Dear Farmers:
If I or anybody else wants to buy our food wrapped in cellophane packaging, preweighed and priced, we can go to any supermarket or convenience corner store in the country. We don't go to the Farmers' Market to buy greens pre-bagged in amounts you want to dump, often amounts far larger than we want or need. So please get over this and let us do what we go to the super farmers' markets instead of ordinary supermarkets for: to smell, feel and choose our food in the amount we want.
And btw: salad mix is not supposed to be all your overgrown lettuce, herb tops and other garbage bagged up for sale. If we want to cut each lettuce leaf to serve a salad, we can buy a whole head. Salad mix should be baby greens, period.
Sorry to be crabby but somebody has to keep pushing for some quality control. It's in everybody's best financial interest. Besides, those bags just add to the garbage we're trying to reduce. Duh...
Monday, July 1, 2013
Wednesday, June 26, 2013
The Top of the Crop
Vegetables are starting to flow into farmers' market stalls, energizing not just the markets but our bodies as well. There's wonderfully nutritious greens--kale, broccoli rabe, chard, arugula, lettuces--and colorful roots--carrots and beets, peas of all variety. Even if you don't want to cook in this extremely hot, humid weather afflicting much of the east and west, you can still enjoy these veggies without much effort.
Snow and snap peas make wonderful substitutes for bread and crackers as a scoop for your favorite dip, especially hummus. Carrots can be quickly grated and blended with plenty of fresh parsley into the most refreshing and colorful salad: douse with lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper to serve. Shred kale off any thick stems and simply boil it with rotini or tube pasta, drain, douse with fresh lemon juice, good quality olive oil, salt, pepper and red pepper flakes. Garnish with minced green garlic and sit down to a surprisingly rich dish.
Most importantly right now, don't tell the farmer to tear off the beet or carrot tops, and don't throw away those shelling pea pods either. These are good friends. Simply put the carrot greens in water you're boiling for rice or pasta and scoop them out when you're ready to add them. They'll magically flavor the grain, especially rice. Chop them into store-bought chicken broth too.
Beet greens are very very tasty chopped and sautéed five minutes in olive oil with a bit of diced red onion and a lot of garlic. Sauté the onion first for five minutes to soften it. Add the greens, garlic and freshly ground black pepper, stir and sauté over medium/low heat for 5-8 minutes. (You don't have to be exact.) Season with sea salt and serve. They are great with grilled or steamed seafood. Sometimes I cut up a cooked beet or two to mix in with them for extra glorious eating. I served these a few nights ago at a dinner party beside a huge central dish of Sardinian style paella: seafood and sausage with tomatoes and Fregola instead of peas and rice.
Use those shelling pea pods to flavor your rice or pasta water like the carrot greens. There is, in fact, a very old Italian recipe that relies on this technique. Peas with pasta in my book (available at stores and on Amazon, hint hint) Veggiyana, the Dharma of Cooking. It really is peas with pasta and NOT the other way around. Amazingly tasty eye catching dish with no sauce!
1 bunch Italian flat leaf parsley (you will need a dozen sprigs)
1 garlic clove, peeled and minced
3 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
½ cup vegetable broth
¼ tsp freshly ground or cracked black pepper¼ tsp sea salt
1cup tubettini/ditalini tiny pasta
Wash peapods carefully in cold water. Shell them, saving the pods.
Put the pods in a large saucepan or small stockpot with lettuce and cover with 1 gallon of water. Bring to a boil and add coarse salt. Cook over medium low heat for about 20 minutes. You are trying to get highly flavored cooking liquid.
Meanwhile, rinse and dry the peas. Remove the leaves from the parsley sprigs and coarsely chop them. (A small food processor works as well as a cleaver.) Discard the stems.
Remove the peapods and lettuce from the boiling water, saving the water. Bring it back to a boil and put in pasta in. Cook according to package instructions, which should be about 12 minutes.
In a medium size heavy gauge saucepan or casserole, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add chopped parsley and garlic. Sauté 1 minute. Add peas, black pepper and salt. Cover the pot and cook 5 minutes.
Add broth to the peas, cover the pot and cook over low heat about 15 minutes or until almost all the liquid has evaporated.
Drain the cooked pasta and add it to the peas. Blend well. Cook 1 minute over low heat. Add more salt and/or pepper if you wish and serve immediately in shallow bowls.
Then go buy the book so I can earn a living.
Thanks.
