Walleye

So we have been trying to figure out how to make more local or
unprocessed versions of things we like. Last weekend we went on a
short drive to visit Cedar Summit farm, where we buy our milk. It was
hilarious: we drove up and parked next to the fence and saw all sorts
and colors of cows, from brown jersey to Holsteins. The cows took
little notice of us, though one stood up and yawned at me. We went
into the small store there and got a lot of milk in glass bottles,
some honey produced by one of their neighbors, some apricot preserves,
pastureland butter, eggs, and pastureland raw milk cheddar. Matt and
I tried the cheddar tonight and agreed it was the best cheddar we had
tried.

We picked up an ice cream maker and yogurt maker. Yummy dairy.

We had a lot of CSA veggies to eat up so we have been roasting a lot
of parsnips. Tonight I made a soup of beef broth, pureed bok choi and
nettles, and curly parsley. We had that with pan fried walleye and
sauteed greens from our box. Matt is currently trying out the ice
cream maker and I'm sure I'll appreciate and enjoy his efforts.
Tomorrow we are going to Surly's brewery to pick up some beer for
Casey and Gina. Bonnie could have some too, I suppose.

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Yogurt maker ordered!

Finally ordered a yogurt maker and eight extra cups for it. We searched the cities, and despite being in the middle of dairy country, no one makes yogurt here.
Next step is to make some homemade muesli with local oats, rye flakes, sunflower seeds, honey and whatever fruits I can find.

ice cream maker

We bought an ice cream maker. Combine this and Castle Rock organic cream, and my waistline shudders in fear.

Ramping up

Tommorow is our next CSA box and we'll be getting sorrel, rhubarb,
sunchokes, parsnips, ramps, spinach, chives, herb plants for the yard,
asparagus, nettles, and burdock.

I'm not sure what all we will make with this. I may try a creamy ramp
and nettles soup, walleye with a sorrel sauce, and eat the ramps with
everything. Maybe a ramp fritata, or ramps on pasta or ramps with
cereal, or ramps on ice cream with caramel sauce.

Sorry, carried away by my ramp love. All I know is that tommorow is
the official end of my 2l year and I believe we will celebrate with
some grilled beefs.

And perhaps some ramps.

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coffee and charcoal and cakes

I've been stymied in my attempts to purchase a simple melitta one-cup drip coffee cone and filter and a bag of natural lump charcoal. We were also greatly dismayed to discover that the flour section of cub foods is completely dwarfed by the size of the cake-box-mixes. And they didn't even have a basic type of flour, pastry flour, which is used in many, if not most cake recipes.

prehaps the best hamburger I've ever had

The ground beef we got with our beef purchase is perhaps the best I've ever had. I made four very delicious burgers, with nothing more that a little salt on them, and the heat of a hardwood charcoal fire.

Lunch

After spending the morning in the library writing a paper, I was hungry for something healthy for lunch. When I got home, we had a random assortment of things but were also out of a lot of items (say milk) that would have been helpful in putting together a full meal. I boiled up some spinach linguine and then made a sauce of some sauteed spinach, walnuts, roasted tomatoes, and chevre. Further demonstrating that its really difficult to screw up high quality ingredients was the pasta that emerged. I squeezed a little bit of lemon juice over it and dug in.

Yesterday I tried morels for the first time ever in one of the most decadent meals I have ever had at home (and Matt believes in cooking mashed potatoes with 1 part potato, 1 part butter, and 1 part cream, so that is saying something). Matt grilled up a sirloin steak to split and I made a salad with dried cranberries, lettuce, sorrel, almonds, and a simple balsamic vinegarette. To top the steak (in comes the extra-decadence), I sauteed some ramps and morel mushrooms in butter. Here is the exceedingly precise recipe:

Melt some butter, between 1/3 and 1/2 of a stick. Saute the bulb portions of 3-6 ramps depending on how ramp-y you want it to taste. After the ramps have softened and the entire concoction is smelling really good, toss in slices of morel mushrooms. Cook over low heat until the morels have released their liquid (or until you can not wait any more). Chiffonade the leaves of the 3-6 ramps and add them in, allowing them to soften for about a minute (or while you find your wine glass and take a sip). Add a few dashes of tamari and stir. Pour the entire mess over a steak that has been grilled and is resting. Threaten to saute any pet that comes close to investigate.

