Categories
Recipes

Grilled Creole Corn and Vegetables

Ingredients

  • 2 tsp. Cajun seasoning
  • 3 T. butter, melted
  • 2 large ears sweet corn, husks and silks removed
  • 2 T. vegetable oil
  • 1 cup diced red bell pepper
  • 1 cup diced yellow onion
  • 1 cup diced celery
  • 1 T. minced garlic
  • 2 large or 3 small dried bay leaves
  • 1/2 cup chicken stock or vegetable broth
  • 1 T. fresh lemon juice
  • 1/4 to 1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper, to taste
  • salt to taste
  • 2 cups chopped tomatoes, for garnish

Preparation
Heat grill to medium-high. Mix Cajun seasoning into melted butter, and brush generously on corn. Grill corn, turning occasionally, and continue to baste with seasoned butter until kernels pierce easily and start to caramelize. Remove from grill, let cool and slice kernels from cob.

Heat oil in large skillet over medium heat, and sauté bell pepper, onion, celery, garlic and bay leaves until vegetables are tender. Stir in grilled corn kernels, stock or broth, lemon juice, cayenne pepper, and salt. Bring to a simmer and cook, stirring occasionally, for two minutes. Remove bay leaves. Mound mixture in center of serving platter and surround with chopped tomatoes. Serve immediately.

Serves 8.

Categories
Recipes

Potato-ham Spanish Tortilla

Spanish Tortilla
Courtesy Thinkstock

Ingredients

  • 2 pounds white or golden potatoes, scrubbed but not peeled
  • 1 T. olive oil
  • 4 ounces onion, any variety, thinly sliced into rings
  • 4 ounces green bell pepper, cored, seeded and thinly sliced into rings
  • 1 T. finely chopped fresh garlic
  • 6 ounces diced country-style smoked ham or 4 ounces diced European-style ham, such as prosciutto or Serrano ham
  • 1 cup chopped fresh tomato
  • 1/4 cup seeded, finely chopped fresh jalapeño chile
  • 2 ounces sliced green or black olives
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • 2 ounces grated Manchego or other hard cheese
  • 6 eggs
  • 3 T. milk
  • 1/4 tsp. cumin
  • 1/4 tsp. crumbled dried oregano leaves
  • 1/4 tsp. smoked sweet paprika
  • arugula or flat leafed-parsley for garnish

Preparation
Slice potatoes in half the short way, and cook until fork-tender. Drain, cool, peel and cut into 1/4-inch-thick slices.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Generously oil 9- or 10-inch, well-seasoned cast-iron skillet.

In another skillet, heat oil over medium heat and sauté onions, peppers and garlic until tender. Transfer sautéed vegetables to large bowl and add ham, potatoes, tomato, chile, olives, and salt and pepper; use hands to gently combine. Place potato mixture in prepared cast-iron skillet and pat smooth. Sprinkle with grated cheese.

In medium bowl, whisk eggs, milk and spices until frothy. Pour over potato-cheese mixture, tilting pan to evenly spread egg mixture.

Bake for 30 to 40 minutes or until eggs are set and top is lightly browned. Let set 10 minutes or longer to cool. Cut into wedges and serve warm or at room temperature. Garnish with arugula or parsley leaves.

Makes 4 to 6 meal- or 12 appetizer-sized servings.

Categories
Recipes

Baked Eggplant with Creamy Roasted-garlic and Oregano Sauce

If possible, use Greek oregano in this recipe—it’s spicier and more piquant than standard oregano.

Ingredients

  • 4 T. olive oil, divided
  • 2 pounds eggplant, peeled and cut into 1-inch cubes
  • 1 ounce whole, unpeeled garlic cloves
  • 1 cup thick, Greek-style plain yogurt, room temperature
  • 2 T. minced fresh oregano
  • 1 T. minced fresh mint
  • scant 1/4 tsp. salt
  • 1/2 tsp. coarsely ground black pepper
  • 1 to 2 T. chicken stock or vegetable broth
  • oregano or mint leaves for garnish

Preparation
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Use 1 tablespoon oil to grease glass baking dish(es), as needed to arrange eggplant chunks in single layer. Brush chunks all over with remaining oil. Cover dishes tightly with foil.