Snow and snap peas make wonderful substitutes for bread and crackers as a scoop for your favorite dip, especially hummus. Carrots can be quickly grated and blended with plenty of fresh parsley into the most refreshing and colorful salad: douse with lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper to serve. Shred kale off any thick stems and simply boil it with rotini or tube pasta, drain, douse with fresh lemon juice, good quality olive oil, salt, pepper and red pepper flakes. Garnish with minced green garlic and sit down to a surprisingly rich dish.
Most importantly right now, don't tell the farmer to tear off the beet or carrot tops, and don't throw away those shelling pea pods either. These are good friends. Simply put the carrot greens in water you're boiling for rice or pasta and scoop them out when you're ready to add them. They'll magically flavor the grain, especially rice. Chop them into store-bought chicken broth too.
Beet greens are very very tasty chopped and sautéed five minutes in olive oil with a bit of diced red onion and a lot of garlic. Sauté the onion first for five minutes to soften it. Add the greens, garlic and freshly ground black pepper, stir and sauté over medium/low heat for 5-8 minutes. (You don't have to be exact.) Season with sea salt and serve. They are great with grilled or steamed seafood. Sometimes I cut up a cooked beet or two to mix in with them for extra glorious eating. I served these a few nights ago at a dinner party beside a huge central dish of Sardinian style paella: seafood and sausage with tomatoes and Fregola instead of peas and rice.
Use those shelling pea pods to flavor your rice or pasta water like the carrot greens. There is, in fact, a very old Italian recipe that relies on this technique. Peas with pasta in my book (available at stores and on Amazon, hint hint) Veggiyana, the Dharma of Cooking. It really is peas with pasta and NOT the other way around. Amazingly tasty eye catching dish with no sauce!
Serves 3 (double to serve 6)
1½ lbs fresh shelling peas in the
pod
2 soft lettuce leaves (red lettuce
works great)
¼ tsp coarse sea salt or other salt1 bunch Italian flat leaf parsley (you will need a dozen sprigs)
1 garlic clove, peeled and minced
3 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
½ cup vegetable broth
¼ tsp freshly ground or cracked black pepper¼ tsp sea salt
1cup tubettini/ditalini tiny pasta
Wash peapods carefully in cold water. Shell them, saving the pods.
Put the pods in a large saucepan or small stockpot with lettuce and cover with 1 gallon of water. Bring to a boil and add coarse salt. Cook over medium low heat for about 20 minutes. You are trying to get highly flavored cooking liquid.
Meanwhile, rinse and dry the peas. Remove the leaves from the parsley sprigs and coarsely chop them. (A small food processor works as well as a cleaver.) Discard the stems.
Remove the peapods and lettuce from the boiling water, saving the water. Bring it back to a boil and put in pasta in. Cook according to package instructions, which should be about 12 minutes.
In a medium size heavy gauge saucepan or casserole, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add chopped parsley and garlic. Sauté 1 minute. Add peas, black pepper and salt. Cover the pot and cook 5 minutes.
Add broth to the peas, cover the pot and cook over low heat about 15 minutes or until almost all the liquid has evaporated.
Drain the cooked pasta and add it to the peas. Blend well. Cook 1 minute over low heat. Add more salt and/or pepper if you wish and serve immediately in shallow bowls.
Then go buy the book so I can earn a living.
Thanks.
Tuesday, June 18, 2013
Quick Trick for Busy June
The babies are busting out all over Eastern farmers' markets as June breezes by. Wee green garlic, spring onions and potatoes smaller than a ping-pong ball dominate the stalls. And often sit there because nobody knows what to make of them.
It shouldn't be a secret that these can be turned into delicious treats in a jiffy. Cut the top half off the garlic and onion stems, scrub the potatoes and pile them onto a foil covered baking sheet. If you don't have too many, that baking sheet can be the one in your toaster oven.
Sprinkle olive oil like dew and scatter salt like pollen. Then roast at 450º for 10 minutes. Crank up the black pepper mill to season and serve.
What you'll get are crusty skinned potatoes whose pulp melts in your mouth and sweet caramelized garlic and onions to go with them. Optionally you can toss on some dried rosemary too. Perfect with an omelet or a piece of grilled meat. And only available right now.
It shouldn't be a secret that these can be turned into delicious treats in a jiffy. Cut the top half off the garlic and onion stems, scrub the potatoes and pile them onto a foil covered baking sheet. If you don't have too many, that baking sheet can be the one in your toaster oven.
