Slow Food Junior

Free Lemons and Hints of Spring

2010-02-19T12:06:00.000-08:00

Someone dropped a small brown paper bag full of lemons on our porch the other day. Who? I have no idea. There wasn't a name or a note. Just a bag of lemons. I'm guessing it was one of our neighbors but I'm not positive. Anyway, it was a nice thing to do, and it was a nice surprise to find a bag of local Alameda lemons on the porch.

It made me wish I had a lemon tree and I could drop bags of lemons on unsuspecting neighbors. It also got me thinking about all the fruit and vegetables it would be possible to grow in the city of Alameda (or any city really). What if every yard had a fruit tree or two and some rows of vegetables? Oh to dream...

I swear I am seeing more and more vegetables being grown. I have noticed many houses in Alameda with little vegetable plots tucked into their front yard. Who knows how many countless houses have them in the back yard.

I was riding my bike the other week when I noticed a house that had chard and kale growing right in the front yard. No formal beds or anything, just chard and kale growing with other plants. They even had a large artichoke plant right there in their front yard. All the other houses on the block had tidy little lawns and hedges, but here was this one house just growing some vegetables in the front yard. Very cool.

As far as my own backyard growing goes, the Santa Rosa plum tree has exploded with delicate white blossoms and I've been weeding the vegetable boxes. I have some lettuce, spinach and chard that I'm going to put in the ground soon.

Vegetarian Farmer's Market Curry

2010-02-05T18:05:00.000-08:00

Curry isn't something I make often. In fact, I don't remember the last time I made it. Actually, I'm not sure I've ever made it! ha. Well, I had a lot of veggies from the farmer's market the other day, so I adapted a recipe to what I had:

Carrots, cauliflower, onions, garlic, broccoli and spinach

The recipe was from the cookbook Quick Vegetarian Pleasures by Jeanne Lemlin. It's a decent cookbook that I use on occasion. This Vegetable Curry started out with a flavor base of onions, garlic, and ginger sauteed until golden brown in butter. I then added the many spices. A minute or so later I put in one can of coconut milk, chick-peas and the assorted vegetables from the farmer's market. I later added some raisins and I thought it made the curry a lot better (I usually taste food often while I am cooking). The curry made a delicious dinner over a bed of rice and there were lots of leftovers so I got multiple meals out of it!

Up close

The final dish

Ode to the Watermelon Radish

2010-02-03T13:06:00.000-08:00

At the farmer's market there was a small box of odd vegetables sitting prettily between all the others at this vegetable booth. The box of tennis ball sized, pale green orbs with rosy pink centers (a few had been cut open to demonstrate the inner color) caught my eye as I wandered through the booths. I was drawn to them like a honey bee to a lavender bush. There was a small hand-written sign above the little box that read, "Watermelon Radish". I had seen these radishes before at another farmer's market, but I didn't buy any because I am not a huge radish fan. Well today I thought I would give it a go. They were definitely unique looking... maybe they would taste better too... only one way to find out... So along with the other vegetables I bought from this booth, I bought a watermelon radish. Yes, a watermelon radish. I bought one.

When I got home, I immediately took out my one watermelon radish, and cut it. Just like the ones that had been cut open at the market, this one had the same stunning pink center. The person who decided to call this variety of radish a "watermelon radish" didn't have to think very hard to come up with the name for upon opening it you immediately think, "Aha! This thing resembles a watermelon."

Enough about how it looks. How does it taste? It turns out that it tastes quite good, at least in my opinion. Unlike the radishes with a red outside and white inside that have a sort of earthy and simultaneously peppery taste, this radish was much milder. Less pepper and less dirt (there, I said it. I think radishes sort of taste like dirt and "earthy" is just a nice way of saying it).

As for what I did with these nice slices of watermelon radish... I made a sandwich. Yes, a radish and butter sandwich. I had also bought a sourdough baguette at the farmer's market. I cut off a nice sized piece of that, cut it in half, spread a thin layer of organic butter on each side, layered thin slices of radish, sprinkled some course salt on it, and voilá! A radish butter sandwich.

I actually didn't come up with this combination myself. I remembered reading something about it in Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking For Everyone. In fact, I just looked up the little recipe for it, and she doesn't call them sandwiches, she calls them "canapés," which according to her book are:

"old-fashioned cocktail or tea sandwiches of bread buttered or covered with a spread and topped with fresh vegetables like cucumbers and radishes, sprigs of herbs, or grated vegetable salads. Despite their fifties image, canapés achieve a contemporary feeling of freshness and flavor without being filling."

It was indeed fresh tasting and delicious. In fact, I had it for lunch two days in a row. I think next time I come across them I will definitely be buying more than one watermelon radish.

Food, Inc: A Fascinating Film

2010-01-25T21:34:00.000-08:00

I just watched the film Food, Inc. I have been meaning to check it out for a while, and I finally did. Apparently quite a few people have been seeing it here in Alameda because Blockbuster only had one darn copy left! The lady at the counter said that a lot of people were renting it. Not a bad thing by any means.

First off, if you didn't know it already, this is a documentary. I think that for a lot of people, especially around my age, the word "documentary" is often seen as synonymous with "boring." Well not this documentary! Unlike some I have seen it was quite well done and moved at a good pace.

