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Sloppy Joes from Home Food Storage

What do you do if you're fiercely determined to stay out of the grocery store, but want to make a dish that calls for ingredients you don't have on hand?

Break it down and build it back up. I had a couple round steak roast thawing in the freezer and a plan to make Sloppy Joes. This isn't something I make often, but one of those kid-friendly recipes I pull out occasionally.

The recipes I found online call for ingredients I don't have on hand or don't want to use. Ketchup, for example, I have, but I don't want to use my son's special canned ketchup (each jar is labeled "Luc's Ketchup") for this dish nor do I want to use up the last of my lactofermented ketchup. So, I break down ketchup and use that instead: tomatoes cooked to a paste plus vinegar, sweetener, seasonings. I don't keep Worcestshire sauce anymore, but have found that tamari is a fine substitute. We're just looking for some liquid saltines. I don't have brown sugar, but molasses is what makes white sugar brown anyway, so why not use that?

So, here we have Sloppy Joes à Chez Musser. This makes a large batch and could easily be halved, we froze leftovers in pint jars. I served the Sloppy Joes as open-faced sandwiches with lactofermented pickles and Silvana Nardone’s gluten-free double corn bread, the best corn bread I've ever made. Lots of corn flavor and just a touch of sweetness.

2 round steak roasts, cut into 2-inch cubes (save bones for stock-making)
2 tablespoons tallow or ghee
2 stalks celery, diced
1 large carrot, diced
1 large onion, diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 pint tomato paste
4 tablespoons molasses
4 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
2 tablespoons tamari, more to taste if necessary
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1 tablespoon paprika

Heat a large, heavy-bottomed saute pan on a medium-high burner then brown meat in batches. Don't crowd the meat or it will steam rather than brown. You want to create a nice brown crust on at least two sides of each beef cube. To do this, let meat sit in one place for 2-3 minutes, resist the urge to move it around. When the meat releases easily from the pan, that's a good sign that the meat is browned. Place brown meat in the bowl of slow cooker. Add a tallow or ghee to pan, then saute carrots, celery, and onion until brown and softened. Add garlic, warm for a minute, then scrap vegetables into bowl with the meat. Add tomato paste to the slow cooker bowl, then rinse the jar or cans and put the rinse water in the saute pan. Cook the water in the pan, scrapping up any bits that are still in the pan. Pour water into slow cooker bowl.

You could skip all of the proceeding steps and simply throw the cubed meat and diced veggies into your slow cooker, along with all the other ingredients, but by browning everything first, you are creating, through the Maillard reaction, a greater depth of flavor.

Add molasses, vinegar, tamari, cloves, cumin, and pepper to the slow cooker. Mix well, cook on high for 4-5 hours or low for 8-9 hours.

Neighborhood Notes: Eating Locally in Mid-Winter

Seriously, I don't seek out all this press! Melissa Reeser of the Portland community news blog Neighborhood Notes interviewed me recently for a story about eating locally in mid-winter. Photographer Heather Zinger came to Sunday's Lactofermentation class to get some pictures. Fun!

Bringing Cooking Home: An Interview with Mid-County Memo

Heather Hill did a remarkable job capturing the spirit of Lost Arts Kitchen in her piece for the February issue of the Mid-County Memo. Thanks, Heather!

Interview with Tony Fuentes on LaunchPad Radio

Well, that was fun! I met with Tony Fuentes, host of LaunchPad Radio and co-owner of the fabulous Milagros Boutique, and we talked about kitchen literacy, lactofermentation, and the social and economic benefits of DIY food. Check it out.

Charcutepalooza: Duck Breast Prosciutto

When my husband and I were about to be married, we did what many couples do and set up a registry. Rather, I did what many brides do and set up a registry. Husband-to-be wasn't especially keen on the idea, but when I explained that whether we registered or not, people would be buying us gifts and we might as well let them know what we'd most like, he relented and gave me his wish list. On it, a smoker. Uh. Okay? Really? A smoker? And a lawn mower. Alrighty then. A smoker and a lawn mower. He got both.

Well, I'll admit, I was a silly girl to question the smoker. Over the years Mike has made fantastic smoked salmon, bacon, brisket, smokey pulled pork, smoked trout. He's smoked eggplant for me to make baba ganouj, smoked peppers and zucchini stuff with pork sausage. All good.

Bacon, Summer 2009

For Christmas a couple years ago, I bought him a copy of Charcuterie by Michael Ruhlman. Good stuff got even better as Mike's understanding of curing and smoking developed. Recently, good friends bought a house with its own freestanding smokehouse. Right smack in the middle of suburbia.

Meat!

Those two guys are always looking for an excuse to fire up the smoker and we wives are happy to oblige them.

The Guys Smoke Ribs for a Party, April 2010

Myself, I don't mess with smoke, but have made gravlax, pickled salmon, liverwurst, and goose liver pâté (not technically foie gras, as the liver came from the well- but not over-fed goose we raised in our backyard). I also fantasize pretty regularly about making salami at home though I have yet to act on those fantasies. When I stumbled across the Charcutepalooza challenge to make something from Ruhlman's book every month for a year, I signed us up right away.

I hope we'll get to salami.

Duck prosciutto was a particularly fitting first challenge as last year I finally discovered how much I love duck and tucked several locally raised Pekin ducks in the deep freeze in the fall. Mike took care of the preliminaries late at night, after I'd gone to bed, so no pics of him cutting up the duck, setting the breast halves in a bed of salt, or, 24 hours later, wrapping each in cheesecloth and hanging them up to cure. We set up our basement bathroom as our curing area, opening the little window to let in the cold winter air. After 8 days, the duck breasts had not lost 30% of their initial weight, but I took down the smaller of the two as it did feel sufficently firmed up to me. I sliced it and found this:

 I immediately cut the slices into bits and fried them like this... 

  

And added them to my morning eggs:

For dinner that evening, I made a salad starring thin slices of prosciutto, with mandarin oranges poached in zinfandel*, blood orange segments, water chestnuts, and black sesame seeds drizzled with ginger-miso-blood orange and grapefruit marmalade* dressing:

 

  

The orange-duck combo was naturally delicious and the bitter-sour flavors from the dressing balanced the fat beautifully. I kept making myself perfect little bites of prosciutto, blood orange, a bit of orange zest from the marmalade, and romaine. 

Still thinking about what I might make with the second duck breast. What would you suggest?

* Canned during my citrus canning class earlier this month.

