Dark Days Challenge week 12 - Chicken barley soup

We are both having colds here Chez Green Leanings, and we've just had a blizzard... so clearly, dinner is soup! Soup is one of those things I cannot in good conscience buy (unless it is at a favorite restaurant, of course!) It is just too easy to make, and really requires very few ingredients. This week's soup was chicken barley, and it contained local chicken thighs, chicken stock, hulled barley*, celery, carrots and parsley. Non-local ingredients were shallots and poultry seasoning. As a side dish I served toasted semolina bread doused in butter, garlic, and Ludlow (a semi-hard aged cheese.) I cooked the barley in chicken stock and a little water (it took about an hour.) I could have just throw everything into the pot together, but since the chicken thighs were bone-in/skin on I cooked them separately in a skillet. I set them aside to cool slightly as I sauteed the chopped carrots, shallot, and celery in the remaining chicken fat. Cooking things in chicken fat makes them extra-tasty! I left them a bit crunchy, as they were going into the pot with the barley. They joined the barley about 15 minutes before the barley was done. Once the chicken breasts had cooled I skinned them, shredded the meat and added it to the barley. I added the bones to the pot as well, since it seemed a shame to waste all that potential flavor. (I could have added them to my bag o' bones in the freezer that I save for making stock, but that was a little too ambitious for me today.) I added the chopped parsley at the very end, and it was the perfect finishing touch. The chicken and stock came from North Market Poultry and Game at the North Market. Carrots are from Persinger Farms (and were purchased in the fall and stored in my crisper drawer.) Celery is from last year's garden, and was found squirreled away in the corner of my freezer. Bread was from Omega Artisan Baking at the North Market. Butter is from Hartzler's Dairy. Garlic is from H-W Organic farms. Cheese is from Blue Jacket Dairy. *The barley came from a local Amish farm called Stutzman Farms. I *think* they grew it (my area of Ohio is in the range for commercial barley farming) but I'm not 100% sure. They do mill some non-local grains in addition to the wide range of grains that they grow. So I will describe this barley as "local as possible," because if anyone grows it in Ohio, it's Stutzman.

Dark Days Challenge week 11 - tired of potatoes!

This is the time of year when I get really tired of mashed potatoes. I've tried hard to avoid the meat-starch-veggie pattern of meals this winter, but sometimes it's just the easiest thing to fall back on. A recent episode of a cooking show by Nigella Lawson got me thinking about mashed beans instead of potatoes, and that brought me to this week's meal.

Dinner was a pan-fried pork chop, green beans with garlic and shallots, and mashed beans (stueben yellow variety) and cauliflower with garlic and shallots.

I used about twice as much beans as cauliflower, and I cooked the beans low and slow during the day. (Out of all the methods I've tried, low and slow seems to give the best results. I think these cooked for almost 4 hours on low.) When the beans were almost done I added the cauliflower (which had been blanched, frozen, and defrosted) and continued cooking until the cauliflower was soft. In another pan I sauteed the garlic and shallots in olive oil, then tossed the well-drained beans (reserving some of the cooking liquid) and cauliflower in the pan. I had this idea that I could just use a potato masher, but the cauliflower was a little too fibrous for that. So I ended up using the immersion blender, which resulted in a slightly chunky mash. I added a small amount of the cooking liquid to get the right texture (in the same way that you'd add milk or cream to mashed potatoes, but I didn't want to add dairy to this side dish.)

Everything but the seasonings and olive oil were local in this meal.

Dark Days Challenge week 10 - trout and veggies

This week's dark days meal still seems a bit exotic to me, living in the Midwest - rainbow trout! Farmed trout from Freshwater Farms of Ohio, to be exact. We stocked up on it during their Fish and Shrimp Festival in the fall (although, alas, they ran out of shrimp before we got there.)