Sprinkle olive oil like dew and scatter salt like pollen. Then roast at 450º for 10 minutes. Crank up the black pepper mill to season and serve.
What you'll get are crusty skinned potatoes whose pulp melts in your mouth and sweet caramelized garlic and onions to go with them. Optionally you can toss on some dried rosemary too. Perfect with an omelet or a piece of grilled meat. And only available right now.
Monday, May 20, 2013
And a Little Guile shall Lead Them
I recently spent three hours at a large conference table listening to more than two dozen people speak up about their work supporting local food. It was mostly enthusiastic talk of research methods, strategy development and comprehensive plans--the stuff of self-satisfied policy wonks who don't have boots in the ground. And it was all talk about the supply side of local food: getting, sustaining and distributing more of it.
Since we all know how wonderbar supply side economics and its trickle down is, I finally spoke up to point out the elephant in the room: demand. As long as local people remained enthusiastic consumers of canned goods, fast food and the industrial lettuce of gigantic supermarkets, strategies and plans to increase the supply of local food were simply feel good food for NGO fans.
A few people nodded in agreement, a few said things had changed. I'm still trying to find which ones. Yes, more people frequent farmers' markets now and more of them look local, but no, most farmers haven't ever changed what they grow to sell: large white potatoes, pumpkins, carrots and thick skinned industrial tomatoes. California people can eat a lot of local food because California small farmers grow a lot of different foods.
The sparse new organic crowd is coming up with kale, French baby carrots, Tokyo turnips and braising greens--a euphemism for bitter, spicy weedy plants. There's even raw milk. But states like Maine which seem to have nothing else to do are busy both trying to ban raw milk and trying to keep local food out of its school cafeterias where locals might learn about the braising greens and heirloom tomatoes visitors and vacationers who went to school elsewhere rush to buy.
It seems the education about nutritious, non-toxic food and the value of having it close at hand has for the moment to fall to farmers. They need to bravely plant more of what people need to eat: less large white potatoes and, say, more burdock, more mustard and collard greens, more fava and other beans. Now that we know how poisonous garlic coming from China is, why not double the crop to exploit the news? And dandelion greens? Hello.
Growing the same things over and over only solidifies the dangerously unhealthy habit of eating the same things over and over, poisoning the body by the overload. Lack of change also stunts economies. I know a very successful cheesemaker whose output has been drastically stymied because she can't find people to raise goats and supply the milk to her. "They're afraid to do something new," she said, "and if I spend more time raising and milking goats, I won't have time to make cheese."
We are now all part of an international network of news, commodities, hopes and hard facts. It's been the onset of immigrants from seemingly exotic places with seemingly exotic tastes that's led a farmer here and there in white bread places to start producing goat meat. Meeting growing demand by growing a supply was a good financial decision. No reason we can't also produce and eat pea shoots like the Chinese, fava beans like the Italians, the original purple potatoes from Peru and those very healthy dandelion greens.
Since we all know how wonderbar supply side economics and its trickle down is, I finally spoke up to point out the elephant in the room: demand. As long as local people remained enthusiastic consumers of canned goods, fast food and the industrial lettuce of gigantic supermarkets, strategies and plans to increase the supply of local food were simply feel good food for NGO fans.
A few people nodded in agreement, a few said things had changed. I'm still trying to find which ones. Yes, more people frequent farmers' markets now and more of them look local, but no, most farmers haven't ever changed what they grow to sell: large white potatoes, pumpkins, carrots and thick skinned industrial tomatoes. California people can eat a lot of local food because California small farmers grow a lot of different foods.
The sparse new organic crowd is coming up with kale, French baby carrots, Tokyo turnips and braising greens--a euphemism for bitter, spicy weedy plants. There's even raw milk. But states like Maine which seem to have nothing else to do are busy both trying to ban raw milk and trying to keep local food out of its school cafeterias where locals might learn about the braising greens and heirloom tomatoes visitors and vacationers who went to school elsewhere rush to buy.
It seems the education about nutritious, non-toxic food and the value of having it close at hand has for the moment to fall to farmers. They need to bravely plant more of what people need to eat: less large white potatoes and, say, more burdock, more mustard and collard greens, more fava and other beans. Now that we know how poisonous garlic coming from China is, why not double the crop to exploit the news? And dandelion greens? Hello.
