Tomato Love!

It's late August. If you garden, I'm guessing your countertops swelling under the weight of tomatoes. Or, if you are crazy like me, you've bought a 25 pound box of plum tomatoes for sauce.  And then people keep giving you more. But good gravy, I hope you haven't refrigerated them. As my chef friend Jason Hook says, vegetables DIE in the refrigerator. I would add that some veg-deaths-by-fridge are slower than others. Tomatoes, though, get watery and gross in there, and right quick. But I digress.....

Here's something you can do with them. You can take them, no matter what their size, shape or taste, and roast them. Wash them, slice them in half, toss them in a big bowl with anywhere between 1/4 cup and 1/2 cup of olive oil, salt, and pepper, and you are good to go. You can then use them in myriad ways. Eat them smeared on toasted ciabatta, rubbed with garlic. Toss them with pasta and other fresh tomatoes for a multi-layered tomato experience. Puree them. Mix them with eggs. Eat them with a spoon off the roasting pan (that's partly what I did.). Toss them with other veggies and beans for a very impromptu one-pot veggie-laden meal (I did that, too). Freeze them in 2-cup increments so that you can pull them out, like a champ, in the middle of winter and add them to soups, stews, sauces, chilis, and so forth. (Also done). You don't even really have to defrost them, if you don't want to, but you could certainly do that in the fridge. But seriously. They're going to give off water anyway, and you'll need some for the cooking process, so don't fret. Food is more forgiving than perhaps we all realize.

Ingredients
Tomatoes! Any shape, size or color
1/4 to 1/2 cup olive oil
1-2 tsp. cane sugar or maple syrup (I have also used agave nectar)** This is optional
1/2 tsp to 1 tsp. salt and a few cracks of fresh ground black pepper

Instructions
1. Set your oven to 350 Fahrenheit
2.  Slice those tomatoes in half and toss them in a big bowl. In a separate small bowl, whisk together the olive oil, salt, pepper and optional sugar. If you include sugar, it's just going to accentuate the sweetness, but it's not necessary. Pour over the tomatoes and toss gently to combine.
3. Roast the tomatoes in the oven on rimmed baking sheets for 45-60 minutes, depending on the size of the tomatoes. You'll see them start to get blistery, shrink a bit around the edges and get a little bit caramelized. Bingo!
4. Remove from the oven and let them cool to room temperature before putting them in the fridge for nearly immediate consumption or a zip top bag for freezer storage. Make sure you get in all those good, sweet olive oil juices--including some of the burny bits that develop as they roast. It's all flavor. Don't let it go to waste!

Roasting is especially attractive when you find you have a few that are starting to turn and you may not be able to eat all of them immediately. In less than an hour, you can make short work of those super ripe tomatoes and have the components of a dish for the middle of winter. (Or, as in the case of last night's dinner, three hours later.)  If you want to store them in the fridge, wait until they've cooled to room temperature and then transfer them to an airtight container. They'll keep for about a week, but you'll likely eat them up before then.

After Wednesday Market Dinner

This isn't so much a recipe, per se, as it is a list of ingredients, borne out of what I had on hand.

We try to go to the new Weyerbacher Wednesday market at the Easton Farmers' Market, which takes place from 4-8pm every, you guessed it, Wednesday. There are some great vendors there who sell good dinnertime fare, such as Switchback Pizza and V-Lish Vegan Soup Company. Purple Cow/aka Bank Street Creamery is also there with inspired ice cream flavors, too. Invariably we end up with a couple of the little pizzas from Switchback, but the kids (and us, too) typically need something else to eat when we get home. And that's what happened last week. I was still hungry, but it was almost 7pm and I was not interested in cooking because I had been doing that all day already. I wanted quick assembly but lots of taste.  I threw this together quickly. It started with an investigation into what was in the fridge. Here's a glimpse of my internal monologue......

Oh! There's a leftover cooked ear of corn on the cob.
(I scraped the kernels off.)

Well, if I have corn, what else is in here? Jimmy Nardello red peppers
(These are so sweet you can and should just eat them raw. Two of those, from Salvaterra's, washed, sliced thin, extra seeds removed, went in.)

Well, if you have peppers and corn, you need tomatoes, too.....
(In went a couple of roughly chopped heirlooms from Scholl's.)

Wait a minute. I think I still have a white cucumber!
(How overjoyed I was to find someone was growing these in the Lehigh Valley, because I didn't this year. Thanks, Firelight Farms! No need to peel locally and naturally grown cucumbers. Washed and sliced thin, and then cut in half. Done.)

