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Dark Days Challenge: The "almost Spring" breakfast

by Jen Maiser, Editor

If you're not a Californian, you may want to avert your eyes from this post. Before you hate me too much for the fact that there is asparagus -- local, delicious asparagus -- on my plate this week, please know that I completely acknowledge and never, ever take the local bounty of our area for granted . 

The last couple weeks have been spectacular in the market here. This is my absolutely favorite turn of season all year. We've seen artichokes, avocados and asparagus come into the market. 

Last week after going to the Saturday market, I posted the following status on Facebook: 

"Finally unpacking my market bags properly. Avocados, pork tenderloin wrapped in pancetta, radishes of all sorts, brussels, green garlic, goat cheese, red and green cabbages, bloomsdale spinach. It's good to be a San Franciscan."

It's ridiculous.

My eat local meals have been easy, lazy and delicious. I've been eating large bowls of cabbage with sesame dressing -- using this dressing from Pim. And brown rice topped with avocado and greens. And omelettes and scrambled eggs and poached eggs and fried eggs. 

My Dark Days meal this week was Sunday breakfast: Roasted potatoes, roasted asparagus, poached eggs, and ham slices. As you can see from the photo taken after my meal, I ate up every last bite of it.

The farms who helped make my dark days meal perfect this week are:

• Zuckerman Farm. Asparagus.
• Little Organic Farm. Potatoes.
• Soul Food Farm. Eggs.
• Fatted Calf. Ham.

Dark Days Challenge: Sunday night dinner, solo.

 

by Jen Maiser, Editor

I spent a lot of time in the kitchen this weekend -- mostly puttering and trying out some new projects. Usually when I do that, my Sunday night meal is quick and thrown together as I am tired of being in the kitchen at that point. But last night, I stayed in the kitchen, rearranging things, filling spice bottles, chopping up ginger to freeze in small portions. By the time I had cooked the meal above, I had lost complete track of time. I sat down to eat around 9.30, pleased with all I had accomplished.

The brussels sprouts that you see are proof positive that I lost track of time -- they are a little, uh, darker, than I intended them, but were still delicious. I halved them, then parboiled in salty water. Once they were partially cooked, I threw them in a sautee pan with some duck fat and tossed with preserved lemons I'd been gifted by Anita.

The steak is a flat-iron steak that I marinated earlier in the day with garlic, (non-local) fish sauce, chile peppers, and a lime. I then threw it on to my grill pan for a couple minutes.

The gratin is made of potatoes, leeks and king trumpet mushrooms. It was very simple and delicious. The entire meal was a terrific way to wrap up a quiet and productive weekend.

The farms who helped make my dark days meal perfect this week are:

• Massa Organics. Duck fat.
• Swanton Berry Farm. Brussels sprouts.
• Little Organic Farm. Potatoes.
• Eatwell Farm. Leeks
• Far West Fungi. Mushrooms.
• Prather Ranch. Flat Iron Steak.
• Straus Dairy. Milk.

Dark Days Challenge: The journey of a duck

by Jen Maiser, Editor

The story of this week's Dark Days meal begins in October.

Greg Massa of Massa Organics -- our local amazing brown rice farmer -- announced that he would be selling ducks at the farmers market and I panicked because I was scheduled to be in Southern California during the weekend that they would be sold. Greg's ducks held the promise of something special. The October sale would be the debut of his ducks -- I wrote about Greg and the role that the ducks play in his farm for Serious Eats.

I'd been dating a man -- E -- for a little while. Things were new and fresh and interesting, and I enjoyed spending time with him. When the duck sale was announced, I called E. "Would you mind going to the Berkeley Farmers Market," I asked, "and picking up a duck for me?" I explained that I had reserved the duck and that it would be under my name. He happily did the favor and I returned from the Southern California weekend to find my duck awaiting my return in E's freezer. I began to make plans for it.

As these things sometimes go, we broke up a few weeks later. As I took stock of what things we needed to return to each other, I remembered the duck. The other things that I'd left at his apartment were replaceable -- a cookbook I love but could repurchase if necessary and a couple of other odds and ends. But I couldn't leave the duck.

We arranged to meet one cold night at a BART station, and swapped possessions and I took ownership of my three-pound, sustainably-grown duck, wrapped in a canvas bag and frozen solid.

I didn't have a chance to do anything with the it until this week. I had never cooked a whole duck, truth be told, and decided to use a very simple Mark Bittman recipe to roast it. It came out decently for a first attempt, and I can't wait for the next time that Greg sells them. The next time, I will try a confit or something a little more adventurous.

I ate the duck for my dark days meal with a side dish of sauteed shredded brussels sprouts, and another of wheat berries tossed with walnut oil, parsley, satsuma mandarins and feta cheese. I later used the duck carcass for stock, and rendered out some of the fat.

As I enjoyed this eat local meal in the "dead of winter" (a ludicrous phrase, I realize, from a woman sitting in San Francisco), I reflected on what's really important in my life. Some relationships are fleeting, and end abruptly. But others -- like my relationships with my farmers -- are lasting, important and steady.