I pan-fried the trout and served it over a medley of carrots, daikon radish and snow peas. The trout and all the veggies were local; the sauce (a homemade Asian sauce with soy sauce, sesame oil, fresh ginger and freshly-squeezed orange juice) was not. I am proud of the fact that I can now make my own sauces, even for Asian food - no bottled sauces with dubious ingredients and high sodium content here! The snow peas are one of the items we can usually get at the winter farmers market, and the carrots and daikon radish were unearthed from the crisper drawer, and were probably remnants of our CSA.

Dark Days Challenge Week 7 - beef burgundy

With temperatures in the 10's and 20's F, it has definitely been "a big pot of something bubbling away on the stove" weather. I decided to use stew beef this week, and made beef burgundy over mashed potatoes and turnips with a side of Brussels spouts. This version of beef burgundy had grass-fed stew beef from Long Meadows, leeks and thyme from the garden, carrots from Wayward Seed CSA, Cabernet Franc wine from River Village cellars, Ohio-made beef stock, and non-local cremini mushrooms. I used slightly more potatoes than turnips in the mash, since the turnips were incredibly pungent; next time I will use a 50/50 mix, I think, or perhaps slightly more turnips than potatoes. My fridge is still overflowing with turnips, rutabagas and beets from my CSA! The Brussels sprouts were from the very last holdout vendor at the North Market farmer's market.

I'm not sure why I decided to make beef burgundy; it was most likely inspired by the (not local) package of mushrooms that followed me home from the store. I knew I wanted red meat, red wine, and mushrooms together. I used no recipe and have never made this before; in fact, I'm not even sure how I knew what beef burgundy is. I used to read recipe books while I ate, so I'm assuming it was a remembered thing. Also, I know that red meat, red wine and mushrooms all go together very well, and I know the basics of stew-making.

I started by dredging the meat in seasoned flour and browning it. There are a lot of theories behind both the dredging and the browning; I dredge because I like the resulting texture of the meat, plus the slight thickening property of the flour. I brown because once you've dredged something in flour you pretty much have to brown it. Grass-fed beef is lower in fat than regular beef so it needs to be cooked - and browned - at lower temperatures (I never go above medium.)

The thing about stew beef is that it is notoriously tough, and tough meats really need to be braised (which will break down all that chewy connective tissue that makes it tough.) Once the beef was browned I added red wine (the acid in alcohol and fruit can also help tenderize tough meat) and a bit of stock. I put the pot and low and let it cook for a little over two hours, and took my time chopping and adding the leeks, carrots, and finally mushrooms. When the stew was finally done it was a bit more liquid-y than I'd wanted, so I pulled out a few cups of the liquid and reduced it in a saucepan (which isn't as much work as it sounds; I just let it do it's thing on medium-high while I cooked the Brussels sprouts and mashed the leeks and turnips.)

Dark Days Challenge week 5 - good old spaghetti and meatballs

Spaghetti and meatballs are on our rotation of winter meals here Chez Green Leanings. I've even made peace with the fact that the meatballs are never really round, unlike the ones I remember from my childhood. But lopsided or not, these are darn tasty!

The meal included fresh linguine from our favorite pasta shop (Pastaria in the North Market) along with homemade meatballs made with grass-fed beef and marinara sauce from the freezer. I topped the meatballs with fresh mozzarella (also from Pastaria) and served it with focaccia bread from one of the new winter market vendors, Black Cat Bakery from Pataskala, Ohio. I could eat that focaccia bread all day, every day!

The meatballs contained ground beef, fresh baby spinach, garlic and onion, an egg, herbs, and enough bread crumbs to make it all stick together. This batch of marinara sauce contained tomato skin and seeds, and I don't think I'm sold on it. I definitely prefer the more labor-intensive version that involves peeling and seeding the tomatoes.

Non-local ingredients were salt, pepper, and bread crumbs.

A Summer of Meals

Wow, did I fall off the planet or what? Apparently blogging is like exercising, and once you fall off the wagon it can be hard to get back on. We've had a long, hot summer of delicious local meals though, so I will try to play a little catch-up!

July:
I miss peaches already! This dish was simply pan-grilled peaches with a little honey and cinnamon, topped with golden raspberries. Simple and delicious. I wish I'd made this dish more often when peaches were in season!

