Dark Days Challenge

It's official.  I'm participating in the 3rd Annual Dark Days Challenge, which challenges folks to cook at least one meal a week with locally sourced ingredients during the winter.  I'm not sure how this will work when I get to Chicago for the holidays, but currently, I'm stoked.  Between my proto garden, my canning schemes, and the bounty of the local farmers' market, I'm thinking this will be A-OK.

Oh!  I totally forgot in the last post!  How cool is this?  Jewelry made out of pages of your favorite book!

I've got a few books whose bindings have failed or who have suffered water damage that I just can't bear to part with - I've spent too many perfect rainy nights re-reading those pages.

Attempts and Discoveries

It's no secret that I have a black thumb.  Maybe I've mentioned that before.  I will not post pictures of the two tomato plants that failed produce a single edible tomato, one of which is nothing but leaf jerky hanging limply from a Topsy Turvy in the middle of our yard.  I even spent time combing the Texas A&M Tomato Solver website for solutions.

Today I transplanted the one surviving plant, which has never even produced a proto-tomato, into a pot.  I'm hoping that in doing so I didn't totally massacre the roots and that it likes its new (totally inconvenient) spot in the very middle of the yard, the only spot that gets sun for more than a few hours a day.  It's probably too late for anything to come of the plant, but I'm keep my black fingers crossed.  I also, for funzies, planted some garlic and scallions I had doing time in my pantry.  

We've been getting Greenling baskets for awhile lately.  For months, we did the Local Farms basket, but during the third straight week of okra, I decided to start selecting my own basket (which led us to the delicious discovery of Pluots).  There was something lacking, though.  I was missing the joy of shopping for your food - being able to smell, touch and see everything before making your selections.

So we cancelled our basket for the week and went to the Sunset Valley Farmers' Market with the hubby and kids.  There we visited with the folks from Kitchen's Pride and walked off with a heavy bag full of oyster mushrooms, stopped by the stand for McKemie Homegrown and picked up some absolutely gorgeous purple bell and anaheim peppers along with some lemon basil, and of course Johnson's Backyard Garden, whose stand is like a supermarket aisle with all their options, where I snagged some onions, sweet potatoes, sweet potato greens and a butternut squash.  Our last shop stop was for tomatoes at the B5 Farm stand.  Monster asked for some juice, so we stopped at a stand that was selling some serious juice - Monster and the Hubby got a watermelon coconut, and I snagged a Basil Lime with San Pelligrino.  Absolutely perfect, since the day was starting to get hot.  All told, we spent about $14 less than we would've with Greenling, got to meet our farmers, and got to fondle our foods before we purchased.

As a result, I've been on a baking frenzy:  a peach-pluot pie in a shortbread crust and a coconut-basil cake (we ate it like pancakes this morning).

Seared Tuna Steak Salad

The fam has a membership to YMCA.  Our closest has been under renovation since we joined, which means the lot of us are either travelling to other locations or working out on top of each other in the reduced space.  That hasn't stopped me from heading over there every once in a while, but doing ball slams in four square feet is claustrophobic.

At any rate, a couple of days ago, I did something that my husband calls 30/30s, which is 30 seconds of as many reps as you can, and than a 30 second "rest" at the extension, for three or four minutes, depending on how sore you want to be tomorrow.  I did four different kinds of 30/30s, so by the time the workout was over, I was covered in workout slime, had noodles for arms, and was famished.  

And I had tuna steaks in the fridge.  And peaches.  Hell yeah.

Most Fabulous Seared Tuna Salad Ever

This probably qualifies as one of the fastest, tastiest meals we've had here in a long time. 

The players:

5 small tomatoes (I've been using Campari, because they're damned tasty)

3 medium peaches, chopped to bite size.

Crumbled goat cheese

French Fried Onions (I'll eat these out of the can.  Trashy and delicious.)