Celery-Celery Salad

I'm caring for a family member with a urinary tract infection. We've been using herbs, homeopathic remedies, and healing foods rather than resorting to antibiotics and noticing an improvement after 24 hours of active treatment. Along with lots of water, I've been encouraging my patient to eat parsley and celery as their natural diuretic effect helps flush bacteria out of the urinary tract. Probiotics boost the immune system, so I have been offering probiotic-rich lactofermented veggies. Raw garlic, with its strong antibiotic properties always does a body good.

I wanted to come up with a light, appetizing meal that would bring all those healing foods together. I happened to pick up the February/March issue of Fine Cooking (which is chockful of great recipes, including a piece on quick pickles by Eugenia Bone, author of my favorite canning book of 2009, Well Preserved) and immediately noticed a salad featuring celery, fennel, parsley, and anchovies with a lemon-Parmigiano vinaigrette. I loved the idea and came up with this variation (ignoring the Parmigiano, as my patient is avoiding dairy while fighting this infection). When people taste preserved lemons and lactofermented vegetables for the first time in my classes they love them, but are unsure about how to use them in meals. Here's a great example.

Celery-Celery Salad
Serves 4

1 medium fennel bulb, shaved thinly (a mandoline helps with this)
2 stalks celery, sliced thinly on the diagonal (you can do that on a mandoline, too)
1 tin of sardines, mashed
2 tablespoon minced preserved lemon peel
4 tablespoons lactofermented celery root (I'll post about how to make those soon)
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons lactofermented mayonnaise
1 clove garlic, finely minced
salt and pepper to taste

Combine fennel, celery, sardines, preserved lemon, and celery root in a medium bowl. Whisk together lemon juice, olive oil, mayonnaise and garlic. Drizzle dressing over salad and toss.

Leftovers by Design: Salmon Chowder, Cakes and Fritters (Gluten-Free)

Chinook salmon Mike caught out of the Willamette River last summer

Have I said this before? Well, I'll say it again: leftovers make it easy to put together a quick and tasty meal. Especially after preparing multiple elaborate holiday dinners, I'm usually ready to spend a little less time in the kitchen for a while at the same time I have a fridge bursting with bits of leftover this and that. With some creativity, those bits can become something altogether new and delicious in short order. In The Way to Cook, Julia Child called this notion of turning leftovers into something more than just ho-hum reheats, "Feasting on the Remains." It's all about attitude.

Last summer, members of our buying club bought shares of wild Alaskan sockeye salmon from Iliamna Seafood Company. Each share included 22 pounds of frozen fillets and the fillets are about two pounds each. My family can't eat that much salmon at one meal, so we've been having lots of salmon leftovers. Here are a few favorites.

Gluten-Free Salmon-Corn Chowder
Serves six

I make a big batch of breakfast potatoes once or twice a week and often use the leftover potatoes in chowders. If you have preserved lemons, chop up the peel from half of one and pass it at the table to garnish. If you do not have fish stock on hand, use vegetable stock, chicken stock or more milk.

1 pound red potatoes, diced or a couple cups leftover cooked potatoes
1/2 pound sliced bacon, cut crosswise into 1/4-inch-wide strips
1 large onion, chopped

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 teaspoon finely chopped fresh thyme
1 bay leaf
1 tablespoon sauce from jar of chipotles en adobo (or add chopped chipotle to taste)

1/2 cup of salsa
2 cups fish stock 

2 cups whole milk
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 cup fresh or frozen corn
leftover cooked salmon fillet (preferably wild), skin discarded and fish cut into 1-inch pieces

(I augmented with some of my husband smoked salmon)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice

Bring 1 quart of salted water to a boil, then add potatoes and cook until just tender, about 8-10 minutes. Drain and set aside.

While the potatoes are cooking, saute the bacon in a 6- or 8-quart pot until crisp. Remove bacon with a slotted spoon and leave fat at least 2 tablespoons of fat in pan (I leave all the rendered fat in the pan). Saute onions in bacon fat until soft, then add garlic and cook for a minute. Add thyme, bay leaf, chipotle, salsa, fish stock, milk and cream, bring to a boil and then immediately turn down to a simmer. Add potatoes, corn, and salmon and cook until everything is thoroughly heated. Add salt, pepper, and lemon juice and serve.

Gluten-Free Salmon Fritters

No potatoes on hand? How 'bout making fritters? Try this recipe for gluten-free corn-shrimp fritters from Cooking for Isaiah, substituting one cup of cooked salmon for the shrimp. If you use wheat flour, use that 1:1 in place of the gluten-free flour. 

Gluten-Free Salmon Cakes

Serves 4-6

I've been making fish cakes--with leftover crab, halibut, salmon, tilipia--for years. Crab cakes were a restaurant favorite of mine growing up in Maryland and at home today, I still usually make them Maryland style, which in essence means seasoned with Old Bay, a blend of herbs and spices that's predominantly mustard, paprika, and celery seed. This Thai-style recipe has a lighter, zestier flavor. In the winter, I serve these with a coleslaw of shredded cabbage and carrots tossed with Oregon pink shrimp and dressed with lime juice, rice wine vinegar and sesame oil. In the summer, Cucumber and Wasabi Soup makes a perfect accompaniment.

3/4-1 pound cooked salmon

6 kaffir lime leaves, snipped into thin strips with scissors or zest of one lime
3 tablespoons coconut milk
2 tablespoons fish sauce
1/2 teaspoon shrimp paste (optional)
1/2 tablespoon chili powder

1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon ground coriander
3 green onions, sliced
1 thumb-size piece galangal or ginger, grated
3 cloves garlic, minced

small handful cilantro
1 red chili, sliced OR 1/2 teaspoon dried crushed chili
1/4 cup or more almond flour 

coconut oil for frying

Break salmon into chunks and place in food processor or large food chopped. Add coconut milk, fish sauce, shrimp paste, chili powder, cumin, ground coriander, brown sugar, lime leaf strips, green onion, galangal or ginger, garlic, cilantro, chili, and almond flour. Pulse to create a thick paste.

Picking up a small amount in your hand (about the size of a golf ball) pat the paste into a small cake and set on a clean plate. If the paste is too wet to easily form into cakes, add a little more flour to the mix. As you continue making the cakes, it helps to rinse your hands every so often with cool water to prevent paste from sticking.

Set plate of cakes in the refrigerator for 10 minutes to firm up. Melt coconut oil in a frying pan over medium high heat. Fry several fish cakes at a time, about 2 minutes per side. Fry until golden-brown and drain on a cooling rack set over a sheet pan.

Celebrating Fall & Farmers with Chicken with Tomato Sauce & Black Olives

From 40 pounds of tomatoes: 1 pint dried peels, 2 pints soup, 3 liters juice, 6 quarts sauce, 3 pints salsa, 5 cups jam.