Growing the same things over and over only solidifies the dangerously unhealthy habit of eating the same things over and over, poisoning the body by the overload. Lack of change also stunts economies. I know a very successful cheesemaker whose output has been drastically stymied because she can't find people to raise goats and supply the milk to her. "They're afraid to do something new," she said, "and if I spend more time raising and milking goats, I won't have time to make cheese."
We are now all part of an international network of news, commodities, hopes and hard facts. It's been the onset of immigrants from seemingly exotic places with seemingly exotic tastes that's led a farmer here and there in white bread places to start producing goat meat. Meeting growing demand by growing a supply was a good financial decision. No reason we can't also produce and eat pea shoots like the Chinese, fava beans like the Italians, the original purple potatoes from Peru and those very healthy dandelion greens.
Thursday, May 2, 2013
Treasures for the taking
Welcome May and all the farmers' markets now out of cold storage. They may seem to have slim pickings right now but what they have could be life saving. Given the nasty news that keeps leaking out of the industrial agricultural complex, (and you can find references throughout this blog), your local farmers' market is the only place you can trust right now for these edibles. Happily these treasures are available even this early in the season:
Honey
Eggs
Chicken
Maple Syrup
Lamb and Beef
Milk
Yogurt
You may also find the spring tonics your body needs after the long sluggish winter:
Dandelion greens
Fiddlehead ferns
Nettles (be careful and don't touch until you've subjected them to heat)
Asparagus
Pea shoots
If you can't figure out what to do with these, the easiest way to enjoy them is to steam them with fresh lemon and put them over small pasta with olive oil, salt and pepper. If you want to add pieces of smoked salmon, why not?
Honey
Eggs
Chicken
Maple Syrup
Lamb and Beef
Milk
Yogurt
You may also find the spring tonics your body needs after the long sluggish winter:
Dandelion greens
Fiddlehead ferns
Nettles (be careful and don't touch until you've subjected them to heat)
Asparagus
Pea shoots
If you can't figure out what to do with these, the easiest way to enjoy them is to steam them with fresh lemon and put them over small pasta with olive oil, salt and pepper. If you want to add pieces of smoked salmon, why not?
Thursday, April 25, 2013
Chicken: Let's cry Foul!
Thanks to the intrepid and great food blogger Tom Philpott the secret is out. So we all know how not to play the game of chicken any more. Read my tips.
If you care at all about your own health and the lives of those you love, and you don't want to turn your dinner into Russian roulette--a form of the old game of chicken, you will no longer dare to buy a chicken or a chicken part from anyone but your local farmer or a friend.
It seems all Michelle Obama's noise about healthy eating has been nothing but window dressing to cover up the nefarious acts of her husband's corporate sycophancy. With little notice, Obama's changed the agricultural safety inspection rules to give the four megafirms involved in industrial poultry production in this country even more profits. At our expense of course.
Obama and the vile Vilsack who heads the Department of Agriculture have agreed by law to remove almost all the Federal health and safety inspectors at mega poultry processing plants--down from 4 to 1, and to simultaneously allow the processors to speed up the production line by 1/3. Ergo: more chickens, less safety. More money for Tyson, more bacterial infections for us.
Salmonella threats and feces splattered chicken are already running riot in the big plants, so we can now look forward to them running totally amok, bringing us ever more public health epidemics in 2014 when the new regulations or lack of regulations goes into effect. That's Obamacare in a new light.
There's nothing we can do about this new and revolting corporate handout except this: Don't buy industrially processed chickens. Boycott the big boys. Support your local farmer. The life you save could be your own.
And, hey, local farmers: cluck up and start raising more chickens. Opportunity just knocked. All the folks who aren't vegetarians need your help in this fight!
If you care at all about your own health and the lives of those you love, and you don't want to turn your dinner into Russian roulette--a form of the old game of chicken, you will no longer dare to buy a chicken or a chicken part from anyone but your local farmer or a friend.
It seems all Michelle Obama's noise about healthy eating has been nothing but window dressing to cover up the nefarious acts of her husband's corporate sycophancy. With little notice, Obama's changed the agricultural safety inspection rules to give the four megafirms involved in industrial poultry production in this country even more profits. At our expense of course.
Obama and the vile Vilsack who heads the Department of Agriculture have agreed by law to remove almost all the Federal health and safety inspectors at mega poultry processing plants--down from 4 to 1, and to simultaneously allow the processors to speed up the production line by 1/3. Ergo: more chickens, less safety. More money for Tyson, more bacterial infections for us.