Although Food, Inc. covers many aspects of our modern food industry, I think it really excels at showing footage and facts on the meat industry. That is what stood out most in my mind. This might be because I have read Michael Pollan's book, The Omnivore's Dilemma, and it talked a lot about corn and soybeans. Basically, I didn't find the parts in Food, Inc. on those crops as shocking as the parts on the animals. I think that this movie is great because it shows us, not just tells us in writing, where our food is being produced and what some of the consequences are.

Both Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser (author of Fast Food Nation) are featured in this movie. I thought Michael Pollan summed up our food system well when at one point in the movie he said:

"We have had a food system that has been dedicated to the single virtue of efficiency. So we grow a very small number of crops, a very small number of varieties, [controlled by] a very small number of companies. And, even though you achieve efficiencies, the system becomes more and more precarious. You will have a breakdown eventually."

Pollan makes an excellent point, because when you focus so intently on efficiency (which is directly related to profit for these large agribusiness companies), the system will eventually have a breakdown. When profit is the sole motive, companies (and stockholders in these companies) want to see profit now. They aren't worrying if these methods will be viable, five, twenty, even one hundred years down the road.

I'm going to try and convince both my parents to watch it before it is returned to Blockbuster and I highly recommend you watch it too. Here's the trailer for the movie.

Book Review 1: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

2010-01-21T15:19:00.000-08:00

Part of what inspired my passion for locally grown food, sustainable agriculture, and more broadly, food that is good for people and the planet, has been reading books on this subject. I have decided to do a project where I write posts about some of the books that really inspired me or taught me in some way. Of course I am focusing on just the books that have to do with food.

Book Review Number One:

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

By Barbara Kingsolver

This is the book that sparked my passion. Barbara Kingsolver is a clear, interesting and witty author. This book documents the struggles and rewards of her family eating only "locally grown" food for a whole year. Essentially they try and eat as much food grown in t

heir backyard and on neighboring farms. Her family lives in rural Virginia and has a large garden, their own chickens, and eventually their own turkeys. Her description of trying to get the turkeys to mate was hilarious.

In the book there are recipes and meal plans written by Kingsolver's teenage daughter, Camille Kingsolver. These provided insight into the seasonal changes in the food they ate and it also gave a teenage perspective on the challenges the family faced. I found this part particularly interesting since I am around Camille's age. Barbara Kingsolver's husband, Steven Hopp also wrote blurbs with facts about our current food system and other information.

Overall, I learned a lot from this book. It was very entertaining and inspiring to read. I would highly recommend it.

The Hibernation Ends

2010-01-21T14:58:00.000-08:00

Well, it has been quite a while since I last posted anything. In fact, it has been so long that I actually forgot my username for my blogger account. Lame? Yes, I would say so. Luckily it didn't take me terribly long to find the right combination.

Why has it been so long since the last post? I could come up with many reasons. None of them all that good. Yes, I was busy, I had some big essays to write and lots college application related stuff. In fact it felt like I was doing a lot of writing. Maybe that is my excuse, that all my writing energy was going into writing essays for classes and for college apps. Well, now the college apps are all in and I am only taking science / math courses at community college this semester. Which means... I should have lots of writing energy to expend on this blog!

Although I have not posted recently, I have had multiple ideas for posts bouncing around in the back of my head. Hopefully I'll actually be turning those ideas into actual posts!

This is actually a rather pointless post other than to say that I AM BACK. My blog was in hibernation, like a big bear, and it now wakes from its sleep.

Side note: January 2010 marks the one year mark since I started this blog. Slow Food Junior is now 1.

Red, Green and RAW

2009-10-19T09:49:00.000-07:00

October makes me think of orange, gold, brown, purple and deep red. This Farmer's market trip ended up having a red and green theme which was sort of random. It reminded me of Christmas. Just so you know, this color theme was not done on purpose! It just... well it just happened.

See for yourself:

Apples, red bell peppers, grapes, raspberries, garlic, pears, strawberries, basil, chard, squash, fresh bread and raw milk. Yum.

Even though it's October those strawberries were amazing. I wonder if they were a second crop of strawberries? I know our strawberry plants produced two "crops," one in May/June and one in late September.

Most exciting new booth at the Alameda Farmer's market: Organic Pastures!!! This is the coolest thing that I have come across in quite a while. Organic Pastures is a locally operated dairy whose cows are grass fed. The best part is that all their dairy products are RAW. This milk is incredible. I had seen it at (and bought it from) natural grocery stores in the area, but not at the farmer's market!! I'm pretty sure it's cheaper at the farmer's market (no middle-man) and there are more choices. I would definitely give their milk a try if you are okay with drinking raw dairy. Check out their website for more info.

Front Yard Harvest

2009-10-06T14:22:00.000-07:00

I have a thing for odd fruits and and vegetables. There's something about the intriguing names of heirlooms and the nonconformist look of these old-fashioned varieties that is fascinating. Not only do I adore heirlooms, I also like rare and dare I say, weird veggies and fruits. I am drawn to them the way a moth gravitates towards a light on a dark night.

In front of my house, on the slim strip of earth between the sidewalk and the street sit four quince trees. Odd? Indeed.

The quince is not an easily eaten fruit. Although it is in the same family as the apple, it is not something that can be bitten into and enjoyed because it is hard and bitter. Because of this, my family never used the quince. Once, we had a nice lady knock on our door and ask if she could pick some of the quince, my mom said, "go for it, take as many as you like."