Salad greens

Vineagrette (we used a Champagne Caper)

3 sashimi grade tuna steaks - check your Sustainable Fishing Guide to determine which to get in your area.  

Microgreens (I used broccoli)

1 Lemon

Put a pan over medium high heat with a drizzle of olive oil.  Assemble your salads (everything but the tuna and the dressing).

Season the tuna with salt and pepper on both sides.  Squeeze the juice of one lemon over all three steaks.  When the pan is hot (put a drop of water on it.  It should dance across the surface), put all your steaks in it.  Let them be for about one and a half minutes before flipping - your goal is to get a really good sear, but to keep it nice and pink in the middle.  Once they're done (DO NOT overcook your tuna.  There's nothing sadder than a well-done tuna), slice them and put them on your salads.

The bright sweetness of the peaches, combined with the tomato and richness of the tuna is pretty much amazing.  My husband hates peaches but devoured this salad in a flash.  

Killer Salads

I don't know where you live, but where I live it's freaking hot.  With the mercury climbing to 105 and our AC unit working hard to keep up, I'm doing my very best to avoid turning the stove on.  Which means some of my favorites are out of the question - roasted chicken, stews, polenta and risotto.

Since the weather's gotten hotter, I've been attempting several varieties of salads to find something that's actually filling but requires very little cooking.  After staring blankly at the fish section at the local supermarket (which has a surprisingly good selection), I figured I should do what smart people do when they're at a loss - ask for help.  I chatted with the fella behind the counter (Ben) about where the fish came from, how many times each of them had been frozen, and which were the freshest.  Having just switched purses, I didn't have my Sustainable Fish Guide (which can be sorted by region and rates fish based on overfishing, sustainability of fishing methods and whether the harvesting methods are harming other fish or the environment), but I remembered that most Pacific line caught Yellow Fin Tuna is okay, so I grabbed three sashimi grade steaks.  I also grabbed a big container of Texas gulf crab meat, because the only thing better than crab is crab already out of its shell and because I'd like to support gulf fishermen.

So I decided to make the first crab cake I've ever made, toss it on a bed of fresh spinach and surround it with a bunch of chopped up heirloom tomatoes.

My crab cake contained:

One container jumbo lump crab, picked for shells and cartilage
1 tablespoon horseradish
1 tablespoon worchestershire sauce
1 cup mayo
2 ears corn (roasted - actually, I roasted six of them at once by sticking them unhusked in the oven at 400 for about a half hour or so), corn cut from the cob (I cut them all and stuck them in tupperware for future roasted corn recipes)
Fistful of cilantro, chopped
Fistful of chives, chopped
1/4 of a red onion, finely chopped
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 green pepper, finely chopped
1 cup panko breadcrumbs
Juice of one lemon
Salt and pepper to taste

With your hands, mix all ingredients, adding mayo if it's having trouble sticking together.

In a pan, add about a cup of vegetable oil.  Turn the heat to medium high.  (Now is a good time to assemble your salads).  Once the oil is hot enough that dropping water causes sputtering, add your crab cakes and flip after about two minutes (check them - no one likes crab cake char).

I served it with Annie's Green Goddess dressing, which is a whole bottle full of tasty win.  By the time I'd finished my plate, I was tummy-ache stuffed, which is almost unheard of.

In a semi-related note, Chardonnay mixed with Central Market's Pomegranate Italian Soda is probably illegal somewhere.

Goat Cheese

Alright.  I've gone and made goat cheese.  Like all homemade cheese, it's delicious - the texture and richness is far superior to anything I've picked up at a supermarket.

I ordered a half-gallon of goat milk from Wateroak Farms out of Bryan, Texas (described as "a haven for dairy goats").

The whole process started with dumping the whole half gallon into a clean pot, along with the juice of a meyer lemon (gifted from a friend with a tree).  I didn't bother timing it this time, having made ricotta once and accidentally making ricotta and whey out of a cheese sauce that broke.  There will be a point about 15 minutes in where the milk solids separate from the liquids.  The temp will be about 180.  Be sure to stir frequently - I noticed that the solids in the goats milk sunk (I don't remember the cow's milk doing this.)