From there, I went to the backyard, grabbed a half dozen leaves of basil from the garden, and added a little bit of feta cheese. Admittedly, the latter was not a market purchase but if you bought a tangy cheese from Klein Farms, BaD Farm or Cranberry Creek, you're one step ahead of me. Or you could leave it out. I just wanted a sharp counterpoint to the veggies. Add a good glug or two of your best extra virgin olive oil--you'll want something with a fruity or otherwise assertive taste--and you're good to go.

See what I mean? This is less a recipe than a list of ingredients. I could have kept going, and added zucchini, but I stopped there.

But here's a simple rule of thumb for cooking, and maybe even for life. Go with what you got. Go with what feels right. Go with what tastes good together. It's hard to mess up during the height of the season. We are supposed to be eating many of these veggies together. It just makes sense. I find I can't eat this stuff fast enough, to keep up with production, during August and into September. 

If you make this, or make a variation, please share details!

The ULTIMATE Veggie Burger

Black beans and beets and rice, oh my!

If you have ever tried to make a veggie burger from scratch, I trust you will understand my jubilation at finally hitting upon a nearly perfect veggie burger.

The only bummer? I cannot take credit for this--it comes from a site I like quite a bit, The Kitchn, so I'm passing it along in the interest of deliciousness and good health--with a few adaptations. First, for the history. This recipe was inspired by the veggie burgers at Northstar Cafe in Columbus, Ohio. Can't say I've ever eaten there, but my inspiration comes more locally, from the awesome black bean and lentil burger chef Jeremy Bialker makes at Two Rivers Brewing.

In any case, once it morphs into something that's really my own, after I've made more changes, I can use it in the cookbook. I suspect it will, because even though you can say that all veggie burgers are projects, I am convinced that this one has too many ingredients. I'm going to test and see if there are some we can all do away with, in the interest of preserving maximum flavor and creating a recipe that won't make you run screaming for the hills when you see how long the ingredient list is.  In terms of my changes I've adapted this recipe and amped up some of the seasonings so the taste is more prominent. I also added cilantro where there was none in the recipe because I had it and because I thought it would work well. And it does.

This recipe succeeds where many others fail because homemade veg burgers often fall apart when you try to flip them, no matter how hot you get that pan or grill. This one remains intact; I had not one casualty. They're also often leaden and leave you with an altogether too-full feeling. In an uncomfortable way. These simply are not.

The yield for this recipe, which makes six, feels off. It's written for regular burgers, but I made sliders, which are typically a little less than half the size of their standard counterparts. I used an overflowing 1/4 cup cookie scoop and got about three times more than the "about six" the recipe indicates. Suffice to say, it fed three adults and two four-year-olds, and I froze about a dozen for a future meal. That last part is a total bonus, because often you want the convenience of veggie burgers at a moment's notice but not all that work.

Important detail: you need to bring these together ahead of time: the mixture should sit in the fridge for a few hours or as long as overnight in order for the flavors to come together and firm up.

If you do make these, please let me know how many you get out of it, and how big you've made them. Feedback, please! I apologize for the lack of a photo of the finished product--we ate them too fast for me to photograph them.

Ingredients:
1 lb. beets (3-4 medium-to-large ones)
1/2 cup uncooked brown rice
1 medium yellow onion, diced small
3-4 garlic cloves, minced
2 T. apple cider vinegar
1/4 cup old fashioned rolled oats (or oat flour)
2 (15.5-ounce) cans black beans
1/4 cup dates, chopped into small pieces
1 T. extra virgin olive oil
1 T. smoked paprika (Hungarian paprika is too sweet)
1 T. grainy mustard
1 1/2 tsp. cumin
1 tsp. coriander
1/2 tsp. dried thyme
1/3 cup chopped cilantro
1 large egg (optional; makes the burger vegan otherwise)
Salt and pepper to taste

