Locavore In Training

Today I’m interrupting this blog to document a non-local but really yummy meal. I’m still in Colorado, and last night we went to Le Bosquet in Crested Butte. It’s a French-esq restaurant we decided, featuring a variety of small plates, fondue, salads, soups and entrees. And, everything was quite good.

I started with the wedge salad, which featured a homemade blue cheese dressing with crispy pancetta. The blue cheese had really nice flavor.

After that, I had two small plates… A trio of sausages: venison with orange, duck and pork with orange and one with chipotles – and two kinds of mustards.

And the second small plate… Portabella Fries with Gorgonzola cream dipping sauce. No question, the highlight of the meal.

Tiffany and Chris ended their meal with Chocolate Fondue… We all got a taste, and it was really, really great!

Pretty much the first thing I did after arriving in Colorado, was visit the Crested Butte Farmer’s Market. I visited last year, and remember it being pretty great… but what I didn’t remember was how this tiny town’s market puts all the Maryland Farmer’s Markets I’ve visited to shame. Seriously, Maryland… we need to step it up! Their brutal winters and extremely short growing seasons hasn’t limited them… what’s our excuse?

I figure those who are in Maryland might be a little miffed at this point… so, don’t take my word for it! Here’s a picture tour from the market! (Warning – this post is picture heavy! Give it a minute… it’s worth it!)

Can't beat the location!

My mom could not have been more excited about these Fava Beans! She’s been on the lookout for them earlier in the season in Florida and now here… It’s apparently the last week for them, so she loaded up!

Baby squash! So cute!

Circle A had 4 kinds of garlic?? Yes, please! The Spanish Roja was quickly dispatched into spaghetti sauce last night. The cloves had a beautiful red color, and the flavor was amazing!

Fresh apricots! I never did find any at home.

Freshly made crepes… because every farmer’s market has that…

They even have the dreaded kohlrabi.

Kids love beets? These kids do!

Not pictured… the bluegrass band, the smoker BBQ station, the massage booth, the jewelry and other art… And all dogs! This area is dog crazy! It’s awesome.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must go have goat cheese and pumpernickel bread for breakfast.

I’ll leave you with the sunset from my first night here.

I’ve mentioned before that I have a deep yearning to raise chickens. (And I have since I was a child! Right, Mom?) Friendly, egg-producing, pet chickens. There are many just a few reasons why this hasn’t happened yet: In the spring, for days and weeks and practically months on end, our yard turns into a muddy mucky mess. Not a nice place for animals to live.Tricky rules… our community and county allows them, but we may or may not have the required amount of land.Vacations. I haven’t quite figured out what happens if when we leave for several days at a time. Cat sitters? No problem. Chicken sitters? Um… more of a challenge.Reluctance on the side of the husband. He’ll deal with it, if I realllllly want them… but he’d prefer I wait until we live in a place that makes a little more sense for raising various farm animals. So, why does he, the unwilling chicken owner, send me an email about Chicken Cribs? Maybe he secretly wants chickens too? How cute is this?

(Their photo) Ok, so at over $600, it should be. And I do still love the Eglu. And, look! They made a new model! The Eglu Go:

(Their photo) And, half as expensive at the Eglu Classic!! And… what’s that? Hello Beehaus!

(From Engadget) Not only is it outrageously expensive, it seems like it’s only available in the UK… but is it wrong that I still want it?

I mentioned the other day that my canning was a success… I wanted to share the recipe, because while I haven’t tasted this batch, we did taste them in class and they were awesome.

This recipe comes from my canning instructor, Marla Luther who got it from a USDA canning book.

Recipe: Reduced-Sodium Sliced Sweet Pickles

So, those monster zucchinis…

The left and right ones are just over 1 lb each. The middle one… 2 full pounds!

Finally, I shared this on Facebook the other day, but I wanted to share it here too… A beautiful triple lily I had no idea grew in our yard.

This post is part of Fight Back Friday on Food Renegade.

One of my lovely readers asked me about what’s needed to get started with canning, preferably without spending tons of cash. I thought it was a great question, and one I should address here!

I’m not known for just dipping a toe into a project, but in this case, I actually did. I didn’t buy every available option and gadget… and turns out, I’ve got enough!

