Chef Patti Anastasia
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Table Talk » Kitchen Garden/Farmstand ArchivesAugust 8, 2010National Farmer's Market WeekThe Department of Agriculture declared August 2-8 as National Farmers Market Week. The Derry Farmers Market just opened in July and I've been enjoying shopping at it every Wednesday afternoon. It's a small, but bustling market with a good mix of local products including produce, baked goods, maple syrup, wine, flowers and plants. I love being able to meet the people who are growing my food and learn about what they are growing and how they are growing it. This winter, I'll be getting 1/2 of a pastured pig from one of the farmers. This week's market bounty included swiss chard, eggplants, red onions, caramelized onion biscuits, lemon cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, leeks, and shallots.
The lemon cucumbers are not lemony, rather they get their name because they look like lemons. I sliced them thinly and dressed them with olive oil, white wine vinegar, salt, pepper, minced parsley, and a splash of lemon. For an even prettier salad, you could slice one lemon cucumber and one regular cucumber. I love that you don't have to peel cucumbers that come from a local farmer. The eggplants are destined to be used in Tofu Triangles with Thai Chili Sauce that I hope to make tomorrow. I bet some of the hot peppers make it's way into this dish. The hot peppers will also be used in a Mexican black bean and corn salad. The caramelized onion biscuits were served with Salmon Cakes. These are very tasty. The baker has a variety of savory biscuits. There was one with zucchini and one with bacon and cheese. Maybe I'll try that one next week. On Sunday, the swiss chard will either go into scrambled eggs for breakfast or be sautéed with garlic for dinner. The leeks will make an appearance in mashed potatoes with leeks. The red onions and shallots will appear in a variety of dishes throughout the week. Red onions are my favorite onions, and shallots improve just about anything. Some will go in salad dressing. The cherry tomatoes are for munching. They sit out on the counter ready to be enjoyed as a snack or as part of a meal. July 7, 2009Life's a bowl of roasted cherriesAs soon as I see the pick-your-own strawberry signs go up around town, I start dreaming of local cherries. Until about 10 years ago, I had no idea that cherries grew in Londonderry, but one day I stumbled upon the fact that we have two orchards in town where we can pick cherries: Sunnycrest Farm and Elwood Orchards. I've wanted to keep it a secret, but it is too good to not share. Sweet cherries have long been my favorite fruit. When I was a kid, the first cherry sales at the grocery stores seemed to coincide with the end of school. My mom also loves cherries. We celebrated the start of summer with my mom buying a huge amount of cherries; everyone sat around the table and munched on them until our fingers were stained red. It was one of the few times when we didn't have to observe normal table manners. While waiting not-so-patiently for cherry picking to start, I started thinking about cherry shortcake, probably because it was strawberry season and strawberry shortcake was mentioned everywhere. Strawberry shortcake is good, but I was fixated on cherry shortcake. Another thing that was on my mind was Cherry Garcia ice cream, cherries and chocolate. Yum. The next thing I knew, I was making a Cherry Garcia-inspired Cherry Shortcake. Roasting cherries is so easy and results in absolute deliciousness. Plus an added benefit is that the cherries are really easy to pit once roasted.
Oops, I forgot to take a picture of the pitted roasted cherries. Roasted Cherries 7 cups cherries, stemmed but not pitted Preheat oven to 400F. Line a rimmed baking sheet with foil. Place cherries on baking sheet, drizzle with olive oil and toss to coat. Bake for 35 minutes. The cherries will soften and start to split. Remove the pan from the oven and set aside for 20-30 minutes to let the cherries cool. Once the cherries are cool, you can easily squeeze the pits from the cherries. Again, wear gloves, or your fingers will be stained. Scrape the cherry juice and the cherries from the pan into a bowl, cover and refrigerate until ready to use. Actually, you can use any amount of cherries. Just toss them with a bit of olive oil. You'll end up with about 1/3 to 1/4 the volume of cherries that you start with. It was hard to resist eating them, but I really wanted cherry shortcake.
Continue reading "Life's a bowl of roasted cherries" » August 3, 2008Zucchini Ribbon SaladA recent issue of Fine Cooking included a feature on no-cook side dishes. The Zucchini and Yellow Squash Ribbons with Daikon, Oregano, and Basil recipe in this article has inspired a series of squash ribbon salads. The zucchini, yellow squash, and daikon radish version in Fine Cooking is superb, but unless I request it a few days ahead, I can't get daikon at the store I normally shop at. And it seems crazy to use anything other than local ingredients in this simple salad made to beat the summer heat. I don't grow zucchini or yellow squash in my garden. I'm one of the few gardeners who buys zucchini and yellow squash. My favorite farm is bursting with zucchini and yellow squash and we are doing our part to eat lots of it.