The process of making ricotta feels very pretty.  I'm sure in more commercial environments it's less lovely.  I think at least part of it is the frothiness of cheese cloth.

The trick here is to fold the cheese cloth a few times.  I put it in a colander and, since I didn't really have a use for the whey, stuck it in the sink.  Afterwards it occurred to me that the chickens probably would've loved it if I mixed it with some stale bread for them.  Live/learn.  Next time.  Etc.

Just after it's drained, I added a bit of salt and a few turns of the pepper grinder.

Now, apparently the big difference between ricotta and farmer's cheese is squeezing and time.  I wrapped my ricotta (the solids after the separated milk goes through the cheese cloth contraption) in the cheese cloth and put it in a ring mold.  (This is actually a lie.  I don't have a ring mold.  I grabbed a metal "house" cookie cutter that came in a holiday cookie cutter kit and man-handled it until it could generally be described as round.)  Then I added a little souffle cup filled with black eyed peas on top for a little weight and put the whole stack into a tupperware container.  It's spent the last two days in the fridge, squishing.

The outside took on the texture of the cheese cloth.  I was surprised when I tasted it that it doesn't have the characteristic zing of goat cheese, but it was still incredibly rich and creamy.  I'm thinking this has something to do with something my brother's special lady friend mentioned - that goats milk funkiness is a seasonal thing.

Further cheese making attempts beyond farmer cheese will require cheese cultures.  I guess it's time to do a little research.

Sexy Fruit Salad

Not much makes me sadder than lame fruit salad.  (This is a melodramatic overstatement.  Run with it.)  If I order a fruit salad and wind up with a sorry cup of cantaloupe and grapes, I begin silently cursing the prep cook.

A few weeks ago, the Hubby and I made a trip to a little Italian restaurant in the Galleria.  Their dinner salad highlighted a basic lesson in food editing:  a salad is not the place for you to clean out your vegetable drawer (and in this instance, a pantry).  A salad is the opportunity to create a very unique fusion of flavors - nothing should be there without a purpose.

The most recent local box from Greenling, besides having a gigantic bag of okra that I'm fairly sure we'll never get through, was full of fruit.  I went to chop up one of the Fredericksburg peaches for Lady Bug and I to share and decided instead to make a Damned Sexy Fruit Salad instead.

I'm happy to report that all of the fruit, save for the store bought grapes, all of the fruit was local.  Aside from the fistful of red grapes, I chopped up peaches (3) from Caskey Orchards out of San Marcos, Figs (5) from Comanche Farm, Blueberries from My Fathers' Farm out of Seguin, and the juice of a meyer lemon given to me at Flipside Church Night by a woman who's got a tree full of them in her yard.  I tossed these juicy babies with a tablespoon of blackstrap molasses and a teaspoon of chinese five spice.  I totally meant to add the lemon basil doing chill time in the fridge (from Acadian Family Farms in Lavaca County), but forgot.  No worries, I've got some fresh purple hull peas in the fridge I can toss them with.

While I was "cooking," the Hubby was doing legwork on the installation of a tankless water heater while grabbing two more chickens and some feed from Callahans, this time Rhode Island Reds.  After chatting with a girlfriend of mine who also keeps chickens, we're pretty sure that the Reds get eaten first because they don't have the camoflague that the Barred Rocks have.  We'll see.  Meanwhile, I've named them Quiche and Souffle, mostly because I'm assuming they'll be made into a quick feast by one of our local preditors.  Seeing the new birds next to old, fat Delilah is a study.  For a little while I had felt guilty about cutting down their commercial feed and forcing her to scratch for bugs (though she was living pretty high on juicer pulp and veggie cuttings).  She's about as plump and chickens come, and the yolks in her eggs are Crayola orange.