1. Set your oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Scrub the beets, dry them thoroughly, and wrap them in aluminum foil. Roast them for about 45-50 minutes, until they are easily pierced with a fork. Remove from oven and set aside to cool.
2. Bring a 2-quart pot of water to boil for the rice. Salt the water and cook the rice according to package directions, with one caveat: you want it to be a little bit overcooked (not totally mushy), but still firm. Drain the rice and set aside to cool.
3. Heat a tsp of oil in a skillet over medium high heat. Add the onions and a pinch of salt. This step is important: you cook them until they have started to caramelize. Don't undercook them because your burgers will lack flavor. Add the garlic and cook for about 30 seconds, and then pour in the cider. Scrape the bottom of the pan--you're basically deglazing it with vinegar--and simmer until the pan is almost dry. Remove from the heat; set it aside to cool.
4. In the meantime, process the oats until they look like a flour; alternately, if you have oat flour, you can use that instead. Transfer to a bowl.
5. Rinse and drain one of the cans of beans and add to the food processor bowl. Distribute the dates on top and pulse until everything is roughly chopped--somewhere between 8 and 10 pulses. You don't want smushed beans; you want some to retain their structure. Transfer this to a large mixing bowl. Drain and rinse the second can of beans, and add to the bowl with the beans and dates.
6. Peel the beets. If they have cooled sufficiently, you should be able to do this with your hands, the assistance of a paper towel or under cool running water, which helps the skins slip off.  Grate them and transfer the beets to a strainer set over a bowl in the sink. Using paper towels, press down into the beet shavings to squeeze out excess water.
7. Transfer the beets, rice, onions and garlic to the bowl with the beans. Add the olive oil through thyme and combine well with a wooden spoon. Add a good amount of salt and pepper, and add the oat flour, egg and cilantro. Mix it up until the egg and flour are thoroughly combined and invisible. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and put it in the fridge for at least two hours, or up to overnight. You can keep this in the fridge up to three days before you cook it.
8. Set a cast iron (or nonstick) skillet over medium-high heat. Add a few T. of vegetable oil and when you see the oil shimmer, it's ready. Form the burgers into the desired size: a cup or so would give you a traditional burger, and a 1/4 to 1/2 cup would give you a slider. Cook for 2-3 minutes, and then flip them. If anything breaks off when you flip them, just smush them back into the patty with the spatula. Cook for another two minutes, and then reduce the heat to medium-low. Continue cooking for another 3-4 minutes. At this point if you are adding cheese (cheddar works nicely), do it now: lay a slice over the top and add a lid to keep the heat in. Serve them on lightly toasted (always nice) burger buns of appropriate size.

Note: I made about a dozen, we ate dinner, and then after dinner I portioned out about another dozen and wrapped them in wax paper (you can also use plastic wrap). I laid them all out on a baking sheet to freeze, and then once they were frozen solid, transferred them to a zip top bag. And yes, I labeled the bag with its contents and the date. It helps when navigating your freezer.

I would love to hear your feedback about this! 

Sorrel and Scape Pesto

I've been on a serious sorrel kick this farmers' market season. I first tasted it last year from Chuck Armitage of Lettuce Alone. Earlier in the spring, I started seeing it at the Easton Farmers' Market, from Pheasant Hill Farms, from the very skilled DeVaults. I also encountered it a couple weeks ago when I started to help Dave Joachim test recipes for Marc Vetri's Mastering Pasta.  Once you start paying attention to something new in your field of vision, you encounter it everywhere. But that's a different story, sort of....

If you have never sampled sorrel, I encourage you to grab it the next time you encounter it. Sorrel is redolent of lemon, and has a bring, sharp taste. You can add a handful to a salad as an accent green, with eggs along with some goat cheese. I've already eaten it raw in salad. When sauteed into a pasta dish, I learned that even medium-low heat makes it brown quickly (George DeVault confirmed this); it's mostly an aesthetic concern rather than an issue of taste. Next time, I'll turn off the heat altogether, which I typically do with other greens I add to dishes at the last minute. An oversight on a busy weeknight in the kitchen.

So what to do with a surplus of sorrel? Well, after Dave and I munched on the incredibly zesty stems, brainstorming fun uses for them, I decided it was time for pesto. So I took the stems from two big bunches of sorrel, about 3-4 cups worth of leaves, and a mess of other pesto fixings and got to work. And I had a rather large handful of garlic scapes in my fridge, so instead of the traditional garlic, I put those in, too.

Ingredients
Two bunches of sorrel, measuring about 3-4 cups altogether, with stems removed and reserved
4-6 garlic scapes, or more if you like a pungent pesto
2 pinches of kosher salt
1/3 cup sunflower seeds (or pine nuts or walnuts; the taste will change accordingly)
1/3 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
Juice and zest of one lemon
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil (you want something fruity and assertive here)
12-16 ounces penne or other pasta, if you're ready for dinner
1/2 to 1 cup pasta water, reserved

Instructions
1. Bring a well-salted pot of water to boil over high heat. While that's happening....
2. Combine the sorrel through lemon juice and zest in the bowl of a food processor and turn it on. While that's working, slowly add the olive oil through the top chute. Stop the machine once you have reached your desired consistency. Pesto is really subjective. With pasta dishes, I like to leave mine a little chunky because you're going to add pasta water, which will thin it out a bit.
3. Just before the pasta's cooked, scoop out about a cup of the cooking water and set aside. Drain pasta. Add about 1/2 cup of pesto to the hot stockpot, and add back in the water and the pesto. Stir to combine. Add more freshly grated Parm if you want it. Don't forget lots of freshly ground salt and pepper, either.

