Slow Winter – But Still Local!

So I have been cooking as local as possible these last two months, but it is hard in the northeast in the winter. My efforts were greatly helped by my root cellar and the local Sherman Market in December and then augmented by my deep winter farm share that started in January. Every two weeks I pick up a good score of root veggies, some greens, apples, eggs and local products.

The first pick-up featured the following:

lettuce, turnips, apple cider, jarred sauerkraut, jarred salsa, sweet potatoes, eggs, onions, carrots (these were especially gorgeous) and a few other goodies that are escaping me at the moment.

The next bounty included: lettuce, spinach, white and red-skinned potatoes, kale, apples, jarred blueberry sauce, cilantro, kohlrabi, local cheese and perhaps one or two other items that I am forgetting…. it was like, well, late fall all over again!

These ingredients paired nicely with my Chestnut Farms meats (including lamb, goat, pork, chicken and beef) in the slow cooker for the tenderest chops and stews, or marinated and seared on a grill pan to accompany roast veggies and a salad. In all, I’m pretty proud of my local efforts in the deepest of dark winter.

Garlic for Spring and the Garden’s Last Harvest

The weather was so wacky this year that I almost missed planting my garlic for the spring. We had weather that reached the 60s into late November, so I was unprepared for a complete freeze the following week (although I should have known!). Luckily we had 72 completely above freezing and were able to plant about 20 cloves of garlic before everything froze again – this time for good.

I had done some research and planting garlic was insanely easy. Buy a head or two of garlic, separate the cloves and plant them six inches apart and two inches deep as late as you can before, well, you can’t anymore because the ground freezes. If all goes well I’ll have my own garlic scapes in the spring!

Also, when planting the garlic we (and by we I mean my husband, armed with my detailed directions, since I had no daylight hours when I wasn’t working) pulled the last of the carrots, leeks and scallions. I admittedly planted the  leeks and the second harvest of carrots too late – none were very big. But, live and learn for next season. I still harvested enough of each to throw into a stew or soup – and I plan to keep them dirty and stored in my cool root cellar until ready to wash and use. Stored like this they should last 4 – 6 weeks. I can’t believe it is (almost) the new year and I am still eating (mostly) local!

Herb Salt

Mother Nature teased me the last few weeks with her unseasonably warm weather. I was almost caught off-guard as I let my woody herbs soak up the last rays of warm above-freezing weather. Thus I found myself in the garden one afternoon late last week with raw hands and a bagful of sage and rosemary leaves as the sun was setting and the snow starting to swirl.

Inspired by the delicious Provencal Salt I’ve been using all summer (purchased from the local Herb Lyceum stand at the farmer’s market) I decided to dry the sage in my dehydrator (just a few hours did it as the leaves already had a low water content) and then process them until finely crumbled. I then mixed salt and sage at a ratio of 3:1. I packaged some up in small recycled glass jars for holiday presents and will be leaving a bit for myself to toss with the last of my beets or on cauliflower, pork chops or in a beef stew.

Maple Cranberry Sauce

Now that Thanksgiving (in all its mostly localness) is a mere memory, I am thinking of local dishes that might sustain us through the holidays. This maple cranberry sauce might be the exact thing and I am lucky enough to be living in the land of both cranberries and maple syrup. Yes this is a variation of a Thanksgiving staple, but it could be just as good with a stinky Vermont blue cheese, a roasted chicken, or sweetened up a bit and added to any number of desserts. Plus the color is a beautiful, festive red. 

Maple Cranberry Sauce
rinse 2 cups of local cranberries, discarding any that aren’t firm. Put into a sauce pan on medium light. Add 3/4 cup of maple syrup and maybe one T of water to get things going. Continue to cook, stirring often, until all of the cranberries burst and you have the consistency of sauce that you like (the longer it cooks, the smoother and more jelly-like this becomes). If cheating on your region, add zest and juice from half of a lemon to brighten the flavors a bit.

