Thanksgiving Market

A little late...but if you're available, you should come to our Community Market tomorrow. Lots of great stuff...!

Saturday's Local Dinner

Saturday morning we got up and headed up to the Avenue for a special farmer's market. On normal Saturday's our local community market is head at our community center. But this past Saturday, the community market turns into a street fair on our humble town's main drag. We left with a typical bounty of goods. I was hoping to get enough goods to make a full dinner at home and boy oh boy were we lucky!



We started with some freshly picked beets. Peeled and quartered, I roasted them at 400 with a pinch of salt and a dab of butter for an hour. They were tender and good. But I didn't plan things right, so the rest of dinner wasn't ready. I left the beets in the oven, with the heat turned off, for about another 20 minutes. That was just enough time for the beets to develop a beautiful caramelized crust on the bottom beets. Chewy candy!

We grabbed a nice bag of mixed greens for a salad. I washed them three times and let them sit in a towel lined bowl until dinner time. Then I pulled them out and started to tear the leaves into pieces for serving. Oops, found a big nasty eating one of the leaves. NO PESTICIDES my friends. At least it wasn't half a nasty attached to the leaf. I made a dressing out of fresh herbs from the garden--thyme, basil, oregano and rosemary. Chopped with shallot, a squeeze of lemon, salt & pepper. I finished the dressing off with a splash of chardonnay vinegar and avocado oil. Adjust for taste--little more salt and pepper--good to go. Tart and herby!

This season our market is super duper lucky. We have a local sausage maker now coming and selling their goods--Simply Sausage. We had a sample and bought two packs. A "Christmas Breakfast" sausage with some warm spices added in. And these little heaven snausages! Pork with tarragon, shallot and thyme. So delightful. Especially with the salad dressing I made. Perfect match to the salad. I put the sausages in a pan with about 1/2 cup of water, brought to a heavy simmer and covered for about 5-10 minutes. This cooks the sausages most of the way through. I removed the cover and drizzled a little olive oil on. Now let them sear for a few minutes per side, shaking the pan as you go. Golden brown and awesome all around. Oops, correction...tarragon, shallots and parsley...doesn't matter...so good!

The remants of the salad bowl. The greens didn't need anything else to make the salad. Well, that's a lie, we had a French baguette, the beets and the sausages. Perfect dinner. Only thing missing was the forthought to put of bottle of vino blanco into the chill box. Oops.

Market Fresh Tomatoes

Hello everyone. I'm back from my week long sabbatical. It was nice to not worry about the blog. But I have to admit, I still thought about it a lot. But I did nothing for it!!!!

But I did do some fun stuff around the kitchen, including a new batch of fresh tomato sauce. It's brilliant! You must try it. There is nothing to awesome as taking several pounds of fresh, ripe tomatoes and simmering them down for an afternoon until you have rich, delicious, bright, tangy, sweet and luxurious tomato sauce to use to your heart's desire! It takes some time, but if you're planning a lazy Saturday at home, why not!

Give your tomatoes a dip in some water to rinse off any dirty. Then place them on their heads and take a sharp knife and cut an "X" into the bottom of each one. Then give them a dip in boiling water, usually about 30 minutes. These were some large tomatoes, so they took a minute. Pull them out quickly. You can give them a secondary dip into some ice water, or just let them sit on the cutting board or a bowl. I skipped the ice water this time around...I had some rubber kitchen gloves on my hands, so I was able to work with the hot tomatoes. The reason for the "X" and the boiling water is to remove the skins. It's highly advisable to do so! Once the tomatoes have had a dip in the hot water, the skins slip off! For more instructions on peeling a tomato check out this entry I did awhile back. Once the tomatoes are peeled, cut them open, squeeze out the seeds and dice them up. Dump them in a large pot and simmer!

Simmer the sauce for about 90 minutes to 2 hours. Stir every 15-20 minutes. Make sure you have the tomatoes at a steady simmer, but not a boil. They can burn to the bottom of the pot. After about an hour you're start to want to taste the sauce. Here's what you need for seasoning. Salt. That's it. Give it a few pinches until it tastes right to you. Keep simmering and tasting. You'll find the right moment. Careful if you're going to salt the tomatoes right up front, when you start simmering them. You may think there's not enough salt and want to add more...then as the sauce simmers and reduces and thickens...that extra salt will start to become more and more obvious. The water will evaporate from the sauce...the salt wont. If you want you can add some fresh cracked pepper.

