Root Cellaring

The New York Times had a great article yesterday on maintaining a root cellar and the return of home food preservation methods that always seems to happen during economic downturns. Interesting stuff. You can find the article here.

Why New York?

I took a long weekend and drive down to Cooperstown to visit the Baseball Hall of Fame with a couple of friends from Pennsylvania. It is about 280 miles from Buffalo, over to Syracuse, down to Binghamton, and then up a little bit toward Albany. What does this have to do with food?

Well, the bulk of the drive goes through rural New York. Particularly on I-88 from Binghamton to Cooperstown, the roadside is dotted with wide acres and picturesque farmhouses. Signs of previous farms are also scattered on hillsides in the form of falling barns and decrepit outbuildings. The Southern Tier has already had their first snow, and some of the structures were dusted with the new snow--it added to a very Halloween-creepy feeling in some areas.

Whenever I drive in rural areas like that I always wonder the same things: if you are not a farmer, where do you work to earn income; how do you do your shopping in the winter if there is a snowstorm and you are running low on the basics like milk; and, do the people who live in these small towns long for the hustle and bustle of city life the same way I often want to trade in my Cape Cod and conveniences for fields and a farmhouse? When I was in college in very rural Allegany County I knew that most non-farmers worked for the local colleges, many residents had big freezers and 4-wheel drive, and escaping to Wellsville or Hornell often filled big city needs. It was an idyllic town, where the colleges brought entertainment to campus and life was very rarely boring. But I wonder how life outside of college towns in rural areas is shaped.

Overall, I will say there was one stunning thing that struck me with every new mile I drove--New York is a beautiful state. I saw a lovely variety of rolling hills painted umber and russet with dots of green and swaths of brown, cows and horses roaming happily on gentle slopes, and many areas that were perfectly suited for picture postcards. I always thought my home state, Missouri, was filled with natural beauty (especially because of the Ozarks), but every time I travel in New York State I am struck anew by how much I love living here. It is often the same for me just driving around Buffalo.

What does this have to do with food? Not much (aside from seeing a good number of farms, anyway). However, it did remind me why thinking local is important to me. These are real farms and real lives in our own state that we are supporting every time we choose something that wasn't shipped here from Chile or California. For me, it makes me feel more connected with my fellow New Yorkers, and proud that I live in an area of such bounty. It just gives me one more reason to appreciate the small joys of where I live, and why I have chosen to call this place home.

Organic Gardening Donates to Growing Green

Last week, I attended a unique ribbon cutting in the City of Buffalo. The Massachusetts Avenue Project's Growing Green program received a 1000 gallon cistern/rain barrel from Organic Gardening magazine so they can water their urban farm with what would otherwise have gone down the drain and into the storm sewers. A great addition to a wonderful urban farm. A reception followed the ribbon cutting, and was held in the straw bale greenhouse that growing Green owns. A lovely greenhouse, and good catering from Trudy Stern of Tru-Teas, as well. I love going to Growing Green events because everyone there is always so welcoming. You really get the sense that the people there love what they do, and it is inspiring to be even a little part of that.

As an added bonus, the new Mobile Market was also being painted in front of the farm. It was great getting a peak at this exciting "farmer's market on wheels" that is going to make such a difference in bringing fresh produce to people, like residents of senior centers, who would not otherwise have easy access to fruits and vegetables.

The website for Organic Gardening is here. Their website has some helpful hints for gardeners sorted out by region, so it is worth a look if you have questions about how to get your garden ready for winter or plan for Spring.

Apple Picking CANCELLED

This is just to let you know that the apple picking trip scheduled for tomorrow has been cancelled due to high likelihood of inclement weather (heavy rains and high wind). Please do NOT meet at Bidwell Parkway at 2pm, as no one will be there.

The Community Comes together 60 York St.

60 York St. has made an incredible turn around, it has gone from a dumping ground where dog fights happened on a weekly basis to a place of beauty. This is due to the hard work of the Cottage District Block Club. Ellie Dorritie is the woman in charge of this little piece of hell now turned into heaven, she along with other members of the block club bought it from a flipper on Craigs List and now have been working with Grassroots Gardens of Buffalo, Councilmember David Rivera, and the Mayor's Liveable Community Grant process to ensure that it becomes a place to grow food and beautify the neighborhood! D'Youville College is also having a clean up day today on York St. where they will be helping the Cottage District out with this Garden. I also dropped off some irises that I split from my garden!

