garden yumyums

Just so you know (Mom) that I haven’t been inside staring at a computer screen ALL summer, I bring you some garden updates…both mine and one about a new Master Food Preserver class!

First, the important stuff.   The Master Food Preservers are holding a class called “Cooking and Preserving Green” to help raise funds for our survival.  It will take place on Saturday, August 23, from 9 am -3 pm at the Lane County Extension Building (next to the Fairgrounds).  Learn how to put up the fruits of your harvest — to pickle, can, freeze and dry green beans, zucchini, cukes and more!  There will be demonstrations, tastings, small workshops, recipes and delicious preserved food to take home.  It should be really fun and not at all intimidating for beginners, so help us out and learn ways to turn that zucchini into something other than bread!  I’ll be there on duty, so if you want to complain about the Serge Gainsbourg videos on my blog in person, please consider this an open invitation. Early registration is $40 a person, $75 for couples, and at-the-door is $50 a person.  Call 541-682-4246 to register.

And then, the garden updates!  My garden is growing along happily.  The imported dirt really made a difference, even with our crummy weather earlier in the season.  I lost one tomato, which was quickly replaced by a tomatillo plant, but that space seems to be doomed and I’m losing the blossoms as they set fruit.  The other seven tomatoes are doing well, and I have tons of cherry tomatoes, plums, and slicers just beginning to yellow.  My cucumbers and beans were planted late, but I already have some pole beans ready for eating.  Herbs and Hungarian paprika peppers are going like gangbusters.

Zucchini already producing more than I want, and I have tons of little gourds on the vine!  A volunteer something — either a melon or a pumpkin, sprung up in the good soil where my plum tree was, and it’s growing perfectly, like crazy.  I’ll plant more squash there next year.

The wormwood is taller than me; a volunteer sunflower sprung up next to the cucumber hill; my raspberries gave me a couple of handfuls of sweet, beautiful berries — next year’s the charm.  Transplanted bay bush doing ok, as is the little fig tree.  My elder trees don’t seem to be doing much of anything.

I left in my Russian kale to collect aphids, which it does beautifully.  My artichokes aren’t doing well for some reason, an infestation of earwigs, perhaps?  I’ve lost many of the beautiful leaves.  Lettuce patch planted for my cat has bolted and tastes bitter.  Fennel growing slowly, as is the sole Japanese eggplant.  Japanese kaiware radish sprouts come and go, producing flowers as pretty as Michaelangelo.

 

birthday pleasures

It’s my birthday, and not only am I pleased to announce I received a Serge Gainsbourg jazz compilation, circa 1958-64, but also — more of interest to you, certainly — that my very first article in the Chow! quarterly food supplement of the Eugene Weekly, our local alternative paper, appeared today!  You can read more about the Master Food Preserver funding crisis by clicking here:

You can learn more about Serge Gainsbourg here:

Or you can eat free, delicious Hermiston watermelon that you got out in Umatilla County at the great watermelon giveaway of 2008 (tomorrow).  Or read my article AND eat Hermiston watermelon AND listen to Serge Gainsbourg.  This birthday girl is very easy to please.

 

read it and weep

Now THIS is what I call a salad.

Yes, that would indeed be one hunnert percent local boysenberries, roasted filberts, raw yellow romano beans and dried raspberry “croutons” with a blackberry-thyme sherry vinegar splash…

for the win.

 

keeping cool with sour cherry and apricot soup

I should dedicate this, the second summer appetizer in my series of summer appetizers with obscure ingredients, to the folks at Hentze farm, where I bought the blushing, lovely apricots and the already-pitted sour cherries, submerged in their juice.  It made my life so easy, and easy livin’ is what summer is supposed to be about, right?

