Author Archives: ddoern

Saturday Night’s Alright For Flyin’ (butterflying as in chicken, that is)

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So the chicken was not from Wolfe Spring Farm. They were all out. Its no surprise because theirs was some of the best chicken I’d ever tasted (a close second to the free roaming grubandwhoknowswhatelse eating Rancho Margot birds we had in Costa Rica)  Otherwise, the meal was a celebration of WSF’s bounty.

Grille Roasted Brussel Sprouts, cauliflower and Broccoli melange. So delicious. Toss in olive oil, salt and pepper, put on grill until done. I had this for lunch during the week.

Grille Roasted Carrots. Look at how gorgeous they are. They tasted even better. Again, a very simple preparation: Olive oil, salt pepper.

Now for the weird part: Grilled turnip planks. We’d tried grilled potato planks but nothing else. This turnip was farmin’ huge so we gave it a shot. Slice thick, toss with salt, let rest in salt for 20 mins or so, rinse, nuke  on low for 10 mins to soften up a bit. Toss in olive oil salt and pepper, grill on medium heat, off direct flame until done. Sprinkle some coarse salt before serving warm. I bet even Hubs would like these!!

Cauliflower, sprouts and broccoli, Oh My!

I bet you monsters lead the most innnnnteresstin’ lives……

Warning! Pic not safe for work

Our grille is really not filthy, its just the flash……..
Note modesty skillet and turnip planks

You must try these: smoky, earthy surprising.

A most fabulous un-fabulous meal.

À la recherche du l’ete perdu (or Better Late Than Never, right?)

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OK, so Debra and Hubs were generous enough to give us yet another pickup a week and a half ago and I’m only now getting to blogging about it. Excuses abound but here it is. Y’all should be glad I’m late, actually. Since October 6, when we picked up, we’ve had a frost and fall is definitely here and summer is definitely gone. So maybe my pics will conjure some wistful thoughts……………

Look at the gorgeous haul. More soon on what we did with some of it. I don;t have pics of the great braised cabbage and kale I made. Chopped both, tossed in olive oil, added a bit of vinegar, some water though beer would have been better, a couple of juniper berries and a red chile. Braised with the top off in 400 for 20 minutes, then 250 until tender. Toss once or twice.

We were going to make something cool out of the raspberries but we and our house guests ate them up before dinner time came around!

Last of the season

Baby got Babah

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OK, OK, OK, I know Deblog is back but a promise is a promise. I made some of this from awesome WSF eggplants and it was a huge hit with some very recherché NYC types. You can get the tahini at most major supermarkets. If you are lucky enough to live in Brooklyn Heights or Cobble Hill, you can get it at Sahadi. Up here in the ‘shires. its available at Guidos and the gourmet shop on north Route 7 near the Kmart (no snickering you manhattanites out there) In mahn-hadtdtdun its available here and there. Its an important component so don’t try this at home without it. I’ve pdf’d the page from Claudia Roden’s The New Book Of Middle Eastern Cooking. Click on the word “baba” to see the recipe. Enjoy it with crostini, crackers, pita or on tomatoes.

Baba

Life is Good

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I was fortunate enough to be asked to pickup another great haul from Wolfe Spring Farm this Labor Day weekend. It was a lovely bounty with awesome produce. Unfortunately, our house guests happened to get in the way of me photographing and blogging everything we did with the food. So……It started with a margarita made with fresh watermelon juice and WSF jalapeños. Its a delicious summer drink. After two of those I forgot all about the blog so don’t have any pics of that evening. Then, we made an awesome tomato salad with some fresh mozzarella, WSF tomatoes and some micro greens from Zinks farm down the road. Drizzle some white balsamic vinegar, olive oil, salt, pepper and that’s it! Next, I made an improvised ratatouille with the WSF eggplant, peppers, onions, garlic, tomatoes, basil, and a few other things. It came out really well and will be my lunch for the next few days. Perhaps I’ll add some chick peas.

Watermelon Jalapeño Margarita

Make some fresh watermelon juice. Muddle a jalapeño pepper or two in a cocktail shaker. Add lots of ice. Put in a splash of lime juice (about a half lime per serving) add tequila (we used Patron Silver because its so clean tasting and complements the watermelon but a smokier liquor could be interesting) and watermelon juice to your taste. Shake and serve up or over ice. Since I don’t have a pic, you’ll have to take my word for it – it was gorgeous to behold and drink.

The Haul. Artistic License Disclaimer: The peaches are not WSF and I neglected to put the raspberries in the photo.

Beautiful Sunflowers

It doesn’t get much better than this at the end of the summer………..