Monday, with the help of friends at Red Hog Farm, I butchered our fifteen 16-week-old Le Poulet meat chickens. Tuesday afternoon, I bagged and put all but one bird in the freezer. That one went into the evening's supper, browned in tallow rendered from the fat of the cow we bought from the Deck Family Farm, simmered in a pint of sauce made with tomatoes from Frog Meadow Farm that I canned over the weekend, onions from PD Farms, garlic from Greenthumb Garlic...and Natural Value black olives from California. Honestly, after several long days on my feet, I was too beat to make anything else...so we just had this simple stew all on its own...but it would have been great with some quinoa cooked in chicken broth and a Caesar salad.

2 tablespoons tallow or other fat suitable for high temperature sauteing (coconut oil, ghee)
1 chicken, cut up (I save chicken backs for making stock)
salt, pepper
1 large onion, saute sliced
4 cloves garlic, finely minced
1 pint tomato juice
1 14-ounce can pitted black olives

Melt fat over medium-high heat in a large, heavy bottomed saute pan. Sprinkle salt and pepper over chicken pieces, then brown on each side for 3-4 minutes. Remove from pan onto a clean plate. Add more oil if necessary, then cook onions until soft (about 6-8 minutes). Add garlic and saute for 2-3 minutes. Add tomato sauce and deglaze the pan, scraping any cooked bits off the bottom. Add olives and chicken. Bring sauce to a boil, then turn down heat and simmer for 45-60 minutes.

2010 Tuna Put-Up + Gluten Free Thai Fish Cakes

Albacore Tuna in the Ocean

For health reasons, I am increasing our family's weekly consumption of seafood. We can't afford quality, sustainably caught fish at retail prices, so I have been organizing bulk purchases with our buying club and working directly with fishermen whenever I can. This summer, we purchased 22 pounds of sockeye salmon fillets through Iliamna Fish Company's CSA and my husband caught two chinook salmon on the Willamette. He may fish for salmon again this fall. Recently, I ordered ten pounds of Marine Stewardship Certified halibut fillets from Azure Standard. I would like to stock up on other fish and seafood as well. Dungeness crab are high on my list, as are Oregon pink shrimp and Pacific sardines, but this week, it's all about tuna.

Albacore Tuna in Jars Before Processing

Last year I made my first foray into canning tuna at home. I bought three whole, flash-frozen fish (each about ten pounds) from an Astoria fisherman. The canned tuna was marvelous--even my husband, who has always insisted he does not like canned tuna, liked Chez Musser brand tuna. As so many have said, once you've canned your own, you'll never go back to the pet food sold in grocery stores. (By the way, don't feed your cat canned tuna, it has too much sodium. Offer occasional raw or cooked tuna. My cat prefers raw tuna and I only offer him what I would eat myself.) While I was determined to can my own again, I did not relish the process and mess of filleting several tuna at home. Also, while many people in our buying club were interested in stocking up on tuna, they didn't know how or didn't want to fillet their own.

Albacore Tuna in Sealed Jars

I was still unsure about what to do when I met someone who mentioned off-hand that she and her friends bought tuna pre-filleted by the fishermen who caught it. Well, Hello! Why hadn't I thought of that? Google led me to Oregon Tuna, a family owned operation that fishes off the Pacific and docks in Warrenton. Our buying club ordered 150 pounds of filleted tuna from them altogether, which I picked up at the dock on Wednesday, filling four coolers to their brims.

I appreciate tuna because it's local, abundant, and versatile. Because we're buying smaller fish than those caught for commercial canneries, I worry less about mercury contamination, but still limit our tuna consumption to no more than one serving a week. The 42 pounds I canned and froze this week will provide my family of four just that for most of the year.

Before I begin a big preservation project always have a plan for what I'm going to do. Most frequently, I follow a divide and conquer approach. I decide on several ways to preserve and figure out ways that I can keep some of what I have on hold while I process the rest. In this case, I wanted 48-50 half-pints of canned tuna, which would require about approximately 20 pounds of loins, and that I would have scraps and loin ends leftover from canning, as well as some whole loins. 

We now have

• 50 half-pints, canned
• ten 1-lb packs of loins for sushi, searing, or smoking, frozen
• four 1-lb packs of loin ends for fish cakes, frozen
• three tail pieces (about two pounds) for smoking, frozen
• one 3-lb pack of loins for November canning class, frozen
• one pound of scraps leftover from canning for Thai fish cakes.

Albacore Tuna in the Freezer

I adapted the Thai Fish Cake recipe from Elana Amsterdam's Gluten-Free Almond Flour Cookbook. These were simply delicious served with a quick pickle of cucumbers made with rice wine vinegar, though I might have made a relish with cucumbers, lime juice, fish sauce, chile sauce, and sesame oil if I were serving guests. Also, I realized while we were eating that lemongrass would have made a wonderful addition to these fish cakes...probably just a tablespoon finely minced would be perfect.

1 pound fresh tuna, chopped into 1/4-inch cubes
1/2 cup blanched almond flour
1/2 cup unsweetened coconut flakes, toasted
3 large eggs
2 tablespoons finely chopped cilantro
1 tablespoon minced ginger
2 teaspoon minced shallot
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1 tablespoon fish sauce
1 tablespoon lime juice
2 tablespoons coconut oil

In a large bowl, thoroughly combine all ingredients except coconut oil. Heat oil in a 12-inch skillet over medium-high heat. Form mixture into 2-inch patties, they will be quite moist. Gently place each patty into the pan as you form them. Cook for 4 to 6 minutes on each side until golden brown, turning carefully (I used two spatulas to turn mine). Drain on a cooling rack.

Steak & Red Peppers with Coconut Curry & Zucchini

It's funny, I'm sensitive to raw sweet peppers and even the smell of them turns me off most of the year (when they're not in season here anyway), but as the weather cools in late summer and the local bells finally ripen, I begin to crave them cooked. One of my favorites is Chicken Paprika with Red Bell Pepper, but last night, I had a couple steaks, red peppers, and a hankering for a coconut curry. This dish incorporates coconut oil, coconut milk, ginger, garlic, turmeric, and grass-fed beef, all healing foods. Instead of rice, I fried up zucchini to sop up the delicious gravy.

4 tablespoons coconut oil
1 onion, sliced
2 red peppers, sliced
1 tablespoon ginger, minced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 pound steak, sliced into strips
1 teaspoon turmeric
1 teaspoon curry powder
1 tablespoon fish sauce
1 can coconut milk
1 medium zucchini, sliced into 1/4-inch thick half-moons

In a heavy-bottomed saute pan, heat 2 tablespoons coconut oil over medium-high heat. Add onions and peppers to pan and cook until softened. Add ginger, garlic, steak, turmeric, and curry powder. Cook for several minutes, then add fish sauce and coconut milk and deglaze pan. Bring to a boil and cook until coconut milk thickens.