Green Tomato and Tomatillo Chili

We had a late October frost (and snow) that killed some of our more tender plants around here, but then the weather warmed up and has been above-normal for the past couple of weeks or so. Thus we’ve had some tomato plants, delicate herbs and even a few tiny peppers holding on for dear life. Kale, chard, onions, woody herbs and beets are all around til the hard frost, so I’m letting them be while I use up what’s on their last legs in my fridge and from the garden. I cleared the green tomatoes and pulled and tossed the spent plants (always a depressing activity, although it’s better than seeing the lonely stems peeking out from the top of a snow drift) and washed up the tomatillos that had been kicking around in the fridge for a few weeks from our last CSA drop-off. What to do, what to do? How about some green chili for a night that the temp might flirt with freezing?

Green Tomato and Tomatillo Chili

Brown up 1/2 – 1 pounds of ground beef  (Chestnut Farms). Add 1 chopped onion and 2 – 3 chopped cloves of garlic, and 2 chopped hot peppers (or to taste) (CSA/ farmer’s market/ garden). Season with salt, pepper, cumin. Add 1 – 2 pounds of chopped tomatillos and green tomatoes (see above). Cover and let cook over medium heat – check and stir every few minutes, adding a bit of liquid if too dry (broth, wine, beer are good options, although I didn’t have to add any). Add 1 – 2 cups of cooked beans: kidney, black, or white (I had tongue of fire shell beans frozen from the CSA this summer). Heat through, adjust seasonings, eat local even in late November.

Maine Mussels in White Wine

I went to Maine last weekend to visit family visiting from Colorado. And two of them happen to be chefs. They had been staying outside of Portland all week, eating lobster almost daily. By the time we arrived late in the week, it was the inlanders last hurrah for local seafood – a shellfish feast of boiled lobster, grilled local scallops, and Bank Island mussels. All three dishes were incredibly fresh and delicious (and cheap! lobster was the most expensive at $4.99/ pound), but the mussels were the star of the table. Big, meaty, and sweet, they were steamed in white wine from Western NY (personally driven to Maine by the vintner). Well, to back up, onion and garlic were diced and saute-ed in butter and olive oil, then the wine and mussels were added and the pot covered to steam. The key to bi-valves is to cook them until they are JUST done – as few as 3 – 5 minutes depending on the amount of seafood and size of pot.  Serve drowning in the cooking juices, and sop up liberally with locally made crusty bread.

Savory Sweet Potato Crisp

Now that the CSA is over for the season (although I do have a deep winter subscription starting in February or March) and I am stocked up with half bushels of butternut squash, red onions and sweet potatoes, I have to start getting creative if I want to eat as locally as possible. Yet, how many ways can one make an orange vegetable taste, well, different? I’ve made sweet potato fries and sweet potato breakfast home fries. I’ve put them in fritattas and thrown them in soups. And I’ll certainly be putting them on my Thanksgiving table. Which is kind of where the inspiration for this dish came from. I had read about a savory sweet potato crisp (or streudel) recently, but couldn’t remember much about it other than the concept. So I thought I would experiment with my own version in an effort to have it perfected by that last Thursday of the month. This isn’t perfect yet, but it’s getting there….

Savory Sweet Potato Crisp

Chop 3 large sweet potatoes into 1 1/2″ pieces and then steam them until just soft – about 8 – 10 minutes. Then, like apple crisp, put them in a baking dish (9 x9 or 9 x 12). Season them with a few dashes of nutmeg, a touch of salt and pepper and chopped fresh sage. Put a half inch of liquid in the bottom – white wine, broth, apple cider or maybe even whiskey.

While the potatoes are steaming, cook 5 – 6 slices of good bacon (I used my meat share bacon, but would have loved Savenor’s applewood smoked bacon even more). When cooked to a crisp, drain on a paper towel until cool enough to crumble. Reserve the bacon fat (I did not say this was low-cal!). In a bowl mix together 2 cups of chunky breadcrumbs, 1 cup of chopped walnuts, the crumbled bacon, 1 T chopped sage and 1/2 T chopped rosemary. Pour the bacon fat on top and mix until a chunky “crisp-esque” crumble consistency is achieved.