CSA Fatigue

It's hard to believe, but I only have two weeks left on my CSA with Thorpes Farm. Reflecting on the experience, I would say I'm very happy I did it and did my part to support a local, family farm. There were some really delightful moments - like when I would make a beautiful, crisp salad filled with organic greens and veggies or when I made homemade tomato sauce for the first time. There were also the times when (and it pains me to admit this) when I threw stuff out. Some weeks there just wasn't the time or effort put into consuming all that was brought home. Having grown up first generation American, with parents who were fairly poor and consider it a sin to throw away food, I have a lot of guilt bred into me (being Catholic doesn't help, either).

What might I do differently next year? I may look into CSAs that will deliver at a specific spot, hopefully near work or somewhere in the city. While the drive out to East Aurora is gorgeous, it can be an inconvenience when you have to rush out of work early in order to get to the farm and still let the dogs out on time!

I would also do a small share for just my husband and me. We went in with a large share with our friends and they didn't seem to enjoy the CSA as much as I did, mainly for the driving factor but they also didn't care for a lot of the veggies we got. So the husband and I tended to get more than our share (see point above about throwing food away).

But you can't beat the fresh eggs and few times I bought pork and beef from them. I was far more willing to eat the meat from their farm vs what one gets at the grocery store.

I would absolutely recommend joining a CSA to anyone who is thinking about it. Just remember that it's a commitment and you'll be wasting food unless you like to cook or share your food. It was a great experience to eat (mainly) seasonally this year, and I hope more people in WNY support these incredibly hard working families.

Come Apple Picking With the Locavore Crew

The writing crew here at Buffalo Locavore (Whitney, Kirk, Ann, Brian, and me) are going apple picking.

We will be meeting at Bidwell Parkway next to Talking Leaves at 2pm on Saturday, October 25, 2008 and carpooling up to Murphy Orchards to pick apples and learn a little about our region's Underground Railroad history. You can find out more about the orchard here.

Leave a comment if you plan on joining us so we can get a rough head count. Hope to see you there!

Start Your Chili Right with Growing Green

I recently received an e-mail from the delightful Zoe Hollomon of the Massachusetts Avenue Project announcing a fun event at the Amherst Street Wegmans this Sunday. Please see Zoe's message below, and turn out to show your support if you can!

"Greetings from Growing Green! Growing Green Youth will be at Wegman's on Amherst St this Sunday October 12th from 11am-2pm to promote their Amazing Chili Starter for the fall and winter months. So if you haven't stocked up on your comfort foods for the cold months please come by this Sunday to Wegman's on Amherst, ; we'll have samples of our Amazing Vegetarian Chili with roasted sweet potatoes- if you havent tasted it yet its Yummy!. We'll be in the Natures Market Section in the rear of the store near the deli. If you love our Amazing Chili or prefer something else please look at our alternate recipe ideas and get experimental for your taste buds! Growing Green really appreciates your support of a youth run, eco-friendly, local food business. "

Teresa's Apple Pie Recipe

I promised this recipe a couple of weeks ago, and then got so overwhelmingly busy my posting time was limited. So, at long last (and in perfect time for apple season) here is my apple pie recipe.

For the crust:

First, a tip. For flaky pie crust, you must use ice cold water and don't overwork it. I put water in a measuring cup and throw a couple of ice cubes in, and then use a measuring spoon. Also, a good pastry blender (a hand-held implement with 4 or 5 wires attached in a kind of "u" shape to a handle) is really essential to good blending.

2 Cups All-Purpose Flour

2/3 Cup Shortening (really, there is no substitute for shortening when it comes to crust)

6-7 Tablespoons of Cold Water

Use a pastry blender to mix the flour with the shortening until the mixture is in roughly pea-sized crumbs.

Sprinkle 1 tablespoon at a time until the dough is moistened.

Divide the dough in half.

Form each half into a ball.

Roll out each ball with a rolling pin on a lightly floured surface until it forms about a 12 inch circle.

Wrap one dough circle around the rolling pin and unroll it into a 9" pie plate (I recommend glass for even heating).

Wrap the second dough circle around the rolling pin and set aside while you make the filling.

For Filling:

2.25 Pounds Cooking Apples (I like Ginger Gold if you can get them) cut up to equal about 6 cups

3/4 Cup Sugar

1 tbsp. Lemon Juice

2 tbsp. Flour

2 tsp. Cinnamon

2 tsp. Nutmeg

1 tsp. Curry Powder

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Combine dry ingredients and toss with apples.

Place apples in dough-covered pie plate.

Unroll rolling pin-wrapped dough over top of apple mixture.

Crimp together both crusts around pie plate.

Cut off excess around edge of pie plate.

Cut steam slits into top crust of pie.

Place foil or crust shield around pie. Bake for about 25 minutes.

