The sad- but tasty- fruits of our labor

For a few reasons, our small garden patch got started late this year.  I should preface this post with the disclaimer that this was my dear hubby and I's first independent venture into the world of food growing.  Consider yourself disclaimed...  
I visited Allandale Farm late in August in search of seeds that might still be willing to yield some produce at such a late date in our brisk Northeast climate.  I decided to give the spinach, arugula and baby carrot seeds a whirl as each packet's instructions gave me a glimmer of hope that they might be able to deliver on a promise of tasty and healthful sustenance.   I sewed the seeds in little rows in our raised 5'x8' garden (built so finely by my handy husband) and crossed my fingers, not really expecting anything to come of this as my thumbs have been noted to be fairly brownish in past growing endeavors.  How thrilled was I when I came outside several days later to find neat little rows of adorable sprouts popping out of the soil!  "We did it!  We really did it!" I thought.  How wonderful to grow your own edibles!  Well, as I began to grow a little more tired and a little less interested in the evenings, Andy religiously watered the ground, nurturing our greens in a way that I could not. A couple weeks later, I noticed that the greens had not progressed much further at all really.  "They're just taking their time, building up their tastiness" I thought, in the ever-present optimistic prism through which I view all things:)  Weeks passed, and still the greens stayed in their adorable sprout-like form, only now with little munches taken out by opportunistic predators.  I finally resorted to one dose of- dare I even utter it aloud- horror upon horrors- Miracle Gro.  Yes, I feel terrible about this, but I felt it was my only hope at the time.  The application resulted in a touch of upward motion for the arugula, but not so much doing for the spinach.

So, alas, as November's chill set in, one blustery morning I went out to the garden to uproot my little, developmentally-challenged, and ever-so-slightly chemically-tainted friends.  

I brought them into the house in a sweet woven basket to be admired for the day before preparing them in an itty bitty salad with homemade croutons (made from some Iggy's bread that we had lying around), some cheese bits, and a honey-mustard-balsamic vinaigrette.   And so ended our not-so-productive growing season, a little sadly, but quite tastily as well.  Better luck next year I suppose, lessons learned, or perhaps, not so much.

Beef stew and apple crisp- Fall tastiness, personified.

Earlier this week, I found myself with a few veggies left from our CSA- we had yellow and orange carrots, a mismatched pair of potatoes (one red-skinned, the other Yukon gold), a bunch of parsley and a big old green pepper.  I decided that the best way to bring these together would be a hearty beef stew.  I was venturing near a Whole Foods, so I thought I'd make a rare visit as we don't really have a Whole Foods close to us in JP.  I have to say, in the end, I wish I hadn't.  Now, it's not at all lost on me that it sounds totally obnoxious to complain about the quality of stew beef at Whole Foods of all places.  However, I just have to.  The beef was awfully grisly and in the end, I really missed the local Hardwick or Stillman's beef that I would usually use.  The stew beef was on sale for $3.99 a pound and in the end I couldn't resist a good deal.   I guess I've been spoiled by our local grass-fed beef.  Lesson learned.  I'll shut up now about the meat.  

So... to start, I seasoned the meat with sea salt and cracked pepper and then dredged it in flour to thicken that puppy up in the end. After rendering some non-local bacon (it was $1.99 at Whole Foods... again, I'll stop) I caramelized the beef, then got up all the tasty bits with some roughly chopped onion, green pepper, garlic, and carrot chunks. After adding a healthy portion of exquisite Three-Buck-Chuck, I used my favorite pantry item, (canned tomatoes) added the beef back and as well as some potato chunks, cooked for a few hours until the meat was tender and added the parley at the last minute. It was good, but not as good as it could have been. Really, I'm going to stop now.

We also had an abundance of apples left from the CSA.  While I've already made three crisps (one peach and two apple) this season (not to mention eating more than my fair share of Carrie's at our harvest dinner) I decided to make another.  Fortunately, Andy and I are trying to build up our fat jackets for what I can only imagine is going to be a long Winter after a first snow in October, so the apple crisp works right into our plan.  My mom made me this great recipe book when I first went away to college in which she copied our favorite recipes from various sources and wrote little notes on them.  My favorite crisp recipe is in there, (taken from the "Boca Raton Cookbook") and it goes as follows:
-4 cups peeled, sliced apples
-1 Tbsp lemon juice (I skipped this because I didn't have it...turned out ok though...)
-1/3 cup sifted flour (I don't sift.)
-1 cup old fashioned Quaker oats (I'm thinking someone was in bed with the Quaker folks to specify the brand...  use the oatmeal of your choosing prn.)
-1/2 cup light brown sugar
-1/2 tsp. salt
-1 tsp. cinnamon
-1/3 cup melted sugar

