Cooking seasonally and eating well in the Hudson Valley.

Scapes, all a-tangle

With my children finishing school this week, and my daughter participating in her first ballet recital, it’s been a less-than-optimal week for cooking. Maybe that’s why I decided I had to cook this Friday, and had to cook as entirely local a meal as I could muster. I had short ribs in the freezer from the quarter steer I bought last fall, turnips and collards from the CSA, arugula pesto frozen and waiting to top a pizza-like flatbread…nearly everything I needed for a simple and delicious meal for a cool and rainy night.

I made a double batch of my favorite pizza dough, which is in the (yellow) Gourmet cookbook. I stretched it thin, drizzled with my olive oil of the moment, spread with 4 T of that arugula pesto, and topped with a sifting of freshly grated parm. Note to local cooks: I used some organic AP flour I bought earlier in the day at Hawthorne Valley Farm Store, and its texture was wholly different than the King Arther AP I usually use. As a result, the dough was so tender I had to bake it on a pan instead of assembling it on a peel and sliding it off onto the pizza stone, as I usually do. The result was more super-crisp flatbread than pizza, but it was still a perfect cruncy, savory bite with drinks before dinner.

For the short ribs, I used a recipe adapted from Daniel Boulud that is in the new Gourmet Today cookbook. The recipe is available online here; I adapted it slightly, using canned plum tomatoes. I also baked it in the oven instead of cooking it on top of the stove, and added some beef stock because the pan got too dry. I made it ahead of time, removing meat and vegetables from the sauce to cool, and chilling the sauce to defat it more thoroughly. I then reheated everything together at serving time.

Alongside, I served a mix of turnip, collard and beet greens (these were bulls blood beet greens from my own garden.) I trimmed the stems out of the collards, blanched each green separately in boiling water for a minute or two, then chilled them all down and chopped them coarsely. At dinner time, I heated a couple of tablespoons of fragrant olive oil in a sauté pan, added 4 cloves of garlic, coarsely chopped, and after the garlic became fragrant, dumped in the (well-drained) greens. I tossed them around in the pan over medium high heat for about ten minutes, until they were tender and fully flavored. They needed salting, and I should have added a pinch or two of peperoncini for flavor–that would have made a good dish better.

Finally, the turnips, which were my favorite. For these, I adapted a recipe from one of my other go-to cookbooks, Sunday Suppers at Lucques by Suzanne Goin. (This is my turn-to-every-time dinner party cookbook.) I warmed 2 T olive oil in a pan, and then added the turnips, which I had trimmed, leaving about 1/4 inch of stem atop, then halved or quartered, depending upon their size, so that I had more or less uniform pieces. I tossed them over high heat in the olive oil until they started to turn a nice, pale caramel color, then added 2 T of unsalted butter. I kept tossing and stirring over the high heat until they were fragrant and uniformly caramlized. The whole cooking process took less than ten minutes. To serve, I tossed them with a gremolata made from the zest of one (organic) lemon, 1 large clove of garlic, and 1/3 cup of flat leaf parsley (also from my garden) all finely chopped together. As with the greens, I found these needed a bit of salt (but then, I’m a salt freak.)

Today, come hell or high water (a distinct possibility, with the driving rain we’ve had the last two days) I’m making that scape pesto. At dinner at a friend’s last night, I was gifted with yet another bunch of scapes (these seem like one of the Alienating Vegetables that plague CSA members) that my friend couldn’t figure out how to use happily. I’ve promised to drop off pesto if it’s successful. (A similar plan involving chicken livers turned into paté was very well received by a chicken-farming friend last summer.)

Keep cooking.

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Yesterday’s haul wasn’t quite as mind-bending as last week’s, but maybe that’s because there were no strawberries. Even so, a week of excellent meals await:

2 gorgeous heads of leaf lettuce
2 giant bundles of collard greens
2 more bunches of those sweet, succulent spring turnips
a pound of glossy, toothsome spinach
2/3 of a pound each of crisp snap peas and snaky garlic scapes

There may be more of that saag, garlic scape pesto, caramelized turnips and lots of great salads in the week to come. I’ll be sure to keep you posted.

{Curious about what the same farm produced this week, 2 seasons ago? Check out this post. And for even more nostalgia, check out Week 2, 2007, at a neighboring farm, here.}

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That soup. Oh...that soup.

Dark greens, mostly meant for cooking, are maybe my favorite vegetables of all. Kale, arugula, and chard are the top of my personal hit parade, but I love turnip and beet greens, too. Having reaped a ridiculous bounty of all of these this week, I’ve had to figure out how to use them up.

Salad, of course, super simple: just greens, a radish or two, some leftover avocado, with my usual house vinaigrette.

For dinner two nights ago, I made this saag, Indian spiced spinach, with tofu instead of paneer. It was absolutely delicious–a great recipe I’ll make again.

For lunch today, I made that spring turnip soup Alana taught me about, and was amazed that such a bowl of succulence could come from a few roots and herbs, and bit of butter. I had no fresh chicken stock in the freezer, so I made mine with water, which was fine–but it is a smidge better with the extra richness stock adds.

