california in a jar

On my way back to Eugene, I was feeling a little bitter and sorry for myself because I couldn’t do all the things I wanted to do in California thanks to the funeral side trip to Michigan.  I had planned to take a longer route down, a solo road trip, that would allow me to visit colleagues and friends and explore a bit of California’s Central Valley, America’s bread basket.

The Central Valley, according to an NPR story, is “the greatest garden in the world” and reports that it produces 25% of the nation’s food.  As someone who lives in America’s former bread basket, the Willamette Valley of central Oregon, I view it with an amateur historian’s eye — fascinated and horrified by commercial farming practices that turn a fertile crescent of land into monocultures ruled by pesticides.  In particular, I was thinking of investigating a little farm or two that might be growing unusual olives to spite those black marbles we see on the grocery story shelves or those awful huge pyramid-shaped flavorless strawberries that weren’t meant for shipping.

The funeral dashed my hopes and free time, but I got lucky anyway, and stopped at a few local produce stands along highway 505 at Winters and I-5 near Williams.  And found what I was not expecting, including a nut wall made of shipping containers that separated an auto business from a popular taco truck in Winters.  (I snapped this shot while waiting for my lengua tacos for my friend John Mariani, no relation, and told him his detractors were at it again.)

Most notably, Royal apricots were up and running at the Double R Ranch produce stand in Winters, so a picked up half a flat with some olive oil from Knabke Farms.  I only found out later that Heath Ranch Organics in Orland grows fantastic and wonderful varieties of citrus fruits as part of a 30-some-year relationship with experimental research scientists needing a demo farm.  (That’s their gas pump and sign, above.) If I had known Ron and Melanie Heath were so cool, I would have stayed longer and asked to tour the farm, but we did have a quick chat about blood oranges and Sevilles as we snacked on the absolutely best Valencia oranges I’ve ever tasted in my life.  I managed to leave with some of those oranges, a blue star thistle honey bear, a pound of pistachios grown and roasted down the road, and a pound of red wine-marinated kalamata olives.

Of course, I needed to rush right home and bottle it all up.

The Québécois make a conserve called nougabricot that famed jammière, the Alsatian pastry chef Christine Ferber, has made famous.  With all due respect to my French-Canadian ancestors, I think nougabricot sounds like a mouthful of marbles, and a conserve made of apricots, almonds, pistachios, oranges, lemons, and honey is really a California thing, so I have taken the liberty to rename it:

California in a Jar

A conserve of apricots, almonds, and pistachios.  Yield 6 half pints.

• 2.75 lbs. ripe but not overripe apricots (choose an heirloom variety like Royals or Royal Blenheims if you can)
• 2 cups sugar
• 8 oz. dark honey (Ferber suggests chestnut, I used avocado honey for the California theme)
• 1 lemon, juiced and zested
• 1 orange, juiced and zested
• 1/4 teaspoon lemon zest
• 2/3 cup slivered almonds, toasted
• 2/3 cup shelled pistachios (unsalted or rinsed if they are salted)
• few dashes rose water (optional)

Wash, pit, and quarter apricots.  Very large apricots should be cut in pieces.  Wash and sterilize your jars and prepare two-piece lids.

In a large pot, bring all ingredients to a simmer, then pour into a glass or stainless bowl, cover with parchment paper, as any apricots left exposed will oxidize to brown, and refrigerate overnight.

The following day, strain the solids from the liquids and place liquids in your preserving pan.  Heat the liquids until they are syrupy and reach a temperature of 220 degrees, which will allow some thickening to occur (but it will still be a loose-set product).

Add the solids to the syrup and bring to a vigorous boil, then keep at a boil for five minutes. Let sit off heat for five minutes and skim foam. Add a few dashes of rosewater if you like, and ladle product into sterilized jars.