In a separate pan, heat the other 2 tablespoons of coconut oil over medium-high heat. Add the zucchini, making sure each piece is flat in the pan. Sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste. Cook on each side until brown and crispy. Serve topped with curry.

Salad Niçoise(ish)

Recently, a friend was over helping me work through some of the clutter that has accumulated around the house. When lunchtime rolled around, I made us a what I call Salad Niçoise(ish): a bed of lettuce with pickled green beans, hard boiled eggs, home canned Oregon albacore tuna, a handful of cherry tomatoes, and some leftover breakfast potatoes with a simple lemony garlic dressing. She marveled that I was able to throw it together in just a couple minutes and noted how difficult it was for her to plan and put together healthy meals.

I understand that. I'm lousy at meal planning myself and I'm too busy, or too tired to cook from scratch everyday. So, I don't. Instead of plans, I go with what we have on hand and what's in season. Instead of cooking from meals scratch, I rely on leftovers and pantry items, plus a few simple fresh items, for the majority of my family's meals. What I don't rely on is recipes and opinions from various authorities about "classic" this and "authentic" that. Oh, I pay attention to methods and combinations that work, but I also know what my family likes and don't get too caught up in doing things the way some guy across an ocean or continent believes they must be done. What does he know about my four-year-old's love of mayonnaise with everything or my seven-year-old's hatred of potatoes?

Also, a while back, I finally admitted to myself that it was okay for us to eat a collection of the same things over and over again. When I was single, that's how I cooked for myself--a had a dozen or so favorite meals that I made regularly and when I had time, I experimented with new dishes, and eventually some of those joined the ranks of regulars. When my husband and I married, though, for some reason I convinced myself that we must have more variety. 'Cuz that's what married people do, right? I would pour over cookbooks, magazines, and blogs looking for new recipes, come up with elaborate meal plans, shop at three or four different markets, spend an hour or two putting dinner together, and leave piles of dishes for my poor husband afterward. (Wasn't that fun, honey?)

All that became virtually impossible once we had two young children, who preferred familiar foods and left me with little time to find new recipes, make plans, or shop. Man, I hate shopping with my kids.

So I came up with a different way of getting food for my family and of getting it on the table. Instead of weekly shopping trips and elaborate meals, I bought in bulk once a month and cooked in big batches. Buying in bulk saves me time shopping, cooking big batches saves me time in the kitchen. So, when I make sugar snap peas for dinner, I make extra for throwing into salads or for the kids to snack the next day.

While we enjoy variety and once a week or so, I prepare something new or that I haven't made in a while, for the most part I stick to favorites that use what we already have or, when I'm in the mood, come up with twists on the same ol' same old. Salads and soups are terrific for both these approaches. You can make what you usually make, but tossing in leftovers or substituting pickled green beans for olives can work, too. And you might find a new favorite.

That's how my Salad Niçoise(ish) came to be. I wanted one, bad. I knew the rules for making the classic version, but I didn't have green beans handy, I had leftover steamed sugar snap peas...and potato salad. In they went. The next time I wanted the salad, I didn't have leftover peas, but my daughter had just opened a can of garbanzo beans. In they went. Then, when making lunch for my friend, who loves pickled green beans, it occurred me that they would be terrific on the salad and a good briney substitute for olives. And so it goes. Sometimes I used canned salmon instead of tuna. We're grilling halibut tonight and tomorrow, I'll probably toss leftovers from that into my salad. The key is being open to the possibilities are right there, in the house, rather than wedding oneself to a list of ingredients in someone else's recipe. Preparing extras of basics like breakfast potatoes and hard boiled eggs makes it possible to throw together a quick meal later. Now that I don't have bread or pasta to fall back on, I make a big batch of breakfast potatoes (diced red potatoes, onions, thyme, salt, and pepper fried in tallow or ghee) a couple times a week, for breakfast, naturally, but also for tossing into salad. I also make a batch of potato salad once a week, which can also go into salad or just with a bowl of sauerkraut for a quick snack.

Personally, I prefer a lemony dressing with this salad. It offers a bright, yet not at all harsh tang, especially when combined with plenty of good quality olive oil. If you have lemons, and feel like squeezing one, go for it. But consider keeping a bottle of organic lemon juice in the fridge for those days when you don't happen to have a lemon. Lemon juice is handy stuff.

So, I'm giving you a "recipe" for Salad Niçoise(ish), but as you can see, it's more a series of suggestions than a list of ingredients and specific method. What you should get from looking at the suggested ingredients is that you want a fishy protein, some raw or steamed seasonal vegetables, something pickled to lend a bright note, and some potatoes to ground it all. In Oregon, August is the perfect time of year to enjoy this salad, while the Albacore tuna comes to us fresh from the coast and the tomatoes, green beans, and cucs come fresh from our gardens and the fields of local farms. Having it at the spur of the moment is going to take some time, but if you think ahead just a bit, cooking up extra beans, potatoes, eggs, and fish beforehand, the rest falls into place in minutes.

Salad Nicoise(ish) for Two

Dressing
juice from one lemon, or about 2 tablespoons bottled lemon juice
1/4 cup olive oil
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
a teaspoon or so of anchovy paste if you have it
small clove of garlic, finely minced (a Microplane is perfect for this)
finely chopped fresh herbs if you have them...basil, parsley, thyme
salt, pepper

Salad
salad greens
some legumes (leftover steamed green beans, snap peas, cooked fava beans, lentils...)
some plainly cooked or canned fish...tuna, salmon, halibut
a hard boiled egg or two, sliced into quarters
something pickled...green beans, olives, artichokes, mushrooms, onions
cooked potatoes...leftover breakfast potatoes, boiled potatoes, potato salad
sweet onions, thinly sliced
fresh tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini...sliced or chop however you prefer

Combine the dressing ingredients in a small jar (half-pint canning jars work well), screw on a lid and shake vigorously to emulsify. Taste and adjust seasoning as needed. Compose your salad as you like, drizzle with dressing, and enjoy.

Top Five Food Preservation Books

Anyone's who's been in my home knows I'm a a bit of a bibliomane...an entire wall in our living/dining room is devoted to books (and just as many are shelved in the basement). Cookbooks and books about preserving abound, and especially this time of year, you can hardly find a flat surface that doesn't have a recently perused preserving book on it. Here are the ones you're most likely to find lying around right now:

Well Preserved by Eugenia Bone was my favorite find from last year. Many of her Italian-influenced, mostly savory preserves found a place in my pantry, including Marinated Artichokes, Roasted Red Bell Peppers, Tuna in Olive Oil (my first pressure canning project), and Smoked Chicken Breast. Bone has a no-nonsense, anyone-can-do-this and it's-gonna-be-great attitude and her book has delicious recipes for using every preserve. Be sure to visit her blog.

