22
August
2008
Surely among the top ten slow foods, tomato sauce. The reward for preserving them in late summer will be the essence of luscious vine-ripened garden tomatoes mid-winter in a soup or marinara sauce, with an onion and sausage frittata or mushroom polenta. 
I’m a fool for tomatoes and should make myself a tomato cape, something to wear everywhere to signify my devotion. It can get ridiculous and I just pushed the bar a little far the other day. Home-cookin’ tomato-preservin’ smarty-pants.
Since our own backyard tomatoes are behind schedule I thought it would be a good idea to buy ’seconds’ from Billy and make a batch of sauce now and then again later this month when ours will finally, I hope, come on like gangbusters. (Actually, there’s a big ‘if’ in that hope.) Bob tracked down Billy at the Sunday Market and purchased a big box of seconds, 22# @ $2.25 per pound. Total $49.50. When I heard that I knew this handmade sauce would also cost an arm and a leg. A pot full of tomatoes may look like a huge amount, but if you’re making sauce they reduce in quantity. A lot.
We ended up with barely four quarts. Yeah, you’re way ahead of me I know, that’s about $12.50 per quart. That’s a highfalutin’ tomato sauce. It took all afternoon – the Slow Food thing, no problem. I’m a happy camper when something’s brewing in the kitchen.
Lesson learned. From now on I use my own from the backyard, or pull off a midnight tomato caper somewhere. I’m chagrined about the cost, but the good news is that the sauce is amazing. Rich and tomatoey, it will be delectable mid-winter. If you can somehow find tomatoes for a song, or don’t mind the pricey version, you might want to make and preserve sauce of your own.
Here’s one way to do it: 
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Sally S. 
Eat Local, Farmers Markets, In The Garden, On the Local Table, Pantry, Produce 
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21
August
2008
Monday morning I set out early to photograph the Seattle Tilth garden and the Good Shepherd P-Patch . The weather was changing as I was meandering around. By the time I reached this whirligig, the wind was blowing pretty hard. It’s legs started flying every-which-way and it was spinning around wildly. The weird thing was, no matter where I stood, it ended up pointing directly at me. Seriously.
I know it was probably just the direction of the wind and call me crazy but I took this as a sign. The truth is I’ve been feeling a lot like a roadrunner — I definitely need to take a deep breath, slow down and enjoy the rest of the summer. It’s not like I’ve been over-exercising or anything but sometime during the summer, I jumped onto what feels like those moving walkways they have in airports, speeding me to my next location.
According to Five Elements Acupuncture this is the season known as Late Summer. Five Elements acupuncturists always advocate eating with the season and this is the easiest time of the year to achieve that. Enjoying fresh food takes very little effort now with the Farmers Markets overflowing with loads of recently harvested produce. If you have your own garden or p-patch, chances are you have plenty to choose from.
The other part of nourishing yourself is taking time to appreciate and having gratitude for all you have. Slowing down gives you (and your body) a chance to assimilate and enjoy this unique time of year.
I started walking a little more slowly, trying to look closely and take in all of the beauty the garden had to offer. Okay, I’ll admit that I can’t go past a poppy without close examination and taking a few photos, even when I’m in a hurry. But this time the feeling stayed with me.
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Poppy Barach In The Garden, Local Living No Comments »
20
August
2008
Dark green veggies are in the wings awaiting winter performances. I feel like I should whisper it, winter. We don’t want to think about it mid-August, but it’s time to get hardy greens going, past time for some.
A soothsayer would come in handy, someone to proclaim the most auspicious day for getting the little starts into the ground. It gets tricky. Plant too soon and if it’s a warm fall plants mature and flower before winter even arrives; plant too late and unexpected early cold can harm immature plants. Late July through August is usually about right, but as with all gardening the intrusion of unfavorable weather is possible. For example, we lost a bunch of newly transplanted starts during the recent heat wave, but still have plenty for ourselves and a few friends. Thanks Bob.
He started our plants from seed in late July - broccoli, chard, kale, Brussels sprouts and winter lettuce - then replanted them in fresh soil and a larger container when they reached about 3” and were getting crowded. We’ll transplant these seedlings into our garden plot in early September along with a crop of over-wintering beets.
Once they’re off to a good start little attention is required. They grow, produce their hardy leaves and stand strong through most PNW winters. The brassicas - kale, broccoli, cabbage, Brussels sprouts - will last through the winter and improve in flavor when exposed to frost. 