For processing, fill to 1/4 inch from top, pressing down apricots and nuts under syrup to combat oxidization problem, and process for 10 minutes in a boiling water bath canner.  Between you and me, I think this one really should be kept fresh and in the refrigerator, so I didn’t process the jars.  The hot conserve “sealed” the lids after I added the product, but it is a weak seal and I must stress a refrigerator is necessary if you don’t waterbath can the jars.

harvest

Such an odd year. Picked the rest of the green tomatoes, finally, which will turn into salsa, and will make ajvar out of the ripe peppers. Cooking down apples into butter in the crock pot. Ethiopian berebere peppers, which have a fantastic flavor, and a bunch of Hungarian paprika and others gifted by Jeff Eaton, who wanted to share the remainder of his crop (thanks, Jeff!) are drying in the dehydrator along with another gift, a tub of newly fallen walnuts (thanks, Lara!). Still haven’t figured out what to do with all those cranberries, but that’s next.

If you’re interested in going nuts, the filbert crop is in and walnuts are coming. I took some shots of the harvest at Thistledown Farm the other day. They close a couple days after Halloween, so if you want your store of winter squash, potatoes, onions, or apples, head out there soon.  It’s a time to be amazed by the bounty of our valley.  Even in a crummy year, we manage to pull it off.

dark days challenge #10: “foraged” salad with apple, walnut and quince dressing

The foraging was in my backyard!  To balance all the confit I’ve been eating, I had a keen yearning for a serious salad for this week’s Dark Days Challenge meal.  Now, I’m not talking about insipid heads of butter lettuce, or those pointless (sorry, fans) bags of mesclun greens that all taste the same, even though they look to be different species.  I’m talking about salad that bites back.

We had two — TWO!! — sunny days this week, so I did a bit of gardening between deadlines, pruning the cane berries and pulling back the mulch in some areas to allow for little chives and lovage and strawberry babies.  But I was really on the lookout for salad possibilities.  I learned in my Master Gardener training that one can eat our first ubiquitous early spring weed, the little Western bittercress, now making itself known in bare patches of my garden.  I pulled some of the largest ones, then found some tender dandelion greens (the second ubiquitous early spring weed), tore them up, and added them to the mix.

I love eating weeds.  It makes me feel powerful!

But I realized I had cultivated salad greens still in the garden, too.  The arugula is doing wonderfully, all the better for the cold wet weather, so I snipped off some of those leaves for the base of the salad.  I had given up on the plants cozied up to my peas because they were unbearably spicy and hot in summer’s dog days, but they have actually mellowed and become fresher over the course of the winter, weathering our cold snaps with gusto.

And my wild bronze fennel is up in two corners of the yard, sending out gorgeous feathery fronds that are sweet, fresh, and slightly licorice-y, so I sacrificed a few to the salad bowl.

I still have storage apples (Melrose, I believe) in the back from Riverbend Farms, so I added a couple to the salad, plus some delicious new Rogue Creamery cheese, Brutal Blue, and walnuts from Hentze Farm.  The lily still needed to be gilded, clearly, so I melted a couple of tablespoons of frozen homemade quince paste and whisked it into a vinaigrette made of (non-local) olive oil and my accidentally brilliant* Concord grape and star anise vinegar.  Amazing.  It was like eating spring.

* I wanted to make local raisins this year, but I realized too late that one shouldn’t dry tiny Concords (pictured on left) without taking out the seeds, because those seeds are big and hard, and they stick like glue to the dried grape.  So I took the lot, added a whole star anise, and covered everything in white wine vinegar.  Four months later, it’s incredibly delicious — better than the best berry vinegar because of the “foxy” flavor of the Concord grape, with just the right amount of spicy depth from the star anise.  I’ll make this one from now on.

oregon hazelnut recall, ouch

This couldn’t be timed more poorly, with holiday baking and all, but it looks like salmonella was found at one of the shelling plants for Oregon’s hazelnut crop, in Newburg, OR. For more information, see the Oregon Department of Agriculture recall notice here.