Fancy Pantry by Helen Witty covers an amazing variety of preserves. Her head notes are mouth-watering and completely draw me in every time. Some of her methods--like no-added-pectin preserves, are traditional, yet within the realm of USDA safe canning guidelines. I especially like that many recipes call for the by-products of other recipes. For example, Sweet Pickled Bing Cherries yields vinegar from which you can make Cherry Vinegar, while the seeds and pulp leftover from making Raspberry Jelly get a second life infusing a lightly fermented European-Style Raspberry Syrup. The book is out of print, but used copies are usually available at Amazon.

For Southern style canning, I like Putting Up, by Stephen Downdy. Sunchoke Relish (just add to cooked potatoes for amazing potato salad), Corn Liquor BBQ Sauce, and Peach Chutney are good examples of what you'll find in there.

If you are at all interested in lactofermentation, check out Sandor Katz's Wild Fermentation. He'll teach you to make mead, kraut, miso, cheese, beer, sourdough...if it's made with the encouragement of microscopic life, Sandorkraut has got it covered. He encourages a no-fear sensibility that is refreshing against the "follow USDA food preservation guidelines or die" attitude found in many conventional canning books.

Lastly, my favorite all-around preserving books, especially for beginners, is Preserving the Harvest by Carol Costenbader. Clear instructions on all preserving methods, charts for things like how long to steam or blanch vegetables before freezing, tips galore--kinda like having an experienced food preservationist at your side, reminding you to do things like get all your gear washed and ready to go the night before heading out to pick berries or buy a couple bushels of tomatoes, so you can get right to it while your produce is still at its peak.

What are your favorites?

Returning to Life, Returning to the Kitchen

Early this year, long-standing, relatively dormant health issues resurfaced with a vengeance and by spring, I found myself overwhelmed with fatigue, chronic pain, and a "brain fog" that would not lift. I took a break from teaching so that I could get a handle on what was going on and after a few months of doctor visits, a new diagnosis (Hashimoto's thyroiditis), diet and lifestyle changes, my health is improving. My energy and focus are returning, the aches and pains are diminishing. I continue to be amazed at the turnaround and how just a few relatively small changes have put me on the path back to wellness.

Hashimoto's thyroiditis is an autoimmune disorder in which the immune system mounts an attack against the thyroid gland. (To learn more about Hashimoto's and the latest thinking on managing this common yet under-diagnosed disease, read the Healthy Skeptic's series on the thyroid.) Following a protocol developed by Dr. Datis Kharrazian under the care of a local naturopath who has studied with him, about six weeks ago, I quit consuming gluten and virtually all grains because of the strong connection between gluten intolerance and Hashimoto's and the impact that high-carbohydrate foods have on blood sugar and thyroid function. I've increased my consumption of fermented vegetables and broths, both of which have remarkable healing properties, while I've reduced my sugar intake overall and use minimal amounts of honey as my primary sweetener instead. To an extent, my classes will begin to reflect these changes. I will no longer be teaching my Baking Basics class and my canning classes will include honey-sweetened preserves as well as those made with cane sugar.

(In addition to the dietary changes I've made, I supplement with vitamin D, cod liver oil, and an omega-3 fatty acid complex daily, all of which help support and balance the immune system. I swim laps three mornings a week, see an acupuncturist once a week, and began a meditation practice, following the method developed by Eknath Easwaran for transforming the thought process through meditation on the words of great prophets and philosophers from around the world. Stress was having a tremendous impact on my health and my nascent meditation practice has already made a big difference in how I think and feel about life's up and downs. The acupuncture is doing wonders for the exceedingly stubborn plantar fasciitis that has been with me for six years.)

For some time, I've been learning about gluten- and grain-free cooking from friends who preceded me in these dietary changes (knowing in the back of my mind that someday, I too might be making the same changes). Many of you have asked about gluten-free cooking and baking classes and while most of my current offerings are already gluten-free by nature, in the future I will offer classes specifically for those making the transition to gluten- and grain-free eating. While I miss some of the foods I used to enjoy, I am excited about getting back into my kitchen and exploring new culinary possibilities and I look forward to sharing that excitement with those who also find themselves making dietary changes for themselves and their families.

The Food Revolution Begins at Home

In the wake of Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution show (which I have not watched on television, but have viewed clips and snips of on the web), I have been part of so many discussions with other parents about feeding kids healthy foods. My daughter turned seven recently and her little brother turned four earlier this year. Like most parents, I struggle with helping my kids make healthy food choices. My daughter has aversions to potatoes and most cooked vegetables, while my son has a sweet tooth and is currently in a phase of not eating much of anything. Overall, though, they eat a fairly balanced diet, understand some cooking basics, and have a taste for real food. Here are some of my tricks and tips.

