Monday, July 20, 2009

Season's Eating

Hi All,

Welcome to the Season's Eating blog. Coming to you from Norwich Meadows Farm in Norwich, NY close to 4 hours northwest of NYC. Since I'm here for the summer working on the farm, I'll be keeping you all up to date on what's in season here in New York State and how I'm cooking it all up. The farm produces a huge variety of amazing organic produce and I'm planning to share some of it with you here.

I generally work 12 hour days from Tuesday to Saturday and have Sundays and Mondays off. These are the days that I generally get the most time to cook my butt off. During the week late hours limits the amount of cooking time although I do try to prepare meals for workday lunches.

This was the first weekend I spent on the farm so I went crazy with the cooking. Here are some of the dishes and meals I prepared.

Saturday Dinner: Purslane Salad
Saturday is a very long day so I usually do a very quick prep. Most of the fresh produce I get on the farm is left over veggies that cannot be sold because they aren't perfect or have blemishes. I also get what's left from bunching, which can be a lot. On the weekends, because we prepare for market which has a greater variety of produce than CSA, there's usually an awful lot of food to choose from. I made a super quick salad from what was left over that day.


Ingredients:
Purslane
Radish
Carrot
Fennel
Onion

I chopped it all up and tossed with lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper. Simple and super delicious. The crunchy texture and tartness of the purslane, mixed with the flavors of the other veggies made it a terrific mix. Yummy!

Sunday Dinner: Steak with roasted new potatoes, green beans and golden beet salad

I cooked a big meal since I had the time. I decided to have some meat so I cooked up a big steak and made some accompanying veggies. The steak is not pictured here because I want to highlight the veggies. Plus it made most of my meal. That steak will last more than three days.

I sauteed the green beans with fresh garlic salt and pepper.
I roasted the beets on the oven early in the day, peeled them and chilled them. I made a mustard dressing with more fresh garlic minced and mixed the chopped beets and topped it off with fresh flat leaf parsley.
The new potatoes are roasted with baby sweet scallion bulbs, salt, pepper and dried rosemary. The potatoes are creamy delicious.
I took a bike ride around town yesterday and happily found a french bakery that sold excellent bread and also got a hunk of brie which I had after dinner. I ate like a pig! oink, oink!

Monday Cooking: Fresh Cherry Pie and Pesto


I made my first ever cherry pie and I'm happy to report that it came out astoundingly beautiful. We received way too many sour cherries this week for the CSA share so I took some home and decided to bake a pie. I actually went to look for a pre-made crust (I know I was trying to cheat) since I couldn't find a rolling pin in the kitchen. The one crust I did find had so many funky ingredients in it I opted for home made. Glad I did. I found a wooden dowel that rolled the dough just fine and dandy. As you can see, the pie came out fabulous. It took half an hour just to pit the cherries but well worth the effort. I would do this again.
BTW got the recipe from the internet, a combo of three different very similar recipes.

I also made pesto which I don't have a photo of sorry. The basil this week was gorgeous, beautiful big juicy leaves and bright green. There's always lots left over from bunching that usually go the chickens but I had to have some of this basil so I made two jars of pesto (one to share) that will most likely last the entire season.

I toasted the pine nuts in the oven and grated the cheese by hand. Never buy pre-grated cheese (or pie crust!) they are usually mixed with anticoagulants like corn starch or other weird things that don't go with cheese. The garlic produced on the farm is some of the best I've had. It's very strong and the flavor is amazing. Threw it all in the Cuisinart with just the tender basil leaves, olive oil and salt. Two thumbs up for the pesto!

Monday Lunch: Steak sandwich with pesto on French bread

I spread some pesto on lightly toasted bread and thinly sliced steak from the night before. Does it get better than this?

Tomorrow starts the intense work week so I will keep you all posted later in the week on what's on my plate next.

Have a lovely week. Good night!

Eat well to live well and love better.

7 comments:

  1. with you as an amazing cook I bet the food was FABULOUS!! I miss the "Improv Cooking " sessions!!

    Jer

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  2. Can't wait to hear about all your cooking creations! Sounds WONDERFUL!!!

    Maria

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  3. Keep up the good work- photos looks as delicous as the food. I'm hungry and I just ate!
    Sokie ;)

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  4. Nothing can sate the hunger in my soul, though ... :P

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  5. I like your blog - great to tell people about the inner workings of a farm and CSA too. Would be nice to be able to comment on individual posts?

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  6. Hi All,

    Thanks for your comments. i'm new at blogging so I'm still working on the settings. I hope anyone is able to leave a message or join the site. Lemme know if that's not the case. happy eats!

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  7. nice blog fantastic food....i would love to bite that chicken.....
    can not wait for another dinner, magic

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