As far as food-borne illnesses go, salmonella is usually relatively mild, unless an infected person is in one of the risk groups (infant, elderly, compromised immune system), and common as dirt.  Unlike e. coli, which has wider and more devastating consequences, salmonella can be easily caught and easily overcome.  It lives in the intestines of otherwise healthy humans and animals, and is spread through animal or human waste products coming in contact with food.  (It’s one of the reasons you are urged to wash your hands thoroughly after going to the bathroom.)

In a processing facility, where contaminated products are circulated and touched and redistributed, the possible contamination threat grows greater, of course.

Salmonella is always a small threat — you probably have some in your refrigerator right now.  At the very least, you needn’t fear your locally purchased nuts any more than you would any other crop, since vegetables, eggs, dairy, and everything else are always subject to salmonella.   The salad depicted above, for example, could be laden with salmonella if an infected animal made its way through the arugula patch, or the pears were handled by a worker who didn’t wash his hands, or the blue cheese was crumbled by a chef who was careless about cross-contamination with raw meat on the kitchen counter.

This recall is going to needlessly devastate sales of these nuts and local farmers dependent upon the income for the crop.  It looks like the salmonella they found was localized to one place and caught at the distributor.  The notice says that hazelnuts in the shell are still fine, even if you do buy them at a larger scale, but the vast majority of hazelnuts that are shelled are perfectly OK, too.  If you bought your hazelnuts from small farms, such as Freddy Guys or Detering’s, or micro-networks, such as the farm stand at River Bend Farm that sells nuts from a local orchard, you needn’t fear purchases or throw away your nuts.

One can also buy the highest quality plump, fresh, new-crop hazelnuts from middlemen like the OSU Extension-Lane County Master Food Preservers who accept nuts, shell and bag them, and sell them as fundraisers in the Willamette Valley.   We still have bags left!  Hazelnuts AND walnuts AND almonds, oh my — all from the 2009 crop and lovingly hand-shelled by our volunteers. The quality is better than anything I’ve ever seen. I would strongly encourage it, and not just because I’m interested in keeping Extension programs alive by any means necessary (and by the way, one of the services the MFP program provides is answering questions from the community about food safety recalls like this one).

So…if you are local and suddenly in need of hazelnuts because of the recall OR you have questions about nuts you have purchased, please call the MFP hotline and leave a message at 541-682-4246, or drop by the OSU Extension office next to the Fairgrounds (950 W. 13th, Eugene) on weekdays (M-Th, 10-1, 2-5).

Support your local hazelnut farmers — this is going to hurt in a year defined by hurt.

hazelnut millet granola, with variations

In my pre-Thanksgiving pantry investigation, I discovered I had two big containers of oats.  In an ongoing effort to break my morning bagel habit, it seemed I had no choice but to make granola.  We did a double batch of Nigella Lawson’s ridiculously simple nut granola recipe that several bloggers have adapted for their own, including Orangette and David Lebovitz.  I was interested in the recipe because it uses non-sweetened applesauce to moisten and flavor the oats, and I am particularly loath to eat anything sweet most mornings.  Plus, I just so happen to have a few low-sugar homemade applesauces stashed away in my canning cupboard.

The three cookie sheets full of baking granola took almost twice the time to dry and roast as the recipe states (I should have used four sheets, but I didn’t have oven space for four!).  The double batch I made ate up most of this year’s hazelnut crop, too.  Must go to OSU Extension office to buy more.  I used agave syrup instead of rice syrup, and only hazelnuts, adding a handful of millet for a bit of contrast instead of the sunflower seeds.

When the granola came out of the oven, I tossed one tray with currants, the second with crystallized ginger, and the third with home-dried sour cherries and cocoa nibs.  All three are delicious.  The applesauce makes the granola crispy and full of flavor, and the proportions are just right.

The granola is delicious mixed into yogurt or with milk.  I may try it with a flaked grain cereal if I can find one, as David Lebovitz suggests.  My favorite commercial granola, a German brand with a bewilderingly wondeful range of flavors, uses an oat that seems to be processed a bit differently than our rolled oats — almost as if the roller smashed the oat down even more.  It makes the oats less chewy and more pleasant when raw (or basically raw).  Anyone have a source for these cereals?

