backyard Farmer is the related website)
Fritz Haeg is a designer activist who is promoting edible estates. He wants us to plant food in the front yard instead of grass. Swapping Grass for Grub, a previous MixedGreens post, features his video and website about edible gardening. All food for thought.
Queen Cells in the Hives, Oh No.This recent blog posting at Sunset’s one-block diet site is about bees, but on national Election Day I’m reading between the lines. Check it out. Dontcha think this dissatisfied hive of bees sounds familiar? Anyway, I find the Sunsetposting apropos. It reminds me that healthy beehives and a healthy electorate have a few things in common. You could say that our survival depends upon both.
You gotta love a food that sounds like a dance, a raunchy one at that. Actually, rutabagas are pretty tame, like a potato, and they have a culinary vocabulary in common: gratins, purees and soup.
Rutabagas are in season, a reason to celebrate for those who eagerly await their return each fall. We’re growing them in our garden and they’re just now ready for harvesting; you’ll find them at farmer’s markets during the next few weeks. Traditionally they’re harvested in the fall and then waxed in order to preserve through the winter. Another Brassica, rutabagas are supposedly a cross between a cabbage and a turnip. Are they a very very close cousin to the turnip? Seems so. They’re also known as Swedish, wax or yellow turnips. (Poppy’s previous post, Getting Down to Brassicas, provides more in-depth brassica information.)
When cooked and pureed they’re silky smooth, earthy in flavor, and slightly sweet like a carrot. Comfort food. Use rutabagas in gratins along with potatoes and in soups to liven and add depth of flavor, or on their own.
Shelling beans are available right now at farmers markets.You may have noticed them, beautifully mottled and colorful with long leathery pods. Last year I bought fresh beans already shelled. This year I bought three pounds of Stregonta, with a few other varieties mixed in, from Shelley at Whistling Train Farm and removed the beans from their pods myself. The plan was to make Fresh Beans Gratin.
There’s a sweet period of time between the crisp stage, not desirable for shelling (nor possible), and before the fully dried stage, when beans are still moist, delicate and creamy once cooked. Read the rest of this entry »
I wish. While apples are baking in the oven read Michael Pollan’s article from Sunday’s New York Times. I’ll say right up front that it’s long, nine pages, but it’s a doozy, an open letter to the next president, the next Farmer in Chief.Maybe you’ll just read part of it, or skim quickly through, or read every word. If you’re interested in food, sustainability, the politics of food, the next administration, health care, minimizing dependence on fuel, feeding the world . . . take a few minutes to read or skim this article. You’ll be moved by the depth of information and possibility that Pollan puts forth regarding global food production and security. Farmer in Chief article, NY Times Magazine, Sunday Oct. 12th(There’s a short excerpt at the end of this post.)
He says that food is about to demand our attentionin a whole new way, so before you dive into the article get some apples into the oven. The wafting essence of baking apples is soothing, and when you’re done the apples will be waiting for you. You’ll have spicy baked apple to feed your body and soul, Pollen’s ideas about world food culture to feed your mind.
If it looks like my baked apples exploded, well they sort of did. I didn’t exactly follow the recipe’s recommendation for preferred apples, Gala & Golden Delicious. I know better, but decided to use what’s in my backyard and they were delicious in spite of looking a little askew on the plate. This is a new baked apple for me, inspired by a recipe at Gourmet.com. As with most baked apples, this is simple to make, with the added crunch of caramelized nuts on the side and a dollop of honeyed yogurt. Read the rest of this entry »
Button mushrooms grow up to become baby bellas, (Criminis), and finally Portobellos.
Recently we camped and hiked in the Lake O’Hara region of the Canadian Rockies where we wanted to concoct appealing but practical meals at the end of a day’s hiking. The most memorable of those meals involved Portobellos, garlic, grated cheese, and dried pasta which were a snap to carry in a backpack and prepare on our single burner camp stove. We vowed to have it again on the supper table at home where we also appreciate quick and delicious. A great vegetarian supper with a little bread, a little wine. Domesticated? Yes. Tame? Not so much.
We appreciate the Portobello’s ‘meatiness’, but its versatility is worth applauding too. Mushrooms in the pantry and there are myriad possibilities for an interesting meal - with toasty bread, pasta, rice, risotto, pizza, salad, eggs, with a piece of meat, or stuffed and baked. Not a prized wild variety, Portobellos are widely cultivated and readily attainable year-round in the Pacific Northwest. They’re a delectable choice for a local meal if you like mushrooms. A few in my family don’t - this is for those of us who appreciate a good fungus now and then.
Our property with its remnants of a gnarly old orchard provides apples, apples and, oh, more apples. With three trees of different varieties we’ve had apples since mid-July. Kind of like zucchini, what can I do next with this stuff? People see me coming with a large bag and they run - the first three bags were fine, but enough already.