We’ll eat chard and kale leaves all winter long, and in late winter/early spring we’ll harvest 
their florets which are as good as the primary vegetable itself. Read the rest of this entry »
Sally S. Eat Local, In The Garden, Local Living, Produce 4 Comments »
19
August
2008
Summer is winding down but there is still time to try some of those recipes you have been hoping to get to before cooler weather sets in. For me, making more ice cream has been near the top of the list.
I made a batch of creme fraiche to serve over Billy’s strawberries for dessert on Saturday night and had exactly enough leftover to try to make the creme fraiche ice cream I’d been dreaming about. Coincidentally, I saw a recipe for “Ice Cream in a Bag” in the NY Times a few weeks ago. I was in a low-tech mood so I thought I’d give it a try.
Basically, the idea is to put the ice cream mixture in a freezer bag, then sandwich the bag between two layers of salt and ice in a salad spinner or bowl with a lid for about 30 minutes. Halfway through, you knead the mixture and put it back under the ice to freeze. Problem is, mine never really froze. I know it was practically the hottest day of the year, but I gave it extra time and even had a fan on it.
Don’t get me wrong, it tasted divine beyond words. But, instead of consuming the whole thing as a decadent milkshake, I decide to call it quits with the bag and wait for my ice cream maker container to chill sufficiently to try again. I would need a thoroughly chilled mixture anyway and besides, it wasn’t a bad experiment for a steamy afternoon.
I couldn’t help but wonder if my expectations for firmness were too high so I did a little googling and found several recipes for ice cream made in a bag. You put the mixture in a small bag first, then in a larger one filled with ice and salt and tossing it around for 5 minutes or so. The main caveat being that somehow the salty water may get into the mixture. Not hard to imagine if a 10 year-old boy started tossing it around.
I opted to go back to the method using an electric ice cream maker, not low tech but tried and true. When it was done I sliced some luscious peaches from Rama Farm on top.
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Poppy Barach Dairy, Desserts, Eat Local, Farmers Markets, On the Local Table, Produce 1 Comment »
18
August
2008
. . . is home. For many of us that’s the Pacific Northwest. Its seasons, its produce, its climate and landscape are familiar. This is our particular niche on the planet.
What does it mean to connect with a place beyond its scenic beauty? Some of us aspire to live locally/seasonally, or at least attempt to do so.
Supporting locally owned shops is about to get a little harder in my neck of the woods where there are eight commercial/retail/condo buildings going up within a couple of square miles. Laid back local shopping and even driving, may be a thing of the past in this community. So 2008. Local businesses are trying to find ways to survive the influx of high end national chains, and natives wonder about the loss of the shopping community’s neighborly character. Corporate owned franchises will surely displace smaller businesses here - we’ll lament the disappearance of our favorite haunts and probably won’t understand it fully until they’re gone. I’ll miss my neighborhood cobbler if he doesn’t find a way to make the cut, and there are others. It feels like way more than the land is getting bulldozed.
Kurt Timmermeister, owner of Kurtwood Farm on Vashon Island, recently wrote about connecting with community:
“I am a great optimist. To grow food, you just have to be. Even though I can remember the disappointments - read failures - of last year, I have blind faith that every seed put in the ground this Spring will grow into perfect, beautiful vegetables; that every cow bred early this year will give birth to stunning prize winning heifers in the Fall.
I want to move from just eating locally to living life and doing business locally with a vision to what I want my community to look like. Whole Foods has some great products, but it is a large company, centered in Texas. The idea is every dollar spent is a vote for the businesses you believe in.
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Sally S. Local Living, Small Actions No Comments »
14
August
2008
Tire pressure, that is. Everyone agrees that by simply keeping the tires of our cars properly inflated, we can reduce greenhouse gases. Tires lose air over time so chances are, yours may need more air. Unless, of course, you have already taken this step and incorporated it into your routine car maintenance.
I, on the other hand, am embarrassed to say that I can’t remember the last time I checked my tire pressure, even knowing that my car could be 3-4% more fuel efficient. If everyone who drives in the US would start taking this simple action, it would mean a monthly reduction of over 90 million gallons of gas or 1.8 billion lbs of CO2 released into the earth’s atmosphere. Even if you didn’t care about doing something for the greater good, saving money on the gas you consume is an incentive.
Just in case there are other dummies out there (like me) who have deferred car maintenance to their significant other, I’m going to walk you through the steps to help you get started. Krista dropped by and was willing to go to the gas station with me since her tires needed to be checked. Princess Lily waited patiently while we documented this.
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Poppy Barach Local Living, Small Actions No Comments »
14
August
2008
You might think the glossy dark brown caramelized ‘butter’ looks appetizing, or not. I happen to know it’s delicious so to me it’s appealing, and besides I have to love apples right now. I have quite a few.