In the last few minutes you can dress the sauce a little more. I tossed in some fresh chopped basil. No garlic. No onions. Nothing, but pure tomatoes, salt and basil. Brilliant. Beautiful and absolutely delicious. Here's hoping I make a few more pots of sauce over the rest of the summer.

BTW: I think I had 14 large tomatoes. That was about 12 cups of peeled, seeded and diced tomatoes. That cooked down to 4 cups of finished sauce. That in turn gave us two meals.

Bounty Hunters

We had a very successful morning at the Cheverly Community Market. Lots of goods and we're looking forward to all of them!

the full bounty.

farm fresh eggs!

little grape tomatoes.

we bought two bins of strawberries. this is it. no more fresh strawberries this season.

green beans.
carrots. i'm going to wash them and eat them. you can smell how sweet they are in our kitchen!

we're going to try roasting some beets. we're not fans, but want to give it a shot.

some of the last of the season's asparagus.

some of our neighbors make their own tea blends. we bought one tin to try. this one was very aromatic. the labels are all hand screened and once they are gone, they are gone. i'm not a tea drinker, but i'd consider buying them just for the artwork. check out their website at: Damn Fine Tea.

and a treat for me. a chocolate croissant.

You can follow the Cheverly Market on Whrrl thanks to Prickly Girl.

Fresh Market Finds

Just home from the Cheverly Community Market. We're still early in the season, but there were some tasty treats to be had!

This weekend's bounty.

Fresh peas. I'm going to toss them with some Irish butter and a little fresh chopped mint. See if its worth all the fuss.

Juice running down your arm! That good.

We visited Elk Run last summer, I don't remember trying the viognier at that time. This is the driest viognier I've had. Barely a hint of sweetness and not overly floral on the nose. Looking forward to enjoying this, especially after the successful bottle of Merlot we had recently.

Martha's Jam. It's like crack. So tasty. The two jars on the bottom are Spiced Blueberry. I can eat it with a spoon. It's basically pie filling. Cinnamon, nutmeg, clove and lots of blueberry. Crazy good. The mango-ginger is a wonderful glaze for grilled chicken. We'll be having that later this week.

Kid Favorites

Hey everyone...today is the Kids Market at the Cheverly Community Market. If you're local, you should be there!

I'll be demonstrating pizza dough and peanut butter--two kid favorites. I'll also be available to answer any other questions you might have. I'll give you an update later today.

For a full list of great vendors and what will be available, please visit the Market website.

Fresh Tomato Sauce

With a little time and a little love, you too can have the most glorious, simple, fresh, bright, delicious tomato sauce ever!

What do we have here:

6 large tomatoes*, softball size!
Salt
Pepper
Fresh basil

What more do you want? What more do you need?

Step 1: Peel the tomatoes. Seed them and cut them into chunks.
Step 2: Place in a large pot and season liberally with salt and pepper.
Step 3: Over medium/low heat, simmer for 90 minutes, stirring regularly.
Step 4: OPTIONAL: Use a potato masher and schmush the tomatoes into smaller chunks.
Step 5: When the tomatoes have cooked down to the consistency you'd like, add the basil. This made just about 2 cups of finished sauce.


Done. You just need the time and the tomatoes.



*In this case, we happened to have heirloom tomatoes from the community market. J-lo went on Saturday and brought home a dozen. 1/2 of them are still a little too green, so I'm hoping to repeat this process next weekend. But they were so delicious. Sweet with a bright acidic note on the backend.

Corny

If you've been wondering what else you can do with all your fresh corn on the cob you're getting from the Farmer's Market...here's a great idea!


Corn Fritters! The Houndstooth Gourmet, a local (Virginia) food blogger who enjoys her local market in Del Rey (great little neighborhood!), has shared this recipe and it looks good. I can't wait until our next market, so I can get MORE corn and do MORE fun stuff...including these fritters!

The Tale of Two Soups

There was yesterday's soup. And then there was last night's soup...

Let us begin...

There is fresh sweet corn!


Removed from the cobs.


Use the backside of your knife to scrape out extra bits from the cob, including some of the sweet corm milk.


Then begin the base of the soup. Butter. Good. Onions & Garlic. Great! A mild chili pepper (Anaheim in this case). Season with some Cumin and Coriander. And a wee bit of Chipotle chili powder (this will add barely a hint of smokiness and helps balance the sweetness of the corn, without bringing much heat.


Add the fresh corn and a splash of water, about a cup. Simmer until tender and fragrant.

Puree the whole thing in a blender or food processor until smooth.


Serve with a wedge of lime, green onions and some crushed corn tortilla chips.