Last year, as my interest in cooking, local food and the Slow Food Movement grew, I decided I would use the quince. After all, how hard could it really be? I remembered seeing a few recipes in my Deborah Madison cookbook so I decided what the heck.

I decided to poach the quince in water and sugar. This brought out their unique taste and turned them that rosy coral pink. Doing this also made the quince sweet enough to eat. I will admit I found the taste and texture a bit odd. But, I did make an apple and quince crisp that was quite delicious. I also made a tart of quinces, apples, and pears. When combined with these other fruits the quince flavor was more subtle.

From what I have found, quince seem to have a few main uses:

1. Quince Jelly

2. Quince Butter (similar to apple butter)

3. An addition to applesauce

4. Chutney

5. An interesting addition to apple and/or pear desserts

6. Quince syrup

Right about now, early October, is when our quince ripen on the trees. When quince are ripe, they turn a golden yellow and have a very flowery perfumed scent. I just picked them this afternoon and a think I have a few pounds of quince sitting in the kitchen.

Now the question is what will I make with them this year?

Labor Day Eat-In

2009-09-20T09:37:00.000-07:00

Slow Food USA has been pushing a new campaign called "Time for Lunch." The idea is to get schools to serve kids real food. Our food system needs to be overhauled, and starting with the food that the government feeds kids in schools in an excellent place to start.

As part of the Time for Lunch campaign, on Labor Day, there were "Eat-Ins" organized by Slow Food members and held all over the country. My friend Anna and I went to the one here in Alameda at Franklin Park. It was a potluck so we brought a baguette from the Feel Good Bakery and some Humboldt Fog Cheese from Farmstead Cheeses and Wines. The weather on Labor Day was gorgeous, so we rode our bikes over to the park. Often times food can be hit or miss when there are potlucks. Well, not at this potluck! Practically every dish I tried was absolutely delicious!

From the Slow Food website:

The National School Lunch Program provides a meal to more than 30 million children every school day.

By giving schools the resources to serve real food, we can grant 30 million children the freedom to be healthy. By teaching children to eat well, we can make a down payment on health care reform. By providing children with locally grown fruits and vegetables, we can support local farmers and create green jobs in our communities. By purchasing local food, we can stop wasting oil on transportation and start curbing global warming. By raising children who enjoy real food, we can start laying the foundation for America's future prosperity.

This fall, the Child Nutrition Act, which is the bill that governs the National School Lunch Program, is up for reauthorization in Congress. By passing a Child Nutrition Act that works for children, our nation can take the first step towards a future where no child is denied his or her right to be healthy and where every child enjoys real food.

That’s why it’s time for Congress and the Obama Administration to:

1. INVEST IN CHILDREN’S HEALTH.

Give schools just one dollar more per day for each child’s lunch.

2. PROTECT AGAINST FOODS THAT PUT CHILDREN AT RISK.

Establish strong standards for all food sold at school, including food from vending machines and

school fast food.

3. TEACH CHILDREN HEALTHY HABITS THAT WILL LAST THROUGH LIFE.

Fund grants for innovative Farm to School programs and school gardens.

4. GIVE SCHOOLS THE INCENTIVE TO BUY LOCAL.

Establish financial incentives that encourage schools to buy food from local farms for all child

nutrition programs.

5. CREATE GREEN JOBS WITH A SCHOOL LUNCH CORPS.

Train underemployed Americans to be the teachers, farmers, cooks, and administrators our

school cafeterias need.

More details can be found here.

Slow Food USA has an online petition that has been signed by 21,868 people so far. It only takes a minute to sign it. If you believe in what is trying to be accomplished by this campaign please go and sign the petition here.

Anna at the Eat-In

Enjoying my delicious plate of food

August Meeting - Fantastic Fruit Crisps and Cobblers

2009-09-20T09:21:00.000-07:00

For the August meeting we focused on Summer Fruit desserts. I rode my bike to the Old Oakland Friday farmers market that morning and bought lots of fruit. My messenger bag was heavier and fuller than it is when I carry my books to school. It was a full load!

The blackberries and raspberries

We had blackberries, raspberries, white nectarines, yellow nectarines and peaches. I let everyone figure out what type of crisp and cobbler they wanted to make. They came to the agreement of having a blackberry and raspberry crisp and a nectarine and raspberry cobbler.

Preparing the fruit

Smile!

Layers of white and yellow nectarines

The raspberry and nectarines all ready to have the cobbler dough put on top

Out of the oven with a nice golden brown cobbler topping

Mariah showing off the lovely crisp topping

Mixing the berries with the sugar

Ready to go in the oven

Chester stirring the custard for the ice cream

To go along with our fruit desserts we made cinnamon ice cream. Instead of simply putting the cream, sugar and flavoring into the ice cream maker, we made a custard based ice cream. This means that there are egg yolks in it and we make a custard as the base of the ice cream. This produces a smoother and creamier ice cream. It also takes a little more work. But in the end it is worth it! To make the cinnamon we steeped a couple of cinnamon sticks in the cream before we used it. This produces a subtle cinnamon flavor. This technique can be used for other flavors as well. For example, it is possible to make an incredible mint chocolate chip (or simply mint) ice cream by steeping fresh mint leaves in the cream (this even gives the ice cream a slight natural green tint).

The final creamy, cold and delicious product

A little runny, but delicious none the less!