Place unpeeled garlic cloves in single layer in a separate small glass baking dish; cover with foil.
Place eggplant and garlic in oven. After 15 minutes, remove foil from eggplant and stir, making sure chunks remain in a single layer. Bake, uncovered, for an additional 15 minutes. Remove eggplant from oven and let cool.

Depending on the size of your garlic cloves, they should be done or close to done—press cloves with fork to check for doneness. When soft, remove from oven, uncover and cool.

Place yogurt, herbs, salt and pepper in blender or food processor. When garlic cloves are cool enough to handle, use kitchen shears to snip off one end, and squeeze top of clove to extrude soft garlic from skin. Add to yogurt mixture and purée until thoroughly blended. Depending on the type of yogurt you use, the mixture may be thick and difficult to process; if so, add stock or broth to achieve the consistency of a creamy salad dressing.

When eggplant chunks have cooled to room temperature, top with dressing, stirring gently to coat, and place in serving bowl. Garnish with whole oregano or mint leaves.

Serves 4.

Categories
News

USDA Proposes Animal-disease Traceability Rule

Cattle
Courtesy Stock.XCHNG
The USDA proposed changes to animal-disease-traceability requirements that would affect interstate livestock transport.

A recently proposed rule to the USDA’s animal-disease-traceability program has farmers and ranchers at odds as to whether it will actually aid in animal-disease prevention without hurting the nation’s small-scale farming operations.

The proposed rule requires that all livestock moved interstate, unless specifically exempted, be officially identified and accompanied by an interstate certificate of veterinary inspection or other documentation agreed upon by the states or tribes involved in the transfer. Livestock owners as well as veterinarians and other businesses associated with livestock would have to the keep traceability records for at least five years.

Livestock covered in the proposed rule are cattle and bison, horses and other equine species, poultry, sheep and goats, swine, and captive cervids. The proposal outlines official identification devices that would be required for each animal species’ traceability, such as ear tags for cattle or leg bands for chickens. The USDA is encouraging the use of low-tech identification devices in the proposal.

In his announcement of the proposed rule on Aug. 9, 2011, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack highlighted the flexibility it would give states and tribes in determining forms of identification that meet their needs; however, not all farming organizations agree this would outweigh the burden of what they see as unnecessary record keeping.

“The large volume of animals that USDA proposed to track could overwhelm the capabilities of state agencies, making it impossible to retrieve useful data if there is, in fact, a disease outbreak,” says Gilles Stockton, a Montana rancher and member of the Western Organization of Resource Councils. Stockton commented as part of a statement released by the Cornucopia Institute, an organization advocating for family-sized farms.

It would also require tracking certain groups of livestock that weren’t formerly so, including animals being transported to butchering facilities and cattle less than 18 months of age.

“On the one hand, the agency points to diseases with long incubation periods, such as tuberculosis, to justify these extensive new record-keeping requirements,” says Judith McGeary, executive director of the Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance in the Cornucopia Institute statement. “But at the same time, the agency plans to require the same paperwork on feeder cattle, which are butchered between 1 and 2 years of age. So the majority of the records that the vets and auction barns will be storing will be on animals that died years before.”

According to the USDA, the biggest traceability burden will fall on cattle producers because of the industry’s gaps in traceability measures and standards. Certain cattle producers believe the rule will, in fact, restrict producers’ methods of traceability. The R-CALF United Stockgrowers of America, a national cattle-producer organization, is concerned for individual producers who prefer to iron-brand their cattle.

