pease porridge

Moving On

Hey, so, as you may have noticed, my interest in writing a blog devoted to cooking has kind of been waning.  Rather than soldier on and get really annoyed at myself about it, I've started up a new blog which will include the recipes and food advice and pretty pictures and whatnot, but will also include other things like talking about Shakespeare and music and beading and all that.

The blog is called too many hobbies, which seemed appropriate, and I hope to see you all over there somemtime.

Howdy!

Thanks to FoodCandy, pease porridge recently got a mention in New York Magazine's Grub Street.  Their epithet 'farm-loving' is, I suppose, appropriate, considering the recent posting, although I imagine you're all now picturing me in a straw hat and overalls.  I do own a very nice orange straw hat, mind, and pink crocs, but I haven't warn overalls since, um, college.

A Day at the Farm Part 4: The Food

I think the photos speak for themselves:

A Day at the Farm Part 3: The Fields

One of things that you get out of the whole CSA experience, apart from tons of fresh produce and a good feeling about your consumer habits, is firsthand experience of agriculture on (quite literally) the ground.  For city-dwellers (like us), especially those with kids (like us), it's a great resource.  Every week you can observe plants in different stages of development, watch irrigation and pest-control programs at work, and cheer farmhands on in their seemingly neverending battle with obsolete technology (like those tractors above).

Also, it's really, really pretty out there:

A Day at the Farm Part 2: Pick Your Own

This is the pick your own shed at Waltham Fields.  On the white board they list what's available and give you a general sense of where it is, and, on occasion, how to pick it, or how to recognise the ripe from the unready.  There are also scissors, in case you've forgotton yours, and pint baskets, in case you need to measure out a pint or two of something for your share.

This week, among other things, we have: "BEANS green purple & yellow behind the red shed. take what you'll use. frost killed the plants - beans are OK underneath. pick hard - last day."

A Day at the Farm Part 1: The Farmstand

In just two short weeks our CSA experience will be almost over; I say almost because we signed up for an extra winter share that delivers two weeks of root vegetables in late November.  This past weekend when we went to pick up our share I finally remembered my camera and thus begins a photo-retrospective of the CSA experience.

I really could have been better about produce-blogging this summer, but, in truth, I was kind of too busy cooking.  We were really happy with the results this year, and we'll definitely do it again, but it does keep you busy, what with making sure you have time to spend picking up your food, and time cleaning out your fridge obsessively, and time cooking and preserving and whatever else you need to do to keep up.  Once the harvest picked up, we generally had way too much for one family of four, even though we really like our veggies.  We did all right with saving and sharing the wealth, and hopefully what we didn't do so well, we'll do better next year.

Big Red

Now is the time for fresh, ripe tomatoes around here, which means that now is also the time for fresh tomato sauce (thanks to Lisa for reminding me - I had these photos all set, and then totally forgot to post about it).  At our farm we get a variety of tomatoes; the big heirlooms they pick for us, but the plum tomatoes and the cherries we get to pick ourselves.  One of my favorite smells in the world is that musky, tomato-on-the-vine-in-the-sun smell, so the pick-your-own part is kind of like free therapy.

This sauce, from The Italian Country Table by Lynne Rossetto Kasper, takes advantage of a mix of tomatoes for a complex blend of sweet and bright flavors.  It's a good sauce for lasagne or filled pasta recipes, and also for adding to other sauces and soups to liven them up; it's also great on pasta if you like your sauce non-chunky.  I tend to like the chunks, but this recipe manages to distill the great taste of late-summer tomatoes, and it freezes well, too.  The recipe as written doesn't make a ton of sauce; I tend to double or even triple it whenever I make it.  If you're doing the same, remember to cook everything longer (and if possible, use a bigger pan) to get the same rich taste.

Required Reading

As far as I'm concerned, What to Eat by Marion Nestle ought to be required reading.  Not just foodies, or people in the food industry, or food bloggers, but everyone who eats food should read this book.

Marion Nestle (no relation to the food industry giant) is a nutrition professor at NYU who you may have already met if you saw Super Size Me.  So, she knows something about food and she probably shares some of the same political preferences as me, which information totally did not prepare me for the tour de force that is What to Eat.

On Canning

On Thursday, my husband came home from the farm with ten pounds of tomatoes:

Now, there is nothing in the world nicer than fresh tomatoes, but we were expecting another ten or so pounds to come in on Sunday, so we had to think fast.  The solution?  Run out and buy a gigantic canner:

Okay, so we weren't planning on buying a gigantic canner; we would've settled for a more modest size, but there aren't many places that actually sell canners these days, so we had to make do with what we found, which was this one.  Should the occasion arise, we shall be able to can nine quarts of produce at a time.  I have no idea where I'm going to put it.

By the way, I'm just going to give you a summary here of what happened next.  If you want actual factual information, please don't start canning without going to the U.S. Department of Agriculture website.  I do not want to be responsible for an outbreak of botulism if I can help it.

Spinach Falafel with Tahini Sauce

I don't normally deep-fry things.  I don't like wasting the oil, I don't like making a huge mess on my stove, I'm always worried I'll over- or under-cook something, and, not too healthy, is it?  I will, however, make an occasional exception for a few recipes (corn fritters, fried chicken, fried eggplant with honey and sesame seeds) and this is the latest addition to the short list.

The recipe says spinach falafel, but I actually made these with random leftover greens in my refrigerator, which included kale, chard, turnip and beet greens, I think.  I'm happy to say it worked just as well that way.

The veggies on the plate, by the way, are all from the farm.  The cucumbers, especially, are an amazing treat, because they actually taste like something, as opposed to the crunchy water of the supermarket variety.  There's also a shot of the last of the beet tzatziki, which, I know, I promised would come in the future, and it will, but we ate it all up really quickly so you'll have to wait until I make more.