Try making it for gifts in a jar this holiday season.  Your family and friends will thank you!

Hazelnut Millet Granola with Fruit

Adapted from Nigella Lawson’s Feast and Orangette’s variation (see link above)

5 cups rolled oats (not instant)
2 cups coarsely chopped new crop Oregon hazelnuts (or almonds), roasted*
1/2 cup sesame seeds
1/2 cup millet
3/4 cup dark brown sugar
2 t. ground cinnamon
1 t. ground ginger
1 t. kosher salt (less if using regular salt)

3/4 cup low sugar apple sauce
1/3 cup agave syrup
1/4 cup full-flavored honey (meadowfoam is particularly good)
2 T. vegetable oil

Preheat the oven to 300°F.  In a small bowl, combine the applesauce, agave syrup, honey, and oil.   In a very large bowl, combine the remaining dry ingredients.  Pour the wet ingredients over the dry ones, and stir well.

Spread the mixture evenly on two large rimmed baking sheets as thinly as possible.

Bake sheets on top and bottom racks of oven for 45 minutes, or until evenly golden brown (watch for burning around the edges).  Every 15 minutes, carefully stir and re-spread out granola on the sheets, switching positions in the oven so the granola will bake as evenly as possible.

When it turns golden brown, remove the pans from the oven and stir once more.  Orangette says “this will keep it from cooling into a hard, solid sheet” and “The finished granola may still feel slightly soft when it comes out of the oven, but it will crisp as it cools.”

Let cool for about 15 minutes before adding the dried fruit of your choice.  Dried currants, raisins, cranberries, blueberries, sour cherries are all good choices; stickier fruit, such as mangos or apricot pieces, are not because of storage issues.  You may also add crystalized ginger pieces (tiny), cocoa nibs for a chocolatey taste and/or toasted coconut shreds.  The amount of fruit is up to you — I found about a half-cup of sour cherries was good for one tray, and two teaspoons of ginger or cocoa nibs was just right for one tray.

Store in the refrigerator for no longer than three months, if it lasts that long, in a sealed container or ziploc bag.

Yield: about 10 cups.

* To roast hazelnuts, place on rimmed baking sheet in 300 degree oven for about 15 minutes.  When the nuts smell fragrant and the flesh turns creamy from white, they are finished.  It isn’t an exact science, so it’s better to undercook them than overcook them.

dirty pumpkin seeds

Happy Halloween!  Retrogrouch and I carved our jack-o-lantern last night, and got our scaaaaary on.  I am bedecking our porch with body parts, and he’s been nailed through the head.  Luckily, the injury wasn’t bad enough to stop him from the carving.

For me, the best part of pumpkin carving has always been roasting the pumpkin seeds.  Each year, I carefully separate out the seeds from the goo, rinse them and dry them, salt them, and put them in a 350 degree oven.  Each year, I also forget about them and have to throw half of them away when they get too dark.

Last year, when working on the Master Food Preserver hotline, someone called in and asked how to make pumpkin seeds.  I started to give my standard schpiel, then realized that I could (and should) look up a recipe in our giant binder of recipes and techniques that are tested by our Extension program and others across the country.  And lo!  The Good Book shewed that she was in great error.  I was roasting the seeds at way too high of a temperature, hence the bitter charring when I forgot about them.

This year, I looked at the seeds with their pretty orange lacing of goo, and thought that I might capitalize on the extra flavor of the pumpkin pulp on the seeds, so I didn’t rinse them.  I tossed them in some oil with coarse sea salt and black pepper, then roasted the speckled, striped seeds.  And lo!  Dirty Pumpkin Seeds were born.  And they were delicious.  Even after I forgot about them.

Dirty Pumpkin Seeds

This recipe doesn’t measure the amounts, since the amount of seeds one gets from a pumpkin can vary widely.  The larger jack-o-lanterns can actually have fewer seeds than the smaller ones.

