Huevos rancheros, this way and that
September 25, 2011 § 2 Comments
This is the season of tomatoes and peppers. It’s not in mid-summer on the 4th of July like so many of us want to think (and the same goes for watermelon). In Colorado, late summer and early fall is their time. At the farm we are checking the loaded tomato plants almost every day, and harvesting all colors and sizes of heirloom varieties. I come home with the split ones, or the ones too ripe to sell.
My last roommate lived for several years in Texas, so she gets credit for introducing me to huevos rancheros. After she ditched me to return to The Lone Star State, though, I kind of forgot about making them. Scrounging hungrily through the kitchen several weeks ago, I rediscovered a huge stack of yellow corn tortilla shells. I also had some ends of cheese in the fridge. And eggs. A few peppers on the counter. And oh so many tomatoes! Dinner practically made itself.
So one of my new favorite things is to see what kinds of variations I can make with a base of a lightly fried corn tortilla and a sunny-side-up or over-easy egg or two. You don’t have to follow a recipe; you just look at what you have and mix and match. What do you like? What do you think will taste good to you, on this particular day?
Sometimes I stick with tradition and smother everything in salsa. Often, instead, I saute whatever vegetables I have on hand and spill them overtop, or tuck them off to one side. (Grilled veggies could also be awesome here, if you are lucky enough to have a grill!) Sometimes I add refried beans, extra cheese, sour cream, or fresh slices of tomato and pepper. Almost always I layer something between the tortilla and the egg – arugula, Swiss chard, or a few leaves of basil – along with some grated cheese. (Cheddar is good. Gruyere is better.) Arugula is a definite yes, when I can get it, with its bite so bitter-tangy through the egg and cheese.
If you’re trying to make sure you eat enough greens, you can just put them underneath everything else. Line your plate with romaine, buttercrunch, or rainbow chard. You might even use kale or collards or beet greens if you steam them for awhile first. When you’ve layered and arranged everything as you please, then dig in! And the pretty presentation should turn into a delicious mess. The warm egg yoke and the crispy tortilla and all the other flavors running together make it easy to eat your nutrients. And that, I find, is always a good thing.
At the Farmers’ Market
September 24, 2011 § 1 Comment
When I woke up this morning it was dark. The temperature was 45 degrees and my feet were cold, but a quick glance at weather.com warned me of a high of 85. Tank top underneath three-quarter-length underneath a fleece and out the door with a slice of bread-and-butter.
The sunrise on my way to the farm helps the morning to feel calm for ten minutes. It’s almost always orange, pink, sometimes hazy with blue and purple. How crazy what a difference fifteen minutes makes; most mornings I get to the farm at 7 but the sunrise is done by then. 6:45 and I catch the brilliant tail end.
We load the truck, my co-worker Adam and I, and get to the market to set up in the bright (and I mean bright) morning sun.
And then when we’re finally settled one of us gets Silver Canyon Coffee, and we get to talk and sell to the folks of Longmont and Boulder County. How fun to share the produce of Sol y Sombra Farm – the result of our week’s hard work!
As the day goes on we take turns taking breaks, wandering through to see what we want to buy from other vendors, what we might have for lunch or a mid-morning treat.
The market in Longmont isn’t as packed nor as renowned as the one in Boulder, but it has plenty going for it, including music, seriously remarkable face painting, prepared foods, and space, glorious space. Parking isn’t a headache and elbows aren’t so jostled here. Come see the spread of colorful vegetables, fresh-baked and gluten-free breads, handmade soaps, local flowers, grassfed beef and pastured poultry, pies and teas and roasted chili peppers. But you’d better come early if you want okra!
And the best part? Going home and looking at what you just got from your local farmers and producers. Today, for me (in addition to my usual share from the farm): apples and sourdough and this season’s first pie pumpkin.
Then there’s the fun of playing with ideas for what to make, and whom to share it with. It always makes me glad to see how creativity and community and seasonality come together here.
I’ve got to say thanks to all the vendors and staff at the Boulder County Farmers' Markets. And to those involved in farmers’ markets across the country, both bustling and just-getting-started . . . keep up the good work!
Pattypan chocolate chip bread
September 20, 2011 § 4 Comments
In case you aren’t familiar with this playfully-named vegetable, pattypan, or patty pan, is just another type of summer squash, and can be used pretty much like zucchini or crookneck. It comes in a handful of varieties and can be yellow, yellow and green, white, or greenish white. These squash look remarkably like spaceships. Or jellyfish. Or characters from Pac-Man. (Come on. Your kids have got to get into it.)