This simple salad starts with a vegetable peeler. I've only made it using a Y-peeler, but I'm sure that it will work with a swivel peeler. The squash is cut into ribbons using the peeler. Then it tossed with some lemon zest, lemon juice, olive oil, and chopped fresh herbs. Or you can use vinegar instead of the lemon juice. This recipe is very flexible, it will work with whatever suits your fancy. I've been using different herbs from my herb garden. Parsley, thyme, rosemary, oregano, basil, and mint. You can give it an Asian twist by using rice vinegar instead of the lemon juice and using a 1 tablespoon of dark sesame oil and 5 tablespoons of olive or vegetable (I prefer safflower) oil. Add a sprinkling of either white or black sesame seeds instead of the herbs. Or a Southwestern twist by using lime juice and lime zest instead of the lemon juice and zest. Use cilantro for the herb. And maybe even stir in a pinch of cumin or chili powder. How about Carribean? Use lime juice or orange juice, cilantro, and add a pinch of jerk seasoning. Continue reading "Zucchini Ribbon Salad" » April 21, 2008Miss Figgy emerges from winter storageRemember Miss Figgy? When you last saw her, it was July and she looked like this. It's too cold here for figs to survive winter, so Miss Figgy spent the winter in the garage. In November we put her in the back corner of the garage and I didn't pay any attention to her until Saturday when I took a peek to see if she survived the winter. I was prepared to find a pot of dead sticks, but boy was I surprised. I was shocked to see that she had buds forming. Lots of buds. She came out of the garage on Sunday and got a well-deserved drink. It's still cold at night, so she'll be coming in to the kitchen until our nights are consistently above 45 degrees. All of her branches have leaf or fig buds or both! She's not photogenic because she is sticks with buds, but she shows great promise. I see at 4 fig buds, maybe more, some of the buds are so small that I can't tell if they are leaf buds or fig buds. You'll be seeing more of her as she grows this season. Continue reading "Miss Figgy emerges from winter storage" » April 19, 2008I know that it's too early, but I just had toThis winter was exceptionally long. The snow started in November and it snowed and snowed and snowed and the temperature never rose enough for the snow to melt between storms. Our yard has been snow-free for about 2 weeks. Two glorious weeks! Last night we went to Home Depot to buy some fertilizer and I saw that they had herb plants. I couldn't resist buying some. I got rosemary, flat-leaf parsley, sage, thyme, and peppermint. They had lots of basil, but my Aerogarden is loaded with basil and one cold night will kill basil. The others are tougher so I decided to take the chance on buying them AND planting them outside. If we have some really cold nights, I might lose some of them, but it's a risk that I'm willing to take. I spent a few hours this afternoon puttering in the garden and planting the herbs. Updated 4/20/08 Added some pictures.
March 31, 2008It's a jungle in hereIt's been a long time since I posted about my AeroGarden. I'm using the Master Gardener kit to grow Italian basil, Thai basil, cilantro, and parsley. The Master Gardener kit has everything that you need to create your seed pods using your own seeds. I planted these on January 12.
July 28, 2007First Garden HarvestMy small kitchen garden is planted with tomatoes and cucumbers. I planted just before a long cold, rainy spell, so my garden took a beating and it's been slow to recover from all the rain and cold weather. Earlier this week I noticed that beautiful orange tinge on a few tomatoes on one of my Oregon Cherry plants. The cucumber plants are covered with flowers and loaded with tiny cucumbers. Last night ,just as we were just about to sit down to dinner (lamb burgers), I decided to go out and see if I could find a cucumber and a few tomatoes to add to our meal. Bingo, I found a 6-inch cucumber and 3 large cherry tomatoes ready for picking. The first veggies from the garden are always the best. Cucumbers that are young and tender and don't need to be peeled! Tomatoes, still warm from the sun. It doesn't get any better than that. I didn't get a picture of the harvest because the lamb burgers were ready and we were too hungry to take the time for a picture. The veggies tasted heavenly. The cuke was crisp and refreshing. The tomatoes were sweet and juicy. Hopefully they were just the beginning of a bountiful harvest. July 24, 2007Update on Miss FiggyMiss Figgy arrived in May as a two foot tall stick in a small pot. By the end of May, she was a two foot tall stick with a few leaves. Now she's a small tree with lots of branches and leaves. Back on May 23rd, I reported that she had two tiny figs, but one of them fell off shortly after that, so she has just one good-sized fig. But she had lots of branches and giant leaves and lots of buds for new branches and leaves. She seems to grow more every day and is now 33 inches tall.
