Meatless Monday - Friday, Week 1

It was an article in The New Yorker, specifically on test tube meat, that prompted Dan to suggest we try eating meatless Monday through Friday. Why not? We're trying to eat more healthfully and it sounded like an interesting challenge.

I think it was pretty successful, although we both accidentally ate meat. I completely forgot when I was out to eat. Dan said he did think about ordering something meatless, but the siren call of a special Italian sandwich was too strong. Oh well, it was just week 1, right?

So far, so good. Perhaps the  most exciting part is trying new recipes. I made a beautiful rice, beet, celery and feta salad for dinner on Monday. Tuesday I was gone (Dan ordered veggie pizza). Wednesday we bad black bean and guacamole tacos. Thursday I made these fantastic red lentil patties with cilantro sauce from Myra Kornfield's book, The Healthy Hedonist. They were so delicious! I'm freezing the leftovers—I will report back on how those hold.

We decided that we would eat fish on Friday, then eat meat (or not...) on Saturday and Sunday. I like the idea of always have fish one night a week—since moving to Maine I definitely have not taken advantage of the ocean as much as I should. Today I got some beautiful haddock at the store—I'm planning on making some Thai red curry dish stew with chard and potatoes for dinner. Can't wait.

CSA Season is Back!

We may have shot ourselves in the foot. Thinking we wouldn't be gardening this year, I signed us up for a CSA from Laughing Stock Farm in Freeport, Maine.

We have raised beds at the house we're renting but the owners mentioned some lead issues. Very minimal ones, but nonetheless they did the raised beds, which is what you're supposed to do with lead. But Dan is paranoid and long story short, I didn't think we'd be planting anything to eat, just flowers.

I decided to get the soil tested in the beds and wouldn't you know, no lead. And then Dan did some research and decided that he would eat the fruit of the plant, just not any leaves (ie tomatoes good, kale bad).

Also, I had put us on the waiting list for the community garden, not thinking we'd get in until next year at the earliest. Of course, we got a spot this year.

So now, we have 6 raised beds in our backyard, 3 beds at the community garden plus a CSA. Eeek!

I was much smarter about planting our community garden (read: I was in charge of seeding...) So there's not much there: 3 tomatoes, 1 tomatillo, 6 broccoli, 2 fennel, thyme, rosemary, chamomile, 2 boxes of broccoli rabe, red iceberg, wax beans, carrots and zucchini. At home, we're going to put in 3 peppers, 2 eggplant, 3 tomatoes, 1 tomatillo and tons of flowers. We also have strawberries and raspberries.

Our CSA is nice so far. The past 2 weeks have been the same: radishes, salad turnips, arugula, head lettuce, mesclun, chard and spinach. Nom leafy greens. Last week we also got some potatoes from Goranson Farm, which, ironically enough, I'm possibly writing a story about for EatingWell.

So what have we done with our bounty so far? Well really just salads. Which is terrific, of course. Salad season is the best...

What's Fresh Friday: Spent Grain Bread

It takes me a little bit to motivate when it comes to brewing beer. I'm not sure why, it's incredibly easy. I guess it's the time commitment involved. We bought a bunch of brewing supplies in December and that sat, staring at me for weeks from the bench near the back door. I finally moved them downstairs so I wouldn't feel guilty, tucking them away in the root cellar where I was sure to forget about them for a few more weeks. Then Dan went down to Boston for the night last weekend and I decided it couldn't be put off anymore.

We had gotten ingredients to make a Fat Tire clone, though with a darker malt extract and a bit more hops. The original plan was to add some spices to it, but I just wanted to get it over with so I just brewed it. 

Although I always compost the spent grain, I knew from my homebrewer friend, Kat, that you can cook with it. I started at the bag, wondering if I could motivate to do something with it. After a quick Google search, I found this recipe from beer100.com. I adapted it slightly—and will continue to tweak it—but I do have to say it's one of the best breads I've ever made. Lucky for me, I can continue to make it. Kat clued me into a secret: that you can freeze the spent grain for later use. So I'll be making it again very soon!

Spent Grain Bread
Adapted from Joe Thompson's recipe on beer100.com

1 cup warm water
4 Tbsp sugar
1 pkg dry bakers yeast

2 cups spent grain
2 Tbsp vegetable oil
1 Tbsp salt
4 cups bread flour

Whisk together water, sugar and yeast in a large bowl. Let stand until the yeast begins to bubble, about 5 minutes. Stir in salt, oil, spent grain and 1 cup  flour. 

Mix well. Stir in enough of the remaining flour to make a stiff dough. 

Knead well, cover, and let rise until doubled. Punch down the dough and shape into a round loaf. Place on a greased baking sheet, cover, and let rise until doubled. 

Preheat oven to 425 with a pizza stone on the lowest rack for 30 minutes. 

The dough will have spread out a little on your baking sheet. Pull the ends under to form a tighter round loaf, make 3 slashes across the top with a serrated knife and transfer to the stone. Bake until an instant read-thermometer inserted in the middle reads 204-206 F, 1 to 1 1/2 hours. Transfer to a cooling rack and let cool completely.