Picture perfect berry crisp

Julie and Julia

2009-08-08T00:06:00.000-07:00

This evening I went to see the new "foodie" movie, "Julie and Julia." It was very well done and I definitely enjoyed it. It made me realize that I knew very little about Julia Child, although she has been a huge figure in the American culinary scene of past generations. I guess I am a little bit young to have seen the influence she had on home-cooking in the United States.

I think the two cookbook authors whom I have truly learned how to cook from, have been Deborah Madison and Alice Waters. Their cookbooks are my bibles.

Michael Pollan wrote a wonderful article talking about the influence Julia Child had and how she was different from the current chefs who are on the Food Network nowadays. I found it rather eye-opening.

Now I've just been meaning to get a hold of The Art of French Cooking...

The Summer Garden

2009-08-06T11:48:00.000-07:00

I just got back from vacation up in Oregon. When I went outside to look at the garden, I saw that the tomatoes had been growing and ripening like crazy while I was away. I picked a whole basket of the cherry tomatoes and there were still lots left on the plants. There's also a zucchini growing on the zucchini plant, with some more blossoms around it.

Orange orbs bursting with flavor

So many deliciously sweet tomatoes!

The Big Ones

Box o' Tomatoes

The Lonely Zucchini

Squash Blossoms

Chives

The tomato harvest (with mint and thyme in the background)

With all these delicious tomatoes, I knew I needed to make something for dinner that really highlighted the fresh picked sweetness of these pizza. What better way than a homemade pizza!

This is one of my favorite pizzas, the recipe is from Deborah Madison's, Vegetarian Cooking For Everyone. It's called "Zucchini Pizza with Cherry Tomatoes and Goat Cheese." It has zucchini and fresh mozzarella, and then you make a mixture of of the sliced cherry tomatoes with a little garlic, basil, olive oil, salt and pepper. This is sprinkled on top and then you sprinkle goat cheese (feta cheese works as well). As soon as it comes out of the oven you sprinkle more fresh basil and brush the crust with garlic olive oil. The crust is simply a home made pizza dough of whole wheat / white flour. It's very thin and crispy. What really makes this pizza special is the freshly picked, homegrown, tomatoes.

That night's dinner: Pizza!

July Ravioli Making

2009-08-05T13:40:00.001-07:00

Any type of pasta is good, ravioli just happens to be one of the best. Especially when the pasta dough is made by hand and the filling is made from scratch. Then raviolis become absolutely amazing. Our July meeting took place at Tricia and Lily's house (in their lovely kitchen). Tricia taught everyone her tips and tricks of how to make excellent pasta dough and ravioli. We had a smaller group than usual, but this simply meant more hands-on time.

Making the dough. Lily slowly incorporates the egg into the flour.

The trick here is to not lot the eggs escape from the nest of flour before they are mixed in.

Ingrid making the ricotta and herb filling.

Vivi chopping basil for the ravioli filling.

Ta da! The filling, all ready to go into the ravioli.

Vivi and Chester rolling out the dough with the hand cranked pasta maker.

Showing off a nicely rolled, thin layer of pasta dough!

One of the coolest tools ever, the ravioli mold. Put one layer of pasta dough, then the filling, then cover with the second layer of dough, go over it with a rolling pin, and voila! One dozen ravioli have been made.

Makin' the raviolis.

Raviolis ready to be cooked!

The tomato sauce we made to go on our ravioli. This was some of the most amazing tomato sauce ever. I learned that to make authentic tomato sauce like they make in Italy, you need a food mill, and after the sauce has been cooking for a while, you run it all through the food mill and it ends up having an amazingly smooth texture.

Ravioli with a butter, cream and parmesan cheese sauce.

The ravioli with tomato sauce and a garnish of fresh basil.

Enjoying the meal!

I really want to give Tricia a big thank you for helping out with this meeting and hosting it at her house!

Alameda Plum Ice Cream

2009-08-05T12:01:00.000-07:00

I'm not a huge fan of ice cream. Especially the kind that can be bought in stores. It's too sweet and has too many additives. Generally I lean towards sorbets when it comes to frozen treats. It does not weigh you down like ice cream. However, homemade ice cream is a treat that should be had every once in a while.

On a rare Alameda day that actually felt like summer (as in, it was pretty hot out) I happened to have heavy cream in the fridge and I felt like making a dessert. I decided to make some ice cream. Only a few months ago, did I even learn that my mom actually owned an ice cream maker. I followed the recipe in Alice Water's "The Art of Simple Food."

As Alice says, "Ice Cream is universally loved -- and homemade ice cream right off the dasher is the most desirable ice cream of all. There are basically two versions. The first is simply sweetened and flavored cream, frozen. The second is a frozen custard made with sweetened cream and egg yolks, which produces a richer, smoother ice cream."

I followed the recipe for the custard style. I did a variation on the recipe, using plums instead of strawberries. These plums were very small, rather tart plums that weren't that great for eating on their own. They were off of someones plum tree here in Alameda, because my mom picked them up off of Stephanie's porch through the Alameda Fruit Exchange.

I pitted the plums and then heated them over the stove with some sugar. After this, I pureed them in the food processor. I then made the custard/cream mixture and let it cool. Once it was cool, I added in the pureed plums. I put the mixture in the ice cream maker and let it work its magic!

The ice cream turned out just right, sweet, but with some natural tartness from the plums, and very creamy. It was delicious. It was a pale peachy orange color with flecks of red. It was so rich that it took a very small amount to completely satisfy.