Remove foil or pie shield. Bake for an additional 25 minutes until top is golden brown.

Cool on a wire rack (so air can circulate around pie as it cools).

Enjoy!

Tiny Tomato

My husband found this perfectly ripe tiny tomato in our backyard garden. Most of what we got this season (which was not as much as we were hoping for) were the size of baseballs. This is my hand in the picture, and I wear a Women's small for gloves, just to give you an idea of the size.

Anyway, nature is cool. Mostly because it is always full of surprises.

Spaghetti Squash & Marinara

I recently tried two of my resolutions in one dish, making marinara to serve over spaghetti squash. I would include a picture, but I am no food stylist and a pile of squash covered in sauce is not particularly photogenic. Anyway, spaghetti squash is very easy to make. When picking your squash, pick one that feels firm and heavy for its size--basically just like you do with a pumpkin. It should be ivory or pale yellow, though there are some varieties that tend to be more orange. This is okay.

To prepare, cut the squash in half and scoop out the seeds (and ice cream scoop works very well for this task). Put the squash halves cut side down in a baking dish and pierce the skins all over with a fork. Bake at 350 degrees for 30-40 minutes until tender. The squash will be HOT so use a potholder or thick towel to hold the squash half cut side up (trust me, a paper towel will not be thick enough). Scrape the inside of the squash with a fork--you will be amazed at the almost shredded wheat texture of the squash as you scrape it out.

Marinara is also far easier than I expected. I took a few medium tomatoes (4-5), copped them into wedges, and sauteed them in a saucepan with some chopped garlic, Italian seasoning, and olive oil. The tomatoes essentially "melt" getting soft and watery, at which point you can grind them up in a food mill, food processor, or blender to get whatever consistency you like. I like mine fairly chunky so I just kept stirring with a spoon until I broke up the tomatoes a bit into smaller pieces, almost like diced tomatoes from a can. I added a small can of tomato paste for thickness, and threw some sauteed portobella mushrooms into the mix as well. It took awhile for the tomatoes to cook down properly, I think about 45 minutes. It was not thick marinara like you would get from a jar or at a restaurant, but it was definitely passable. Sprinkle or grate a little parmesan or asiago on the top, and you get an extremely healthy and tasty dish. I also like to grind a little black pepper over the top, but that may be just my own thing.

Spaghetti squash should be fresh from local farms for the next couple of months, and tomatoes seem to be at their peak right now. They are bursting out of bins at farmer's markets everywhere.

I Do Not Like Turnips

On Friday I went on a bit of a cooking frenzy. I'd decided to make roast chicken with mashed turnips, and tarte tatin and have a few of my brothers-in-law over for dinner (they live two blocks away). At the last minute, I changed the tarte tatin to plain old apple pie because the tatin recipe I had looked like it would take hours that I did not have. I also had the popovers to make (pictured above).

First, the popovers. Very easy to make, and they were delicious hot from the oven. I used Marion Cunningham's recipe from The Breakfast Book which suggested adding a dollop of orange marmalade to the muffin tins before adding the popover batter. I think I overdid it a bit with the marmalade, and therefore didn't get as much height for the popovers as I'd hoped. They are not good reheated, so I would only make them again if I was having people over for brunch.

I planned Friday's dinner using the turnips I'd picked up in East Aurora on Wednesday, and I also had about 2 pounds of ginger gold apples. I added peas and rolls (both pre-packaged) just to round everything out. I'd forgotten how easy it is to roast a chicken. I rubbed ground rosemary and minced garlic under the skin before throwing it in the over. Two hours later and we had tender, moist chicken that was nicely seasoned.

The pie was also very easy to put together. I have my own recipe for delicious apple pie filling, which I will be sharing in a future post. I haven't made pie in probably 4-5 years, but once I got my pastry blender and shortening out, it all started coming together (the biggest "secret" is to use water that is absolutely ice cold for the flakiest crust so I fill a measuring cup half full and then drop an ice cube in).

The turnips I diced and boiled, then mashed with milk, butter, salt, pepper, and a few strips of crumbled bacon (figuring that bacon pretty much makes everything better). All of the men (two of my brothers in law and my husband) loved the turnips and went back for seconds. I thought they tasted terrible. A very earthy, almost bitter taste. Of course, everyone in my husband's family loves brussel sprouts but I can't even stand the smell of them. I would be willing to try them again roasted, since that cooking method can change the flavor.

I have really been enjoying trying out the different foods and recipes from my food resolutions. I have been working to incorporate local foods into what I make, but also to get back to why I liked cooking in the first place.