I have two books, Homemade Living: Canning & Preserving with Ashley English (which I already discussed here) and Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving. Ashley’s book is charming, and makes canning approachable… and the Ball book is chock full of recipes for ideas and inspiration.

As far as supplies, if you want to order online I’d suggest Amazon. (This is no surprise to those who know me, I love Amazon. ) There are, of course, other options if you’d prefer to price shop or buy from a traditional store.

I bought this water bath canner and I’ve been pleased with it:

Granite Ware 21-1/2-Quart Steel/Porcelain Water-Bath Canner with Rack

You’ll also want to get one of the nice kits they have out, something like:

It’s cheap, it looks cheap… get it anyway. You’ll thank me later!

Back to Basics 5-Piece Home Canning Kit

I haven’t ventured into the world of pressure canners, but if you know you definitely will be doing that, you can save some money and just buy the pressure canner. You can use it as a water bath canner as well, as long as you don’t seal it! One word of caution, and PAY ATTENTION TO THIS!!! If you have one of the glass top cooktops, you’ll probably want to stick to water bath canning. The weight of the pressure canners can damage your stove!

When/If I buy one, this is the one I plan to buy:

Presto 23-Quart Aluminum Pressure Cooker/Canner

Because I have the glasstop stove, I’ll have to get something like this (or someone should build me my outdoor stove!)

Camp Chef Explorer Series EX-60LW 2-Burner Modular Cooking System, Black

If you wanted to buy locally, True Value and Ace Hardware are your best options. I bought my jars from True Value recently, and they had other supplies there as well. For some reason, those stores seem to stock more of the canning supplies than the larger big box hardware stores.

So, as you can see, between the books, the water bath canner and the kit, you can get started for about $60 with all new materials. There are cheaper ways to do it, but it’s not a huge upfront cost either.

I haven’t tried this, but I’ve heard yard sales and thrift stores can be a good source of used jars. Just check that there are no chips or cracks, particularly on the top rim. You’ll need to get new lids (they are not reusable) but other than that, you’re all set!

If others have things that they love and want to recommend, please do!

There are some days when I feel like I will never “get it right” with this local food thing. (Please do not talk to me about kohlrabi until at least next Spring.) It can be hard… running to multiple markets, farms, farm pickups, etc.

Well, yesterday was not one of those hard days. The stars aligned for me, I guess.

I left the office a little early because my day ended with a conference call that I could just as easily take from the car. I rolled into the community garden just before 5 to do some much needed watering. Weird transition from work to farm hand… but after a quick 911 call to one of the coordinators to figure out how to turn off the electric fence, I was in business.

Watered two rows – one each zucchini and pattypan squash – 90 seconds for each plant. Watered myself a little too, thanks to the 90+ weather we’ve been having. (Mother Nature, it would be lovely if you turned down the heat a bit, and gave us some rain. Thanks much.)

I was on the very last plant when a gopher ran out from under the plant – wet and scared. Not sure who was more scared though!! A nice reminder that while I might be alone in terms of other people, you’re never fully alone outside!

Then I went in search of the promised pickling cucumbers. I think they meant prickly! Ouch. My goal was to pick 4 lbs for my low sodium pickle chip recipe from canning class. Yum. (Recipe to come.) Turns out, I can’t judge weight very well in a field. Ended up with 8 lbs! Also, 3 of the largest zucchinis I’ve ever seen. I’ll post a picture soon, I promise – you have to see these to believe!

Once I got home, I set about pickling those 8 pounds of extremely fresh cucumbers. Thanks to my food processor, the chopping was almost completely eliminated. And by 8:30, 8 beautiful pints of freshly made pickles were sitting on the counter. Horray!

CSA pickup tonight, and they promised NO KOHLRABI.

For the record’s sake, here’s what I would have gotten this week at the CSA (week 6) had I made it over there…

4 pounds combo of the following:

Photo by fooddesign @ photoxpress

• kale
• turnips
• kohlrabi
• green head cabbage (1 head maximum)

• 2 1/4 pound zucchini
• 3/4 pound carrots
• 1/2 pound peas
• 1/2 pound Swiss chard
• 1/4 pound lettuce
• 1 bulb onion
• 1 bunch bunching onions
• 1 head garlic

Mmm… sounds good, right?! But, alas, I had to work late Tuesday night. It’s actually been quite busy around here, as evidenced by my lack of posting. Though I really enjoyed it, I welcomed the end of my canning classes. I will very much welcome the end of the intense course I’m taking to help with work. That should free up quite a bit of time!