The crust was great and the texture was good (even though I underbaked it a tad). I thought it was a tad sweet so I'll cut or eliminate the sugar next time. 

Thai Red Curry Root Vegetable Soup

I'm back. Not that I have any real followers who care ;) We moved to Maine in October and I haven't been very inspired to type here. But I'm going to change that. 

I've struggled a bit with finding local foods here. There's no brick-and-mortar co-op in Portland proper. There's a Whole Foods, but at the moment they only have 4 or 5 local produce items. I'm unsure if that will change as it gets warmer. There is an old school buying club, but they only have a local produce order once a month. It's better than nothing though, and luckily the house we're renting has a root cellar for storage!

Last month was our first order. Here's what we got:

Yukon gold potatoes, rutabaga, yellow and red onions, celeriac, canola oil, frozen blueberries, goat cheese with kalamata olives, stew meat and ground beef.

Also once a month they partner with local business who don't necessarily sell to consumers. The first month we got whole-wheat and pumpkin-raisin bread, locally roasted coffee and mint chocolate cookie gelato. This month we're getting seaweed! Woo!

My plan is to try something called What's Fresh Fridays. My plan is to make something new and exciting on Friday and post about it here. It may be a recipe using something fresh and local, or it may be just a recipe using a new ingredient, or simply a recipe I haven't tried. I just want to keep my cooking fresh.

So this past Friday I made a spin on a soup I've made for years. The roots of the recipe are from culinary school. The chef that taught our PM Fine Dining class made it occasionally. It was a squash or carrot soup with Thai red curry flavors. I've made it over and over again at home. This time, I changed up what was in the soup a bit.

Thai Red Curry Root Vegetable Soup

2 rutabaga, peeled and diced

8 small carrots, peeled and thickly sliced

1 cup sliced celery

1 14-ounce can  "lite" coconut milk

2 cups chicken broth

Water if needed

2-4 T Thai red curry paste

2-3 T lime juice

1-2 T brown sugar

Fish sauce or salt to taste

Sliced scallions and sriracha for garnish

Put rutabaga, carrots and celery in a Dutch oven. Add coconut milk and broth. If the liquid doesn't just cover the veggies, add some water. Bring to a boil then reduce heat so the soup is simmering. Cook until the veggies are very tender, 15 to 20 minutes. Turn off the heat then puree with an immersion blender (or puree in batches--carefully!--in a blender). Add curry paste, lime juice, brown sugar and fish sauce or salt to taste. Serve with scallions and sriracha.

Tomato sauce, salsa and pickled radish--oh my!

I canned from 3-9 yesterday and have been at it since 8:30 am this morning. I managed to make 4 quarts of tomato sauce last night, a dozen half-pints of bruschetta topping, 6 pints of salsa and 3 pints of pickled radish--which, wow, is so good! I need to take stock in all I've canned so far this year—I have a stack of jar boxes up to my waist!

I'm getting a little obsessive about this though. My free time has been spent thumbing through canning books, I've bought more vinegar than a normal person should in a week and I should really buy stock in Ball, since I've acquired dozens and dozens of new jars this year. So glad Hilary leant me her jar grabber—that's the key to a pleasant canning experience! Lid grabber, doesn't work so well. Fail.

I'm done for the weekend but definitely not done for good this season. My tomato plants, though riddled with blight, are still producing like mad. There will be more salsa and sauce to come!

Getting Ready for Monster Canning Session #1

After a little searching around last night, I realized my tomato-canning-options are much greater than I initially thought. So I leafed through my canning books last night and made a monster shoppng list so I coud be a litte more creative with what I do with my tomatoes this weekend. I'm going to make bruschetta topping, marinara sauce and tomato-ginger chutney. Also getting supplies for when I have time to play with apples—going to make apple chutney, apple butter and apple sauce. Yay! It's at the point where it's getting fun :)

Under Pressure

I used my pressure canner for the first time last week! A gift from my cousin Joe and his wife Caitlin for our wedding, it's sat in the box since we received it. I finally got up the nerve to use it.

I think it was helpful that I tested the pressure cooking story for EatingWell this year, so I was familiar with how it worked. And it was really the same thing--nothing to be scared of.

I finally killed my cucumber plants--I just couldn't take it anymore. Now I'm swimming in tomatoes. I've made 2 batches of tomato sauce—marinara and fennel-herb—and made my first batch of salsa last night. The dehydrator has been whirring away practically non-stop since I pulled it out—I have quarts of dried peaches, tomatoes and zucchini tucked away in the pantry. Zucchini and peach chips are so tasty!

I'm sad that we will only have this garden for a year. We did manage to find a house to rent in Portland that has a root cellar and raised beds, along with berry bushes. Not sure how we lucked out there but wow! Now I need to get a root cellaring book to see how to store our bounty properly—glad I can put our delicata and potatoes down there, maybe the celery as well. They even cured pancetta and prosciutto down there so perhaps I'll dabble in that too!