Delicious. The corn flavor in this soup is out of this world. The creamy soup paired with the crisp, crunchy chips is a lot of fun! You don't have to have the chips, but you'll miss the excitment.

Creamy Corn Soup
inspired by the Everday Food recipe. The Everyday Food recipe really focuses on the corn as the sole flavor, which is nice, but I wanted a little extra depth of flavor with my soup, so I added the onion, garlic, chili and spices. I'm very happy I did. If I added extra of the chili and spices I could probably change the name to Spicy Creamy Corn Soup, but this dish is very mild, yet rich and full of great flavor...so I'm keeping the same name as the recipe that started this adventure.


Serves 2 for dinner

6 ears of corn, kernels removed
1/2 onion, diced
2 cloves of garlic, smashed
1 mild chili pepper, diced
4 TB butter
1 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp coriander
1/4 tsp chipotle chili pepper
Salt/Pepper to taste
Tortilla chips (optional)
Lime wedges (optional)
Scallions (optional)

Clean the corn by removing the husks and silk, then cut the kernels off the cob into a large bowl.

Melt the butter in a large pot and add the onions, garlic and chili. When they are soft, add the cumin, coriander, chipotle, salt and pepper. Allow the spices to become fragrant before adding the corn kernels. Add one cup of water and simmer for 10 minutes, until the corn is tender.

Working in batches, process the soup until smooth and creamy in a blender or food processor.

Return to the pot and simmer over low heat until ready to serve. Taste and adjust seasoning as necessary.

Serve with crushed corn tortilla chips, lime wedge and scallions if you like. Enjoy.

Name this Funny Thing!

I picked this up at the Community Market this weekend. What is it?

^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
^
Sunchokes/Jerusalem Artichokes! Crazy Huh? They look like very knobby ginger. But what does this tuber taste like? Keep reading.

But before you start doing anything with them, please give them a good scrub. You don't need to peel them.


Tonight I'm making a bisque. Sunchoke Bisque!

Potatoes, Onions, Garlic and Sunchokes.


Make sure all your veg boil/simmer in a pot of broth. The bay leaf just happened to be floating dead center. I had nothing to do with that.


The whole thing gets blended in a blender or food processor until silky smooth.


Add a wee touch of cream for extra silkiness.


And serve for dinner! We both enjoyed this nutty, earthy soup. I had to make some changes from the original recipe, still very good.

I think it'd be best as a side soup (first course) to something else. Or if you're not having anything, if you can add some sliced chicken or have some crusty bread on the side, you'd be well off. Overall, a very good meal. I don't know much about sunchokes, but I'd love to serve this in the fall/winter months. Very hearty and warming.

Sunchoke Bisque (adapted from Local Flavors by Deborah Madison)

for 2 large servings or 4 smaller servings

2 TB Olive oil
2 cups diced potatoes
1/4 onion, diced
2 cloves of garlic, smashed
1/2 pound sunchokes (cleaned. no need to peel, just get all the dirt and sand off. cut any really dark spots off)
1/2 tsp ground celery seed
2 bay leaves
3 cups broth (veggie broth if you're veggie, chicken if not)
salt/pepper
2-4 TB heavy cream (optional)

Clean and dice all your veggies. I peeled the potatoes. The sunchokes were broken into smaller knobs and the larger ones were cut in half.

Heat a large pot over medium high heat. Add the olive oil. When shimmering, add the next four ingredients (onions, potatoes, garlic, sunchokes). Saute for a few minutes, allow a little color to
develop on the veg and on the bottom of the pan.

After about 5 minutes add salt (about one full teaspoon) & ground black pepper, the celery seed and bay leaves. Pour in the broth. Stir and scrape up any extra bits that stuck to the bottom. Bring the pot to a boil, then lower to a simmer. Cover and cook for 20 minutes.

When the veggies are tender, remove from the heat. Now we need to puree the soup. A blender works better. Fill about half way with soft veggies and some broth. Give it a whiz until completely smooth. Work in batches. Cover the blender with a towel to help protect from any possible splashing. Especially if you have too much in the blender, sometimes the heat can cause the top to blow off when you turn it on. So, have a towel over the top and hold the top with your hand.

When all the soup is processed, return to the pot and bring to a very low simmer. Add the cream and stir to incorporate. Serve hot with a garnish of your choice. Chopped scallions, drizzle of oil, crushed hazelnuts, sprig of fresh herbs, croutons...enjoy.