I like to freeze any leftover pesto and play a trick on nature by pulling out frozen pesto in the middle of winter. You can use ice cube trays but I have been using the plastic trays that came with our baby food maker years ago. They're just like ice cube trays, except they come with lids, which helps reduce freezer burn and I believe they are BPA-free.

If you make this, let's hear about it. You may not be able to get sorrel again until the fall, but when you see it, grab it. You won't regret it. 

Bucatini with Lemon Parsley Pesto and Sorrel

This post is borne out of necessity, and comes with the hope that it will inspire you to seek out the lemony-sharp green sorrel, wherever you may be--Lehigh Valley or not!

A couple weeks ago I made something on the fly, and I've learned something about these on-the-fly dishes. They garner lots of Facebook traction. People ask me for the recipe usually, and then invariably want to know how I get my kids to eat such things. I just put it in front of them and have been doing so since they were able to eat solid food. I think it's all about exposure. Sometimes they balk. (Usually Miles, but then he usually backpedals and declares me in his four-year-old sensibility as "the best cooker ever.") So here I am offering you a recreation of the recipe, and the promise that I am going to bring you more farm-fresh recipes as the season progresses.

I don't hold hard and fast to the idea that you should use bucatini or indeed long-noodled pasta exclusively here, but we happen to like bucatini, thanks to the regular employment of it by the fabulous chef Mike Joyce at Molinari's in Bethlehem. I'm also a fan of seeking out that which is slightly unknown to the masses, in case you haven't figured that out, so I accept any opportunity to use a less familiar food item. (It also pleases my children immensely to receive yet another different pasta shape at dinner time. So you live and you learn). If you don't know what it is, think of a spaghetti with a little hole in it (buca means mouth). How can that NOT be a good time for all involved?

Ingredients:
3/4 to 1 pound bucatini (or other long-noodled pasta)
2 cups parsley, with stems (no need to discriminate in favor of leaves)
1/2 cup walnuts (preferrably toasted in a dry pan for 5-7 minutes until fragrant)
Zest and juice of two lemons
1/3 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
Two really good pinches of kosher salt
1/4 cup olive oil
1 handful of sorrel, chopped (I honestly didn't measure it, I just used the entire package as Pheasant Hill Farms sells it at the Easton Farmers' Market. I estimate it's probably about 2 cups' worth.)
1 cup chopped grape tomatoes (Disclaimer: It was May when I made this; therefore, the tomatoes did not come from the farmers' market. This is life, people.)

Directions
1. Cook pasta according to package directions, scooping out 1/2 to 1 cup of cooking water and reserving for later use.
2. Combine the parsley through salt in the food processor and blitz until it's all combined and the parsley is chopped into small bits. Add the olive oil through the chute and process until you reach your desired consistency. Pesto is one of those things that people are particular about, in terms of consistency, i.e., chunky vs. smooth. I wouldn't intrude upon your personal preferences.
3. Add the pesto to the pasta in batches, and taste. Add more if necessary. Add the chopped tomatoes and sorrel; the heat of the pasta and the next step--adding 1/2 cup of water--will help wilt the everything a little bit.
4. Serve immediately with more freshly grated Parmesan cheese sprinkled on top.

When I first made this, I sauteed the sorrel in a little bit of olive oil, and chopped it after I'd removed it from the pan, and so the photo reflects that. You could certainly do that. Just be aware that it will turn brown pretty quickly. I thought I was being vigilant, but I think the heat was a tad too high. If that's not a desirable outcome, make sure the heat is low and remove it quickly. 

2013 Market Season: The Kickstarter Year is Here!

It's almost June. The markets are slowly opening up, one by one, and with them, a plethora of farm fresh goodies. I'm so excited to get back into this time of year, with growth in full swing. We get wrapped up in each item, squeeze all the usefulness out of a vegetable or fruit, and then it's time to say goodbye. (Luckily, this happens at just the right moment, when we've exhausted all the options for, say, zucchini. I never have a problem with too many tomatoes, but I digress..) For this year, we've seen some additions and subtractions to the market scene (SteelStax and Historic Bethlehem Market are gone), but no matter: we're in for another great year. Hopefully, Mother Nature will cooperate with those desires.