The final product

Pizza and Fro Yo

2009-07-07T09:34:00.000-07:00

Making homemade pizza is a lot of fun. It's relatively easy and there are many imaginative ways to top a pizza. For our May meeting, Tricia was kind enough to make some of her delicious sourdough pizza dough for us (it's a dough like the one used at the Cheeseboard or Arizmendi).

So much of pizza making is in the prep. Vegetables need to be chopped, cheese needs to be grated and cut, hard vegetables need to be precooked, sauce needs to be made, and herbs need to be picked and chopped.

Ingrid chopping mushrooms

Vivi roasting bell peppers

Mariah and Vivi removing the charred skin from the peppers

Lily picking some herbs for her pizza

One of the most important things when making a good homemade pizza is having a pizza stone for the oven. By pre-heating the oven for half an hour at 500 degrees with the pizza stone in it, the pizza will have a crisp crust without overcooking the toppings. A pizza peel is also helpful in getting the pizza into and out of the oven. I use a fine cornmeal to keep the dough from sticking to the peel. There's nothing worse than having a pizza covered in toppings and ready to go into the oven, only to discover that one part of the dough is stuck to the peel.

Homemade pizza sauce

Before
After

This meeting everyone got creative. We split into a few different groups. Each group brainstormed until they came up with a satisfactory combination of toppings for their pizza.

There were three completely different pizzas that we made. One was a pizza with no sauce, fresh mozzarella with feta, herbs and olive oil. Another was a combination of tomato sauce, roasted peppers, caramelized onions, mozzarella, feta, and basil. The last pizza was more along the lines of a traditional margarita pizza with tomato sauce, fresh mozzarella, and basil. This last pizza had a little bit of a disaster when it was being moved from the pizza stone onto the pan. It broke and the cheese and sauce slid and it became a saucy-cheesy mess. It still tasted good though!

As soon as the pizza is removed from the oven, it is sprinkled with fresh herbs and the crust is brushed with and olive oil and garlic mixture.

Not only did we make pizza during this meeting, we made frozen yogurt as well. I happen to be a huge fan of the trend of "tart" frozen yogurts such as the stuff they sell at Tuttimelon here in Alameda. It's tangy and sweet at the same time. In one of my recent Sunset magazines they had a recipe on how to make a similar tart frozen yogurt. The recipe called for only two ingredients: plain nonfat yogurt and sugar. Mix them together and put them in the ice cream maker. Easy? Definitely.

The article recommended using a very high quality yogurt with no additives, so we used the nonfat Straus European style yogurt. Actually, I think it was the nonfat plain european style yogurt from Trader Joes's. (Interesting little side note: When I went to Slow Food Nation in SF last year, I talked to the guy at the Straus Creamery booth and he said that the plain European style yogurt at Trader Joe's is actually Straus yogurt. But only the plain nonfat and whole fat European style ones.)

Holding a dish of fro yo with cherry sauce

A few days before the meeting I had went out to Brentwood with my mom and my friend Ruth to pick cherries. We had two paper grocery bags almost full of cherries. So at cooking club we made a cherry sauce for the frozen yogurt (fro yo). The sauce was simply pitting the cherries and cutting them in half, and then sauteeing them over medium high heat with some sugar until the sugar caramelized a bit and the cherries released some of their juice.

Standing in front of a tree laden with cherries

The cherry sauce

Strawberry Perfection

2009-05-14T18:14:00.000-07:00

A perfectly ripe strawberry is a beautiful experience. The moment the red fruit enters the mouth, the sweet, tangy sensations are heavenly. My english class at College of Alameda had a potluck on Tuesday, and I brought strawberries fresh from the Webster St. farmer's market. People in my class kept asking who brought them and remarking how sweet they were. I couldn't agree more. It seems as though, so far this May, local strawberries have been incredible.

Speaking of strawberries... The strawberry plants in our backyard have been busy turning the sun and rain we've had into delicate little berries. I say delicate because if there were a strawberry sizing scale, these would be on the petite end of it.

Fava Beans: Past and Present

2009-05-12T10:51:00.000-07:00

Fava beans. This name cracks me up. Just say the words "fava beans" five times out loud and see if it doesn't sound funny. Apparently they are also known as "broad beans," but I've always heard the name "fava beans" used.

The fava bean is a very old bean. It's an old world food. Meaning it originated in Europe/the Middle East. In fact, it fed the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans. This is a bean that was cultivated and eaten by entire ancient civilizations. It was also the only bean known to the old world before the discovery of the Americas. Yet today, the fava bean doesn't seem to be all that popular. I can't even remember when the last time was that I cooked up something with fava beans.

Enough with the history lessons. The reason I'm writing about fava beans is because we got some fresh ones in our farm box. I wasn't going to let 'em go to waste so I had to make something out of them. I made a fava bean puree. It's ingredients are simple, fava beans, olive oil, garlic, rosemary, salt and pepper.

First I took the beans out of the pods.

Then, I blanched them in a pot of boiling water, just for a bit. When the skins were loosened I took them out and popped them out of the tough skins.

Next, I put them on the stove with some olive oil, sliced garlic, and a sprig of rosemary from the garden. This is when they started smelling good!

Out of the pot.

When the beans were nice and tender, I took 'em out and mashed them up with two forks (and added a bit more olive oil to make the puree smoother). Season with salt and pepper.