Salmonella threats and feces splattered chicken are already running riot in the big plants, so we can now look forward to them running totally amok, bringing us ever more public health epidemics in 2014 when the new regulations or lack of regulations goes into effect. That's Obamacare in a new light.
There's nothing we can do about this new and revolting corporate handout except this: Don't buy industrially processed chickens. Boycott the big boys. Support your local farmer. The life you save could be your own.
And, hey, local farmers: cluck up and start raising more chickens. Opportunity just knocked. All the folks who aren't vegetarians need your help in this fight!
Saturday, April 6, 2013
Hanging on thru April
Yes, April is the cruelest month, bringing nothing really new to market just when we're all ready for something new. And this year it has brought only the same old scary news about our continually corrupted industrial food supply. Monsanto has now succeeded in surreptitiously slipping into the critical budget bill a lovely little rider excusing/excluding it from any court rulings against GMOs. And since it has so far succeeded in preventing GMO labeling on supermarket packaging, I'd say we have even MORE reason to shop for all the food we can find at our local farmers' market. Shake the hand that feeds you. Transactions don't get more transparent, accountable and trustworthy than that.
California is of course ahead of the curve. Spring has sprung and its farmer's markets stalls are buried under piles of spring onions, green garlic, nettles, dandelion greens, pea shoots and other fabulous spring tonics like asparagus and rhubarb. These plants with go-go energy that propels them up bravely through thawing ground are just what our bodies need to spring energetically into the new season.
But there is spring lamb. And fresh batches of chard. So here's a transition from winter to spring dish I've been playing with that uses them both. It's/was a traditional dinner for farmers in Palestine. (Those who lived/live by the sea ate mostly shrimp and fish.) The original recipe I saw, from old women in the Gaza Strip remembering the kitchen tables of free Palestine, called for medium grain rice. Not having that I used Basmati and didn't like the final effect. The next time I tried my precious Sardinian pasta, fregola, tiny toasted dots and it was perfect. But I realize you don't want to go hunting down a rare ingredient, so I am suggesting barley, farro or a short, starchy paella rice instead. The cooking times will be wildly different. Note that, please. And enjoy. This is wonderfully aromatic
Lamb, Chickpea and Chard Stew
an adaptation of Palestinian Fogaiyya
Serves 4
1½ -3/4 lb boneless lamb stew meat, lean if you can get it
2 tsp ground allspice
1 lg yellow onion, finely chopped
3-4 tbsp olive oil, 1tbsp reserved for the end
1 lg cinnamon stick
4 whole cloves
5 cardamom pods, cracked to release the seeds
½ tsp ground nutmeg
1 lg bay leaf
2 tsp salt, divided (1 tsp of coarse sea salt if you have
it)
3½ -4 cup water or vegetable broth or combination of the two
½ cup paella rice or barley or Farro
1 14-oz can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 bunch chard, thick stems removed, washed, leaves chopped
Freshly ground black pepper to your taste
6 garlic cloves
½ cup lemon juice, freshly squeezed
Lemon wedges for garnish
Coat the lamb with the allspice.
Cover the bottom of a heavy gauge lidded pot with 2-3 tbsp
of olive oil and warm over medium heat. Add onions and sauté 2 minutes to
soften. Add the lamb. Sauté until meat is brown, 5-7 minutes.
Add cinnamon, cardamom seeds, cloves, bay leaf, and nutmeg. Stir to blend.
Add the water/broth (use 4 cups if you plan to use farro),
bring to a boil, cover and lower heat. Simmer 90 minutes or until lamb is
tender.
NOW HERE IS THE DIFFERENCE:
If you are using barley, add it to the lamb after one hour of its cooking.
Once the lamb has cooked 90 minutes:
stir in 1 tsp salt, black pepper, chickpeas, farro or paella rice if not using barley.
Raise heat to bring to a boil, then immediately lower to
simmer and cook until grain is soft. If you need more liquid, add water. (Rice will need 12 minutes but farro 15-20)
Remove bay leaf and cinnamon stick. Add chopped chard
leaves, stirring them in as you go. Continue to simmer.
Mash or mince the garlic cloves with 1 tsp coarse sea salt.
Heat 1 tbsp olive oil in a small frying pan and brown the
salted garlic, 1-2 minutes. Add to the stew and blend. (This seems to be a Palestinian kitchen custom.)
Remove the stew from the heat. When ready to serve, stir in
the lemon juice. Put a lemon wedge in every bowl.
Serve with warm pita.
And think: Spring!
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