WISCONSIN FUN NEXT EXIT

Cheese ball

We may not have snow this year in Wisconsin for Christmas, but we can have a cheese ball. This recipe belongs to my Grandma Love, who hosted us in northwest Iowa for Christmas for most of my childhood. At the time I wanted nothing to do with the cheese ball, but I remember it distinctly appearing on Christmas Eve when the relatives first started appearing through the back door that led into the kitchen. Coats were peeled off, pink lipstick-covered lips gave shocks on the cheek when kissed and presents were placed under the tree. I was much more interested in the homemade sloppy joes that were served to the kids instead of the oyster stew that the adults feasted upon and the hard candy that I got if I went to church later that night with Aunt Agnes, but the cheese ball now holds a special place in our hearts- equal parts nostalgia and deliciousness.

My mom and sister made the cheese ball this week and split it into two- one they brought over for a winter solstice shindig and the other we will enjoy tomorrow for Christmas Eve. Served with crackers and a holiday cocktail, it’s just the thing.

Here is the recipe, the way my Grandma wrote it.

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Harriet’s Cheese Ball

Ingredients:
2 large packages Philly cream cheese
1 stick very sharp Kraft Cracker Barrel Cheese (cheddar)
1 1/2 dozen or so green stuffed olives- cut up fine
3 T dry onion flakes
(chopped pecans)

Directions:
Soften philly cheese and cracker barrel cheese. I grind up the cheddar cheese and blend the cheeses together, add onion flakes and olives, blend well. Form in a ball. Roll cheese ball in chopped pecans and store in refrig. until ready to use.
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Happy holidays!

A reunion of sorts

There has been a head of napa cabbage from Troy Farm lingering in my fridge for approximately the same time since I last wrote here. The cabbage fared better than my creative self, which has missed taking photos, trying new recipies and bouncing words around in my head. So the cabbage and this site made plans for this rainy November afternoon.

My sister was the one who first told me about this recipe for smothered cabbage. She read about it on Molly Wizenberg’s blog, who adapted it from Marcella Hazan’s Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking. This is the perfect thing to make on a cool Sunday when you can drift around home smelling the onions, garlic, oil, butter and cabbage melt into each other. Next you add broth and rice and then more butter and parmesan cheese. The result is a thick soup that isn’t too easy on the eyes, but makes up for it in taste.

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Rice and Smothered Cabbage Soup

From Marcella Hazan’s Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking by way of Orangette

Ingredients:

1 batch Smothered Cabbage (see below)
2 cups (475 ml) chicken or beef broth*
1 cup (235 ml) water, and maybe more
2/3 cup (about 135 grams) Arborio rice**
2 Tbsp. (28 grams) unsalted butter
About 1/3 cup (roughly 1 heaping handful) freshly grated Parmesan cheese, plus more for serving
Kosher salt
Freshly ground lack pepper

In a good-size pot (about 4 quarts), combine the cabbage, the broth, and 1 cup of water, and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Stir in the rice, and then lower the heat so that the soup bubbles at a slow but steady simmer. Cook uncovered, stirring occasionally, until the rice is tender but firm to the bite, about 20 minutes. If you find that the soup is becoming too thick, add a little water. The soup should be pretty dense, but there should still be some liquid.

When the rice is done, turn off the heat, and stir in the butter and the grated Parmesan. Taste, and correct for salt. Serve with black pepper and more Parmesan.

*I use veggie broth or water to make it vegetarian

**I like to use brown basmati rice

Smothered Cabbage, Venetian Style

1 small yellow onion, chopped
½ cup (120 ml) olive oil*
1 (~2-pound / 1 kg) Savoy or green cabbage, quartered, cored, and very thinly sliced
2 or 3 large garlic cloves, chopped
Kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1 Tbsp. white or red wine vinegar

*I used a combination of safflower oil and butter

Put the onion and olive oil in a Dutch oven (or another pot of approximately the same size), and set over medium heat. Cook and stir until the onion is pale gold, and then add the garlic. Continue cooking until the garlic is fragrant and looks cooked through, a few minutes, and then add the sliced cabbage. Stir a few times to coat the cabbage with oil; then continue to cook until it’s wilted. Add a couple of generous pinches of salt, a grind or two of pepper, and the vinegar. Stir to mix, and then cover the pan and reduce the heat to the lowest setting. Cook, stirring occasionally, for at least 1.5 hours, or until the cabbage is very, very tender. If the pan seems dry at any point, you can add a tablespoon or two of water. When the cabbage is done, taste for salt, and season as needed.

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Happy Sunday. It’s time for me to dig in.