Corn Saute

Last night was a fast dinner. I took some chicken, chopped it up and seasoned with salt, pepper, cumin, coriander, oregano and a pinch of a grilling spice. I sauted in some olive oil. When done I set the chicken aside on a plate and moved on to the corn.

Start with three fresh ears of corn. Remove the kernels.

Chop 1/2 an onion. Add the onion to the pan the chicken was cooked in. When soft and starting to brown add 2 heaping spoons of roasted garlic. Stir to incorporate. Then add the corn. Stir.

Season with salt, pepper, cumin, pinch of hot pepper. Add a pat of butter. Saute for 3-5 minutes. Add a bit of chopped parsley. Stir in 2-3 tablespoons of heavy cream. Heat until warm. Serve immediately.

This was very delicious and totally satisfying. The chicken was a little lackluster. I might have overcooked it. But once you add the creamy corn, you don't notice the chicken. We had this with a fresh flour tortilla from the market. I'd say, if you want a burrito without rice, you could use the corn saute as the bulk of this burrito! It was very nice. This recipe was a slight variation of this recipe.

Corn on the Pancakes

On Saturday night we were sitting around playing a game and I had an AH-HA! moment. I would make pancakes in the morning with fresh corn added in. It wasn't that bad. A flavor/texture I wasn't really expecting, but I cleaned my plate and really enjoyed them. I know what I'll change next time. First. Start with this recipe!

Cut the kernels off the corn cob. Scrape the corn juice off the cob as well.

Add the kernels to the final batter.

Great with just butter.

Very nice with some fresh fruit jam.

Very nice with maple syrup!

*My note for next time. I think I used extra cornmeal in this batch, which created a very fragile pancake. They almost broke when I flipped them. The flour hadn't had a chance to develop enough glutton to hold the pancakes together and the cornmeal didn't help.

Grilled Corn

Fresh grilled corn from the Market.


Perhaps one of the best ways to have fresh corn. Grilled Corn on the Cob! So beautiful. Touch of a smoke. Touch of char on the kernels. Perfect. I've always soaked my fresh corn in a sink full of water for one hour. This always extra water to get into the corn husks creating extra steam when on a hot grill. Cook over hot coals for about 14 minutes, 7 minutes, then flip. Enjoy.

If you are without a grill, you can roast your corn in the oven. Preheat your oven to 450. Soak the corn in water first, then place right on the oven rack. Give the corn about twenty minutes. The husks should be drying out. Hard for me describe when the corn is done. Open the husk a little an give a kernel a prick. If it's still really tough, close it back up and go another ten minutes. If the kernel is just tender, it's done.

Fresh Garlic

This was an interesting weekend at the Market. Not for any particular reason. I had plans to buy only one item, as I'm going to be out of town part of this week for work and we leave next week for our trip to San Diego. So if you buy too much you can end up wasting if you don't use. So I had plans to buy buns...Parker House rolls...which are the best I've ever had and love to eat them as a snack, especially with a little homemade jam. So, good intentions and all that. I ended up buying fresh corn, more jam and garlic.

My table was set up next to a very nice lady (name escapes me!) who was selling garlic from her farm in Virginia. She bought the farm last year and this is the first crop she's been able to harvest. Next year she hopes to have much more produce. She already has a farm that supports 170 (?) families, similiar to a CSA (community sustained agriculture). Well, she certainly was a popular vendor this weekend. Despite the rain, she did very well, selling nearly 25 bundles (8 heads each)! I bought one bundle myself!

The garlic with the stems!

Beautiful heads of garlic with just a slight fragrant scent of garlic.

I decided I was going to prep the garlic for roasting!

I inherited my little garlic roaster from my friend Pam. If you don't have one, don't rush out to get one. You can use aluminum foil. So to make roasted garlic. Heat your oven to 350. Slice the tops of the garlic heads off, exposing the tops of the cloves.

Drizzle with olive oil and a light sprinkle of salt (optional). Cover the garlic roaster, or wrap the heads up in the foil. Place in the oven for an hour. At the end of the hour, I turn the oven off and let the garlic sit in the oven until cool. Your house is going to smell so nice! Rich, warm, enticing.

When the garlic is cool to touch, it is time for the final bit of prep. The sticky, smelling, OMG so delicious step. Take the heads and squeeze out the buttery cloves. Hold the heads over a bowl and squeeze from the root end; think tube of toothpaste.

The cloves are sticky and completely tender; they do spread like butter! Discard the remaining portion of the garlic head. Store the garlic in an airtight container, in the fridge. And I'll be making this recipe this week!