In the meantime, skipping last week’s share may have paid off. I’ll pick up a double share on Tuesday, and the CSA is taking the following week off to catch up on farm chores. Since working at the community garden, I have a new appreciation for all the work that goes into raising food… so if they need a week off, I’m more than happy to step back and let them have it.

Speaking of the garden… holy cow, is that more than I anticipated! There are some very dedicated souls who spend most of every weekend out there. Even if I could hack hours and hours and hours in the sun, I’d never get anything else done in my life! I’m getting out there when I can to help, and I’m learning quite a bit! (Even more than how hard farming is!) The garden boss asked people to come out and harvest zucchini and cucumbers today… I’d love to do that, since my last canning class covered pickling but if I go over there, I’ll spend a couple hours working and then not have time to actually do the pickling! It’s a dilemma.

I haven’t been to a farmer’s market in weeks (no need with 2 awesome sources of produce that’s already paid for!!) but I do miss it. Two news ones have opened for the season, so I definitely need to get over and check them out!

Well, I think that’s it for me! Time to get out and do stuff

A terrible problem to have, I know…

Week 5, and these words make me want to cry:

5th CSA Share: Kohlrabi, Snow Peas and Carrots

Oh boy. I should also mention that the kohlrabi that I claimed would be consumed last night was, in fact, not. Not a sugar snap pea either. Let’s just say, Jay had to work late last night, and he considered not having to eat more kohlrabi a fringe benefit.

Here’s the rest of this week’s share – I can’t really explain how I ended up with something different than shown on the Clagett’s list… but here’s what I’ve got:

• Purple kohlrabi – the largest one I’ve ever seen. Weighs 4 lbs. Seriously.
• 2 lbs kale
• 1 onion
• 1 lb carrots
• 1 lb sugar snap peas
• 2 small zucchinis

That oughta do.

I mentioned before that I was making carrot cake muffins… Look, I’m calling them muffins because that means they’re acceptable to eat for breakfast. Icing and all. They’re made with local carrots and eggs, that means they are healthy. Don’t judge.

I made these carrot cake cupcakes, following the recipe almost exactly (except for adding a bit more cinnamon because there can never be enough). They don’t – in any way – look pretty like hers (or otherwise, really), but they’re yummy.

Off to…

… stare at the produce hoping it’ll inspire me (and fit in the fridge)

… make frozen pizza

… roast some sugar snap peas

… drink some beer
And, surely, there will also be cupcakes muffins consumed.

You didn’t think it could be done. I didn’t think it could be done… but it turns out, I mostly did it!

Let’s refresh our memories, shall we? Here was the “it can’t be done” double share from last week:

• 1lb broccoli
• 2 1/2 lbs sugar snap peas
• 2 1/2 lbs carrots
• 5 lbs (6 giant) kholrabi
• 4 lbs kale
• 2 lbs garlic scapes

Broccoli was immediately dispatched into a ham frittata. It might even be my first completely local meal – eggs and ham from polyface (VA), smoked swiss from South Mountain (MD), and the broccoli from my Clagett Farm share. There were spices and olive oil too, of course, but if that’s wrong, I don’t want to be right. Oh, and the meal was capped off with my own brewed beer! Despite the earlier fiasco, it actually turned out quite well!

Carrots have been shredded and will be turned into carrot cake muffins. Sure, I could have eaten them raw… but I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to make them into a baked good. Carrot cake is my absolute favorite. (FYI 2 1/2 lbs of small carrots with large tops turns into 2 cups shredded.)

Kohlrabi was roasted Saturday night using this Veggie Venture recipe, again Sunday night (this time with some extra Cajun spices and the rind cut completely off – a lesson from Saturday night) and will again be part of dinner tonight. Turns out, we like it. (Though preferably in small quantities than this.) Good thing, huh?