Summer as we know it

Yellow rockdoor

One of my favorite things about working at the farm is learning the names of the varieties of vegetables. The green curly kale I knelt next to early this morning is named winter boar. The snow peas- since mowed down- were called blizzard and sumo. The garlic we dug out on Wednesday is music and porcelain, and a midnight purple tomato hanging on her vine goes by indigo rose; she could just as easily be in a dusty bar somewhere listening to Merle Haggard on the jukebox. We pull three varieties of beans- maxibell, yellow rockdoor and dragon tongues. Even the weeds sound like a poem to me- purslane, pigweed, foxtail and thistles.

I am drawn to words. Recently Dan and I biked to the construction zone that used to be Johnson Street to visit the impossibly too-cool-for-school Johnson Public House because I wanted to try a cold espresso beverage they were calling lavendar brown.

It was tasty. Dan thought it resembled Thanksgiving dinner in a next day’s sandwich. I also recently visited Spring Green’s Sh*tty Barn to listen to a band called Spirit Family Reunion- I had never heard of them, but I liked their name.

Later that night I ripped that sold-out poster down (with permission) to hang up in what will become my new home. I had seen the house earlier that day and stood in a field on my phone before the show with my realtor (ugh. I think this makes me a grown-up) as we made plans to sharpen our figurative pencils and make an offer the next morning. And to my still somewhat disbelief, the offer took.

And while I contemplate home ownership, I cook. I turn back to soothing tomatillos and avocados whirled into salsa varde, eggplants roasted and blended with lemon juice, flat-leaf parsley and tahini to become baba ganoush, and I improvise a hearty tabbouleh salad with spelt berries. I bake zucchini bread. And I steam yellow rockdoor beans and cover them with pats of butter and sea salt. Someone else was drawn to those.

My mom gave me this recipe for zucchini bread- I’m not sure where she got it. She says she likes to eat it with peaches. I like to eat it cold out of the refrigerator.

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Zucchini Bread

Combine:
1 cup oil
2 cups sugar
3 teaspoons vanilla
3 eggs

Add:
3 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt (optional)
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 cups grated zucchini
1/2 cup nuts- walnuts or your choice

Makes 2 regular loaves in a loaf pan- metal or glass. Bake 350 degrees for one hour or when it smells good and is getting brown on top. Let it cool a bit before you take out of the pans. I usually grease the pans with a little oil.
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Happy August.

Endless summer salads

I have a new mantra. It’s “THERE CAN BE NO LEFTOVERS!” I declared this loudly to Dan as we served up our late lunch today- bowls full of protein-packed buckwheat noodles in a citrusy sauce with greens that were taking up valuable real estate in our refrigerator.

I have been making a riff on this salad for some time now- it’s pretty foolproof. My number one suggestion is to cook the soba noodles first thing so that they have time to cool and dry off- I just let them sit in the colander (better yet to put them in a bowl in the fridge.) And don’t skimp on the sauce. The sauce is the boss. I’m sure I’ve also mentioned this before, but I don’t measure anything, so use this recipe more as a guideline and be creative with whatever you might have burning a hole in your fridge.

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Soy-Citrus Soba Noodle Salad

Serves 2-4

Ingredients:
Sauce:
Garlic clove, make into a paste with a pinch of salt
Soy sauce or tamari
Juice of 1 or 2 limes or lemons (or a combination)
Chili sauce
Fresh ginger, minced
1-2 Tbl. sesame oil
Cilantro and basil, chopped
Green onions, minced
Jalapeno, chopped

Salad:
Soba (buckwheat) noodles (about a handful the size of quarter per person is a good bet)
Greens (any combination of collard greens, kale, beet greens, swiss chard, spinach…)
Cucumbers, sliced thinly or celery, chopped
Snow peas, chopped into thirds

Garnish:
Peanuts
Cilantro
Lime wedges

Directions:
Boil water for the soba noodles and cook according to the directions. I like to give the noodles time to cool and dry off so the sauce sticks better to the noodles. Combine the ingredients for the sauce in a large bowl. Start with the garlic paste and stir in the other ingredients. Taste as you go along and adjust as you like (I like A LOT of citrus, fresh herbs and heat.)
Saute the greens for the salad over medium low heat just until they are tender and starting to cook down. I saute them in organic canola oil or coconut oil and a little more chili sauce. Slice the cucumbers and chop the snow peas. To assemble the salad toss the all of the ingredients into the bowl with the sauce. Garnish each serving with peanuts, cilantro and a squeeze of lime, if you like.

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Enjoy!