Raw Apple cake featuring lots of raw apples is one way to go. Even if you don’t have apples in the backyard, they’re in season right now and you can make this with any tart apple. A large, moist and fruity cake, it lasts for days, (gets older and better) and is good for birthdays - if needed you can easily serve 18-20. The perfect wake-up call in the morning with coffee, or it goes fancy with cream cheese frosting and birthday candles. Today the candles are for Roz. Happy Birthday sweetie - we’re glad you were born.
Seattleite David Montgomery has won a MacArthur Genius fellowship for his work in geomorphology, a study of geophysical forces and how soil and rivers, the landscape have been altered over time.
Joan Dye Gussow writes about loss of land in her book, This Organic Life: “Although the lands that feed us are disappearing everywhere, the paving of California takes on special significance because of its unique Mediterranean climate. You can’t grow oranges in Iowa.” She goes on to say that “some of California’s most productive land is no longer threatened because it has been entombed. The beautiful Santa Clara Valley was once producer of nearly 50 percent of the world’s prunes, apricots, and cherries. Aaron Sachs tells us it took only four decades to transform this Valley of Heart’s Delight, with its 132,000 acres of flowering trees, into Silicon Valley.”
Since reading Gussow’s book I’ve been more thoughtful about soil conservation, so David Montgomery’s MacArthur fellowship caught my eye. One of his books, Dirt, is on my list to read. Montgomery is among a growing group of scientist advocates who are telling us that we need to pay attention to the dirt on this planet. We need it to grow our food, literally to survive, and we’re covering it up at an alarming rate, thousands of acres every day.
And then I noticed that another recipient was an urban farmer from Milwaukee. Here’s a link to a NY Times article, An Urban Farmer is Rewarded for his Dream, which tells more about Will Allen and the important work he’s doing. Plenty going on in Seattle too with urban farming; and there’s the work Fritz Haeg is doing to promote edible landscapes. He’s an advocate for replacing all or at least some of our lawns with edibles. Haeg’s book, Edible Estates, is another good one for the perennial book list.
Worthwhile enterprises to think about and small actions to take: growing some food of our own, giving over more urban land to growing food, and acknowledging what loss of soil means on a global scale to farming and survival. We should have bumper stickers, Save the Dirt!
Many of our pears were ripe and on the ground when we returned home from vacation last week, but salvageable. Time for chutney, pear salad, poached pears, or simply sliced with a piece of cheddar. Unlike other fruits some pears diminish in quality when ripened on the tree – better to pick them just before and let them ripen in the kitchen. We planted our pear tree maybe five years ago, well Bob did, espaliered alongside the garage. We’ve gotten a dozen or so in previous years, but this year the bonanza - dozens. And, we have both Moonglow and Bartletts on the same tree. Amazing science, but not really. It’s about grafting different varieties on to one tree which is what a pear tree needs anyway since they don ‘t self-pollinate. They need a partner pear. Originally, we had four varieties on the tree, but dog damage resulted in the loss of two.
I’ve made Ginger Pear chutney, and we’ll have pears with a tangy cheese and greens in salad. My mom would layer lettuce, half a pear, grated cheddar, and a dollop of mayo with a sprinkle of paprika on top. The attention she paid to assembling her pear salad caught my attention. You never know what unexpected nuances in life will turn a child’s head and heart in a certain direction. That was a salad a kid could love. It’s morphed a bit, but in ‘08 we’re still loving pears together with cheese in a salad.
Pear salad: fresh pears and greens from the backyard, walnuts, hazelnuts, roasted beets, almost any tangy cheese, a drizzle of dressing – another good way to eat a pear.
I would argue that it’s fairly simple, but does require the cook’s attention for 30 minutes or so. OK, maybe that is a bit fussy. Other supper making tasks can be accomplished while the risotto bubbles away and the cook has a sip of something. In the end you have a steamy, savory blending of beautiful flavor and color. When it walks into the room people pay attention.
Rutabagas are in season, a reason to celebrate for those who eagerly await their return each fall. We’re growing them in our garden and they’re just now ready for harvesting; you’ll find them at farmer’s markets during the next few weeks. Traditionally they’re harvested in the fall and then waxed in order to preserve through the winter. Another Brassica, rutabagas are supposedly a cross between a cabbage and a turnip. Are they a very very close cousin to the turnip? Seems so. They’re also known as Swedish, wax or yellow turnips. (Poppy’s previous post
Unlike other fruits some pears diminish in quality when ripened on the tree – better to pick them just before and let them ripen in the kitchen. We planted our pear tree maybe five years ago, well Bob did, espaliered alongside the garage. We’ve gotten a dozen or so in previous years, but this year the bonanza - dozens. And, we have both Moonglow and Bartletts on the same tree. Amazing science, but not really. It’s about grafting different varieties on to one tree which is what a pear tree needs anyway since they don ‘t self-pollinate. They need a partner pear. Originally, we had four varieties on the tree, but dog damage resulted in the loss of two.