And tonight, exhausted from a non-stop weekend, I made my first attempt at arugula pesto: a processor bowl full of arugula, half of it raw baby leaves, the rest blanched mature plants, about 12 cups in total; 1 cup each of walnuts, grated romano cheese and extra virgin olive oil, plus about a half teaspoon each of kosher salt and fresh pepper…oh, and the juice of a lemon, for brightness. Satisfying and clean on rustic wheat bread I picked up Friday morning from the day-old shelves at Berkshire Mountain Bakery, my latest frugalista obsession.

I still have kale and loads of salad greens left from last Tuesday, plus my own heaping pile of French breakfast radishes. Tomorrow night may have to be a kale and onion frittata and a big green salad. We’ll see, but Tuesday, more bounty is on the way, so I’ve got some eating and cooking to do.

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This week’s haul from the CSA (the first week!) was incredible, but not surprising given the perfect weather we’ve had for the last month. I brought home:

• 1 pound each of arugula, spinach and salad greens
• 2 bunches each of kale, broccoli rabe and spring turnips
• 2 pints of amazing strawberries

Not bad for the last week of May. So far, I’ve made tortilla soup into which I snuck some of the arugula (I’ll post the recipe, which was adapted from a couple in the new Gourmet cookbooks–it was delicious and eaten by all, including picky short people); lovely green salads, of course; great saag with tofu instead of paneer from this Chow recipe; rapini (that’s the rabe) sautéed with good olive oil, a fair bit of garlic and salt, and a sprinkling of pepperoncini. All: divine. Next up: Alana’s incredible spring turnip soup (Alana’s, I should say, by way of Alice Waters) and either kale pizza (my fave) or kale salad (which I love and the kids will eat.) This year, I am making a concerted effort to really consume all that I bring home; since we’re chickenless at the moment (lots of foxy carnage last summer) it’s up to us to try to eat all this good produce. This means that between the arugula I brought home and what I have to cut in my own garden, I have to make and freeze some arugula pesto, which I’ve never tried, so I can use it all up. I’ll be sure to share a recipe if I find one I like; or, as I am prone to doing, I may just vamp up my own. We’ll see.

{Curious to see how this year’s bounty stacks up against the same farm’s output two years ago? Read about Week 1, 2008, here. And for even more nostalgia, read about Week 1, 2007, at a neighboring farm, here.}

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It’s back.

Garden season.

CSA season.

Glorious, exuberant, fresh produce that neither human, cat, nor, it seems dog (who ate all those luscious berries shortly after I shot that picture) can resist.

Bliss. (Except for the tragic loss of those berries, which were lush and warm and sweet, just picked yesterday morning. Sniff.)

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I’ve been so busy at other endeavors that I’ve been sadly absent over here, though it’s not for lack of cooking, or, for that matter, writing.  My garage is filling in for a root cellar and is stocked with loads of garlic, squash, potatoes, sweet potatoes and celeriac (and I have another fifty pounds of potatoes resting comfortably over at the Farm at Miller’s Crossing.)

I’ve published a few more stories over at Rural Intelligence, including a piece on wine recommendations for tomorrow (great if you’re a guest, and want to come with something delicious and low-effort!) and an interview with Noah Sheetz, Executive Chef to New York Governor David Paterson.  Sheetz is a committed locavore and a wonderful food blogger in his own right.

Maybe most exciting, I’m now blogging and serving as the food editor for a brand new site, The Sister Project. The site is the brainchild of Margaret Roach, garden blogger extraordinaire and ex-Martha Stewart editorial guru.  Come visit!

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Migas in the Making

Same as the old Bountiful Harvest, but now open source, which will mean something to geeks, and not much to cooks, and that’s all fine with me.

This week, I have a new article up on Rural Intelligence, featuring one of my favorite brunch (or breakfast-for-supper) dishes, migas.  It’s got a few steps if you want to make the best version, but there are plenty of totally acceptable cheats that will still leave you with a fantastic, satisfying meal.  You can also leave out the bacon, for a vegetarian version, and I bet a vegan version made with tofu would also be good….You get the idea.  Check it out!

And don’t forget that this weekend is the bulk sale at the Farm at Miller’s Crossing.  I can’t say enough about Chris and Katie Cashen and the fantastic food they grow.  The sale will offer carrots, beets, garlic, onions, potatoes, sweet potatoes, winter greens and probably more, all organic, all local if you live in my region, incredibly delicious to boot.  They’ll also have their own grass-fed, organic beef (which my picky, hamburger-obsessed family has rated as among the best we’ve tried) for sale, and they’re offering storage for bulk vegetable purchases in their coolers at the farm.  Do yourself and your Thanksgiving guests a favor, and pick up your squash and potatoes here–they are really, really good.

See you at the farm on Saturday!

Bulk Sale:  Saturday, November 1, 10 a.m. – 2 p.m.
The Farm at Miller’s Crossing
81 Roxbury Rd. West, just off Rte. 217
Hudson, NY
(518) 851-2331 | email: info@farmatmillerscrossing.com

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My latest post for Rural Intelligence is all about how to store the bounty of this particular part of the season, including some of my absolute favorites, like celery root and winter squash. Don’t miss it!

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Beet? Apparently. Check out my latest piece for Rural Intelligence, right here.

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