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Sep 8

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goat cheese gnocchi with thyme

One of the most important things I’ve discovered about farming food as opposed to buying it is—surprise!—seasonality. Eating seasonally sounds all well and good on a farm-to-table menu, but on a farm itself it’s less glamor and more what am I going to do with 2 giant zucchinis a day for the next three months running? As a cook you have to get creative (or just really like zucchini bread), and while it’s true that inspiration strikes, I’ve found it’s helpful to have a few good lightning bolts on hand for days when my creativity needs a little extra sizzle.

My particular arsenal of lightning bolts is divided into two related camps: great cookbooks and favorite food blogs. As you know I’m a sucker for books, not just for the recipes but for the thick pages, the thematic presentation, and the pictures so perfect you could eat them right off those thick pages. Cookbooks aren’t just selling you food, they’re selling you a scene in which you are an active participant—cook these meals, and you too can be a roaster of goats or a forager in Denmark. There’s nothing quite like spending an hour or two in a bookstore browsing through the cookbook collection, imagining yourself inhabiting the world of food each book creates.

That being said, food blogs also have something unique to offer. It’s exciting to follow someone’s journey with food, checking every day to see what new breakthroughs they’ve made or ingredients they’ve discovered. With my cookbooks I carefully plan the feast I’ll make, purchasing everything I need and laying it out on the kitchen counter. With food blogs it’s much more spontaneous: I browse until I find a recipe that catches my eye, then play with it to make it fit what we have in the pantry. And when we’re overwhelmed with one ingredient—as we often are—I turn to both book and blog for inspiration. Case in point? While I’ve happily eaten goat cheese on toast with avocado for the past few weeks, Sprouted Kitchen’s yogurt and goat cheese tart laced with plum and the tangy goat cheese gnocchi from my newest cookbook Chefs on the Farm were much more fun uses of chevre.

Need inspiration? Here are a few of my favorites:

The New York Times columns by Mark Bittman and David Tanis—you can take the girl out of New York but you can’t take the New York Times out of the girl.

Lucky Peach—the new (and deliciously entertaining) quarterly journal from David Chang of Momofuku fame.

101 Cookbooks—the grande dame of food blogging, Heidi made my college cooking something to write home about.

Smitten Kitchen—one word: desserts. Well, maybe two: empanadas.

Sprouted Kitchen—my current photography inspiration and oh-so-lovely.

Jeni’s Ice Creams—I was drooling (literally) over her book in Bookstore Santa Cruz the other day, and this recipe did not disappoint.

One Bite World—my dear friend Rachel’s wonderful journal of food and running.

Goat Cheese Gnocchi with Thyme

I adapted this from Quillisascut Farm’s recipe for ricotta gnocchi, and the results with goat cheese were fine indeed.

4 cups chevre

1 egg

2 cups flour

4 Tbsp thyme, chopped

1 Tbsp nutmeg

salt & pepper

Salt a large pot of water and bring it to a boil. Combine all ingredients in a bowl until well mixed, using your hands to shape the dough into a ball. Pull off a small piece of dough and test it by dropping into the water and letting it rise to the surface when done; taste and check for seasoning. To make the gnocchi, pull off a hand-sized piece of dough and roll it into a long tube, then cut your roll into bite-sized pieces. Use a fork to make an impression on the top of each piece–this will catch your sauce. Cook pieces in boiling water as before, waiting for them to rise to the surface and cooling on a plate. Serve with a tomato sauce with rosemary or a little browned butter.

Sep 3

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best bran pancakes

I’m a bit of a morning person. Let me put it another way: the annoying family member clattering pans in the kitchen at 6:15? That’s me. The college suitemate looking unbearably perky from a jog as you staggered to the bathroom at 8 a.m. on a Monday? Me again. I know, morning people can be obnoxious.

The thing is, mornings are the only time I can really count on being in the kitchen alone. I can’t think of anything more satisfying than getting up early to sit at the kitchen table drinking tea, flipping through a magazine or reading the back of a cereal box. Getting up and going has never really been my thing, but leisurely mornings are like a gateway to the day, a cultivated pleasure. The water boiling, the stacks of articles to browse absently, the birds (or wild turkeys) chirping… I laugh at myself only because I take the ritual of mornings completely seriously.

And then there’s breakfast. I’ve trained myself to the point where skipping breakfast is physically impossible—not just because I might pass out at 11 a.m., but because my first waking thought is to wonder what I’m going to eat. For years I was a committed cereal devotee, pouring identical bowls of Grape Nuts, Wheatabix, or Shredded Wheat for months at a time (can you tell my parents never let me have Lucky Charms?). Here at the farm, however, the question of straight goat milk (in my case a no, or optimistically a “not yet”) pushed me to be much more creative with my breakfasts. I tried Irish oats with honey, toasted almonds, and raisins, and I did go through a phase of fresh goat cheese on toast with plum jam. Finally, though, I settled on pancakes. Having never made them from scratch (I fell for Bisquick when I ate 11 biscuity pancakes at a friend’s 9th birthday) I had lots of pantry-based experimenting to do—oats, flaxseed meal, bananas—but when I found a scrunched-up bag of wheat bran on one of our shelves I reached the end of my search. They were the perfect combination of fluffy and biscuity, and with some goat milk thrown in and a fried farm egg on top, I didn’t even feel too bad about leaving my cereal days behind.