Final step: Spread on crackers and eat!

Roasted Asparagus and Carrots

2009-04-21T18:30:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite farmer's markets has to be the Grand Lake market over in Oakland. It takes place on Saturday's. The variety of produce is phenomenal. There are tons of booths - you name it, they have it (as long as it's in season of course!) This past Saturday I was lucky enough to make it over. One thing I always like to look for is "different" or "unique" produce. Well this week it was in the form of purple carrots. Kind of strange, but I figured what the heck, they at least look kinda cool... Would they taste as good as their orange counterparts? I got a bunch of the regular ones to compare.

Well a few days went by and those carrots were still sittin' in the fridge. It also just so happened that we had a bunch of fresh asparagus. This asparagus season I discovered one of the most delicious ways to eat asparagus is simply roasted in the oven. The trick is to peel the skin off the stalks before you roast them. They become incredibly juicy and delicious. With all these carrots and asparagus, why not roast them together? Here's how I did it:

First off, cut about a half inch from the bottom of the asparagus and cut off all but an inch of the carrot tops (I think they're more fun to eat this way). Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Rinse the vegetables well. Peel the skin from the carrots and the from the asparagus stocks (not near the top where they are pointy).

The washed and peeled veggies

Toss the carrots and asparagus with olive oil. Use just enough to lightly coat the vegetables (they shouldn't be dripping in oil). Toss with salt to taste. The marjoram in my herb garden has gotten gigantic recently so I chopped up the leaves from two sprigs and tossed it with the vegetables as well.

After being tossed with the oil and salt they're ready to go into the oven

Spread your vegetables on baking sheets and roast until tender. It's ok if the outsides brown a bit. The length of times depends on the thickness of your vegetables. Mine took about 20-25 minutes. If the vegetables are not of the same thickness, have one pan with skinnier ones and one with the larger ones, this way you can remove a pan and they should all be done at the same time.

Hot out of the oven and ready to eat!

Yum. And in case you were wondering, the purple ones were tasty, but the orange carrots were definitely sweeter.

Backyard Garden Photos

2009-03-31T21:58:00.000-07:00

To make up for the utter lack of photos in my last post, I took some photos of my backyard garden. Enjoy!

Chard and Lettuce

Strawberry Plants

Santa Rosa Plum Tree

Our brand new Meyer Lemon Tree

March Meeting Risotto-fest

2009-03-31T20:48:00.000-07:00

This time I was able to go to the farmer's market the morning of the meeting for some super fresh produce. I went to a farmer's market which I had never been to, the Old Oakland Friday market. I believe it's from 8am to 2pm and it's right off of Broadway on 9th. It's a rather large market and definitely bigger than the Alameda Tuesday one. It's right near Chinatown, so there were many booths with asian greens which, I have to admit, I have no clue as to what a lot of them were. Some of the other things at the market were; asparagus, citrus (including some very large pomelos), apples, leeks, green garlic, and STRAWBERRIES! Yes, it's official. We are now moving into strawberry season. Of course I had to buy three baskets of organically grown, shiny, stunning red strawberries. I ate a few (yes, they tasted as good as they looked) and saved the rest for the meeting.

On to the meeting! The focus was risotto. I don't mean one type of risotto, we made three different types. Risotto seems like something fancy, or something that we eat in restaurants, and yet, it is incredibly simple to make at home. The basic idea is that you sauté an onion in butter until it is soft and translucent. Then you add the Arborio rice (this is the most commonly available variety for risotto) and cook for about 4 minutes (careful not to let it brown). Then you pour in some dry white wine and cook until the rice has absorbed it all. Next, pour in 1 cup of warm chicken broth and cook at a vigorous simmer, stirring fairly often. When the rice absorbs the broth, simply add more broth by the 1/2 cup until the rice is tender. It takes about 20-30 minutes in all and right when it's just about done you add in a bit more butter (or cream) and Parmesan cheese and stir vigorously to develop the starch.

We spent the first part of the meeting prepping vegetables and herbs for the three different types of risotto. You're probably wondering what the heck these three different types are! We made an Asparagus Lemon risotto, a Leek and Green Garlic Risotto, and a Parsley and Green Pea risotto. We split into three groups, with each group making one type of risotto.

When the risottos were done cooking we sat down to eat. Chester took a vote of which risotto everyone liked best... The Leek and Green Garlic came in first place, the Asparagus Lemon came in a close second, and the poor Parsley and Green Pea risotto came in last. Most people felt this one tasted much too strongly of parsley. I think my favorite was the Asparagus Lemon. It was delicious.

After we finished the risotto it was time for dessert. All three baskets of strawberries had been sliced and we had made whipped cream by hand. I think this is one of the best and easiest ways to enjoy fresh strawberries. Simply a dessert cup of strawberries with a dollop (or mountain if you like) of lightly sweetened whipped cream. Apparently everyone else thought this was a good way to eat strawberries as well, because there was not a single piece of strawberry left over and the bowl was scraped clean!

Now you might have noticed that there are not many pictures in this post and there is not a single one of the food. It is because we didn't take any! You must be thinking, what?!? How did she not take any pictures of all this good food? I confess that I was so caught up in the flurry of cooking that I forgot to take any, and I also forgot to have other people take pictures. I do apologize and I will make sure there are LOTS of picture from next month's meeting.