Voila!

That's the way I always heard it should be

This is what our fridge and freezer look like right now since we picked up our 70 lbs of beef and our first CSA box. Already in the freezer were the containers of chicken stock and the fridge is also filled with the beer from New Glarus and Capital Brewery. Spotted Cow from New Glarus is my summer beer go-to: its wheaty and lemony and bright and perfect to drink outside by the grill. Then again, many beers are perfect when you are sitting outside on a summer afternoon by the grill.

In our first CSA box we got ramps, sorrel, sunchokes, spinach, parsnips, horseradish, chives, rhubarb, and a bunch of pussy willow branches that look amazing in a clear glass full of water. For dinner tonight, I defrosted some of the stock and made a ramp risotto. Then, I marinated the sunchokes in some orange juice, a bit of the orange mint oil, and salt and dumped that over a salad of roasted cherry tomatoes, lettuce, and sorrel.

Matt ate all of it.

Sadly, that has nothing to do with whether it was good or not, but I was really excited about it. I have been very vegetable sheltered and had never tried sorrel, parsnips, ramps, or sunchokes before tonight and was ecstatic to try them. I love the sorrel especially and want to try one of the many sorrel drink recipes I saw online or just keep nibbling on it like I am doing now. The sunchokes are really tasty raw, like a vasty improved water chestnut with a cleaner taste and I can not wait to saute them. Tomorrow night we are going to roast the parsnips.

And ramps!! They are really tasty and I loved the delicate flavor they added to the risotto: the earthy sharpness of an onion along with the clean taste of a leek. I was also nibbling on some of those greens.

Interestingly, as I was making dinner, NPR had on their episode on "Food Wars" and the announcer stated "whether you know it or not you are probably using foods from Monsanto as you cook tonight" and I looked around and thought "no, pretty sure I am not."

Finally, here is a link to one of Michael Pollan's blog posts on his experience joining a CSA. Though reading about his experiences with his Berkeley CSA, I am reminded of Gina's comments about Alice Water's idea of cutting food from your garden every day: its a little hard to sustain a lemon tree and pluck lemons in February in the Midwest.

Pickled Mexican Veggies

Well, the Weary Traveler in Madison has this awesome relish of pickled veggies that arrive with the tortillas and guacamole or their carne asada dish. Tried to replicate it tonight with this recipe sans the jicama and zucchini. http://www.saveur.com/food/classic-recipes/pickled-vegetables-51707.html (First result in a Google query for "pickled mexican vegetables")
Of course we bought celery and forgot to put it in. Oh well. The mixture is cooling in the fridge and should be nicely marinated by tomorrow.

I think I just need to ask the Weary for their recipe. btw, they get peeled garlic cloves by the 2 gallon container. The miracle of food distribution companies...

Stock!

Tomorrow Matt and I have our first CSA box from Harmony Valley and along with that we are picking up 50 lbs of beef and 20 lbs of soup bones from Grazier's Organic Beef. This, however, means that we have to clear out the freezer, which is currently full of chicken carcasses to make stock out of. So there has been a lot of stock making the last few days since we have a veritable chicken graveyard in the freezer, all stored in handy dandy ziplock baggies.



To make the stock, I chop up (and half-ass peel) an onion or two along with a couple of shallots and some carrots. I add one or two of our carcasses from our weekly whole roasted or grilled chicken and cover them with water. I also add half a package of this:



Its parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme, thus the Scarborough mix. I would like to be using my own herbs, but they are ummmm.... not doing so hot yet. I start simmering all of this together. In the meantime I add this:



to my stomach. Since I had some extra herbs and olive oil, I decided to make some flavored oils while I was waiting to adjust the stove temperature so that the stock was nicely bubbly but not boiling. I first zested an orange and heated the zest, some oil, spearmint, and peppermint to make an orange-mint oil that I think will be great on salmon or as part of a salad dressing. Then, I replaced my supply of basil oil by heating some basil in oil until the entire kitchen smelled like it and chicken stock. This made me hungry, so I ate some of Tuesday's brownie experiment. Sadly, the brownies were great. That doesn't, however, mean we have any left. Blame Matt for that one because I obviously had no part in it. Like I would eat overly sweet chocolate gooeyness!