At the farm, our greenish-white variety, Benning's Green Tint, has been growing like crazy. So when we had some left at the end of a market day I got to take some home for myself. I made them into soup, stuffed them, tossed them in to sauté with some veggies, but I still had more and they kept sitting there on the counter asking me to do something with them before they went soft.
Since I’ve been craving chocolate – and since my sister’s zucchini chocolate chip bread wouldn’t get out of my head – I threw together what I had and out came this lovely moist bread. Just right when you feel the need for a bit of chocolate in the morning!
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RECIPE
Ingredients:
1.5 cups all-purpose flour
1.5 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/4 tsp. ginger
2 tsp. vanilla
3 eggs
2 cups grated pattypan squash
2 sticks butter (you can reduce it to 1 or 1.5, but I like lots of moisture at this altitude)
10 oz. semi-sweet chocolate chips (again, you could reduce, but I like lots of chocolate!)
Directions:
Mix dry ingredients; mix wet ingredients. Add wet ingredients to dry and stir until everything is moistened. Add chocolate chips. Pour into a greased large loaf pan or two small loaf pans or a muffin tray. In the large loaf pan, bake at 350 degrees for about an hour. Reduce baking time for small loaf pans or muffins (I’d bake for about 30 and 20 minutes respectively). Serve warm with butter for breakfast, or at room-temp for an easy-to-grab afternoon snack.
Muck boot days and flower bouquets
September 16, 2011 § 2 Comments
Goodness gracious, has it been muddy! Three days of clouds and rain. Morning mists, and white wisps hovering around the mountains. It has felt like England. It has meant tea and toast with butter and jam.
It has also meant sliding around in the paddocks with high-strung horses, horses even more eager (read: demanding) to have their food. It has meant mud-caked shoes and wisely switching to muck boots, or wellies. Wellies are great, and it makes me happy when I get to wear mine. But you have to walk rather differently in them, especially when they are heavy with mud on the bottom, and after doing that – while pulling wheelbarrows full of hay or toting buckets full of flowers – for a solid day or so you will end up sore in muscles you didn’t know you had, or at least had forgotten about.
And then you get to go inside and sink into a bath, or stretch out by the fireplace, and let the cold and wet sort of seep out of you. Fleece and wool, sweaters and thick socks. It is only September and yet the rain means I get to drag out and use these favorite things!
I don’t know why what some would call “bad weather” is so often a favorite thing for me. I am completely aware that it means more work. I know it means having to worry about things you otherwise might not. I definitely know it makes more laundry! And it surely upsets the comfort and efficiency of routine.
But isn’t it a relief to have routine upset sometimes? There is just something about having to work around the weather – about having the ordinary course of things thrown off – that I can’t help finding amusing, interesting, and honestly quite satisfying. I suppose some thanks should go to parents who taught my siblings and me to laugh at difficulty and work with the unexpected. After all, that makes it more fun to plow through, if one must plow.
As I write, though, the three days of clouds and water have just passed. After a cold, foggy, coat-hat-and-mittens morning at the farm today, with plenty of sniffling and even a change of socks, I settled with the flowers into the shed to make bouquets, and the sun came out once again. The mountains could be seen blue to the west. The other farm hands and I had slowly been shedding layers all morning; I had to grin a little at going from fleece-lined softshell jacket to tanktop and ponytail in only a few hours. Now in the shade of the shed I was still sweating. Still, at least I had the shade, right?
These Fridays are my flower days, and happily full of color. So many flowers just exude optimism. Others seem more serious, or romantic, or even melancholy, and these can be nice to put together. Cosmos, snapdragons, zinnias, pincushion flowers, bachelor’s buttons, amaranth, love-lies-bleeding, sweet annie, and black-eyed susans have all been gathered into pretty bundles to greet people at the market in the morning. And I’ll be there, too – hopefully with a mug of coffee in hand and a smile more noticeable than my sleepy eyes.
The Black Hills, Part Two: Oh, how we ate!
September 13, 2011 § Leave a comment
I think we dined better over a campfire than I often do in my somewhat well-equipped apartment kitchen. We met up at Spokane Creek Campground and Cabins, nestled in a quiet valley outside of Keystone. Such a peaceful place, with just enough conveniences to keep us comfy. The first day, I’d dozed under a tree and listened to the creek running along behind me, waiting for my family to get there (they all came from the east, while I came from the west) . . . they arrived just before dusk and everyone was hungry!
We had quick happy greetings and then, starving, got dinner started. How nice to stand next to my sister, slicing peppers and summer squash and onion and garlic and hamburger to wrap in aluminum for hobo pies. With sweet corn on the grill. Most of the vegetables were from the CSA my sister and her husband belong to, with some of the squash and the garlic from the farm where I work. I brought raw milk and filled everyone’s blue speckled mugs. We were eating late so darkness crept around us as we buttered the corn and felt happy about being together. My father and brother-in-law set up kerosene lanterns, and we put water over the fire for coffee. A good first dinner. A good sign that we’d be eating well for the week. And so we did.