Spring Risotto, Potatoes and Herbs

2009-03-26T20:39:00.000-07:00

There has been some wonderful asparagus coming into season and with that in mind we are going to make an asparagus and lemon risotto at this month's meeting. If I end up going to the farmer's market tomorrow morning, we might make a second type of risotto as well... Possibly a pea risotto? Or maybe a leek and green garlic risotto? At any rate, we will definitely learn how to make some yummy risotto with some of the lovely spring produce that has been appearing.

My backyard garden has also been loving the alternating rain and somewhat warm weather we have been having. This means the parsley, marjoram, rosemary, and thyme have all been growing profusely. There's a good chance we will make roasted new potatoes with garlic and herb. At any rate, we will be using lot's of fresh herbs at tomorrow's meeting!

Speaking of backyard (or frontyard) gardens, for quite some time now, there has been a campaign going on to encourage the president to plant a vegetable garden in a part of the White House lawn. This garden would be similar to the victory garden that Eleanor Roosevelt planted during World War II, which inspired millions of Americans to do the same. Well, great news! This past week Michelle Obama and a group of schoolchildren from a Washington D.C. school, broke ground on the new White House kitchen garden! I even heard that they plan on having a White House beehive! How cool is that?

At tomorrow's meeting we will discuss why growing your own food (even in the tiniest of gardens) is good for the environment, saving money, eating healthily and having delicious produce at your fingertips!

Here's a neat video about the campaign for the White House vegetable garden:

Blue Potatoes

2009-03-01T16:02:00.000-08:00

I got into a cooking frenzy last night and one of the things I made was these Peruvian Blue Potatoes. I roasted them with whole garlic cloves, thyme, rosemary, salt, pepper, and olive oil. Oh my god they were good!

February Meeting

2009-03-01T12:39:00.000-08:00

This month's meeting grew by two people. There were eight of us total. Quite a few budding young chefs in one kitchen! It makes me wish my house had a larger kitchen. But that definitely won't be happening anytime soon.

The meeting started off with a discussion. I posed the question, "What is sustainable food?" There were many good answers. Someone chimed in and said, "It's food that sustains you," yes... but not quite what I had in mind. We got to talking about how sustainable food is raised in a manner that is healthy for the environment, for people, treats animals humanely, and provides a fair wage to the workers and farmers.

Vivi brought up how she'd seen a documentary about the food industry, including genetically modified crops and the not-so-wonderful corporation Monsanto. I, too, had seen this documentary a few years ago. It's called "The Future of Food," very interesting and definitely a worthwhile watch.

Chester bemoaned the fact that we would not be cooking any meat. He mentioned how his family has six chickens in their freezer that they had raised and killed themselves (that's the type of local and sustainable I'm talking about!) I promise that in the future we will do a meeting that focuses on learning about factory farms, industrialization of meat, and how to eat meat in a way that is healthier for the environment and the people eating it. Of course we'll also cook it! (Here's one type of meat that I do like.)

Once we began cooking, everything was a little chaotic. The vinaigrette was made first. The kumquats were sliced and seeded (a rather tedious job). There was lot's of washing vegetables, cutting, slicing, zesting, peeling, and mixing.

Vinaigrette, chopped mint, fennel greens, blood and navel oranges, olives, and fennel

On to the gruyère soufflé. As Deborah Madison put it, "Few dishes are as dramatic as a soufflé. The whole dish swells like an enormous inhalation -- then, within moments of serving, collapses." Everyone was eager to help make the soufflé. First the eggs were separated and the cheese grated. The milk was heated with the aromatics (bay leaf, thyme, onion slices). The roux was made (flour cooked in butter) and once the milk steeped to absorb the flavors of the aromatics it was added to the roux to make a béchamel (basic white sauce). In went some salt, pepper, cayenne, nutmeg and fresh thyme. The heat was turned off. The bright yellow egg yolks were added and then the gruyère. The egg whites were beaten (by hand!) until they became light and fluffy, forming firm peaks. The egg whites were carefully folded into the egg yolk mixture and poured into the prepared pan. It was time for the heat of the oven to work its magic.

Into the oven

Out of the oven!

While all this was going on, the kumquats were poaching in a syrup of sugar, water and a whole vanilla bean. The aroma was incredibly enticing.

While the soufflé baked, the salad was tossed. Everything in it was locally grown.

Salad Ingredients:

2 blood oranges
1 navel orange
1 head butter lettuce
2 tablespoons chopped fennel greens
10 small mint leaves
1 small fennel bulb
12 oil-cured black olives

Everyone did an amazing job with the soufflé. When it came out of the oven it was golden brown, high and mighty, and all puffed up like a king. We all sat down at the table to eat. The soufflé was a big hit, and there wasn't even a crumb left over (we probably could have eaten two soufflés). Everyone ate the salad -- fennel, oranges and all (who says kids/teens don't have sophisticated tastes!) The kumquats came out yummy as well. Unfortunately I forgot to plan something to eat them over, oops.

A Medley of Green and Orange

2009-02-26T12:01:00.000-08:00

We received our farm box today. Everything was so gorgeous that I had to take a few pictures. This is what inspires me to cook. Maybe it will inspire you too.