Next we have magical pig fresh corn chowder, with bacon and ham as the meats of choice (along with corn, potatoes, cream, chives, and onions.) It was good, but I really prefer my chowder to contain both bacon and shrimp. Next time I may try a vegetarian version, because a tasty vegetarian corn chowder should be possible!

August:
This was my first attempt at gazpacho, and as you may guess by the color, I went a little heavy on the onions. It was very good and very refreshing (despite the fact that the excess of onions made it kick like a mule), and I can see this becoming a summer favorite. Anything that doesn't involve turning on the stove is fine by me!

This next meal took a lot of work! The chicken thigh is covered with a ground cherry-apricot mostarda that I made in a fit of industry; it was good, but getting the balance of fruit/sweet/mustard was a little tricky. (A mostarda is an Italian condiment made of sweetened fruit and mustard.) I think it would have been easier with ground cherries alone. On the side were a few grilled apricots, chard with leeks and cherry tomatoes, and zucchini with Parmesan and balsamic vinegar.

This was the quickest and most healthy chicken soup I've ever made. I did cheat and use the chicken soup base from Penzey's, but everything else was local: shredded carrots, thinly sliced celery, and summer squash cut into ribbons as an alternative to noodles.

One local product we've been eating a lot of this summer is the Luna Burger. They are vegan, made from local ingredients, and pretty darn good as well! Our favorite is definitely the farmhouse chili burger. You can see that I managed to get bacon into the meal as sprinkles on the corn (though I resisted the urge to put bacon and cheese on the vegan burger.)

Everything, aside from the obvious (salt, pepper, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, Parmesan cheese, Penzey's soup base) was grown or produced locally!

One Local Summer - Week 4

It's brunch again for week 4! The eggs (look at those amazing golden yolks! Gotta love pastured eggs!) were scrambled with herbs from the garden (sage, parsley and chives) and a little bit of gouda from Oakvale, bacon was from Bluescreek (as usual), biscuits were homemade with whole wheat from Flying J Farm, and strawberries were from our fruit CSA with Wayward Seed Farm. Honey from Barry's Bees (my favorite local honey!) accompanied both the strawberries and biscuit.

Eggs with herbs are my new favorite thing. I found a recipe for eggs with sage in an Anglo-Saxon cookbook (medieval cooking is an occasional hobby of mine), and I thought it sounded amazing - and it was!

One Local Summer - week 1

Our meal for week one was brunch, which is possibly my favorite meal of the week. This one featured serviceberry pancakes (more on the serviceberry below) with bacon, early cherries, and of course maple syrup!

The pancakes were made from a mix from Quiver Full Farm (~33 miles) along with buttermilk leftover from making butter with cream from Snowville Creamery (~107 miles.) The bacon is from Bluescreek (~30 miles) at the North Market; maple syrup from Pleiades (~42 miles), and serviceberries and cherries from Rhoads (~42 miles.)

So what, you may ask, is a serviceberry? I'd never heard of them either, but my mom has a painting of a cedar waxwing on what must be a serviceberry tree (I spent my childhood trying to figure out what kind of berry it was. I am all about the berries.) They grow on small trees/shrubs and have a crown like a blueberry, and the taste is a bit similar. They are also known as shadbush, saskatoon, and juneberry (although the name seems to depend on the variety, of which there are many.) The city of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan is named after the plant (saskatoon is a Cree Indian word); they are called juneberries because they ripen in June, and shadbush because they flower when the shad-fish spawn. There are a few stories about why they are called serviceberries: either they served as a signal that the ground was unfrozen enough to bury the dead, or the blooms were gathered for church services, or they bloomed (in April) when it was finally mild enough weather to travel to church. Or maybe it's because there is a related berry in Europe called "sorbus."

I saw them at the farmer's market on Saturday and couldn't resist bringing home a pint. I've never met a fruit I didn't like, and the serviceberry is no exception. You can eat them raw or use them as you would blueberries in any recipe. They were quite good in pancakes!