We’ll take as many as we can to the local food bank over the next few weeks – they welcome fresh produce that’s in good condition. Or contact Tilth Hotline if you have extra fruit. They have a Community Fruit Tree Harvest program that allows us/helps us to share the abundance.
Mine is just another backyard with apples ripening by the bushel. It’s happening everywhere right now. Poppy was making applesauce last week while across town I was making a crockpot full of apple butter. In fact, we seem to have the same barely identifiable old apple trees dripping with Transparents, and in our yard we think we have old varieties of Gravenstein and King.
Our house is one hundred years old and way back when was known as Goocher’s Orchards. Now it’s an urban lot, but with the added character of three obscure apple trees, relatively young pear and Montmorency cherry trees which we’ve planted, and the remnants of a beloved Italian plum blown down in the storm a year and a half ago. We’re doing our best to honor the legacy of this little bit of land - we seem to have farming in our blood so it’s not such a stretch. Go back just a few generations and we all have that in common.
The three apple trees ripen sequentially from July through September and we do our best to keep up with most of them by making applesauce, apple butter, apple-ginger chutney, a few apple pies, and a very quick and easy sautéed apple dessert (instructions below). Smear the apple butter on a piece of toast, or on a piece of cheese. Heaven.
Here’s the apple butter technique passed on to me by my grandmother. You have to be willing to let apples simmer away quietly in a crockpot for two or three days without much more than an occasional stir and the addition of more apple slices.
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Sally S. Desserts, Eat Local, Foraged Foods, In The Garden, On the Local Table, Produce No Comments »
13
August
2008
I’ve resisted these vibrant blossoms from Growing Things at the University Farmers Market until last weekend, knowing that once you buy them, you have to prepare them quickly — like that day. These beauties will fade quickly, especially if you put them in the fridge and forget about them. I had been resisting mostly because I wasn’t quite sure what to do with them. I thought — if nothing else, they are worthy of a photograph with their wonderfully bulbous shape.
I came home with eight of these squash seductresses, each more organically beautiful than the next. After doing a little reading and watching (Jamie at Home), I decided to take the plunge and try to batter-fry them. I know I should be a fried food expert coming from the south but the truth is my parents were not true southerners but carpetbaggers instead. I know next to nothing about deep-frying so this was virgin territory I was about to enter.
First I learned that you must carefully open each blossom and remove the pistil from the inside.
Next step was to mix up a stuffing for the flowers. I used goat cheese from Port Madison but ricotta is also recommended. If you use goat cheese, you may want to soften it by adding a little milk until it becomes smooth like cream cheese.
Put your cheese in a bowl and add 1 finely chopped hot red pepper with seeds removed, lemon zest, juice of 1/2 lemon, a big handful of chopped parsley, freshly grated nutmeg, pepper and salt.
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Poppy Barach Eat Local, Farmers Markets, On the Local Table, Produce 2 Comments »
12
August
2008
Fennel, cucumber, fresh dill and tomatoes tossed together with lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper make a superb crunchy fresh salad. Others knew this already I’m sure, but for me it’s new.
I’ve been wanting to make something different in the salad department. It’s been greens from the backyard and the occasional ripe tomato with balsamic and olive oil dressing ad infinitum. Not so bad, we love it in fact, but enough already. It had become salad-making laziness. Time for change.
I had a bulb fennel from Whistling Train Farm and a half cucumber sitting in the fridge, a smidge of dill from the garden and whatever tomatoes I could harvest from our skimpy crop (so far). Mixed it all together and it was a spontaneous experiment that worked out deliciously.
Fennel Cucumber Salad w/Tomatoes: 
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Sally S. Eat Local, In The Garden, Produce 3 Comments »
11
August
2008
Sometimes I get into a rut when it comes to shopping for food. I seem to go into autopilot and buy the same items week after week. A good way to jump-start your creative cooking juices is to join a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) program. Every (or every other) week you receive a box of organic, fresh produce directly from local farmers. You can customize somewhat to suit your own taste but the best part can be the element of surprise when you open your box. The next step is giving your imagination a little room to dream up ways of using what you’ve received. If you get stuck, there are often recipes included or you can check with us.
It has become increasingly difficult to know what foods are in season since we can buy just about anything at any time of the year, regardless of where it was grown. Looking at Full Circle Farm’s website, I was able to see a list of what might be included in a box this time of year. Items grown on their farm are indicated, as are items grown in the Pacific Northwest. Once you are a member, you can view your current box contents, make substitutions and add other grocery items like grains from Bluebird Grain Farms. Read the rest of this entry »
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