Sour cherries and apricots whisper Hungary to me.  My trip to Budapest in 2006 for a conference was one of the highlights of my life.  If my soul had a foreign home, it would be Hungary.  Of course, I’d soon die and have to be buried in a piano box because I would eat so much, but I’d die happy.  At one restaurant, I ordered sour cherry soup (meggy leves), thinking it would be a light starter.  Of course, being Hungary, it was thickened with sour cream and topped with whipped cream.  And every bite was delicious.

My version of the soup is lighter and appropriate for a July grilled meal.  The soup is still rich, but unless you want to serve it as a dessert (which you absolutely can), forgo the whipped cream and replace the sour cream with thinner, lighter crème fraîche.  Noris Dairy makes a delicious, slightly runny “sour cream” that is basically crème fraîche, so I use that.  You might try lightening up your sour cream with a bit of heavy cream if you can’t find crème fraîche.  If you can’t find that, you certainly won’t be able to find Hungarian apricot brandy, which is not imported much in the States, so substitute cherry brandy.  Or make your own apricot liqueur!

Using fresh sour cherries and apricots make this soup extraordinary.  It’s better to substitute fresh Bing or other cherries than to use frozen or canned sour cherries, since this is all about fresh summer produce.  I don’t bother peeling the apricots, but it might make the texture more elegant.

Sour Cherry Apricot Soup

Serves 4-6 as an appetizer or dessert

2 cups pitted sour cherries
3 cups cherry juice
½ cup fruity red wine, such as Merlot
1 cup quartered fresh apricots
1 T. sugar
½ cup crème fraîche
1 T. powdered sugar
1 piece cinnamon stick
1 star anise
3-4 whole cloves
1 T. apricot brandy (Hungarian barack palinka) or cherry brandy

Pour juice and wine into pot, add cherries, apricots, and sugar.  Place spices in small cheesecloth bag and tie with kitchen twine.  Submerge in juice.

Simmer cherries and apricots just long enough to soften them up, about 5-10 minutes.

Mix crème fraîche and powdered sugar in a small bowl.  Remove soup from heat and remove spice bag.

Scoop out about half of the cherries and apricots and puree in the food processor, then return to soup pot.

Quickly whisk in crème fraîche until thoroughly mixed, and add brandy.

Pour into small serving bowls and chill for several hours before serving.

 

tayberries at lone pine farm

If you can find tayberries, this cross between an Aurora blackberry cultivar (an Oregon varietal, thank you very much) and a raspberry, by all means buy them immediately.  In my neck of the woods, Lone Pine Farm in Junction City had them for sale yesterday, so I snapped some up to make delicious jam.  The tayberry is an exquisitely beautiful fruit, and it’s a bit tarter and muskier than a boysenberry (which you can see pictured in my masthead above).  Dark red and elongated, the tayberry tastes far more complex than either of its parents, almost like a raspberry on steriods, dreaming dark dreams.

Some are born to sweet delight,
Some are born to endless night.

And some are born to jam their plight.

 

my reputation spreads far (harrisburg) and wide (one person)

After my shift slinging no-bake breakfast bars — the Food Pantry Project recipe of the month — at the Coburg food pantry, I hightailed it north to Detering’s Orchards in Harrisburg to feed my food-drying addiction.  While I was immersed in green beans, a friendly face smiled at me and said, “nice day for cherry picking!” and “you’re Eugenia from Culinaria Eugenius, aren’t you?”  She didn’t seem to be concealing a weapon, so I came clean, and discovered I was talking to Eat Local Eugene, another local food blogger, who had rushed over to the farm after work to pick cherries and found, well, me.  I was very sad I didn’t have time to follow suit, but my dehydrator — like a crack pipe or a mound of fries or dirty Serge Gainsbourg videos on the Internet — was waiting for me at home.  Not that I’d know anything about the Serge Gainsbourg videos.

But Eat Local Eugene made a good point:  it’s cherry picking time, and the time is now.  They have lovely Bings and Royal Annes at Detering’s, and the price for U-pick can’t be beat.  I was told that the pie cherries (the sour, ruby red ones) will be ready any day now, so please give them a call to see if they’re available before you go to the orchard.  I dried a bunch of fresh Bings and some frozen pie cherries, and they both turned out sweet and tart and lovely. Can’t wait to use them in salads and desserts…

And Eat Local Eugene, I’d love to see what you did with yours!