Dark Days of Winter Challenge - week 5

This week's entry is my very first patty melt. I think that a patty melt is what happens when you realize that ground beef will be the quickest thing to defrost for dinner, and while you haven't got any hamburger buns there is a loaf of bread that will do just fine.

The patty melt was made of ground beef from our friend Ed at Long Meadows Grass Fed Beef in Utica, Ohio (~43 miles) and cheddar cheese from Meadow Maid (grass-fed milk!) It was more of a "what's in the fridge" version than a classic patty melt. The sides were spaghetti squash and homemade potato chips (which are very easy to make, and with a mandoline you can slice the potatoes very quickly! I don't use a deep fryer either, just a shallow layer of canola oil in a frying pan.) Not a bad meal, and it went from idea to the table in around 30 minutes.

Dark Days of Winter Challenge - week 4

This week's dinner has become a regular menu item for us - Asian lettuce wraps. Fortunately we have a local grower with a hothouse, so the heads of romaine should keep coming our way this winter.

The meat of this dish is usually pork or chicken; I have some locally-made tempeh in the freezer that is awaiting its turn as well. This week I used 2 chicken thighs, and marinated them in soy sauce, ginger, citrus, and honey before pan-frying them with some 5-spice powder.

The base of the filling are sai fun noodles, also called bean threads. They aren't local, but some trial and error has shown that this dish isn't as good without them. The lettuce leaves are washed and dried (don't try leaving them damp. It will end badly. Trust me on this.) and filled with a healthy dollop of sai fun noodles. On top of the noodles goes some shredded carrot, julienne snow pea pods, cooked chicken (I cook the thighs whole, then slice them and return them to the pan to soak up extra sauce) and sliced scallions. Then you bundle it up as best you can and get it into your mouth as best as you can. It's not really a meal you want to eat in public, but it is darn tasty. Just be sure to have a napkin handy!

Dark Days Challenge - Week 1

Wow, I really am behind! The Dark Days Eat Local Challenge started on the 15th, eep! Fortunately I have a fantastic and brand-new meal to rave about, complete with a strange and (almost) artfully blurry photo!



This simple and delicious meal featured the autumn sausage (with apples and maple) from our local farmer/butcher shop, Blue's Creek. It was "loose" (or whatever you call casing-free sausage) so I browned it into crumbles in a skillet then gave it some time on paper toweling for fat drainage (because here at Green Leanings we are trying to watch our waistline.) In a separate skillet I braised some wonderful lacinato kale from the good folks at Wayward Seed Farm in apple cider. I was not at all in the mood for vinegar (a normal seasoning for kale and chard), so the kale (which was just past the "baby" stage, nice and small and tender) was only seasoned with the cider, garlic, salt and pepper, and a wee touch of olive oil. I tossed the sausage in at the end and had one of the tastiest meals ever, and one that I made up on the spur of the moment! The sweetness of the apple cider and the slight bitterness of the kale were perfect together, and was a delicious counterpoint to the sausage. The side dish was a mysterious variety of white acorn squash (peyton or some such thing, no idea how to spell it) from Just This Farm. It had a little salt, butter from Hartzler's Dairy, and maple sugar from Pleiades Maple Farm.

One of my goals for the Dark Days Challenge is to come up with new and interesting recipes. It is easy to fall into the meat-starch-squash-vegetable pattern, so I am hoping to find new and exciting ways to combine them. You'll notice that squash gets its own category, along with vegetables and starches. That is because I have a squash problem (I love to buy them), and probably own a good 20-30 right now. I don't serve it with every single meal, but I am trying hard to make it part of every other meal at least.

Eat Local Challenge update

Eating fell by the wayside last week, as I endured a hideous bout of insomnia and its associated physical woes. Fortunately I am feeling better and even sleeping a bit like a normal person (well, as close as I get, which isn't very.)