Block party

Growing up on the near-west side of Madison, the fourth of July always meant a block party in our dear friends’ neighborhood. We dug for prizes in kiddie pools of sawdust and watched our parents compete in the water balloon toss. There were long tables set up in the middle of the street where neighbors placed bowls of potato, bean and pasta salad. After the communal meal we held matches to light the black snakes lining the sidewalk and waved sprinklers in the air, waiting for the adults to pop the corn and take us to watch the fireworks. And there was, of course, the parade. I remember distinctly sitting in my bedroom on the morning of the fourth creating my Rosie the Riveter costume for the 1985 parade. In a stroke of genius, I turned a colander into my helmet and someone handed me a drill to carry. I believe that was the year I won a prize- a $10 gift certificate to Michael’s Frozen Custard.

Today I’m using a colander to wash lettuce. It’s my turn to contribute to the potuck. I’m marinating cucumbers, fennel and garlic scapes in equal parts apple cider vinegar, sugar (or honey, if you open the cupboard and find yourself without sugar) and water.

After consulting with my salad guru, my sister, I’m making a light dressing of olive oil, salt, mustard and parsley and will toss this all together with a head of red lettuce, torn into bite-sized pieces (remove the cucumbers, etc. from the marinade before adding to the salad). I need to hurry, because I don’t want to miss the water balloon toss. Happy Fourth of July, my friends. May there be a block party in your future.

Cheers.

Early summer soup

This morning a steady mist of rain spread out over the farm as I crouched in the mud snapping collard greens off their stalks. In jeans, a sweatshirt and a rain coat I felt cozy as the temperatures barely hit 60. As much as I love summer, I don’t mind the occasional cool, rainy day; they remind of summer camp- hunkering down in the lodge, a chance to don a sweater, a change of pace. Moving on to pull weeds from the winter squash, my mind wandered to soup. Making a deliciously simple potato soup for lunch is something that my mother pulls off on a regular basis, regardless the season. I think it is something that she inherited from her parents. When I picture my grandpa, it is often at the stove. Either the small gas one that sits in front of the brick-lined kitchen wall of the northwest Iowa cottage or the one sixty miles away at his home where I could hand-crank the bell on the door that led inside to the kitchen, announcing my arrival. At the cottage he popped his homegrown corn to perfection; at home he stirred his award-winning fudge. But I think he loved potatoes the most. To make a simple potato soup, cut up some potatoes and put them in a pot with just enough water to cover. Gently boil until the potatoes are cooked and most of the liquid is absorbed. Mash up the potatoes to the desired consistency and add milk, butter, salt and pepper. Mine never tastes as good as my mom’s.

After returning home from the farm today I wanted to make an Iowa-inspired potato soup for lunch, but I have turnips haunting me from my crisper drawer and garlic scapes curled-up, hovering on the bottom shelf waiting for something extraordinary to happen to them. I also took home two beets today from the farm, deemed “farmer food” due to the fact that some worms also wanted a few bites, so into the pot they go. And don’t forget the neglected leek, long forgotten under kale and lettuces.

So I chopped up turnips, a couple of potatoes and beets and added them to leeks and garlic scapes sauteed in olive oil and butter. I added dill and red pepper flakes. Right before serving I blended it all up, added salt, pepper, a drizzle of olive oil and a squeeze of lemon.

As the vegetables simmered on the stove, I sauteed more garlic scapes, dill and chives in olive oil and made herbed croutons from the 1/2 eaten loaf of sourdough bread leftover from my lunch a few days ago. Danger Boy watched the whole thing, perched under my muddy jeans and garlic scapes.

Please use the following recipe as a guide- I don’t have a tendency to measure things- and adjust it to whatever vegetables are haunting you.

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Early Summer Soup with Herbed Croutons

Soup ingredients:

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon butter
1 leek, cleaned and chopped
4 garlic scapes, finely chopped (use only the part below the bud)
2 potatoes, cut into chunks
5 white turnips, cut into chunks
2 beets, cut into chunks
herbs (I used dried thyme, pepper flakes and fresh dill)
4 cups water (or veggie broth, if you like)
lemon juice
salt + pepper to taste

Crouton ingredients:

1/2 loaf of good, old bread
2 tablespoons olive oil
3 tablespoons fresh herbs (I used dill, chives and a chopped garlic scape)
salt + pepper

Directions:

In a large soup pot heat the olive oil and butter over medium heat. Add the leek and scapes and saute for a few minutes. Add the root vegetables and herbs and cook for a couple of minutes. Add the liquid to the pot and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 25-30 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Rip the bread into bite-sized pieces. In a skillet, saute the fresh herbs in the olive oil. Remove from the heat and add the bread, tossing to coat. Pour the bread onto a baking sheet, making sure to spread the pieces out. Bake for 15 minutes, stirring occasionaly.
When the vegetables in the soup are tender, blend it with an immersion blender until smooth. Add fresh herbs and as much lemon juice as you like (I like a lot, Dan likes a little, so I add more to my own bowl). Add salt and pepper to taste. Ladle into bowls and garnish with a pour of olive oil, more dill and herbed croutons.