Kale… oh, how I love thee. And also, please stop being in season. I took the entire 4 lbs, pulled off the stems, micro-blanched, chopped and froze. It will be used when a recipe calls for 1 box frozen spinach, because a) spinach doesn’t come in a frozen box in nature and b) spinach isn’t the only green out there. I’ve previously substituted kale in spinach dip recipes, and will do so again for sure. (4 lbs kale = 27 oz with stems removed.)

Garlic Scapes… If I hadn’t had a monster amount of everything else, I’d have tried to be a little more experimental with these. There are lots of awesome looking recipes… Things like Garlic Scape Carbonara and Garlic Scape Dressing. Instead, I went with the standby Garlic Scape Pesto. I used a modified version of Dorie Greenspan’s recipe because she’s brilliant, so it had to be good. It is.

I had some pretty good puns going around canning, but I decided to spare you.

Some of my awesome readers may have noticed that I haven’t been posting as often as before. It’s not for lack of material… Turns out, I got a little over-scheduled. And if I’m over-scheduled now, I can’t even imagine what life will look like later when there’s a small farm’s worth of chores on top of normal house and work chores, along with our somewhat limited social calender! But, such is life. And even more so, the life I want eventually.

Everything is going well though! I over-scheduled because there’s so much good stuff to do right now. The chore that’s been suffering the most is the community garden. I really need to start pulling my weight over there – I’m going to work on better fitting that in. (I was there part of the weekend of 600+ tomato plants and 300+ squash and melon plants, so that’s something!)

This weekend, however, has been dedicated to catch up, clean out and canning. As I mentioned yesterday, I was off for the first of the series of canning classes held at the Accokeek Foundation. (So happy I found this place! Wish it was a little closer to me, but it’s worth the drive.) The full series of classes looks like this:

• Food Preservation
• Canning: Jams and Jellies
• Canning: Low Acid Food
• Canning: High Acid Food

The first two classes were yesterday – one in the morning, one in the afternoon. The class is hosted by Marla Luther, who grew up on a family farm, canning all the way and ended up with a PhD in Food Science (the exact degree might be something more technical than that) and working for the FDA. So, someone who knows the practicality and the technical side of canning and food safety. Someone you want to learn from. Plus, she’s probably around my age and has a fun, casual presence.

And the class was great. The morning session went over “Garden to Table” concepts, growing your own for later preservation – drying, freezing or canning. A couple of takeaways:

• Blanching is important before freezing. It always seemed like extra work for no reason, but it’s apparently pretty important. It stops a chemical process that breaks down the food (even while frozen). Good to know.
• There might be a way to determine when something is dry enough (for shelf-stable safely) by weighing the original item(s), and then weighing after drying. You’re looking for 50% reduction in water, and there may be charts that show how much water is in a particular food. (Sounds complicated to me, but then again, my first drying experiment results in crispy tomatoes.)

After a break for lunch, we all moved into the (tiny) kitchen to get our hands dirty. We made 3 kinds of jam: strawberry freezer jam, strawberry jam and jalapeno jelly. Turns out, a few of the steps suggested by one of my favorite bloggers in her canning book might be “nice to haves” not really “need to haves.” Instead of boiling the jars to sterilize, and then keeping them warm while everything else is cooking, run the dishwasher. Well, sure. Not only will it sterilize, if you time it right, it’ll also keep your jars warm. Another really good tip – we did two recipes that needed to be processed in the water bath canner so we saved the first batch to process with the second. So, everything doesn’t have to be done immediately but can be a little relaxed.

(I know I didn’t write about my first canning experience here – I kept meaning to, but it’s been hectic! Basically, I overcooked the jam – burning my pan quite badly – but I think the final product turned out decently. The before-water-bath-canner samples tasted good anyway. It was stressful and not at all the casual experience of my class environment. Also, don’t try to multi-task two things you’ve never done before. See Beer Fail.)

Anywho, the class has given me the confidence and desire to try again. That jalapeno jelly was awesome. Next week’s low-acid canning will most likely add a pressure canner to my list of desired kitchen gadgets. That an some sort of outdoor cooking setup because (and this might be the single best thing I learned yesterday) pressure canners + glasstop stoves = bad, bad things.

I already want this outdoor stove, oven, grill and smoker, maybe this will help get it on the priority list?

Now, I’m off to clean out of the freezer because a day of discussing food safely has deemed it so.