A few notable meals from the camera:
Here we celebrated the end of summer with a jerk chicken thigh (we are getting by with very small meat portions these days), corn on the cob, broccoli, sweet potato fries, and roasted cherry tomatoes. Next we have lettuce wraps with pork and carrot, along with some broccoli in brown sauce with sesame. Normally we'd have scallions and rice noodles in the lettuce wraps as well, but I forgot the scallions and we were out of the decidedly non-local rice noodles.
Next up is a barbecued chicken thigh with roasted purple viking potatoes, corn on the cob, and Brussels sprouts.

The next two items are a little blurry:
Here we have a pear poached in homemade grape juice; I reduced the poaching liquid to make a sauce, and was clearly in a hurry to eat it.
This is a very typical brunch of pancakes with raspberries (red and amber) and a side of peppered bacon.

And tonight's dinner was pan-roasted chicken breasts with garden herbs under the skin; mashed kennebec potatoes, steamed broccoli, and roasted *somethingmumblesomething* sweet potato squash with butter and maple sugar. (I forget the full name of the variety, but it is an odd heriloom.) And don't forget that pan gravy! I made extra so I can make a batch of chicken and noodles this week.

One Local Summer - Week 13

It's the final week! This dinner was a vegan tribute to Debbie, the coordinator for the Midwest for this challenge. (Thank you for all of your hard work!) It was a simple dish, served warm, and was somewhere between a stew and a salad. Local black beans teamed up with onions, bi-color corn, and grape and pear tomatoes from the garden. The only non-local ingredients were the oil (for sweating the onions) and the spices (cumin, chili powder, smoked paprika.) I am sure I will be revisiting this dish over the winter!

Leaves are already crunching underfoot in my yard, but with the warm days and bountiful markets it definitely feels like summer is still with us. I did see the first pumpkins this past weekend - but I think I'll wait for watermelon season to end before I start buying fall produce!

One Local Summer - Week 11

This week's meal featured pole beans from the garden, chicken wrapped in bacon, corn on the cob (we aren't tired of it yet!) and the cutest little baby red thumb potatoes. Non-local ingredients were olive oil, red pepper flakes (to jazz up the pole beans) and salt and pepper.

We have actually had local meals every day this week, but I didn't take pictures of them all! We had pizza yesterday, since I thought that both cooking and processing 4 dozen ears of corn for the freezer would be too much work. (And I was right!)

One Local Summer - Week 9

Happy summer everyone! I am home for a few days before heading off to my next tent-related adventure (this time I'll be at Pennsic.) I have managed to hit a couple of markets and picked up some lovely produce - so lovely that I must spend part of tomorrow putting up corn and peaches.

This week's OLS meal was a quick-and-simple one: roasted chicken thighs with BBQ seasoning, corn on the cob, and broiled zucchini (cooked with olive oil, salt and pepper and thyme and dill) topped with a sauce of thinned Greek yogurt and scallions and mint. Chicken was from Speckled Hen; corn from Wishwell Farms in Bellefontaine Ohio (~54 miles); zucchini from Paige's Produce (~41 miles); scallions and mint from my garden (zero miles), butter from Hartzler's Dairy. Non-local ingredients were olive oil, yogurt, and salt and pepper.

We've been enjoying local berries (blackberries, black and red raspberries, blueberries) as well as peaches, apricots, and the occasional plum. I saw melons at the market today but was out of money. I may run off to another market tomorrow in search of a small watermelon and/or muskmelon.

One Local Summer - Week 7

This week's designated meal was a main course of BLT's (well, okay, they were actually "BL's" because I don't like tomato on sandwiches) with corn on the cob and zucchini capaccio, based on Eric Ripert's excellent blog recipe at at Avec Eric. The bacon was from Blues Creek, zucchini from Paige's Produce, and corn from... well, I forget the farm's name but it was grown in Circleville Ohio (~40 miles.) Non-local ingredients were olive oil, salt, pepper, and Parmigiano cheese (I had some local Gouda but the dish really called for the imported Parmigiano Reggiano, so I used it.)