“Under the proposed rule, individual producers cannot choose on their own to continue using the hot-iron brand to identify their cattle. Nor can an individual state on its own choose to identify the cattle leaving their state with a hot-iron brand,” says George Chambers, the R-CALF USA president. “Only if two state governments mutually agree to use the now delisted hot-iron brand will that option be available to either U.S. cattle producers or individual states,”

But not all farming organizations believe the proposed rule will put a damper on farm operations.

“The ability to trace, track and quarantine livestock during a disease outbreak will help minimize the economic impact it will have on the agriculture industry and rural America,” says Robert Johnson, president of the National Farmers Union. “The proposed rule … is a step in the right direction for animal-disease traceability. We recognize this will not prevent disease, but it does create a systematic approach to allow for swift response when there are issues.”

The USDA has made the proposed rule available for public comment until Nov. 9, 2011. To comment online, visit the Federal eRulemaking Portal. Send comments by mail to Docket No. APHIS-2009-0091, Regulatory Analysis and Development, PPD, APHIS, Station 3A-03.8, 4700 River Road, Unit 118, Riverdale, MD 20737-1238.

Categories
Urban Farming

Harvesting Wild Fruit

passionfruit

Photo by Rick Gush

One of my passionfruits I harvested from a vine I trained to grow on my driveway fence.

To many people, harvesting wild fruit might imply walks in the forest to collect wild raspberries; to an urban farmer, harvesting wild fruit means finding seeded jewels growing right in the middle of the urban/suburban jungle. These crops are bigger and more diverse than the ones found in the hills.

One of my friends, a professor of agricultural ecology, often promotes “agro-forestry,” in which forests are specifically cultivated in a manner that yields edible products without classical agricultural cultivation. The trick is to select naturally growing species that are favored in a forestry maintenance program.

I’m doing something similar with the passionfruit vine that was once part of the wild “jungle” growing along a small creek next to my driveway. I’ve trained it to grow up along the fence and rip away the Boston ivy competition whenever it sends shoots into the fence area. Shown above is one of the passionfruits I harvested from this “volunteer” vine. Now, I have a very healthy, feral passionfruit vine that produces fruits that I really enjoy eating.

As far as I can see, this is urban agro-forestry.

Another way to harvest wild fruit is to find fruit-bearing landscape plants that are not harvested by the owners. These plants can be found in abandoned places — hanging over a wall or somebody’s front yard. Owners of these plants will often give you permission to harvest the fruit.

The amount of unharvested fruit in the suburbs is huge, especially the amount of olives that drop to the sidewalks in the Southwestern United States. Unharvested fruit on municipal urban trees is also surprisingly big, as well.

Urban areas offer a massive quantity of weedy berry vines. An hour’s walk around just about any metropolitan area will yield a number of potential fruit-collecting sites.

I used to live in Las Vegas, Nev., which has a high Mormon population. Mormons, known to be good farmers and food preservers, often build food reserves. That agricultural heritage is disappearing though, and many of the younger Mormons aren’t familiar with basic agriculture.

I once organized an urban fruit harvesting and canning group for young Mormons, where we all ran around the older neighborhoods harvesting plums, apricots, peaches and nectarines on trees belonging to owners who didn’t want to be bothered to harvest them.

We harvested a ton of fruit and canned a lot of jams and preserved fruits. We even made some delicious fruit juices. The young Mormons thoroughly enjoyed the activity, and it was obviously a fun experience for them.

Read more of Digging Italy »

Categories
Crops & Gardening

Bearing Summer’s Dog Days

Fresh vegetables
Photo by Jessica Walliser
Despite the hot weather, I manage to get out to my garden to pick fresh veggies for a delicious meal.

It’s been so very hot around here—too hot to do much more than water the garden. The deadheading remains undone for yet another week and the weeds continue to grow. Such is my garden in summer.

I am too tired to work by the time evening comes around, and mornings are filled with breakfast dishes and kid transportation. Life always manages to get away from me by late summer. Before I know it, kindergarten will be underway and I’ll be complaining about having too much time on my hands. Only a few short weeks to go!