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Cultivating and cooking are in our bones. This soup will warm yours.

Cheers.

Farm report

Last week I started working 12 hours a week at Troy Farm. This statement sounds somewhat ridiculous considering most farmers work more than 12 hours a day, but hey, although I have an official farmer’s tan now, I’m no farmer. But I did feel a burst of pride when I spied the bundles of parsley that I helped to harvest being sold at the Willy Street Co-op and I am getting really good at making kale “bouquets” (the trick is to cradle the bunch of leaves in the nook of your arm and give it a gentle squeeze- not hard when you feel as affectionately about this vegetable as I do). My first task at the farm was picking ripe ‘Sumo’ snow peas. Something I quickly learned was no easy assignment. Although my instructions from the head farmer, Jake, were to be “super-human fast” I went at the pace of a sloth as I deliberated over every pod’s level of maturity, scared of doing it wrong and picking peas that were under or over-mature. After an hour I had picked 1/5 the amount of peas as the rest of the crew and was feeling like I should have stuck to shopping for peas at the market. But when my shift ended I was red-faced, sweaty and covered in dirt. And I couldn’t wait to go back the next day.

During the week I also trellised tomato plants, sheared off fennel roots, picked basil and was reunited with my new nemesis, the snow pea. But this time around I already felt more confident in my agrarian abilities and I worked one speed higher than sloth. Somebody buy me a John Deere tractor hat.

In exchange for my work at the farm, I am receiving a weekly share of vegetables. It’s a tad overwhelming trying to figure out what to do with all this food.

My answer this past week has been salads. Lots and lots of salads. I’ve been smashing a garlic clove on my cutting board and pouring on some salt. I smear it into a paste and add it to my new beautiful salad bowl (thanks, Dan!) Next I add a fork full of stone ground mustard and some sort of acid- either lemon juice or red wine vinegar. Pour in a generous amount of olive oil and some fresh herbs (I like parsley and dill). Whisk this all together and add greens and whatever crisp veggies you have lying around, toss it all together and enjoy for a late lunch! If you’re feeling fancy, and don’t have to go back to work, maybe even pour yourself a glass of lazy sangria (red wine + San Pellegrino blood orange soda + sliced lemon and limes).

I know you don’t need me to tell you how to make a salad, but here you go.

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Farm Salad

Dressing: Garlic, salt, lemon juice or red wine vinegar, stone ground mustard, olive oil, fresh herbs

Salad: Greens- combination of lettuces, spinach, and/or kale (washed and dried), chopped veggies (summer squash, cucumber, kahlrabi, radishes, etc.)

Optional add-ins: Sprouted lentils, sliced dried figs, hard boiled egg, parmesan cheese…

Directions:

Smash a garlic clove and pour salt over it. Chop and smash until you have a smooth paste. Add to your big salad bowl, along with mustard and lemon juice or vinegar, olive oil and fresh herbs. Add your greens and toss to coat all of the leaves. Add chopped veggies and toss again. Grate parmesan cheese over the top, if you like. And serve with a side of good bread.

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Happy summer.

Too little too late

I apologize for the tardiness of this post, but if you are anything like me and you still have a couple of bunches of ramps stashed away in your crisper drawer, then you’re in luck. Everyone else- tuck this one away for next April, when the ramps’ too-short growing season will be upon us again.

This spring I have been eating ramps raw in salads, pickling them and, something that I could eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner, eating them sauteed in butter and served on toast with an egg: For two servings, slice a bunch of ramps (bulbs and greens) and melt a pat of butter in a pan. Saute’ the bulbs and stems for a few minutes- add salt and pepper- and then add the greens and saute’ for a couple more minutes. Remove the ramps from the pan and melt a little more butter and fry two eggs (make sure the yolk is still runny). Meanwhile preheat the oven to 350 degrees or so and toast a couple of pieces of good bread (I like Madison Sourdough’s ‘Country’ bread). Pour olive oil over the toast and sprinkle with salt. Spread a soft cheese (I have been using goat cheese) on the toast and top with the ramps and an egg. Serve open-faced with a salad or roasted asparagus.