 

farm day at sweetwater farm!

Before I left for the weekend trip, I had the great pleasure to visit my CSA farm, Sweetwater Farm east of Creswell.  Creswell is a short drive south of Eugene, a small town and rural community nestled in its own little valley.  Farmer John and Lynn welcomed us with home brew of the regular and root beer varieties, a potluck, pizzas made in their brick oven (which sadly, I missed due to tardiness), and an herbalist table with minted elixirs of red clover and nettles. Lynn and I took the Master Food Preserver training program together, and I’m volunteering to help the CSA folks out with questions about how to cook with the vegetables in the shares.

The big joy of the 20-acre farm, of course, was the tour provided by Farmer John.  As I said, I was late, so I was fortunate that he was willing to do one last tour, and I happily tagged along, listening to an articulate, passionate disquisition on soil additives, crop rotation, experimentation with chicken feed and greenhouse rows, and all manner of things.  He showed us the bakery in progress, the lumber kiln, and the dank and mysterious mushroom hut, where shiitakes and oyster mushrooms bloom like pale, fleshy flowers.

The fields, immaculately maintained, are grouped by plant type.  The brassicas have their own area, the twenty-odd types of potatoes (some of which are pictured above) grow in neat mounded rows next to a field bursting with hard red wheat (pictured with daisy).  But where were the Yukon Gold potatoes?  Why, in the shares, of course!

Rows of Asian greens fill out another field, and garlic has its own real estate.  Tomatoes and peppers and herbs — really most of the hot weather crops — grow carefully in greenhouses dotted around the property.  Cardoons — cardoons!! — line the long driveway up to the farmhouse.  They are pictured here, the things that look like artichokes.  I had never seen a growing cardoon.  Farmer John said that in Italy, they bend the stalks and cover them with soil to get the blanched white color.  There were strawberries, some small fig trees and the beginnings of a plum orchard, and god knows what else.  The man even has an entire row of wormwood (Artemesia absinthia) and has faced — it was rumored — the green fairy.

We got to see an old Ponderosa Pine in a lovely wooded meadow, a relic, said Farmer John, of what the whole valley used to look like centuries ago.  Hundreds of chickens wander around several large fenced areas, and you can see how happy they are by the size and quality of their eggs.

Sweetwater Farm has been in operation for 20 years, and doing natural or organic farming the entire time.  They used to supply produce to high-end restaurants, but now they just grow for the market and the CSA shares, to maximize freshness and variety.  The vegetables are beautiful, and the breadth of what’s available there is really unusual for a small farm in the Willamette Valley.  I was glad I had the opportunity to visit; thanks John and Lynn!

And one last shot:  I love living in Oregon. Yes, this would be purple mountains’ majesty above the fruited plain…of amber waves of grain.  You know you want it.

 

strawberries fading fast and news from your hostess

See what happens when you go get your oil changed in Eugene?  Jam ensues.  Yeah, yeah, I couldn’t resist another flat of Bentons when I passed the fruit stand on West 11th, and this time I was not sucked in to pectin-free promises, so I made a light, lovely batch of low-sugar pectin strawberry jam with pinot gris syrup and Szechuan pepper.  I used Jeffrey Morgenthaler’s recipe for Sweet Cheeks Pinot Gris Syrup, which is basically a bottle of wine reduced by half, then fortified with sugar.  The peachy, honeysuckly aromas of the Pinot Gris were then punched up when I macerated a couple of tablespoons of Szechuan peppercorns in a still-hot half-cup of the syrup. Szechuan pepper is such a beautifully floral scent, and it complements strawberries particularly well.  With the Pinot Gris syrup?  Oh la la.