To paraphrase the instructions, preheat oven to 375F.  Mix apples with lemon juice (ideally) and combine the rest of the ingredients separately.  Then pile the apples in a pan (I used 12"x12" square) and pack the crumbly topping on top.  Bake for 30 minutes or until slightly browned on top.  Serve with tasty vanilla ice cream.
*A couple of notes on this recipe.  For the best outcome, mix apples with a tablespoon or so of flour, about a half cup of sugar and a teaspoon-ish of cinnamon before piling in the pan.  Also, the topping amounts must have been written by a stingy bastard.  I doubled them.
The crisp makes for a great dessert, breakfast meal, and snack food, particularly if you're trying to plump up for the cold weather.  Enjoy!

Fall harvest 2009- Beginning at the end...

So, it's a little unfortunate to begin this blog with an entry about the end-of-the-growing-season meal, but sometimes I guess you've got to begin at the end? Plus, every end is a new beginning, or some other feel-good phrase along those lines... In any case, we picked up our last CSA share from Stillman's Farm last Saturday. It was a little sad to wrap up the season, but fortunately we still have a good backlog of fruits and veggies to work with. Plus, the end of the CSA signifies that we are coming closer to the always wonderful Winter Farmer's Market in Pawtucket (starting Nov. 7th this year). If you're within an hour's drive I highly recommend checking it out, as they always have a really great variety of farms, bakeries and various forms of deliciousity represented. Plus, it's a great way to eat local all Winter! (There's that "end is a new beginning" concept I guess... I'm really working on the optimism...) In terms of full disclosure, I have to admit that I love the pink grapefruits they sell at the market. Obviously you can't grow grapefruit in New England, so they bring them up to the market from a small farm in Florida. I have some degree of guilt about this- as they're certainly not "local" per se- but I digress.

Anywho, we have amassed a large supply of chili peppers at various rankings on the Scoville

scale from jalapeno to habanero, to several mystery varieties in between. Together with the onions and garlic and local ground pork and ground beef we had on hand, (both from Stillman's as well,) I thought I'd make a nice, hearty chili. I had made a chili with some CSA peppers about a month ago and had simply chopped up the chili peppers and sauteed them; it was pretty good, but there was definitely room for a bump up in tastiness so I thought I'd try something a little different this time.

So, instead I roasted the chili peppers over the gas flame on the stove.

I then stuck them in a paper bag to steam a bit, and then boiled them briefly with some chicken stock to soften them a bit further.

I then pureed them in the blender to create a sort of chili paste.

This worked out nicely so I could adjust the hotness as I liked as the chili cooked. I didn't really use a recipe, but if you're interested in trying this at home, the ingredients included the already mentioned onions, garlic, chilies, ground pork and beef, plus canned tomatoes, cider vinegar, brown sugar, chili powder, garlic powder, cumin, oregano, bay leaves (and the ubiquitous salt and pepper, of course). It turned out fairly delicious, if I don't say so myself.

What goes better with chili than cornbread? Fortunately, we had some really great cornmeal we had picked up on VT recently and I had good recipe in my old Fannie Farmer cookbook.

Our friend Carrie, (who we actually share our CSA with,) came over and brought some beets and onions she had pickled earlier this season. This made for a tasty salad with the lettuce and carrots from this week's share.

She also brought a delicious apple crisp which she had made from apples she picked at Honeypot Hill Orchard in Stow. This was particularly scrumptious when doused with "sweet cream" ice cream from JP Licks! All and all the meal was hearty and comforting on a cool Fall evening in JP, especially when accompanied by a nice glass of Pinot provided by Carrie. Plus, apart from the canned tomatoes, spices, wine, and a couple other small items, all the food we ate was locally produced which I find rather enjoyable:) Also, a side note on the chili: You may have noticed that there were no beans in the chili. I maintain that authentic chili does not have beans. In addition, I hate beans. All kinds.

So, there you are. You can color blog post #1 completed (finally!) I'm hoping we'll manage to share a bunch more harvest dinners with good friends and family this Winter. We'll keep you posted!