July 15, 2007Local BlueberriesWhen I was a kid, every summer included a family outing to pick blueberries. We even had one of those enormous wood-sided station wagon, which was perfect for our family outings. My grandmother joined us and sat in the shade with a cooler of drinks and snacks for us kids when we got tired of picking. Our goal for the day was to fill a 20 quart blue enameled pot. Armed with coffee cans with string loops around our necks so we could use both hands to pick, we'd venture off into the blueberry fields. To this day, one of my favorite sounds is the plunk plunk plunk that blueberries make when they land at the bottom of any empty picking container. The picking containers at Sunnycrest Farm are plastic. But the blueberries still make a wonderful sound when they hit the empty container. And since the farm is just a few miles from my house, you'll find me there almost every week until the blueberry season is over. Their blueberry bushes are tall and easy to pick from, and for me, it's relaxing to be among the blueberry bushes filling my bucket. During July and August, we eat a lot of blueberries. There's always a bowl of blueberries in the refrigerator to snack on. This morning I made one of my favorite blueberry coffeecakes.
Continue reading "Local Blueberries" » June 30, 2007Cherry HeavenYesterday I picked 12 pounds of cherries at my favorite farm: 8 pounds of sweet cherries and 4 pounds of sour cherries. For me, the day that I pick cherries is the official start of summer. I usually pick only sweet cherries, but after hearing Jeremy Jackson talk about his Little Meatballs with Cherry Sauce, I've been waiting for sour cherries to be ready to pick. When I got the announcement that the theme for the June meeting of the Massachusetts chapter of Personal Chefs Network was picnics, I selected this recipe to make for our meeting. Last night I pitted a pound of cherries for the recipe (not a whole lot of fun) so I could make the recipe in the morning. I made the meatballs this morning with some minor modifications to the recipe. The lamb meatballs filled the house with a wonderful aroma. My husband Tom came looking for lunch when I took the meatballs out of the oven. He had his before I added them to the cherry sauce. This isn't a great picture because I was in a hurry when I plated them and took the picture. There were 10 hungry personal chefs waiting to dig into them.
The bright and sharp flavor of the sour cherries is a perfect match for the lamb meatballs. Tomorrow I'll pit the rest of the sour cherries and freeze them. Then I'll be looking for more savory recipes that use sour cherries. My reward for pitting them will be a big bowl of sweet cherries. Continue reading "Cherry Heaven" » May 23, 2007Figlets!Around the time I bought my AeroGarden, I also ordered a dwarf fig tree from Wayside Gardens. Fig trees aren't hardy in my zone 5 garden, but I plan to plant it in a container and overwinter it in our heated garage. I have no idea if this will work, but we love figs, so I decided to give it a try. My fig tree arrived the first week of May and looked like a two foot tall stick. But after a few days out on our 3-season porch, it developed lots of buds, which have turned into branches and leaves. And now it has two tiny figlets! This variety of fig produces two crops, one in July and one in September. It also attracts bird, which love to nibble on the figs, but I don't plan to share my figs with the birds. I might have to net it to keep the birds away.
May 3, 2007AeroGarden Update: Day 25I planted my AeroGarden almost 4 weeks ago. It's growing like crazy. The basil needs pruning. It's time to raise the lights a little. It takes care of itself. At the 2 week mark, I added water and a nutrient tablet to the reservoir. An indicator light came on to let me know what to do. The parsley is the biggest surprise. I've never been able to start parsley from seed.
April 13, 2007Sprouts on Day 4!Last night I noticed some tiny sprouts in my AeroGarden. The oregano, Genovese basil, thyme, and chives have sprouted. The mint, cilantro, and parsley are all slower germinating seeds. I didn’t bother with a picture because the sprouts are very small. The AeroGarden lights are very bright, so don’t ignore the company’s suggestion to put the AeroGarden somewhere where the light won’t bother you. The lights are on for 16 hours a day. Continue reading "Sprouts on Day 4!" » April 8, 2007Fresh Herbs!Today I planted my AeroGarden.
This is my way of having a longer growing season here in the frozen north. I ordered it during a recent Springtime snowstorm. I’m growing a combination of the Italian Herb kit and the Gourmet Herb kit. The first signs of life should appear within a week and I should be harvesting herbs within a few weeks. I like to use fresh herbs in my cooking, but I don’t like buying packages of expensive herbs when I need just a sprig or two. The AeroGarden should solve that problem.
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