If you’re thinking about preserving strawberries this year, you should get a move on, since this hot weather is wrapping up the season very quickly.   Next up:  blueberries!

And by the way, the reason I was getting an oil change is because I’m going on a little vacation over the weekend.  During that time, I’ll be writing up a post about a fun visit and tour of my CSA, Sweetwater Farm, in Creswell the other day.  Suffice it to say, I was very impressed by the farm and the sheer breadth of the projects Farmer John and Lynn are undertaking.  If you find my blog because you’re associated with the CSA, hi and welcome!

And to everyone else who has been reading the blog, thanks for stopping by!  I’ve noticed my hits have really increased in the last few weeks, and I’m frankly amazed that so many people are interested in my grumbling.  I’d love to know more about the people who are interested in my blog: are you Oregonians?  From Eugene?  Interested in recipes?  Techniques?  Local food politics?  Please don’t be shy to comment and say hello!

 

goodbye kale and chard, hellllllllllo summer!

With this weekend’s heat (finally!), I knew I’d have to harvest the rest of my spring greens and snowpeas, plus with the Olympic Trials starting in Eugene with all its attendant crowds at local restaurants, it seemed the perfect time to stay at home. So we decided to host an impromptu barbecue!

Retrogrouch manned the meat station, and I played with vegetables. I’ll post about my new invention, Faster Than A Speeding Bullet New Dill Pickles, later. Suffice it to say I used a Japanese method and my great-grandma’s Polish cucumber salad to make a very serviceable new dill pickle slice in three hours flat. We ended up making a variety of grilled things based on what people brought, so it was a night of burgers, brats, salmon and steak (!), plus my black bean bulgar wheat salad and a mesclun salad with chive blossom vinegar as sides. Someone brought a lovely cool lime tart for dessert.

Another discovery was a very decent “spinach-artichoke” dip that I drummed up from our huge supply of greens. It was made from much healthier ingredients than your usual spinach dip. My recipe makes 3-4 cups of a relatively firm-textured dip that can’t be frozen, so you’ll either have to scale down or use it as a stuffing in cherry tomatoes, celery, peapods, etc., or as a pasta sauce. Or have a huge party! Or just leave it in the fridge and snack on it all weekend long during a heat wave…

The farmers markets are selling early, soft, large-leaved basil, so I used some for this recipe. It makes the dip taste less like “spinach-artichoke” and more like pesto, which is not necessarily a bad thing. The base is ricotta cheese instead of sour cream or mayo, which helps lend a lightness to the dip, as does the lack of oil. Add just a bit of lemon juice to keep the basil from discoloring. We used a budget Parmesano Reggiano, which was fine, and frozen artichoke bottoms, available at Middle Eastern grocery stores. You could also use artichoke bottoms (or hearts) canned in water.

Spring Greens Basil Artichoke Dip

Makes 3-4 cups.

• 1 very large bunch chard
• 1 very large bunch kale
• 1 big handful fresh basil
• 6-8 oz. frozen artichoke bottoms, thawed and chopped
• 1 lb. whole milk ricotta cheese
• 1/4 cup light cream cheese
• 1/4 cup parmesan cheese, grated
• 1-2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 T. lemon juice
• salt and freshly grated pepper

Clean greens and remove stems. Blanch the chard and kale in a large pot of boiling water by submerging the leaves in the water for only a couple of minutes max, until they are bright green and wilted. (I did it in two batches.) Then, remove the leaves and immediately plunge them in a large bowl of iced water to stop the cooking and set the color.

After letting the greens cool, remove from iced water and squeeze as much water from the ball of greens as you can (again, it’s better to do this in at least two batches).

When greens are prepared, add them and the rest of the ingredients to a food processor, and pulse until ingredients are well mixed but not pureed.

Add salt and freshly ground pepper to taste. Salt is crucial, since the ricotta and greens are mild.

Refrigerate for at least an hour. The ricotta cheese and small amount of lemon juice makes this dip not so great for keeping at room temperature for long periods.