1. Try serving vegetables such as asparagus, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, green beans, and peas raw or blanched in boiling water just long enough to brighten the color (30-60 seconds) and then immediately chilled in ice water. Sulfur compounds in green vegetables can cause bitter flavors during cooking and children have an instinctive aversion to bitterness (most poisons are bitter, so this makes sense from an evolutionary standpoint). 
2. Encourage vegetable eating with dips, especially the tasty ones you can make at home, like mayonnaise, ketchup, or yogurt. Mix cream cheese and mayo with herbs and finely chopped, blanched spinach or kale. Ranch dressing is another quick dressing kids love. Nut butter, thinned with water and seasoned with honey, salt or tamari, miso, and a touch of pepper sauce (optional, of course!) is another favorite. Jar up salsa in the summer and invite your children to help. My son loves our tomatillo salsa, which he fondly recalls helping to make last year (he ran the food processor...he's not actually canning, yet).
3. Get kids involved with the food that they eat at home by inviting them to help you in the kitchen. Give yourself time and start with easy tasks, like retrieving items from cupboards and the fridge. My kids love cracking eggs and peeling garlic (I slightly crush the garlic first for them, to crack the peel a bit). Practice counting and fractions while measuring out ingredients. Explain both kitchen safety and how to avoid messes, to make your time together safe and fun.
4. Talk about nutrition matter-of-factly, without judgment about good foods vs. bad. With my kids, I talk about the effects different foods have on the body, like how fats and eggs help our brains, protein-rich meat, nuts, and legumes grow and rebuild our our muscles and organs, grains give us energy, and fruits and vegetables give us vitamins and minerals that help all over our bodies and protect us from disease. Taking a cue from the Cookie Monster, we talk about "sometimes" foods, like chips, cookies, and cake, without turning them into ever-more-tempting forbidden foods.
5. Get them involved in their food choices when they're away from home, too, and pack a meal or snack that includes their choices. 
6. Children, and many adults, naturally avoid foods that are unfamiliar. This is instinctual--as omnivores, we have to be careful about new foods lest they prove poisonous--so you may have to work at helping your children become familiar with new foods. Some say a food might be introduced as many as 20 times before a child can enjoy it. Encourage children to try one bite of a new food each time you prepare it. Be persistent, but don't make an issue of it.  
7. Eliminate or reduce soda, juice, and processed "milk" (soy milk, almond milk, etc.) consumption and switch to drinking water, especially with meals. The health consequences of sweetened drinks are well known, but they effect the palate, too, by making us need more sugar in a food to sense its sweetness. Save fresh-squeezed juice or homemade nut milks for special occasions. Make your own kombucha or water kefir if you need a transitional drink or try soda water with a splash of pure juice or squeeze of lemon.
8. Grow something to eat with your child, be it a cherry tomato plant in a container on your apartment balcony or a whole "pizza garden" with plum tomatoes, onions, garlic, peppers, and herbs in your back yard. Fast-growing lettuce can be very gratifying for a child--and eating it right in the garden a delight. My kids love garden peas. Growing food in a garden helps children develop a sense of competence as well as knowledge about where food really comes from. 
9. Take children to farms--many welcome visitors and some even hold open farm days, with activities for families. Get a basketful of berries at a u-pick. Go fishing. Find out if your local Fish & Wildlife department stocks a fishing area just for kids. Locally, the ODFW hosts free fishing weekends, youth angling events, and stocks ponds for kids.  
10. Want to beat the processed food manufacturers at their own game? Do what they do: use salt, fats, and sweeteners, but choose mineral-rich unrefined sea salt, healthy fats like coconut oil, butter, lard, and tallow from pastured animals, and minimally processed sweeteners such as honey, maple syrup, or Rapadura. One of my kids favorite vegetable dishes is onions, garlic, and green beans or peas sauteed bacon fat (cook any nitrite-cured meats over medium heat to reduce the formation of carcinogenic nitrosamines). By controlling the quantity and quality of these enticements and combining them with real food, you are helping your children develop a palate for healthy choices that will last a lifetime.

I respect that there is more to our children's food choices than what parents offer and that food manufacturers, fast food restaurants, media, schools, and other government institutions aren't making our job any easier, but our kids can't wait while the grownups debate about how to improve school lunches and change agriculture subsidies. They need us to act now.

This is my Real Food Wednesday post. 

Leftovers by Design: Chicken

I was having one of those days. Tired and hungry at five o'clock after a very busy day during which I hadn't thought even once about dinner. There were some leftovers from the previous evening's experimental spaghetti squash "lasagna" with stinging nettle pesto, but I wasn't in the mood for that (and apparently, no one else has been, as it is still in the fridge, untouched). Lots of leftovers from a chicken I'd roasted previously, too. In the pantry, chicken broth I canned after last week's stock making class, and in the freezer, corn I froze last summer. Happened to have some hard-boiled eggs in the fridge (now that our hens are laying in earnest, I usually have a stash of hard-boiled eggs). Chicken-corn soup is a family favorite and with just a few basics on-hand, something I can put together in just 15 or 20 minutes. Making soup using meat leftover from a roast chicken and what I have on hand demonstrates my favorite technique for dealing with those too-busy-to-cook days; what I call leftovers by design.

A couple years ago as I began cutting back on our family's meat consumption, I hit upon the idea of cooking a large amount of meat (one 3-4 pound roast, a whole chicken or turkey breast) once a week, serving just a portion immediately, and creatively using the leftovers in a number of completely different meals later on, so it would not feel like we were eating leftovers all week. I found that not only was this economical, but it helped me save time in the kitchen as well. Often it seems that the preparation of meat takes more time and hands-on effort than any other part of a meal, by getting that work out of the way once a week, I spent less time overall, without resorting to massive and exhausting "once-a-month" cooking and freezing sessions. Typically, in the summer,  I grill and use the leftovers in salads. During the rest of the year, I mostly make roasts and use the leftovers in soups. Here's what I did most recently with a whole chicken.

Roast Chicken
1 whole roaster (5-7 pounds)
sea salt
sugar
1 lemon, cut in half
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon pepper
1 tablespoon butter

The night before you plan to roast, brine the chicken. Brining makes for moist, flavorful meat. Place it in a large pot and add just enough water to cover, noting how many quarts of water you have used. Heat one more quart of water on the stove, and dissolve two tablespoons of salt and two tablespoons of sugar for every quart in the pot plus the one on the stove. Once the salt and sugar are dissolved, remove from heat and allow to cool to room temperature (you can speed cooling by putting the pan in a couple inches of water in the sink). Add the salt and sugar solution to the pot with the chicken. Brine overnight.

The next morning or after eight hours, remove the chicken from the brine, rinse it and pat it dry. Place the chicken breast-side up in a pan just large enough to hold it, then into the refrigerator, uncovered. Air dry for several hours--the longer, the drier the skin and the crisper the skin of the cooked chicken.

Preheat the oven to 475F. Place chicken breast-side up in a roasting or baking pan. Cut off the wings tips--poultry shears are handy for this, but a sharp knife will do. Mix 1 teaspoon salt and ½ teaspoon pepper together. Rub butter all over the skin, then sprinkle liberally with salt and pepper mixture. Place lemon halves in the cavity and sprinkle salt and pepper inside the cavity as well. Place chicken into oven with legs pointing toward the back of the oven. Roast for about 1 hour, checking the temperature after 50 minutes by inserting a thermometer into the thigh, being careful not to touch any bones. Yes, fat will sputter all over your oven. Smoke may billow out of it. Have no fear. You are roasting the most amazing chicken ever. Just turn on the fan and open some windows, maybe have someone else stand by the nearest smoke alarm and fan smoke away from it with a dish towel whenever you open the oven.

When the temperature reaches 160-165F, remove chicken from the oven. Allow to rest for 15-20 minutes before carving. After dinner, remove meat from the carcass; don't forget the delicious bits on the back. Store in fridge. Save the bones...I even save the one the kids have gnawed on...and put them in the freezer. Or, you could start some stock.