Breakfast was zucchini chocolate chip bread (courtesy of my sister), sometimes cereal, and gluten-free and buckwheat pancakes. Lunches were buffalo meat, cheese, bread, peaches, plums, apples, crackers. Of course we had s’mores. Peach cobbler in the Dutch oven. Dinners of brats and burgers with a side of beans, and more sweet corn. And more roasted marshmallows. (I will make homemade marshmallows one day. This was not that time, so yes, we had the bad-for-you marshmallows, a little food-sin I can occasionally live with.)
Later, we moved over to a cabin at Palmer Gulch Resort. What a fun place! The electricity was out the first day we were there, though, so we laughed and made shiskabobs over the fire. How entirely delicious. Thanks to E. and J. for their hard work! Thanks to the cabin for having a delightful porch, with a picnic table and stunning view.
One evening after lots of driving and hiking and scrambling over rocks, we ate at a pie shop in a purple-and-pink painted Victorian house, aptly named The Purple Pie Place. Admittedly, the appearance of the building got us three ladies to clamor for going there. Mostly we wanted a good dinner after our day’s long activities, and we got it . . . then split a piece of bumbleberry pie for dessert.
Our last real meal together was a good-fun chuckwagon dinner, at the Circle B Ranch. Mom and Dad went ahead of time, to get on horseback for a South Dakota trail ride. We met up with them later to see the miniature donkeys, the wood carver, the small shops on the Old West street, and then to eat: beef, beans, potatoes, biscuits, peaches, and ginger cake on a tin plate, and coffee and lemonade in tin cups, while the cowboys strummed their guitars and sang to us in rollicking harmonies.
Ah, good food. Good times.
A favorite book on a favorite subject
September 5, 2011 § Leave a comment
As I was writing the previous post, and thinking about good words in the world, I happened to remember this book. It is the book that made me want to try my hand at nonfiction when I was adamantly going to be a young adult fiction writer. I am so glad. This book is written in a way that reminds you of snow falling in a dark night. There is something quietly powerful, quietly beautiful. Read it.
The Rural Life by Verlyn Klinkenborg
Peaches and cream pie
August 13, 2011 § 1 Comment
Last Saturday at the market, I bought a bag of Red Haven organic peaches from Farmer John. I wanted to do something with them, but wanted it to be good, and kept feeling tired or lazy and so they were taken out of the fridge to ripen, then put back in, several times, until I said finally, “All right!”
I found an easy “pie” recipe that actually reminds me a lot of the fruit pizzas that were the thing to have at high school gatherings and graduation parties. I started by looking through the recipe, then went on to make it as I wished, with so many changes it wasn’t the original recipe anymore, after all. (I’m still not entirely convinced that it’s pie and not pizza, but the boundaries are blurry here.)
Here’s an idea: when a recipe calls for a graham cracker crust, try using windmill cookies instead. They are a bit more substantial and can offer a richer flavor. I am sorry to note that the packaged windmill cookies from my local grocery store really, noticeably, do not measure up to the ones at The Dutch Bakery where I worked throughout college. But what can you do? I added some spice.
Miss T. and I both quite like the cream cheese/whipped cream/confectioner’s sugar filling. Throw in some cinnamon and maybe nutmeg and this would also make a nice dip for apples, especially Granny Smith.
How satisfying to layer the peaches on top, pretty as you please.
It is worthwhile to take a moment to appreciate this fruit. Today I bought a flat box full of the same peaches to bring on our upcoming family vacation, and what a pleasure it is to take off the lid and look inside at the golden-red, and to smell the warm sweetness, and to start thinking about tasting it.
***Want the on-the-go or in-a-hurry version of this treat? Make the cream cheese mixture, spread it on a windmill cookie, top it with a couple of peach slices, and you’ve got almost the same thing!
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RECIPE
Ingredients:
2-4 peaches, ripened so they are soft, juicy, and delicious!
16 windmill cookies
1 stick butter
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 (8 oz) package cream cheese
3/4 cup heavy whipping cream
1/2 cup confectioner’s sugar
Directions:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Place windmill cookies in a sealed plastic bag, and crush with a rolling pin until the cookies become crumbs. Pour the crumbs into a medium-sized bowl and stir in the granulated sugar and cinnamon. Melt the butter, and stir into mixture until all crumbs are saturated. Press into a 9″ pie pan and bake for 7-8 minutes, or until edges brown slightly.