The farms who helped make my dark days meal perfect this week are:

• Massa Organics
• Full Belly Farm
• Tory Farms
• Eatwell Farm
• Glashoff Farms
• Achadinha Cheese
• Swanton Berry Farm

Dark Days Challenge: A weekend lunch

by Jen Maiser, Editor

Did you know that I am obsessed with pickles? I have a shokutaku tsukemono ki -- a Japanese pickle press that makes quick work of pickles made from many different things in the kitchen. This week, I learned that turnip and radish greens tossed with salt and a square of kombu makes for a delicious pickle that was a perfect condiment to the short rib sandwich you see above. The quick pickle doesn't take long -- you can eat it within a couple hours, and the crock stays in the fridge and I add little bits of vegetables to it when I think about it.

The pickle press is a perfect way for a locavore to add some dimension to winter meals. I was craving crunch and texture, and it worked perfectly for this meal. 

My Dark Days meal this week was eaten alone. The small casserole that you see in the background has white beans topped with canned tomatoes and cheese (inspired by this wonderful recipe), served with roasted beets and a short rib sandwich with turnip pickles, and a local pale ale.

Purveyors who helped create this delicious meal are:

• Prather Ranch
• Cowgirl Creamery
• Eatwell Farm
• Dirty Girl Farm
• Tierra Vegetables
• Acme Bakery
• Anderson Valley Brewing Company
• Rancho Gordo

Dark Days Challenge: Brunch with a Friend

by Jen Maiser, Editor

When friends give you chanterelles, you make a fabulous brunch! Last week, I was gifted a couple of pounds of wild chanterelles by a benefactress friend. She and her partner had foraged about forty pounds of chanterelles from Santa Cruz. 

It's a bumper year for this wild, native mushroom and the stories of large swaths of chanterelles in local forests have been whispered among the food community here. 

"Let them dry out some," advised a friend, "they're really wet and heavy right now." I kept them out in the kitchen, drying, for five days before cooking them for brunch this weekend. They lost a full 50% of their weight, and their flavor concentrated down to a decadent, meaty flavor. 

Once I had the chanterelles in hand, I called up my friend Jeanne and invited her over for a weekend brunch -- belatedly ringing in the New Year.

 

One of my favorite things to do is to plan menus, and this one came together over a couple days. When we sat down to our all-local brunch, we ate: 

• Sauteed chanterelle mushrooms topped with poached eggs (Soul Food Farm), 
• Fatted Calf bacon, 
• A salad of Star Route Farms little gems, roasted beets (Heirloom Organics), Oro Blanco grapefruit (Tory Farms) and frico made from Capricious Cheese (Achadinha Goat Cheese),
• Della Fattoria bread, 
• Apple cider (Hidden Star Orchards), 
• a non-local (and delicious!) prosecco and Gewürztraminer from Navarro Vineyards. 

This was a decadent, awesome meal eaten over a slow, lingering, laughter-filled couple of hours. It was a fun way to celebrate the amazing bounty of our area. "If these are the Dark Days," Jeanne said, "bring 'em on!"

Dark Days Challenge: A simple brunch

by Jen Maiser, Editor

My dark days meal this week was eaten standing up, while I was packing for a trip. The fridge was quite empty, and I needed sustenance to get me through a couple hours of hurrying -- packing, cleaning, and getting ready for the holiday -- before I could relax in Southern California with the family.

You may notice from the photo above that smoked salmon is on the plate. The salmon is from Alaska. And I live in San Francisco. But the truth is that I always consider the fish in my freezer to be "local" in a family sort of way. My dad lives in Alaska, and about once a year he ships me fish that he has caught. While I understand that this doesn't meet the food miles requirement of eating locally, I do believe that it meets the spirit of local eating: knowing where your food is coming from, and understanding what it took to get to your plate.

The rest of the meal looks pretty boring: steamed potatoes with pepper, hard-boiled eggs, and cottage cheese. But it was perfection on a Saturday morning when I was in a hurry (and truthfully, craving protein after a very fun beer tasting the night before). The cottage cheese was creamy and rich, the eggs flavorful, and the potatoes a perfect foil for the salty salmon.

Dark Days Challenge: Cold Weather Soup

by Jen Maiser, Editor

One of the dangers of communicating with other food bloggers via twitter is that it always makes me hungry. And because I work at home, I can often act on my cravings which have come from twitter suggestions. It's well known among my group that if anyone even mentions popcorn, I usually get up from my desk and go make some right away.

Sometimes the suggestions that come through are fantastic. This weekend, I was casting about for my dinner, when my friend Genie mentioned that she'd be making risotto for dinner. "That has me wondering if i have any arborio in the house," I replied. Within seconds, another tweet. This time from farmer Greg Massa at Massa Organics: "Our rice makes a fantastic risotto." It was just the reminder I needed, and within an hour, I was sitting down eating a fantastic brown rice risotto with local rice.

The same sort of thing happened with friend Stephanie of The Grub Report. She had been talking about minestrone soup for a couple days on twitter, and all of a sudden I just had to make my own. This all local minestrone was made with:

Chicken stock made from Eatwell Farms chicken
Chard from Heirloom Organics
Wheat berries from Full Belly Farm
Tomatoes canned in the summer from Mariquita Farm
and many local aromatics.