Spread the topping on the chopped sweet potato and bake at 350 until topping is browned and the potatoes are very soft – maybe 30 minutes or so.

Green Tomato Curry

In passing the other day, an acquaintance mentioned using green tomatoes to make curry. In truth I don’t recall much else about the conversation, but with a second frost coming this week, I knew it was time to pick the last of the crop. I ended up with about 2 pounds of green tomatoes and a vague vision of what I was going to do with them. Roast them like tomatillos, then cook them like a fresh ripe tomato marinara. And add curry. And the pork I’ve had defrosted for the last few days, but was too busy to cook up. And it will be good. I was right.

Green Tomato Curry

I halved and roasted (at 400 for about 25 minutes) about 2 pounds of unripe green tomatoes. Meanwhile, I turned on the slow cooker on high and toasted 1 - 2 T of curry powder in it with nothing else to start to bring out its flavor, stirring every once in a while. After 15 minutes I added a thinly sliced onion from the farm share. Once the tomatoes were quote soft, I added them to the slow cooker and then just about covered them with 2 cups of chicken broth (leftover from risotto a few days prior). I let it get good and hot – maybe another 5 minutes – and then added some thin boneless pork cutlets (from our meat share). I put the top on and let it cook for 2 – 3 hours.

This was a thinnish sauce, perfect for serving over rice. (I also steamed some carrots and butternut squash to add to the dish – if I was making more of this and cooked it on the stove top, I would have added it right to the sauce.) The pork was so tender – the best result I’ve had yet with this particular cut from our meat share. I definitely think this experiment is worth re-creating and adapting to what one has on hand. I wouldn’t say I could taste the green tomatoes, it was just a perfect, healthy and local vehicle for the curry, pork, squash and carrot.

Mint-Pea Tendril Pesto with Local Lamb Chops

Last night was my first foray into lamb chops. I do like lamb, but I have the opportunity to eat it so infrequently. Well, with my meat share, I have four lamb chops waiting to be consumed, so I thought, no time like the present. As promised in the last post, I used more pea tendrils (all of the stalk – not just the most tender ends) and put in a food processor with a bunch of mint (leftover from the garden – mint is pretty hardy) and a small clove of garlic. I turned on the processor and streamed in olive oil, a few dashes of salt and a few twists of pepper.

For the chops, I seasoned with chopped rosemary (also some of the last holdovers from the garden – this is a woody herb that lasts until the hard frosts), salt, pepper and olive oil. I let that sit for an hour or so, and then cooked it on a hot grill pan for about 5 – 6 minutes on the first side, and another 4 on the other. I served this with the pesto on top – WOW! Chestnur farms raised easily the best tasting lamb chop I’ve ever had – and this is despite the slight marbled fattiness.

I served this with butternut squash risotto and carmelized onion and steamed radicchio. All courtesy of the last week of the farm share. It’s almost November and local still has never tasted so good.

Pea Tendril Pesto

I didn’t know what to do with the pea tendrils from the farm share. I was told to “fry them up”, but I tried that last year and they weren’t that tender (despite their name). So, last night I came up with something new. I took off the top half (smaller leaves, more delicate stalk) and threw them (about 1 1/2 loosely packed cup’s worth) in the cuisinart with a large chopped clove of garlic and about half as much basil. With the motor on, I drizzled in olive oil, salt and pepper as if I were making regular pesto. I also added my last tablespoon of pine nuts and served it atop a mound of baked spaghetti squash (halved, roasted in a dish with water), but it would be great on any (real) pasta, or dabbed on local wild scallops as I’m having tonight.

This pesto is a bit lighter and brighter tasting than straight up basil. I think I might try making pesto with the bottoms and mint and just a small clove of garlic, maybe serving them up with lamb chops from the meat share. Yum.