In case you were wondering what exactly was in the box:

Pea Shoots
Baby Fennel
Artichokes (yay!)
Braeburn Apples
Collard Greens
Dino Kale
Red Onions
Nantes Carrots
Mineola Tangelos
Red Onions
Peruvian Potatoes
Gold Chard

February Focus on Citrus, Salads & Soufflés

2009-02-24T08:26:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, I had the most delicious Tangelo and it inspired the theme for the next meeting - citrus! We will also be learning how to do a savory cheese soufflé. Here's the menu:

Orange, Fennel, and Butter Lettuce Salad
Orange Vinaigrette
Gruyère Soufflé
Poached Kumquats

The poached kumquats are sort of an extra. I tried kumquats for the first time about a month ago and I keep craving them! Hopefully I will be able to find some for us to poach.

It might sound like a lot, but most of it is relatively simple. I'm off to the farmer's market this afternoon, we will see what types of oranges (I'm hoping for blood oranges) and lettuce (might not be butter) I come across. The recipes are from Deborah Madison's, "Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone" and Alice Waters, "The Art of Simple Food".

At the beginning of the meeting we will also learn a little about what sustainable agriculture is and why it's important. Here's a link that gives a good description:

http://www.sustainabletable.org/intro/whatis/

Biscuits and Butternut Squash

2009-01-31T20:13:00.000-08:00

On Friday, five girls and myself cooked up some delicious food. First we made our stock. Ingrid, Mariah and I, were the "stock" team. We browned the carrots, celery and onion, added salt, water, parsley, thyme, and sage. Once all that was in the pot we let it simmer for a while.

Lily, Elisa, and Katherine worked on prepping the vegetables for the soup. They chopped herbs and scooped out the roasted butternut squash.
Lily cut up the onions using the super pro cutting technique (the pungent onions still caused some tears to be shed).

The next step was to fry the sage leaves for a garnish. We heated up our olive oil and dropped the fresh sage leaves. After one minute they were nice and crispy, so we lifted them from the pan and put them on paper towels to cool.
We all tasted one of the fried leaves, it had a very robust and rather nutty flavor.

Time to cook the onions and herbs for the soup. Mariah stirred up the onions until they began to brown and then we added in the roasted squash, garlic, stock and salt. While this was simmering it was on to the biscuits.

As we were getting out the ingredients for the biscuits I realized we had about 1 tsp. of baking powder but we actually needed 4 teaspoons. Shoot! That is why before making a recipe you should double check you have all the ingredients. Seems pretty logical, but, unfortunately I forgot this step for baking powder.

Luckily, I live not three minutes (walking time) from Safeway. So, Elisa, Lily, Mariah, and Katherine went on a mission for baking powder. Armed with $10, cell phones, and a piece of paper that said "BAKING POWDER". It took them roughly fifteen minutes to bring back a shiny new tin of baking powder.

We made two batches of buttermilk biscuits. One group had a bit of a flour mix up, not putting enough, ending up with very wet dough, and then realizing where they went wrong, and fixing it.
Which was great that they realized what happened. We lacked a biscuit cutter so turned over cups sufficed.

In went two sheets of round doughy mounds and fifteen minutes later out came some delicious looking golden biscuits. We pureed the soup and now it was time for everyone to enjoy the meal they had just cooked!

Everyone took a bowl of the soup and garnished it with the fried sage leaves and cubes of gruyere cheese. With that, we sat down to the table to eat the wonderful meal we'd just made. Everyone seemed to think both the biscuits and the soup were delicious. And, I'm pretty sure it was Mariah's first time eating butternut squash!

Thanks to all the girls who came. You were very enthusiastic and had a lot of energy. I can't wait for next time! If there are any suggestions for what we should make in the future, let me know!

By the way, although it may appear that I used my tongue to write the "cooking club" in the flour... The girls made that with their fingers. No tongues touched the counter, I promise!

January 30th Meeting Plan

2009-01-23T13:22:00.000-08:00

For the last couple of days I've been trying to figure out what we should make at the first meeting. The perfect idea has been eluding me. Well today it came to me, why not do soup! It's ideal for the drizzly and gray days we've been having.

So here's the plan:
We're going to be preparing a delicious vegetable soup. We'll learn about making stock from scratch. In addition to soup, we'll be making fluffy buttermilk biscuits. Come prepared to cook up some yummy food, have fun, be adventurous and maybe even learn a thing or two!

The Menu:
Winter Squash Soup with Fried Sage Leaves
Ingredients:
winter squash
olive oil
garlic
sage
onions
thyme
parsley
stock
salt and pepper

Basic Buttermilk Biscuits
Ingredients:
flour
baking powder
butter
buttermilk
salt

Both recipes are from Deborah Madison's "Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone" (One of my absolute favorite cookbooks)

Butternut Squash Pizza

2009-01-09T16:27:00.000-08:00

I think pizza is one of my all time favorite foods to make. It's delicious and you can throw all sorts of things on it. The other night I made a pizza with Butternut squash from our farm box. I made the pizza "Cheeseboard style". So there was no sauce, just mozarella cheese and onions on the bottom, then pre-cooked butternut squash, some olives a friend of my mom's picked and cured, more mozarella, some feta cheese and fresh sage. When it came out of the oven I brushed the crust with olive oil (with crushed garlic in it). It was definitely a winter pizza, with no tomatoes or basil anywhere near.

Number One

2009-01-07T11:05:00.000-08:00

As you can see I am just getting this blog going. It will document the adventures of "Slow Food Junior", a food and cooking club for preteens and young teens. I've been wanting to do start this club for a while and I'm really excited! There will be more posts in the days to come.