I topped the dish with one of my favorite local cheeses -- capricious cheese from Achadinha Cheese Company. It was a hearty and delicious soup, and I was able to freeze some for later in the winter.

Dark Days Cooking to make the Dark Days Bright

by Jen Maiser, Editor

It was Wednesday night, the day before Thanksgiving. I looked cute and was having a glass of wine at a hip San Francisco restaurant. And I was being stood up. I was irritated and surprised and resigned. I paid the check and left, determined to take myself out to dinner at my favorite sushi restaurant as revenge for the embarrassment of being stood up for the first time in my life. But as I walked there in my cute red shoes I lost the will, and remembered my budget. So I went home.

Standing in the kitchen starving, I remembered that I had cooked some white alubia beans from Rancho Gordo earlier in the week. At the time, I wasn't sure how I was going to use them, so I just cooked them with garlic and bay leaf and put them in the refrigerator.

I have probably mentioned this enough times to bore you all, but one of my fallback cookbooks is Heidi Swanson's book Super Natural Cooking. Heidi is the goddess behind 101 Cookbooks, and her recipes coax perfect flavors out of whole foods and vegetarian dishes.

One of my favorite recipes from the book is Giant Crusty and Creamy White Beans with Greens, and I make it often. Wednesday, I used dino kale and a delicious sheep cheese from Garden Variety Cheese.

As I made it, I thought a bit about eating local. I know that when you're first starting out eating locally, it can sometimes be a source of stress. I hear from some that they worry about what foods are "allowed" and if they are eating "right."

But I have been eating locally for the better part of six years, and now I do it as a way to relax. Local foods are my comfort foods. It is the easiest thing in the world for me to pull out oil from Stonehouse, garlic from Thomas Family Farm, kale from Dirty Girl, beans from Rancho Gordo and whip up a great meal quickly.

I'm not saying this to brag, rather to encourage. If you stick with eating locally, I guarantee you that it will soon become a great source of nourishment to your belly as well as your soul.

Within an hour of leaving the restaurant, I had my cute shoes off, my sweats on, a gin and tonic poured, and my white beans on my lap and sat down to watch some trashy television. Turns out that there was a miscommunication with the guy, and he had heartily apologized many times over by the end of the evening. But it didn't matter quite so much after my delicious dinner and drink.

Beginning the Dark Days

by Jen Maiser, Editor

Laura McCrae, who writes at (Not So) Urban Hennery has been after me to join the Dark Days Challenge since the first time I met her. It's a wonderful challenge, and this year I agreed to do it. I will be writing my adventures of the challenge here on this blog. I believe 65 bloggers are participating, which is a record for the Dark Days Challenge.

You can read more about the challenge on Laura's blog, but it basically involves cooking, photographing, and blogging about an all local meal once a week between now and March 31. I will be posting my adventures here on the Eat Local Challenge blog.

I start the challenge with a lunch meal that I made this week: Roasted chicken with scalloped potatoes and pickled fennel.

I'm lucky to be able to work at home, and while sometimes it can get a bit lonely, I relish it for the fact that I can juggle kitchen projects at the same time I am working. It's a regular habit to bake bread, set a stew to cook, or tend to a soup with very little interruption in my work.

On Monday, I was craving chicken and decided to make one for lunch. A local farmer friend handed me a frozen chicken a couple weeks ago surreptitiously. "How much do I owe you?" I asked. "Nothing, just let me know how it tastes." I'd been hearing about his chickens for a little while, and was excited to taste one. I wanted to cook it in a way that showed off the chicken-y flavor of the chicken, and decided on my friend Pim's recipe that is in her new book: The Foodie Handbook. It's a simple and elegant recipe that involves rubbing butter on the chicken, putting aromatics in the cavity, and finishing it up with a pan sauce that is made from the drippings. It came out delicious, and I think the recipe will be a good addition to my roast chicken repertoire.

By noon, my kitchen was smelling delicious as the chicken cooked and I heated up the scalloped potatoes. I'd made them from all local ingredients (Little Organic potatoes, San Joaquin Gold cheese, Straus Dairy milk) the day before.

The plate was nearly done -- I didn't have time for a side vegetable so pulled out of the jar of pickled fennel in my fridge. One good thing about eating locally is that you quickly begin to surround yourself with others in your community who are like minded. My friends are constantly trading preserved goods or tasty tidbits made from local ingredients.

A couple weeks ago, I attended a party which involved 12 friends making apple butter from 60 pounds of local apples. It was a blast of an afternoon which involved lots of food, wine and laughter. My friend Spencer hosted the party and brought out several pickles he'd made including a jar of pickled fennel. 

It was a revelation. 

The fennel had stayed fairly crunchy in the jar, and was pleasantly salty without an overwhelming vinegar flavor. Spencer verbally told me the recipe which involved setting the fennel in a brine overnight, pouring it off and adding spices and vinegar before putting in a water bath. If I successfully recreate it, I will let you all know.