• Seeds from one jack-o-lantern
• Coarsely ground sea salt
• Freshly ground black pepper
• Vegetable oil

Preheat the oven to 250 degrees.  Carefully pick through the pumpkin innards to get all the seeds.  Discard malformed seeds and as much of the orange goo surrounding the seeds as possible, placing seeds in a clean bowl.

Do not rinse the remaining pumpkin goo off the seeds.  Add coarsely ground sea salt and freshly ground pepper to taste, then coat the seeds in enough vegetable oil to make them slick but not dripping with oil (I used about a tablespoon).

Spread seeds out in a single layer in a Pyrex dish or cookie sheet.

Roast for about 45 minutes, checking occasionally, until light gold in color and completely dry.  If you forget about them, they’re ok for about an hour.  You’ll smell a gentle roasting smell, not the charring of burnt seeds, as a reminder.

They tell me the seeds will keep for about a week unrefrigerated, but mine have never lasted more than a day or two.

hazelnut rhubarb bread

Hope everyone had an excellent, sunny, warm Memorial Day weekend.  I was gardening for most of it, but I did take an eensy weensy bit of time to cook for a bbq and gift-giving.

I made a new rhubarb bread recipe (from BaltimOregon’s recipe clipping files) over the weekend to give to neighbors.  We have new neighbors to the west, and the best neighbors ever to the east.  These events deserve some rhubarb bread, don’t you think?

Recipe Notes:

This makes a light, not-very-sweet loaf of quick bread.  The rhubarb gets mushy, even coated with flour, so you want to chop the pieces small.  I wonder if making a puree from the sugar, then incorporating it in the batter, would infuse the bread with more rhubarb flavor.

I substituted hazelnuts for what is probably generally walnuts, reducing the oil in the bread, so it was a bit cakey and less like a quick bread than usual.  Roasted hazelnuts would have been better than raw, oh well.  Didn’t have orange zest, so I substituted a bit of lemon oil and about a 1/4 cup of local strawberry freezer jam that I had on hand, both of which lent nuances in flavor.  Used local Victoria rhubarb, the green and pink-stalked stuff, so the pink is mostly from the strawberries.  I think I’d throw a handful of millet in the batter next time, since I really like the crunch in quick breads, and use some whole wheat flour for more depth in texture.

All right, so the recipe was significantly changed.  This is why I’m not a baker, sorry!  :)

in a hazelnutshell column on the stands

If you’d like my recipe for the spiced rosemary hazelnuts with orange zest I served at Thanksgiving, check out my latest monthly column for the Eugene Weekly!  As for me, I’m going to take a food coma nap.

Recipe reprinted from article:

Spicy Rosemary Hazelnuts with Orange Zest

Makes enough for a party.

• 4 cups new crop raw hazelnuts
• 1 cup dark brown sugar
• 1/3 cup fresh rosemary, finely chopped (do not use dried)
• 1 teaspoon fresh orange zest, finely chopped
• 1 tablespoon coarse kosher salt
• Several healthy dashes of hot sauce (to taste), or a splash of vinegar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease an oblong glass baking dish with vegetable oil, and roast the raw nuts for 10 minutes. (Skip if you are using already roasted nuts.)

In a small bowl, mix together brown sugar, rosemary, salt and hot pepper sauce. Remove nuts from oven, then quickly fold the sugar mixture into the nuts in the pan. Return to oven and bake, stirring every 5 minutes, for 15 minutes or until the sugar melts and nuts are glazed. Keep nuts hot in oven when you stir, or else sugar may clump.