 

Best Bran Pancakes

1/3 cup flour

1/2 cup wheat bran (I use Bob’s Red Mill, which is easy to find at most markets)

Pinch baking soda

Pinch salt

1 egg

1 scant Tbsp oil

½ cup milk

Mix the dry ingredients together in a bowl, then beat in the egg and oil. Add milk little by little to reach your desired thickness of batter—I like mine fairly thick, but play with the viscosity until you find your perfect amount. Heat oil in a skillet over medium high and spoon batter into the pan when hot—check for bubbling around the edges before you flip, and the rest you already know!

Aug 28

1 Comment

baked eggplant rolls with kale and goat cheese

It’s been quite the weekend here at Love Apple. Friday night Adam, Ross and I went to see the legendary George Clinton perform with Big Ol’ Nasty down at Moe’s Alley (funky would be an understatement, I believe) and Saturday morning I found myself strumming a ukulele on the beach playing Johnny Cash and Grateful Dead with 100 other ukulele players and one very enthusiastic leader with a tambourine. The experiences I’ve had in Santa Cruz so far have been varied to say the least, ranging from strolling the Arboretum with my grandfather to cheering on Candy Hooligan at the roller derby, but it’s nice to know I’m somewhere where ukulele players in birkenstocks and roller derby girls in hot pants can peacefully coexist.

Coexistence is something I’ve been thinking about often lately, because we’re all such different people here on the farm. Going to school in New York I was used to the idea of hanging around friends with backgrounds different from my own, but I felt it more poignantly sharing a beer at Moe’s Alley the other night with Adam and Ross—Adam, 29, a former kindergarten schoolteacher from Kentucky with wavy surfer hair, Ross, 21, a culinary school grad with a beard and the heaviest Boston accent I’ve ever heard, and me, 22, a girl from Southern California with South African parents and a freshly minted Ivy League degree. How we all ended up at a dive bar in Santa Cruz listening to funk music and dancing with transvestites on a Friday night is really something of a mystery.

In the end of the day though, we all love food. We come at it from different viewpoints, whether it’s Adam wanting to steer kindergartners away from obesity or Ross knowing the name and specialty of every chef in the restaurant world. Me, I just want to enjoy the intersection of food and friendship, making pancakes in the morning, cheese in the afternoon, and hearty baked vegetables at night. There are so many ways to look at food—as the key to a healthy life, as an art of indulgence, or as the simplest and best way to bring people together. The lessons I’ve learned about growing, cooking and eating food here on the farm are ones that transcend the breakfast or dinner table, because the more I think about it, the more I realize that how we look at food most often reflects how we look at life.

Baked Eggplant Rolls with Kale and Goat Cheese

1 log chevre

juice of 1 or 2 lemons

1 handful basil or mint, chopped

red pepper flakes

4 medium eggplants

several handfuls Toscano kale

1 jar tomato sauce

To make the goat cheese filling, mix the chevre with the lemon juice, chopped basil or mint, and red pepper flakes. Slice the eggplants lengthways into thin slices and saute in olive oil until soft and golden brown. Take a small spoonful of cheese and place it on one end of the eggplant slice, then roll the eggplant into a little cheese-filled tube. Spread tomato sauce on the bottom of a rectangular casserole dish and layer kale leaves on top, then line the eggplant rolls over the kale, filling the dish. Add another layer of sauce and kale, then any remaining eggplant slices and cheese, then more sauce and kale. Finish by sprinkling goat cheese or parmesan on top and baking in a 375 degree oven for half an hour, or until the cheese is toasty and the sides are bubbling. Serve with rice or a warm slice of crusty bread.

Aug 25

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stas’ rainbow kimchi

I remember the very first time I saw Anastasia Van Wingerden. She was wearing a pale yellow dress and matching cardigan, both of which I instantly wanted. She had shoulder-length beach blond hair and a gap between her two front teeth, something I liked because I had a pronounced snaggle-tooth at the time. Best of all, she was smiling. It was my first day of fourth grade at a new school.

Thirteen years later she’s still my best friend and neighbor, and the one with whom I share many of my most vivid food memories. There was the time in junior high we tried improvising a smoothie in the blender, only to accidentally grind in the bottom half of a wooden spoon. There were the Amnesty International bake sales in high school, where she laughed at what I thought was superb donut salesmanship (“look at the sugar just oozing out of it!”). I’ll always remember her 19th birthday party, an event which featured a chocolate cake with an earthy  secret ingredient—beets. She was also the one who first got my family interested in keeping chickens, and I couldn’t help but think of the days of playing with “Stupy” and “Clinton Chick Chick” (he was quite the rooster) as I watched the turkeys her family breeds pecking about in their coop this weekend.