Chicken Broth from Leftover Carcass
1 carcass
1 carrot
1 stalk celery
1 onion
(or, having planned ahead, a couple cups of frozen vegetable trimmings, saved just for the purpose of flavoring stock...)
1 bay leaf (optional)
½ teaspoon thyme (optional)
1 tablespoon vinegar (I usually use cider vinegar)

Place carcass and vinegar in a stock pot and add enough water to cover, about 2 quarts. Let sit for one hour, giving the vinegar time to draw minerals from the bones into the water. Bring the pot to a boil, then immediately turn heat down until a steady gentle simmer is maintained. Using a large spoon, skim the foamy impurities that rise to the top of the pot, but don't get too obsessed with this step. Cook for 5 to 8 hours, adding the vegetables, bay leaf, and thyme during the the last hour of cooking. Remove from heat, then strain the stock from the vegetable and carcasses through a couple layers of cheesecloth or a thinly woven dish towel (potato sack cloth) lining a colander. Freezes well for months, refrigerates for a week or so.

Chicken Salad Sandwiches
Uh...mix mayo, celery seed, salt, pepper, and chopped cooked chicken together in a bowl. Serve between two slices of bread, maybe with some arugula, watercress, or other greens if you have them on hand. Lunch in an instant.

Chicken-Corn Soup with Dumlings
I do this with and without the dumplings, depending on my mood and time, though really it takes only a couple minutes more of active work time.

1-2 tablespoons ghee, butter, or olive oil
1 onion, chopped
1-2 stems celery, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1 teaspoon thyme
½ teaspoon sage
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon pepper
1 quart chicken broth
1-2 cups frozen corn
1-2 cups cooked chicken meat, chopped
1 egg
½ cup milk
1 cup flour
2 eggs, hard-boiled and chopped (optional, but authentic!)

Melt ghee in a heavy-bottom soup pot over medium high heat. Saute onions and celery in butter until soft, about 5 minutes. Add garlic, thyme, sage, salt, and pepper and saute for 1 minute, then immediately add chicken broth. Add corn and chicken. If there is not enough broth to generously cover the meat and vegetables, add some water. Whisk the egg in the milk, then mix with the flour. Bring soup to a simmer, then add spoonfuls of dumpling batter to the soup. Cook for another 5-7 minutes, stirring gently. Add chopped hard-boiled eggs just before serving.

Smells Like Spring Spirit

We were enjoying a lovely spring tease here last week and my mind began turning to nettles. I strongly believe that our bodies, if we let them, will guide us to the foods we need for health. In the winter, I crave citrus, just when I need that extra boost of vitamin C. This time of year, as I notice the first signs of spring, my body craves green things, especially nettles, and I think it is more than a revolt against the root vegetables that have sustained us the last month or so. Call me crazy, but I think my body knows that now that the trees are beginning to bloom, a regular dose of nettles with their powerful anti-histamine properties, are just what I need to combat seasonal allergies.

Luckily, a friend with a nettle patch invited us over to meet her baby goats (that's Annabel with sweet boy-kid Eden) and pick to our hearts' content. She suggested trying to make pesto with our nettles and last night, as I was trying to figure out what to do with a bounty of cream cheese, I stumbled upon a couple recipes for savory pesto cheesecake (one with basil and another with spinach) and on went the light bulb. We have lots of delicious roasted hazelnuts from local grower Freddy Guys, so naturally they joined the experiment.

The pesto smelled and tasted like spring, all fresh and green, and even had hints of cucumber. While most cheesecake recipes call for whipping the cream cheese in mixer, adding one egg at a time, and then adding flavor components, in my dishwasherless kitchen, I am loathe to dirty both the food processor and the mixer bowl while prepping a weekday night dinner. So, once I had the pesto, I just added the cream cheese, eggs, and milk to the food processor and ran it until the mixture was thoroughly blended. The cake was airier than most cheesecakes I've made, which may have been due to using the food processor. No one seemed to mind and after a couple bites, Annabel, who had been a bit miffed when she learned earlier that I wasn't making sweet cheesecake, asked if she could have more for breakfast.

Finally, while the recipe suggests using a springform pan, my secret cheesecake weapon is my nine-inch round mold from Demarle. Like everything I cook in my Demarle pans, cheesecakes unmold perfectly every time. I may host a Demarle party here this spring. If you would like to come for some yummy food and to learn more about Demarle, let me know.

Stinging Nettle-Hazelnut Pesto Cheesecake
1 cup fine, dry breadcrumbs
½ cup hazelnut meal
½ cup grated Parmesan cheese, divided
½ cup butter, melted
3 cups fresh stinging nettles
¼ cup hazelnuts
1 large clove garlic, cut in half
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon freshly-ground pepper
⅓ cup hazelnut oil or olive oil
24 ounces cream cheese
3 eggs
¼ cup milk
Garnish: crushed hazelnuts

Preheat oven to 425ºF. Combine breadcrumbs, hazelnut meal, ¼ cup Parmesan cheese and butter; press on bottom and 1 inch up sides of an 9-inch springform pan. Bake for 15 minutes, then cool while you prepare the filling. Reduce oven to 300ºF.

Position knife blade in food processor bowl; add nettles, ¼ cup Parmesan cheese, hazelnuts, garlic, salt, and pepper. Top with cover; process until smooth. With processor running, pour oil through the food chute in a steady stream until mixture is blended.

Add cream cheese, eggs, and milk to food processor and process for a minute, until mixture is thoroughly blended.

Pour mixture into the prepared pan. Bake for 1 hour or until the cheesecake is almost set. Turn the oven off, and partially open the oven door. Leave cheesecake in oven for 1 hour.

Garnish, if desired, and serve immediately or let the cheesecake cool completely on a wire rack. Cover and chill.

Figuring Out Fennel

Fennel bulb intrigues me and I love it in salads and roasted, but ideas for how to combine its nutty licorice-ness in a cooked savory dish have alluded me. Two fennel bulbs and a chuck roast in my fridge inspired me to do a little searching on the web. A beef stew with fennel gremolata stood out, but I could see I would have to make a few changes to suit my cooking style and what I had on hand. Since I was going to be zesting an orange for the stew, I knew that I would have to make my son's favorite salad, a combination of arugula, fennel, and orange that we enjoy with Dungeness crab on special occasions.

In reviewing the recipe for the stew, I knew immediately that I would not use red pepper, both because it's out of season and because I wanted to emphasize the flavor of the root vegetables. While I have canned tomatoes in my pantry, that much tomato did not go with what I had in mind either, though it seemed that a bit of my lactofermented ketchup, with its cloves and celery seeds, would complement the dish and thicken the braising liquid somewhat. If you don't make your own ketchup, use plain tomato paste. Most commercial ketchups will add too much sweetness.