Cool completely. Break hazelnuts apart and store in airtight container at room temperature, or in the refrigerator if the nuts get sticky in humid weather.

brussels sprouts hash with suffering

I’ve never understood the moaning and groaning about brussels sprouts; then again, I noticed that there’s always plenty left over after Thanksgiving at my house.  I love brussels sprouts, so it’s ok by me.  I usually make them in a simple braise with chicken stock and butter, then add a handful of chopped, freshly roasted chestnuts.  I’ve always found that braising is better than roasting, since it infuses flavor throughout the sprout and softens it up a bit, whereas roasting makes for a more crunchy (tho’ pleasantly browned) sprout, slicked with oil.  It just isn’t, in my opinion, a vegetable that roasts well.  The only brassica that roasts well is cauliflower, and even that doesn’t have the water content to make a wonderful roast like, say, squash or asparagus.

This year, I’m going to try something new.  Since Retrogrouch is one of the millions of Americans who don’t eat brussels sprouts, I can experiment.  I’m going to stirfry up a brussels sprouts hash with dukkha, an Egyptian nut and spice mix that features Willamette Valley hazelnuts.  Even though it sounds strange, I think the flavors will match very well with the turkey and stuffing.

Dukkha is used as a dip for breakfast, snacks, and myriad other occasions in Egypt.  It is made of coarsely chopped hazelnuts, and a mix of ground toasted sesame seeds, cumin, coriander, black pepper and salt.  It’s really lovely just with bread dipped in olive oil, but you can also use it as a crust for fish, chicken or tofu, or mix it in coleslaw or roasted vegetables.  Or mix it in some absolutely incredible (I hope) brussels sprouts, thinly sliced, and fried with a bit of argan oil, chicken stock and…bacon.  Y’all can eat the turkey.

Needless to say, it’s a fantastic use of the hazelnuts that are in season right now and at our local farms.

Dukkha is also Buddhist concept.  It describes the suffering in life that happens when you live and lust in the world.  Surely, the name is a coincidence and has nothing to do with the Middle Eastern spice that will be topping my brussels sprouts hash.  Still, I like the idea of my guests suffering through yet another Thanksgiving with me and my brussels sprouts.  Or partaking of suffering gladly, consuming dukkha like there’s no tomorrow.  Chacun à son goût.

All right, enough already.  Speaking of suffering, I’ve got to make a run to the store on this, the day before Thanksgiving, because — ugh — I think I lost my big roaster.

Everyone else can sit back, relax, maybe check out my new column in the Eugene Weekly?  I haven’t seen it yet.  And have a Happy Thanksgiving!

Willamette Valley Hazelnut Dukkha Spice Mix

1/2 cup roasted Willamette Valley hazelnuts

1/2 cup white sesame seeds (taste first — they go rancid quickly)

1 t. whole black peppercorns

1 t. whole coriander

1 t. whole cumin seeds, or 1/2 t. powder

1/2 coarse sea salt

In a stainless steel pan, so you can monitor the color, toast the whole spices over medium heat until lightly colored and smelling fragrant.  Remove and set aside for grinding. Then toast the sesame seeds, watching them very carefully so they don’t burn (and they burn quickly) until golden brown.  Grind the spices in a mortar or spice grinder into coarse pieces.  Combine the salt, ground spices, sesame seeds and hazelnuts in a food processor, and chop coarsely.  Don’t overprocess, or you will get a paste.  You want the mix to be sandy with bigger chunks of hazelnuts.

a hard nut to crack

I’m shelling hazelnuts for next week’s Eugene Weekly column, and I’m as grumpy as can be.  Everything’s irritating me, from the grey sky to the too-umami taste of my soup to my lack of bagel to my cat short-sheeting me to my headache to not enough milk in my coffee to the endless grading I’ve been doing to the irresponsibly thin “article” on local food for Thanksgiving in this week’s Register Guard to my overfull and unreliable freezer to my crappy camera that can’t take pictures of hazelnuts worth a damn.  Why is it that other food bloggers smile dreamily into their lima beans and wax poetic about used napkins without a care in the world?  Hang it all.

So I thought I’d write about the ugly side of Thanksgiving — the week before.