In the meantime, I am managing to bear the heat long enough to harvest a handful or two of veggies and/or berries for dinner every day. The grilled zucchini has been divine, the cucumber salad crisp and fresh, the tomato slices thick and salty. It seems that all is well with the garden despite the weeds and spent flowers.

My Jade Blue corn is now in full tassel and the silks will likely be brown by the end of the week. I’m so curious to see what is under that husk when I peel it back. From the puny stature of the wrapped ears, I’m guessing it won’t look much like the catalog picture, but I’m hoping the ears are at least large enough to eat. Nothing like homegrown sweet corn, even if the blue kernels are a bit unconventional.

Another hot-weather garden star has been my Golden beets. While I can’t get my husband to eat them, I have been in near heaven every time I peel open the foil pouch I cook them in and sink a fork into their roasted, yellow flesh. The kitchen reeks of summer these days and it doesn’t get any better than that.

« More Dirt on Gardening »

Categories
Urban Farming

Stuffed

stuffed squash

Photo by Judith Hausman

My garden currently brims with a variety of squash, which are delicious to re-stuff and bake.

Stuffed vegetables remind me of the first Moosewood Cookbook by Mollie Katzen (Ten Speed Press, 1977). Recipes for “comprehensively” stuffed vegetables, especially acorn squash, put the vegetables center stage in a way that many of us had just started to think about. While I never became a vegetarian, I did rely on Moosewood Cookbook in my developing vegetable repertoire.

Stuffed vegetables also remind me of the south of France, where the freshest hot-weather vegetables are topped with the simplest garlic-breadcrumb mix and briefly broiled. Warmed, their summer flavors melt in olive oil and Mediterranean herbs. Mmm. Julia Child’s recipe is the real thing.

Dolmas, part of Eastern Mediterranean cuisines, such as Greece’s and Turkey’s, can also be stuffed with practically anything, from grape leaves to tiny eggplants and squash.

Right now, our coop has yellow squash, deeply ribbed green squash, round squash and two-tone squash. It’s so easy to open them up, scoop out some flesh with a melon baller, re-stuff them, and bake. You chop up the innards and sauté them briefly with onions, herbs and garlic, and then season the mix as you like. You can mix it all with rice and season it Asian style or with Indian or Mexican (melt some Monterey Jack or queso fresco on top) spices.

You can use breadcrumbs or little pasta shapes, such as orzo, and Italian or Southern French herbs; don’t forget some black pepper, too, and maybe anchovies and some Parmesan or goat cheese on top. You can use quinoa or couscous, currants and almonds, as well as Moroccan elements, such as lemon, cinnamon and cumin, or Greek flavors, such as feta cheese, oregano and olives. Feel free to add browned ground beef or lamb or chopped, leftover cooked chicken. I’ve never tried shrimp, but why not?

You can scoop out eggplants, too. (You may have to cook them briefly to soften the flesh.)

Cut in half and clean the seeds and white ribs out of red, green, yellow or purple bell or long peppers. You may not have to pre-cook them at al if they are thin-walled, home-garden peppers.

Another style is to fill small peppers with cheese, then batter and fry them. Stuff the spread-open layers of a sweet onion. Wrap big cabbage leaves around a large tablespoon of filling and “pin” them with a toothpick. Cook the packets in a tomato sauce.

There’s even a “cheater’ way to prepare stuffed vegetables. I was recently served them this way at a restaurant. Rather than scooping out the insides, the chef had simply piled the breadcrumb filling on top of thick cylinders of zucchini, onion halves and tomato halves. The veggies were baked until tender in a little olive oil and then very briefly broiled.