I made the mistake of turning the oven on for the zucchini, since my toaster oven only holds so much. Bad choice! I am not touching the oven again until fall is in the air.

One Local Summer - Week 6

I'll be off living in a tent for the next few weeks, without internet access. (I know, the mind boggles!) So I will be posting a few of the meals I have been collecting, to cover me while I'm gone.



This week's meal featured BBQ chicken (chicken from North market Poultry, sauce from City BBQ), green beans (Bird's Haven Farm) with scallions (Just This Farm) and butter (my own homemade!) and potatoes (H-W Farms) with red onions and smoked paprika. Non-local ingredients were olive oil, salt and pepper, and paprika. I made the chicken in the toaster oven, which is currently my favorite kitchen device!

I also *finally* started putting things up. I froze a few pints of berries and some chopped sweet onions (I will not run out of onions this winter! I won't!) In past week I managed to put up a little bit of asparagus and English peas. These were all frozen and vacuum sealed.

One Local Summer - Week 5

This week's meal was a vegetarian pasta dish. I even skipped the cream sauce this week! Fresh linguine from the North Market met olive oil, roasted grape tomatoes (roasted in the toaster oven with olive oil, salt and pepper), english peas, shitake mushrooms, garlic and fresh basil. This week's salad included cucumbers, plum purple radishes (my favorite radish ever) and more grape tomatoes. Non-local ingredients were olive oil, salt and pepper.

I didn't even miss the cream sauce!

One Local Summer - Week 4

This week I learned that I am terrible at cooking steak. I understand the theory and all (I've read my McGee and watched Top Chef contenders cook steaks in a variety of ways) but I have this deep-seated fear that it (all meat, really) will be underdone, so I tend to overcook it. Too many years as a vegetarian, perhaps. As this was my first attempt at cooking steak I should probably cut myself a little slack. It wasn't too bad, just a little tough.

I seared the steak and finished it in a pan with lots of butter. It is topped with sautéed oyster mushrooms and garlic scapes (cooked in the same pan as the steak so there were plenty of butter and fond) and the sides were English peas (briefly boiled and buttered) and mashed redskin potatoes (with butter and milk.) Dessert was mango lassi frozen yogurt from local artisan ice creamiere Jeni's.

Non-local ingredients were salt and pepper.

Steak from Long Meadows Grass-Fed Beef in Utica, Ohio (44 miles)
(Here's an article about Ed and Nancy and their beef.)
Mushrooms from Toby Run in Bellville, Ohio (~50 miles)
Garlic scapes from Just This Farm in Galloway, Ohio (~24 miles)
Potatoes from H-W Organic Farm in Sullivan, Ohio (~85 miles)
Milk and butter from Hartzler's Dairy in Wooster, Ohio (~88 miles)
Ice cream from Jeni's at the North Market (ingredients weren't local, but Jeni is our local ice cream star (small batch artisanal ice creams, sorbets and frozen yogurts) so we feel no qualms about including all of her works in our local diet. My waistline owes at least an inch to her!)

One Local Summer - Week 3

It's that time again! No picture this week, as I was hungry and dinner was a little less than lovely. Tonight's OLS meal was a stir-fry of veggies and mushrooms with one breast of chicken (shared between two people.) One of my goals is to reduce our meat consumption, which has gone up a little since we discovered humanely-raised local meat. Being able to stretch one small chicken breast (really a half-breast) into one meal is a good thing (I have managed to make one feed four before, in a stew or curry with plenty of veggies. Grandma would admire my thrift!

Anway, on to the dinner! The stir-fry included snow peas, garlic scapes, early carrots (SO good!), rainbow chard, asparagus tips, green pepper, mushrooms (shitake and yellow oyster) plus the chicken. Only the seasonings were non-local (soy sauce, black bean paste, ginger, sesame oil.) I meant to serve it over (local) soft wheat berries, but it was so hot I couldn't bring myself to boil water. Dessert was a strawberry granita (local strawberries and non-local sugar) which is a wonderful thing on a hot day!