The Van Wingerden kitchen is one of those places I never want to leave, a haven of warm red tiles with handmade bowls of produce on every counter. I always make a beeline to “baked goods corner” (a spot my future kitchen will definitely have), then sneak bites of home-dried fruits or blistered almonds while munching my slice of chocolate chip cake or zucchini bread. I was, in fact, following that exact routine the other day when Stas showed me how to make kimchi, and in traditional Van Wingerden style there was a variety of veggies you generally only see on farms like the one I work on. Kale, carrots, zucchini, beets, green beans, onions, fennel… it all went into the pot, a cascade of color and texture that looked just as good a half hour later when it had been mixed by hand with salt and spices. I have a jar fermenting on my bureau, and when I taste it next week I know I’ll be back in that sunny kitchen with my friend, if only for a bite.

Stas’ Rainbow Kimchi

Kimchi may be an acquired taste, but if you like strong flavors it’s a delicious way to use and preserve vegetables. Not only do fermented foods aid digestion, but they are also full of probiotics that help build a strong immune system.

5 cups assorted vegetables

1/3 cup salt

spices (ginger, cumin, dill, juniper berries, celery seeds… the possibilities are endless!)

Chop your vegetables into small pieces and add them to a large pot or bowl (preferably ceramic, but not metal). Add the salt and use your hands to squeeze and press the veggies, gradually releasing their juices (the salt allows moisture to be more easily extracted). Add the spices and continue to work the vegetables by hand, squeezing until you have enough brine to cover them completely. This brine creates an anaerobic environment that prevents mold from entering, and you can add a little water if the juices from your veggies are not enough. Finish by using another, slightly smaller pot or bowl to press the veggie pieces down, keeping them submerged. Leave covered like this at room temperature to ferment for about a week, and put in the fridge only when you have achieved your desired flavor. (You can also put the kimchi into smaller containers like jars, turning and pressing down often to make sure the liquid continues to cover the pieces). If you like your kimchi less salty, give it a rinse before eating and enjoy!

Aug 20

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shredded chard salad with hard boiled egg and walnuts

Summer has really hit its stride. It’s hot here now—so hot that the fog is gone by the time we start harvest at 7 a.m., hot enough that I have to drag the flimsy bags full of wilting supermarket produce into the shade to sort for composting (and if you know me, you know that any contact I have with rotting vegetables is kept to a minimum). The strange thing about realizing that summer is in full swing is that by the time you realize it, it’s invariably almost September. This time of year has always meant getting ready to go back to school, but now for the first time since I can remember the only significant change next month will bring will be closing up the chicken coop at 8 p.m. instead of 9 p.m. Still, it’s been a very memorable past few months, and in the tradition of list-making, here are a few things that will always remind me of summer 2011.

  • Dahlias. Those dahlia catalogs your aunt has where the flowers look as though they can’t possibly be real? They are.
  • Sowing mustards with Prince blasting from the garden stereo. (I may have missed out on Prince my first 22 years of life, but boy am I catching up now…)
  • Blackadder. My childhood love for Rowan Atkinson as Mr. Bean (“Birdie num-nums!”) has been very much revived.
  • Mixtapes from Chromemusic.
  • Two-Buck Chuck. After tasting all the lovely $1.99 varieties alongside weeknight meals, I can safely say the Cab and Pinot Grigio are my favorites. Really, he should be paying me by now.
  • Camping.
  • Zucchini cake. Zucchini gratin. Zucchini lasagna. Zucchini fritters. Zucchini sauté. Zucchini cookies… you get the idea.
  • Watering. Three hours a day of watering. (See “mixtapes from Chromemusic”).
  • People sharing a homemade meal. Every so often (ok, almost every day) I glance through the WordPress stats that tell me how people come across my blog, and my favorite was someone finding a photo of us having dinner at the table outside the cottage after searching “people sharing a homemade meal.” It really doesn’t get better than that.

 

Shredded Chard Salad with Hard Boiled Egg and Walnuts

1 large bunch chard (10-12 leaves)

4 eggs

walnuts

1/3 cup olive oil

1 Tbsp balsamic vinegar

1 tsp dijon mustard

1 Tbsp honey or jam

salt and pepper

Rinse the chard and remove the stalks by folding each leaf and slicing along the stem. Layer several leaves on top of each other and roll together, slicing the roll to create thin slivers. Toss the slivers together in a bowl.

To make perfect hard-boiled eggs, heat a saucepan of water to a gentle boil and slowly lower the eggs in. Cook for 11 minutes, then use a strainer to transfer the eggs from the boiling water into a bowl of ice water. Peel each egg under water, then set on a plate and mash with a fork. Season with salt and pepper.

Make your dressing by combining the balsamic, mustard, and honey or jam. Whisk in olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Combine chard, eggs, and walnuts, then toss with dressing and serve.

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