Panzanellamania

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I had heard of this Italian dish and it always sounded nice. But we don’t eat a lot of bread so therefore we rarely have stale bread. It never came to be. And it seems silly to buy something just so it could get stale. We’ve made many tomato basil cheese etc salads but the stale, crusty bread hadn’t joined the party. So…..with the perfect storm of house guests last weekend who didn’t eat everything we bought (including a delicious, now hard as a shoe, Berkshire Mountain Bakery baguette), beautiful ripe Wolfe Spring Farm tomatoes bursting with juice, extra roasted WSF garlic sitting around, uneaten boiled WSF corn that was in the fridge for a day or two, fresh parsley, basil, and chives from our garden. I came to understand the true origin and beauty of this dish. Cut it all up, toss it all together with whatever vinegar turns you on (I used white balsamic the first time and it was a little timid. Then, good old supermarket red wine vinegar and it was just right), olive oil, salt and pepper (I also added little bit of minced WSF jalapeño for pizazz and some cubed pressed tofu for protein) let it sit for 10 minutes or so until the bread softens a little in the juices of the tomatoes , vinegar and oil, and BOOM, dinnuh! and lunch, and a snack. I was possessed by this fresh, quick, flavorful assembly of stuff lying around. I ate so much of it. I think it would be great with a little red onion, fresh cheese, anything you have left over that does’t seem too gross to put in. My guess is that the corn is not authentic but I adapted the dish to our region. Even though a dish may be common, tried and true, or part of the popular repertoire, it still feels new and exciting when we discover it, even “invent” it, for ourselves, doesn’t it? I think this is one of the great joys of cooking.

Got Bread?

Multitasking

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While Paul, Debra, and Sam are glamming it up on the continent, we’re keeping it real here down on the farm. A few fat eggplants challenged us to make some baba ganoush. Could we get any where near the smoky deliciousness of Fatoosh on Hicks Street in Brooklyn? We were willing to humiliate ourselves trying so………….I’m usually a Jamie Oliver throw-it-all-together-and-see-what-happens kind of guy but Baba ganoush mystified me. I knew it was a roasted eggplant dip with garlic and lemon but that was it. So, I turned to the New Book of Middle Eastern Food by Claudia Roden. This book has inspired me many times. She had a great recipe for baba ganoush which I’ll get to later. We through the eggplant on the grille. While we had the grill going, I put some garlic in to roast and, why not?, some edamame to see what would happen. Toss it with salt and pepper and roast it (rather than steam it) OMFG – so delicious. It took on some of the smoke of the eggplant and was magnificent. I bet they don’t do THAT in Ittly……….

Raw Wolfe Spring Farm soy bean pods (edamame) in our fantastic dumptique grille pan

Eggplant and edamame

WSF Eggplant and WSF garlic

Beautiful, grill-roasted edamame. Toss with sel-gris and devour. I did.

cuz close-up, naturally-lit food photos look classy

Grille-roasted Wolfe Spring Farm garlic. (Platter available at Bergdorf Goodman, NYC – shout out to David (“hubs” in Reganischqke) ) So useful……always have some around.

Nanny’s Dish

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My Italian-American (Calabrese) grandmother (we called her nanny) was a lousy cook. I know, it’s counter to what everyone wants to believe about her type but she made greasy tomato sauce, tough pork chops and tasteless baccala. But she made one delicious, memorable favorite dish: peppers and onions, usually with sausage or potatoes. I updated it with Wolfe Spring Farm bell peppers, fingerling potatoes, and some regular old supermarket onions. And since it’s August and I’m doin’ everything on the grille in my new dumptique enameled metal pan……… Slice everything up as shown, toss with olive oil, salt and pepper, throw in some fresh oregano, rosemary and whatever else you have around, thyme would be nice, and then put on the grille on high heat. Toss every so often until looks done. This could easily be done on the stovetop or in the oven, OMG……..memories……. light the corners of my mind……..greasy oily-tasting memories……of the way we were…..

Beautiful ingredients!

Ready to go……

Maybe after 30 minutes on high heat

EAT! You’re so skinny!!

Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, no Time

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Next, we made an amazing grille-roasted chicken with a Wolfe Springs Farm naturally raised chicken, some WSF fingerling potatoes, some herbs from our garden and some WSF tomatoes.

Slip a few herbs under the chicken’s skin, cram some lemon wedges and whole herbs in the cavity, salt and pepper everything in sight and throw it in a pan (this one was a wedding gift that we dedicated to the grill) cook for a while, add some sliced onions and crushed garlic, cook until done, serve with sliced fresh WSF tomatoes and chopped basil. The whole cooking time was about 1.5 hours – just enough time to have a bloody mary or two. This was a truly sublime feast.

The raw ingredients

“How Easy is That?” Dave at the grill, channeling Ina Garten.

Work in Progress

Add onions and WSF garlic

BOOM! Dinnuh!

Cole Slaw

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OK, so the first thing we did was make a quick cole slaw with the WSF red cabbage, WSF jalapeño and some epazote for our garden. Its super easy and fresh and delicious tasting. Slice up the cabbage, finely chop the jalapeño and the epazote, grind some fresh pepper and salt on top, add a dollop of mayonnaise (we used Hellman’s but if you are more ambitious that we are, make fresh) and a drizzle of white vinegar. Toss, let sit for a few hours in the fridge and enjoy!

The basic ingredients

Cabbage Chopping in process

Blurry pic of the chopped cabbage, jalapeños and mayo.

Tangy…..

An Embarrassment of Riches

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Take a look at this awesome haul from Wolfe Spring Farm! Organic corn, eggplant, string beans, garlic, tomatoes, red cabbage, jalapeños, zucchini, bell peppers, fingerling potatoes, edamame, and beautiful sunflowers. Thanks so much to Paul and Debra for letting us pick up their CSA produce while they are on jury duty.  While at the farm, we had a nice chat with Jim, who told us that they had naturally raised chickens for sale. We bought two. Stay tuned for what we do with all this gorgeous produce. Thanks!

Embarrassment of Riches

And sunflowers too