Whip the heavy cream until it begins to form peaks. In a separate bowl, beat the cream cheese and confectioner’s sugar until well mixed, then add the whipped cream.
Remove crust from oven and let cool. As it cools, slice the peaches.
When the crust is cool, spread the cream cheese mixture on top of it, being careful not to pull up any loose crumbs from the bottom. Arrange the peach slices on top. Cover and chill for 2-3 hours, then serve.
First giveaway: And the winner is . . .
August 11, 2011 § Leave a comment
For commenting on the PFI/Honeybee post last Thursday, readers got entered into a drawing to win a copy of C. Marina Marchese’s book Honeybee: Lessons from an Accidental Beekeeper.
So I tossed all y’all’s names into a hat.
Closed my eyes and drew one out. Opened it.
And here’s who won:
This lucky winner is actually my best redhead friend. We’ve known each other since college, nannied for the same family, shared our first out-of-college apartment in a suburb of Minneapolis, and have spent our twenties supporting and encouraging each other as we figure out how to be grown-ups (kind of). I’m super grateful for this girl in my life. Renee, congrats! I’ll get the book in the mail to you this week. I hope to hear reports on how the honey lip balm turns out.
Height of summer lamb stew
August 11, 2011 § 2 Comments
Around here, everyone is getting ready for school to start. Most elementary and high schools started this week or will start next week, and the colleges commence their fall semesters soon after. This suggests that summer is over, and it feels like it as families scramble for a few last weekends in the mountains and kids schedule final playdates at the pool. According to the calendar, though, we still have another good month. And in the vegetable farming world, we are hitting peak season. This is not the end but rather the middle of things, and now tomatoes and peppers and summer squash and beans are coming into full production. Pumpkins and winter squash are putting on some color. Second plantings of peas and lettuces are going in the ground. There is still plenty – plenty to be eaten, plenty of time.
I’ve been craving meat these days, and my grocery bill shows it. Even on hot summer days, you sometimes want something hearty. I have been getting so much Swiss chard from the farm, so I decided some lamb stew meat and chard and onions and crooked neck squash might simmer well together.
Garlic and butter make so many things taste richer. I dug the garlic, and also snipped rosemary and basil from the farm last week. Came home smelling like a soup sachet.
I frequently worry about broth tasting dull, and wondered as I threw things together if I ought to have used vegetable stock. It turns out that I needn’t have worried. I immensely enjoy a good broth and it turns out I can make one, too!
The stew was exactly what I had been craving. This morning I woke up next to an open window, and I felt – gasp – cold! Nights have been hot in the apartment but now and then a good rain cools things down and there is the slightest briskness of fall in the air. A summer stew becomes just the thing.
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RECIPE (loosely, as I really did toss things together as I pleased):
Ingredients:
Lamb stew meat (approx a pound)
1-2 Tbs. olive oil
1 stick butter
1-2 yellow or crooked neck squash
1 large or two small red onions
15 leaves Swiss chard
several cloves of garlic
2-3 bay leaves
1-2 sticks rosemary
7-10 leaves of fresh basil
1-2 tsp. of cumin, to taste
1/2 lemon
salt & pepper to taste
water
Directions:
Brown the lamb in olive oil with several cloves of garlic, in a skillet on medium heat. Meanwhile, place butter, onions (sliced into rings), and minced or crushed garlic in a large pot and bring to simmer; heat until onions become clear. Add meat to butter and onions, add about six cups of water, and add rosemary, bay leaves, salt, pepper, and cumin. Add more garlic if you wish – minced, crushed or whole cloves. Let simmer for about 30 minutes. Slice the Swiss chard into 1-inch strips. Add the chard, squash, and basil, and squeeze in the juice from the half lemon. Let simmer until the chard and squash have softened and the meat is tender. I’d recommend tasting the broth periodically and adjusting seasonings as you wish – I found I liked quite a bit of salt and pepper in mine. This would also be good with potatoes added.
Me gustan los tomatillos
August 6, 2011 § Leave a comment
Aren’t they the cutest? If you haven’t grown tomatillos before, one of the fun things about them is how they start out like balloons. Or like those paper lanterns you hang for outdoor parties (something I plan to do frequently when the farm happens). Then the airy center gets all filled in with the tomatillo, and you peel off the paper part to get to the edible good stuff inside.
Salsa verde may be on the schedule for this week!
***Don’t forget to check out the farmer/beekeeper post prior to this one, and be sure to comment if you’d like a chance to win C. Marina Marchese’s book, Honeybee: Lessons from an Accidental Beekeeper! You don’t have to want to keep bees to enjoy the book – it’s also just a great read with sweet recipes and nutrition information for honey lovers.
Kinds of Honey 