Croissant Manquement

I don't know how bakers do it. Making croissants takes forever (about 11 hours with all the rolling and rising and butter-kneading and such). In my case, I didn't even have any delightfully buttery, flaky pastries at the end as a reward.

I made a huge mistake right from the beginning, when I clearly did not follow (read?) the directions for proofing the yeast properly and I used tepid water instead of the tepid milk the recipe called for. I figured it might still work out okay, and I didn't have another yeast packet so I forged ahead anyway.

I mixed the dough as directed and put it in the fridge to rest. Kneaded the butter with some flour. Folded the dough around the butter like I was wrapping a letter. Went through the 4-part (2 hour) rolling and folding process to incorporate the butter. Everything looked pretty good and the dough was exactly as it should have been based on the recipe.

I finally, after dinner time, take the dough out to roll into the croissant triangles. That was the most fun part of the process. Then I put the uncooked croissants aside for one final rise. Close to ten pm, when they were supposed to be risen, I pulled the covering off and realized that they looked pretty much exactly the same as they had when I'd set them aside two hours before. They had most definitely not doubled in size.

However, figuring that cooking is an adventure, I put them in the oven following the cooking directions. Well, apparently cooking French pastry is like watching a 2-year old--you turn your back for a minute and anything can happen. One minute the kitchen was filled with the warm and yeasty smell of fresh bread. I walked to the other end of my small house to put something in my office, and my husband starts yelling from the kitchen, "It's burning!" Yep. It was that fast.

My husband also pointed out, rather accurately, that the burnt croissants looked like little crabs laid out on the pans with their fat bodies and the way the sides curved in. There was one with a top still golden so I pinched of a piece and it did taste pretty flaky and buttery. Almost too buttery, actually. But they definitely would have been edible if I hadn't scorched them to my pans.

At least I went through the whole process and learned what really goes into croissants. Gives me a new appreciation for bakers and pastry chefs everywhere. I used the recipe from Rose Levy Beranbaum's The Pie and Pastry Bible.

Resolutions I am still working on this week: popovers, tarte tatin, roast chicken, and those turnips I bought on Wednesday.

East Aurora Farmer's Market

Today I happened to be in East Aurora meeting a friend for lunch, and I noticed that they had a small farmer's market set up in a shopping plaza parking lot. I had a few minutes before lunch, so I popped in for a quick visit. What a charming little market!

There were about ten vendors, selling apples, peaches, pears, plums, mounds of peppers and tomatoes, root vegetables, even a few pints of raspberries. A few plants and herbs were for sale at one stand as well. Nice variety, both in terms of produce and vendors.

I spent $6.50 and walked away with a couple of pounds of Bartlett pears and probably 5 pounds of turnips. The turnip seller was a sweet-looking old lady who threw in an extra turnip and asked me how I was going to prepare them. I said I would probably mash them (I didn't want to admit I'd never eaten a turnip, they just looked too pretty to pass up) and she said I should make sure to use butter, salt, and a bit of pepper. Now I just need to figure out what goes well with mashed turnips.

The market is open on weekdays from 7-1 and I hear that it is quite crowded on Saturdays. If you live in the Southtowns, far from Bidwell's bounty, it is definitely worth a trip.

Resolution #1 - Clafoutis

So, ten days ago I posted a list of food resolutions. I thought I would tackle a few early on so I would feel more motivated moving forward. Today, Clafoutis. Tomorrow, Popovers.

Clafoutis is a French dessert that is essentially a custard with fruit that is baked and then served cold. It is definitely better cold, because then the custard is firmer and tastes more complete. I chose local peaches (Wegmans has had an outstanding selection of local peaches for weeks) as the fruit, and this was probably a miscalculation on my part. Traditionally, clafoutis is made with cherries, apricots, apples, or pears. As delicious as peaches are, clafoutis needs something with a more defined, possibly more tart, taste to balance out the delicate flavor of the custard.

I also mistakenly thought my springform pan would suffice as a tart pan. Disaster. The liquid that becomes custard once baked seeped out through the bottom of the pan, which created a huge, drippy mess in the oven before the burning smell made me run in from the living room. I had to think fast and grab a dish from the cabinet that had upright sides. This unfortunately meant that my layering of peach slices on the bottom and custard on top went completely awry.

Side tip: it makes it MUCH easier to clean drips up in the oven if you sprinkle a little salt on burny messes. Scrapes right out with a spatula when your oven is cold again.

As you can see from the picture, it did at least look pretty when it was done. Tasted okay, too, though I think I can do better. I used the clafoutis recipe in the French Farmhouse Cookbook by Susan Herrmann Loomis as my guideline, but clafoutis recipes can be found in practically any French cookbook.