Resolutions.

Where’d 2011 go? I feel like it zoomed right by. Oh well. Time really does fly when you keep yourself occupied with work and fun. But you know, as good last year was, I do predict 2012 to be even better.

This year, I resolve to use more local ingredients, and take advantage of the plethora of goodness that’s available here in Asheville. With this resolution, I WILL be preserving a lot more when there’s an excess of bounty at the farm! *See sad attempt at preserving below*

(Left to right: pickled jalapenos, zucchini pickles, canned tomatoes, dilly beans, and zucchini relish)

I resolve to also eat healthier and focus on nourishing my body with nothing but quality ingredients. As usual, I’ll give myself a bit of leeway for some indulgences in life like chocolates and beer. After all, Asheville IS Beer City USA and I can’t deprive myself of this.

*A few of these indulgences also include my first meal of the year, Local Bacon Eggs Benedict at Rise ‘N Shine Cafe.* Yes, it was the perfect first breakfast of the year. And yes, this was taken with my trusted POS Samsung Intercept. Excuse the blurriness, but I was ready to take the first bite as soon as the plate hit the table.

I resolve to exercise on a daily basis and not fall out of routine. Starting today, my mornings begin with coffee and will be followed by Jillian Michael’s 30 Day Shred. Unlike last year, I intend on doing it daily for 30 days.

I resolve to expand my knowledge in Culinary Arts. With the help of topic specific books gifted to me during Christmas, my goal is to teach myself the basics of baking/pastry arts and healthy eating.

Another resolution I have is to understand the essence of the moment and ingredients more. I was browsing through “The Flavor Bible” and saw this section:

A great cook is able to make food taste great by doing two basic things:
1. Understanding the essence of the moment, which comprises everything from the meal’s driving force to the occasion, to the weather, to the available time, budget, and/or other resources (for example, ingredients, equipment, etc.).
2. Understanding the essence of the ingredients, which comprises their season, regionality, weight and volume, function, flavor, and/or flavor affinities.

For me, one of life’s great pleasures include drinking unique beers like Pliny the Elder (sent from our good friend in Seattle). We (the boyfriend and I) started our last 2011 dinner with this beer and shrimp cocktail. Not pictured was a medium rare bone-in ribeye with a bourbon and shallot pan sauce, a baked potato, and some sauteed Swiss chard.  The meal was made better since we were using some ingredients from our farm, but the fact that we were drinking one of our favorite beers from a good friend improved the moment even more. It was definitely a great and memorable way to end 2011.

What about you? Any resolutions?

The past few months…

The lack of updates on this blog is pathetic. Good news is that the farm’s second season is almost over! Now, I can definitely devote more time on here.

To make up for this crappy job updating the blog, I looked at my last camera upload and decided to share. Here’s what I’ve been taking photos of and what I’ve been up to:

Cute little pimiento peppers! These tiny babies were so sweet and had a really good citrusy finish. We’re growing more next year for sure.

A random yellow squash plant growing in the cilantro fields. I had to.

Rhubarb Swiss Chard. Yum. This was taken when I wasn’t tired of greens yet.

Kale!

Mustard greens!

One of our favorite hikes.


My favorite four-legged creature, our dog Jager. I think it had been a while since Jager had a good and long walk, so he was super excited that day.

The next few photos might as well say, “I heart the Parkway.”

Look at these colors!

These photos don’t even do justice.

Kind of breathtaking, eh?

Yeah. Totally.

A little blurry, but I love the view of the trees like this.

So vibrant.

This is why I love living in the mountains.

The end.

Plain and simple bruschetta

It’s already the end of August. What? Where did June go? And July? And I’m already starting to feel that chill in the air? I feel like it was just yesterday that warm weather rolled in.

Oh well. I still have these babies.

And these.

While these are still here, I’m gonna savor every last bit of them. Come winter time, I’m going to hate buying the tasteless versions of tomatoes and the very expensive few leaves of basil you get for a few bucks.

So you know what I do to enjoy these two?

Bruschetta. My go-to dinner when I’m feeling lazy.

Plain and simple with heirloom tomatoes, salt, basil, crusty artisan bread, garlic, and olive oil. I may also add a little bit of butter. Because…I love butter.

Fun fact: I didn’t really make bruschetta until I saw Julie and Julia. The moment I saw Amy Adams pan toasting that bread and putting the two together, I was drooling.

Bruschetta
The best thing about bruschetta made this way is you can cater it to your taste buds. If you don’t want butter, don’t add it. If you want more basil, go for it. I bet you can even add other seasonings if you wanted to, but I like simple like this.

1 loaf of rustic bread, sliced into 1 inch pieces
1 garlic clove
Olive oil
Butter
Heirloom tomatoes, diced
Salt
Basil

In a bowl, toss tomatoes with a good sprinkle of salt. Let tomatoes sit at room temperature for at least 10 minutes.

In the meantime, fry the bread with some butter and a drizzle of olive oil. Fry both sides until golden.

Immediately after the bread is fried, rub garlic on both sides. (I do both sides because I love garlic, but you can do just one.)

Drizzle a bit of olive oil onto the tomato mixutre, along with some torn basil leaves.

Spoon tomatoes into bread and enjoy!

Tomatillos…toma-what?

These cute little babies have been my new favorite this season.
I always saw them at grocery stores, but never knew what to do with them. They’re also at your favorite Mexican restaurant’s salsa bar. Luckily for me, Gladheart Farms introduced me to these beauties when their farm started producing them.