I'm especially excited because I've decided that this is going to be the summer for the Kickstarter campaign to raise money for this book's publication. You see, this book is a little too niche for a traditional publisher, so it will make the most sense to take a DIY approach. It's going to be a really long haul, and I'm going to need all the help I can get. I haven't worked out all the details yet with my pal Laini Abraham, but it's going to happen this summer, so keep your eyes peeled for that. Honestly, I'm so inspired by the successful campaigns of both Two Rivers Brewing and Nurture Nature Center, I figure that I should be able to pull it off, right? Right? Who's with me?!

What kind of fun incentives do you want for participating in the effort? A copy of the cookbook is a given, but what else? Leave a comment. Inquiring minds wanna know.

And one other thing: would you want to see recipes throughout the season if I posted them with some regularity on this blog?  Would you try them? Would you still buy the cookbook even if I debuted some of them here? Am I cutting off my nose to spite my face---so to speak? You get the idea...

Second Call for Recipes for Lehigh Valley Farmers' Market Cookbook: Fall!

If you've just stumbled upon this page, welcome. Thanks for stopping by. You must like good food, such as these roasted brussel sprouts from Salvaterra's Gardens.

But I digress! 

Here's the scoop about the Lehigh Valley Farmers' Market Cookbook. Laini Abraham and I are going to publish a cookbook. I'm the cooking/writing half; she's the designing/publishing half. The recipes will be original and culled from various sources: my own brain, farmers and vendors who know well what to do with their wares; food writers and chefs who shop at the markets and/or collaborate with the markets in cooking demonstrations; and finally—you, the market-shopping public. We want your delicious recipes.

To that end, we're  putting out the SECOND call for recipe submissions for dishes you would typically make from September through Thanksgiving. Now that the Easton Farmers' Market is staying open through the winter, and many other markets in the valley are doing the same, we're going to put a THIRD call out for winter recipes later in the fall. Here's what we're looking for:

•   Recipes must be complete, clearly written, and include instructions that can be easily reproduced; make sure amounts are specified, cooking temperatures, number of servings, etc. If you don't know for sure, please try to make an estimated guess.

•   Please write a short statement (a few sentences) about the genesis of the recipe: What's the story behind it? When do you make it? How and why do you make it? The stories are as important as the recipes.

•   We cannot simply reprint established, published recipes. However, if you have adapted a recipe from somewhere else, please explain to us how you adapted it, why yours is different, and please indicate where it comes from, by providing the name of the book, the cook or chef and/or the URL, depending on the source.

•   Please specify the market at which you shop and identify, in your recipe, the vendors you typically use for each item, where applicable. It’s also fine to just say “fresh spinach” or “carrots” if that's all you need, but we also would love recipes that specify particular varieties, such as a Brandywine tomato or dinosaur (lacinato) kale, or Jimmy Nardello red pepper. If the ingredients are more specialized, such as pea shoots or fresh chevre or elephant garlic, you'll want to tell us exactly from which vendor you bought them.

•   A minimum of 1/2 of the recipe ingredients should be locally sourced. We don't expect you to be able to locally source pantry staples, beans/grains/pasta, lemons, certain cheeses, and spices (salt and pepper for example), so those won't count in that total. You may of course use something you purchased at a local store and in which case (I'm thinking of Seasons in Bethlehem for oils and vinegars), please tell us. Anything that's a fruit, vegetable, wine, or animal product (even honey!) should be available at a Lehigh Valley Farmers' Market.

•   Please think seasonally! Think about what you're trying to do these days with all the remaining peaches, tomatoes, and corn, and how exciting it is to see the cooler weather crops return, such as greens, broccoli, and fall/winter squashes. What do you eat from September through November? Let that guide you.

•   Please submit no more than THREE recipes. We need to play fair; it's a big Valley with lots of people. We won't likely publish more than one recipe per individual.

•   If your recipe is selected for the book, we will contact you by the end of the market season (Winter 2013). The recipe will be printed with your name along with it and you will receive a copy of the cookbook upon publication.

•   Please submit the spring and summer recipes via email to lvfmcookbook@gmail.com no later than October 19, so as to provide ample time for me (and my squadron of testers) to test and photograph those we've selected. The sooner, the better!

You can follow the progress right here on this blog, and also on Facebook and Twitter.

And thank you!