 

Recipe: An All-Purpose Stuffing for Summer Vegetables
Adapted from Moosewood Cookbook by Mollie Katzen (Ten Speed Press, 1977)

Ingredients

  • 3 tablespoons butter or olive oil * 3/4 cup onion, minced
  • 3 cloves garlic, minced
  • 3 eggs, beaten*
  • 1/2 cup cheese (optional)
  • a few chopped tomatoes (optional)
  • 3 tablespoons at least, parsley and other herbs of choice (see above), chopped
  • 1 1/2 tablespoons flour
  • salt, pepper and 1 to 2 teaspoons of the spices of whatever cuisine you like best (see above)

Preparation
Scoop out the inside of the stuffed vegetable. This may require you to cook it a little bit first (the eggplant) or even a lot (acorn squash). Chop the innards up a little bit and sauté with the onion, garlic and seasonings. Remove from heat and add cheese, tomatoes, flour, eggs and herbs. Re-fill the stuffees with the stuffing and bake at 375 degrees Fahrenheit for 30 minutes or until the filling is firm. Stuffs about 8 pieces.

*If you prefer, you can use 1 cup crumbled soft breadcrumbs and omit the eggs.

Read more of The Hungry Locavore »

Categories
Equipment

Justifying “Stuff”

Used tool
Photo by Jim Ruen
I’m not quite sure what this tool does, but I bought it for only $4.

The block and tackle were lying there like candy in a dish, just waiting to be picked up and savored. For a guy who loves tools and practical things that work, it was almost too much to pass up. That’s the danger of our local summer celebration. The booths in the park always include a number of used tools and other antique items. It’s these displays that always get my attention.

Ropes and pulleys are the epitome of labor-saving tools. Pulleys let you redirect your energy. Hook a pulley to the roof with a rope through it, and you are able to lift up by pulling down with your full weight. Multiply the pulleys with one on the object to be lifted and a second at the roof, and you cut the force needed in half. The more pulleys, the less force. To quickly note how much less force, count the number of rope lengths interacting directly with the block of pulleys attached to the weight to be lifted. For me, it is poetry in motion.

So there they lay, a nice block with two pulleys and a single with rope that was in good shape—all for only $45. It was a steal … and I walked away. I’ll probably regret it, but the fact is that at this point in time, I have no use for it. One of the rules that I try to follow is to not buy something for which I can’t see a need.

If that sounds sensible, tell me why I bought the little $4 hand tool on the next table. I wasn’t even sure what it was. The guy selling it thought it was for setting saw blades. I guess sensible only goes so far.

<< More Shop Talk >>

Categories
News

Drought Leaves Donkeys Homeless

Donkey
Courtesy iStockphoto/Thinkstock
The Peaceful Valley Donkey Rescue is re-homing donkeys abandoned in Texas as a result of drought.

More than 300 donkeys in Texas have been rescued by the Peaceful Valley Donkey Rescue so far this year as a direct result of the drought. The current drought, the worst in recorded Texas history, has resulted in hay shortages and low water tables. Ranchers are selling off their livestock but have no resources to re-home their donkeys.

Most donkeys currently being rescued in Texas are suffering from malnutrition and overgrown hooves. Donkeys, especially in Texas, are overpopulated and hold no financial value. The vast majority of livestock auctions will not allow them to be unloaded or even offered for sale. With no feed and no options, donkeys are being abandoned in record numbers across the state.

Peaceful Valley Donkey Rescue gives all law-enforcement agencies priority in the submission of rescue work, but many counties do not have the financial ability to deal with the vast number of donkeys being abandoned in their jurisdictions.

As a state, Texas accounts for 90 percent of PVDR’s national rescue resources but contributes less than 5 percent of PVDR’s donation income.

All donkeys rescued by PVDR are quarantined, vaccinated, dewormed and microchipped. During the cooler months, all jacks are castrated with the assistance of Texas A&M Veterinary School Students and Faculty.

PVDR was established as a nonprofit organization in 2000 in Acton, Calif., by founders Mark and Amy Meyers. The Meyers, along with their staff, have since rescued thousands of donkeys from abuse, neglect and abandonment as well as captured hundreds of wild burros throughout the western United States that were under threat of destruction. PVDR has rescue and adoption facilities across the United States.