Serve with wheat crackers or pita bread.

 

of bicycle tour maps and new potatoes with mint

Retrogrouch has been in training for a long bike trip, and we’ve been discussing the particulars.  He’s adamant about being old-school, and I’m itching to play with the dehydrator and dry him 10-course meals for the journey, so we have very different plans.  But we agree that he needs appropriate clothing.

So he sends me this film made by the British Transport Film group, an account of the Bicyclists’ Special Touring Excursion to Rugby on May 8, 1955, with a note saying he plans to model his “entire look on these chaps.”

So I watch it… As expected, not my cup of tea.  Bikes, English people, bikes, bikes, trains, bikes, bikes, bike parts, ooh–there’s some tea…and bikkies!, bikes, bikes, healthy young people, bikes, propaganda, bikes, trains, bikes, bikes…then, hello!

“H. H. England, the Editor of Cycling, knows that a cycling tour without a map is like new potatoes without the smell of mint.”

My interest is piqued.  Minted new potatoes! Who knew!? What kind of a British conspiracy kept this delicious secret from the Yanks?  I look it up, thinking the mint would be added raw to the cooked potatoes, but discovered they BOIL the potatoes with mint!  Wow.

So we cycled out (ok, I drove) and bought some local new potatoes called German Butterballs, a yellow, lovely potato, and a head of new garlic, large and well-formed but still with undifferentiated cloves.  With herbs from my garden, it was an easy side dish.

The video itself is pretty interesting — socialism on bikes, sponsored by the railway network propaganda machine.  Bits of history and British imperialism sneak in every so often.  And check out those woolen cycling knickers.

More importantly, however, is the existence of MINTED NEW POTATOES.  I don’t normally steal recipes wholesale, and if I do, I certainly don’t blog about them, but this one was so beautiful and pristine that I couldn’t resist.  OK, I did change it just a teeny tiny bit, by accenting the mint cooking liquid with more chopped mint, and adding both lemon and French thyme, plus their blossoms, to the potatoes.

I don’t know much about the British cook Nigel Slater, other than he seems to be a lyrical writer and a good cook dedicated to the ebb and flow of British seasonal cooking, so you bet I’d like to know more. In this recipe, he boils the potatoes as usual with mint sprigs, then smashes each one in a baking dish, dots the potatoes with an herb and garlic butter, then bakes just until the top is until crusty and browned.

I’d like to think Mr. Slater would approve of my use of local butter, potatoes, new garlic, and herbs.  Not very British, no, but as right as a tour with a map.

Bicycle Tour With A Map Minted New Potatoes

Serves 4 as a side dish.

1 pound new potatoes around the same size, no more than three inches in diameter

a handful of clean, fresh mint sprigs (4-5 large ones), two set aside for garnishing

1/4 cup unsalted butter

3 T. minced new garlic (not garlic scapes)

1 T. fresh thyme

freshly ground pepper and sea salt

sprigs of mint and thyme to garnish

Scrub potatoes well without peeling (new potatoes have flaky, thin skins — see image above).  Place in pot and cover with cold water.  Add several mint sprigs, reserving enough to add some to the finished dish and as a garnish.

While the potatoes are boiling, mince new garlic and thyme, then mash into the butter in a small bowl.  Add sea salt and freshly ground pepper to the butter to taste.

Boil potatoes until a thin knife can pierce them easily.  Drain potatoes, discarding mint.

Preheat broiler on high.  Place each potato in a Pyrex baking dish, and smash each one lightly with a fork, so the insides are bared but you can still see the shape of the potato.  Dot each potato with the compound butter, and broil only until top is browned, just a few moments.  If you’d like crustier potatoes, bake rather than broil at around 425 until crustiness is achieved, but I, for one, couldn’t wait, and won’t blame you if you can’t, either.  Garnish with more mint, mint sprigs, and more thyme flowers.

Serve immediately.  Your special excursion train to Rugby is pulling into the station.