To prepare tomatillos, all you have to do is remove the husks and rinse under warm water. They may have a little bit of a sticky residue, but the warm water should take that off.

So what do you do these? Make raw or roasted tomatillo salsa, enchilada sauce, use as a marinade, or as chicken chili verde.

This Chicken Chili Verde is topped with Spanish rice.

Chicken Chili Verde with Beans
Adapted from HonestCooking.com

1 1/2 lbs. chicken breast/leftover roasted chicken, shredded
1 medium onion, diced
1 jalapeno, diced
1 4 oz can roasted green chiles
1/2 green bell pepper, diced
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 bay leaf
1 teaspoon salt
1 lb tomatillos, peeled and pureed chunky
4 cups chicken or vegetable broth
15 oz cannellini , great northern, or garbanzo beans (rinsed through water twice)
1/4 cup cilantro, chopped
pepper to taste

Heat dutch oven or soup pot on medium high heat. Add 1 tablespoon olive oil and brown chicken. Remove chicken and set aside.

Sauté onions until translucent. Add jalapeno, chiles, bell pepper, garlic, cumin, thyme oregano, bay leaf and salt; cook for 2 minutes. Add tomatillo puree and cook another 5 minutes. Add stock and simmer. Add chicken and beans to pot and simmer for 20 minutes.

Add cilantro and pepper; taste for seasonings.

Ooops…

Oh look, I have totally and completely abandoned this blog yet AGAIN.

Big oops. The farm is DEFINITELY keeping me busy. So it’s only natural that on my off days I do errands, stuff around the house, and/or relax by going on a hike. But I will most definitely update before Thursday.

In the meantime, here’s what I saw at the end of the work day on Monday:

This rainbow was quite possibly the most perfect rainbow I’ve ever seen. It made my day to see a rainbow after a rainy work day at the farm…especially since I had to pick green beans and cilantro in the rain.

And here’s the farm’s delicious new baked item:

Our farm’s potato cinnamon rolls are made with Dark Red Norlands grown in our farm!

Anyway, hope everyone’s enjoying their Sunday. The boy and I are being super lazy today. We may or may not take the dog on a hike, and we also may or may not get around to our to-do list. Who knows. I’m taking it one step at a time.

The Smell of Crayons…

Look what I found! By I, really I mean we. Chanterelles! To me, these little babies have a faint smell of crayons. I know, odd, but really it does. 

Fenner and I found a bit of chanterelles on a hike. The even better news was that we found it here in Asheville! We didn’t have to trek to Boone to find these!

For those who don’t know me, I’ve been foraging mushrooms with Fenner ever since he took a mycology class at App (Appalachian State University) a few years ago. When you live in a region with the widest amount of mushroom diversity, why wouldn’t you take advantage of it?

Our best finds have included chanterelles, black chanterelles, “chicken of the woods” mushrooms and oyster mushrooms. I found a morel once, but it was in front of the Justice dorms at App where I know for a fact they spray crap I do not want to consume.

Anyway, what do you do with chanterelles? We cook it with a little butter and snack on them that way. Or if we’re feeling fancy, we make a white wine sauce with it and toss it with pasta.

Here’s another non-recipe. Non-recipe as in these measurements were an estimate. Use what you have available, toss the ingredients together, and make your own white wine sauce.

Wild Mushroom Pasta

Wild mushrooms (We used 7 oz chanterelles)
Butter (1 T.)
Olive oil (2 t.)
Heavy cream (1/2 cup)
White wine (1/4 cup)
Fresh basil
Garlic (2 cloves)
Cooked pasta
Pecorino Romano

Melt butter with oil on medium heat, then add garlic. Infuse garlic for a minute and remove garlic. Add chanterelles, cook until lightly browned. Remove chanterelles and set aside.

Add white wine and heavy cream to pan; simmer until it reduces to half the liquid. Add mushrooms back into sauce, then add pasta with a tablespoon of pasta water. Turn off stove, add basil to lightly wilt. Top with cheese.

**A note on foraging: Unless you have a book you’ve been studying or have a mycology professor’s go ahead, I’d advise to not eat it! Better to be safe than sorry.**

Spring Beauties and Stuffed Summer Squash

Summer’s here to stay, but every now and then I like to remind myself of the few beauties spring brought. For example, this year’s Asiatic lilies! This year was the first time these flowered for us since we planted them a little late in the spring last year.

I think as cool as the pink ones were, I love, love, love the white ones. They look so clean and crisp! And look at the lime greenish looking stem! Gorgeous color!

Back to summer… One of the veggies that I know I can eat up all summer long are summer squash. I’ll pretty much toss it in everything I make once the farm starts producing them. But for now, since the farm doesn’t have them yet, I traded some of our baked goods for some of A Way of Life Farm’s summer squash.

I think these are like the Eight Ball variety, but with a lighter green skin. I cut them in half, took the flesh out and tossed it with some ground beef, riso (smaller orzo pasta), onions, and some local elephant garlic from Earth Life farms. I tossed that filling with a vinaigrette and baked it in the squash halves for 10 minutes in a 350 degree F oven. I served these delicious little babies with some roasted cauliflower from Gladheart Farms.

Again, I’d share a recipe, but I seem to be making everything as I go these days. You can blame it on the beautiful summer weather and all the lovely veggies being produced locally. It seems to me that when one has great ingredients, that itself is enough to inspire you to make a dish that doesn’t require a recipe.