The not-so-fun part: cleaning.  With the busy term, I’ve turned the cleaning largely over to my long-suffering husband, Retrogrouch.  He’s a crack ace at laundry and dishes, but he has a habit of leaving a trail of metaphorical breadcrumbs wherever he goes.  I’ll find a sock on the floor, a shirt on a doorknob, a canning jar and a plastic lid on the counter, fifty-seven cents on top of the TV, two rolls of tape on the washer, a vacuum cleaner in the middle of the living room, a receipt ambiguously autographed with a telephone number on the cutting board, one section of yesterday’s newspaper carefully folded and placed between two bowls on my display shelf.  (He’s going to be mad when he sees this, but my journalistic integrity obliges me to tell the truth, with only a hint of slant.)  So now, my house is bedecked with tidbits and loose ends and doodads, not to mention fear in a handful of dust.

A related task is cleaning out space in the refrigerator and freezer.  Here, I am the doodad whisperer.  A tiny bit of mustard vinaigrette in a Maille jar.  Seven containers full of still-pickling fermented green tomato pickles.  A butt end of gruyere.  A lone farm egg.  Some flat leaves of green sauerkraut awaiting stuffed cabbage experiments.  An Anderson Valley Brewing Company Christmas beer from last year.

The freezer, always stuffed, never working properly, is worse.  A single roll.  A hot dog bun.  An abandoned bag of Quorn.  Three abandoned boxes of fake bacon (and rightly so).  Four slightly freezer-burned t-bones.  A pork roast of dubious origin.  A single tiny tuna fillet.  Three containers of bacon grease.  Two more containers of sauerkraut.  Local black beans and lo! some frozen corn from last year.  Another bag of dried tomatoes.  Two bakery scones, which became my breakfast.  It’s going to be a marvelous dinner, that is, if I ever stop writing this blog post…

The fun part:  buying local foods.  I’ve been storing up winter squash from my CSA to make Squash Whip Queen of Hungary, a lovely purée inspired by medieval Queen of Hungary water (brandy, rosemary oil and sage).  Squashes are beautiful and plentiful this year, so local foodies should turn squashward.

I hope you’ve already ordered your turkey.  Wait…did I?  Oh yes, I did.  Whew.

And don’t forget those potatoes.  In a state that put the Ore in Ore-Ida, we have so many beautiful local tubers, and a variety for those allowed to experiment.  Potatoes were one of our very first white-man crops in Oregon, with records of planting dating back to 1795 near Cape Disappointment (surely named by someone on the Atkins diet) and culminating in the crowning of the “Potato King” in the Willamette Valley in the 1880s.  Can’t make this shit up.

Am I allowed to say ‘shit’ in a food blog?  Sorry.

Green beans.  Did you can or freeze yours?  It was a pretty good season for beans, as good as the corn season was poor.  I dehydrated all my green beans, in an experiment in trying to make a camping version of the Middle Eastern/Mediterranean classic green bean and tomato stew loubiyeh (sp?).  I won’t torture my guests with the results.  If you do have local frozen beans, you can cook them for about 60 seconds in a pressure cooker, and they won’t have that weird bouncy squeak to them when you eat them. A wonderfully simple way to serve them, of course, is with some sauteed local chanterelles or other specialty mushrooms, topped with fried local onions.  It’s almost like that casserole.  Almost.

Corn.  If you were able to freeze some, heat up a knob of salted butter in a frypan, brown a shallot or finely chopped slice of red onion, then add the frozen corn with no extra liquid and a bunch of freshly ground pepper.  The corn will shrivel a bit and brown in parts.  When it is heated through, pour in a glug of Noris Dairy whipping cream, stir well, and remove from the heat.

And pies.  Frozen fruit works well in pies.  I’m thinking of either using up my local boysenberries or my sour cherries.  And those hazelnuts sure would make a beautiful crust.  Then again, I have apples up the wazoo, including some local Cortlands, Empires, Rome Beauties, Melroses and a beautiful King.  Ah, choices.

It’s enough to make a girl stop complaining about being grumpy and go off to do her work!