I only used four ¾-inch strips of orange zest--about half of the zest from one medium size blood orange--but that was enough to give the dish a rich orange flavor that worked well with the beef, fennel, and root vegetables. I used a vegetable peeler to remove just the orange zest, leaving behind the bitter white pith. I left the remaining strips of zest on a rack to dry. I keep the dry strips in a jar to add to dishes like this one when I don't have oranges on hand.

As I mentioned in my post about Beouf Bourguignon, when braising in my sauteuse pan, I have to keep a close eye on things as the liquid tends to dissipate thanks to the pan's large surface area. I cooked some potatoes to go with the meal and added some cooking liquid to the braise. You could do the same, or add more broth. If you're using a Dutch oven, you probably won't have this problem. Got picky eaters who don't like cooked root vegetables? Remove all the meat from the finished dish, purée the vegetables with a immersion blender, then return the meat to the deceivingly delicious gravy.

Braised Beef with Orange, Fennel  and Root Vegetables

Serves 6-8

1 teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon pepper

2 tablespoons tallow

2½ to 3 pounds chuck roast,  cut into ¾-inch chunks

1 large onion, sliced

1 large fennel bulb, sliced

1 carrot, diagonally sliced

2 medium beets, sliced 

1 parsnip, diagonally sliced

3-4 cloves garlic, finely minced
1 tablespoon finely minced ginger

2 tablespoons lactofermented ketchup or tomato paste

1 teaspoon fennel seed

1 teaspoon dry thyme or several sprigs fresh

1 pint beef broth, more if needed

4 ¾-inch wide strips strips of zest peeled from one blood orange, reserve rest of orange for salad

Preheat oven to 400ºF. Melt tallow over medium high heat in a Dutch oven or sauteuse. Mix salt and pepper together in a small bowl, then sprinkle half of it generously over cubes of beef. Brown beef in on all sides, then remove from pan. Saute onion, fennel, carrot and parsnip in the same pan, adding some more tallow if necessary. When the vegetables are soft, add the garlic, ketchup, fennel seed, and thyme, cook for 2 minutes then add the broth and orange zest. Return meat to pan, cover, and bring to broth to a boil. Move pan to oven and cook until meat is tender, about 1½ to 2 hours. 

Arugula, Blood Orange, and Fennel Salad
Serves 4
 

juice from 1 Meyer lemon or other small lemon

1 tablespoon rice wine vinegar

3 tablespoons sesame seed oil

3 tablespoons olive oil

1 teaspoon miso (optional)

salt and pepper

1 small fennel bulb

1 blood orange

1 pound arugula

Combine lemon juice, rice wine vinegar, oils, and miso in a jar, cover, and shake vigorously. Taste and add salt and pepper. Set dressing aside. Cut the fennel bulb in half lengthwise, through the root. Remove the core. Holding the stem end of the bulb half, thinly slice the fennel on a mandolin or with a very sharp knife. Repeat with other half. Place slices in a bowl. Section the orange, holding it over the bowl of fennel to capture the juices while you work and dropping freed orange sections in bowl. Toss the orange and fennel together--the citric acid from the orange will keep the fennel from browning. Just before serving, toss fennel, orange, and arugula with about half of the dressing, reserve the rest for another day.    

Portland Area Home Food Production Resources

Two people ask for local gardening/food production resources last weekend...must be all the fine weather. Here are my faves. Please comment with yours!

Books About Growing Food Here
Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades by Steve Solomon
Maritime Northwest Garden Guide: Planning Calendar for Year-Round Organic Gardening by Carl Elliot and Rob Peterson

Local Organizations
Growing Gardens
Portland Permaculture Guild
Home Orchard Society
Oregon Tilth: Organic Gardening Classes
OSU Extension, Gardening
Trackers PDX

Email Lists
PDX Goats
PDX Backyard Chickens

Web Sites and Blogs
Throwback at Trapper Creek
(Nita farms and blogs out in the gorge)
Portland Nursery has a ton of gardening brochures here . I find their vegetable calendar is especially helpful.
Rainy Side Gardeners
Raising Rabbits in the Pacific Northwest
Rabbit Revolution

Local Businesses
Naomi's Organic Farm Supply
Urban Farm Store
Pistils Nursery
Portland Nursery

New Twist on Potato, Leek & Asparagus Soup

Potato-leek soup has been with me for a long time. Most famously it was the base for an asparagus-potato-leek soup I made for President Jimmy Carter years ago, when I worked as a bookseller and he came to our store to sign a book of poetry. Back then I followed a recipe from Perla Meyer's Art of Seasonal Cooking, but nowadays I let my pantry (by which I mean, all my food storage areas: my pantry, freezer, fridge, and even my garden--I'm "storing" potatoes there now) guide me instead. I discovered a quart of spring 2009 asparagus lingering in the freezer this weekend and with the hints of spring 2010 popping up all over the place (why, Hello, Hyacinths!), I thought that would be a good addition. Annabel wanted a cheese soup, so grated cheddar went in too. (She even agreed that potatoes, as long as they were pureed, would be okay, which is a big step for a girl who has hardly let potato in any form pass her lips in three years.)

The twist? We're out of chicken broth. And vegetable stock. There's a jar or two of beef broth in the pantry, but I've always thought that beef is too rich for this soup, which has a light spring air about it, especially with the asparagus. I have been saving up chicken backs and veggie scraps in the freezer for my upcoming Stocks, Soups, and Stews class and not made any stocks for my own use lately. What to do? A friend recently asked on Facebook what she could do with the abundant whey she had leftover from making cheese. Someone suggested soup and, fortunately, I have lots of whey too. So, into the pot that went as well. I was concerned that it would add an excessively tangy flavor, but not at all. If you have "way too much whey" on hand, here's a way to use some up...otherwise, chicken broth or vegetable stock will be just fine.

2 tablespoons butter
2 large leeks, white and pale green parts sliced
2 pounds potatoes (I used German butterballs from our garden), chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
2-3 cups whey (or chicken broth or vegetable stock)
1 pound frozen asparagus
1 generous cup grated cheddar cheese
salt, pepper
creme fraiche, sour cream (optional)
bacon bits (optional)

Melt butter in a soup pot over medium high heat. Sauté the sliced leeks in butter until soft. Add the potatoes and garlic, then add enough whey to cover everything. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes or until potatoes are soft enough to mash with a fork. Add the asparagus and cook for a couple minutes, long enough to barely soften the asparagus. Remove pot from heat and purée with an immersion blender or in batches in a blender or food processor. Return the puréed soup to the pot and add the cheese. When the cheese is melted, add salt and pepper to taste. Serve with a dollop of cream fraiche or sour cream and a sprinkling of bacon bits.