Still Enjoying The Goodness of the Garden

Seven years later after beginning this blog I’m still relying on the goodness of the garden to feed myself, my family and friends. In celebration, I’ve decided to revive my blog. Welcome back or welcome for the first time. Whichever category you’re in, this is a place to explore what it’s like to eat from local sources for as much of the year as possible. It’s a pursuit that inspires my creativity while it also encourages healthy eating and hours of rejuvenating garden work.

At this time of year eating seasonally means using the still-growing greens from the garden, staying vigilant to harvest every last tomato and experimenting with our abundance of sweet potatoes and butternut squash. I recently gave a bag of Swiss chard to a friend who wanted to try it. Here’s one of my easiest-to-make recipes that uses chard.

      Swiss chard with caramelized onionsIngredients
1 ½ - 2 onions (depending on how much you like onions!)
1 TBS butter
1 TBS olive oil
1 lb. Swiss chard
½ cup nuts (pine nuts are especially good for this recipe)
¼ cup dried cranberries
salt
balsamic vinegar

1. Slice onions very thinly. Use a mandolin if you like. Melt butter in olive oil in a good-sized skillet. (I like to use a large, cast iron skillet.) Turn the heat to low, add onions. Stir from time-to-time until they are caramelized, approximately 20 minutes. Caramelizing brings out the natural sugars but if you like more sweetness, you can add a little sugar.
2. Toast nuts while onions cook. If you use larger nuts, like walnuts, chop them.
3. Wash then chop the chard. When onions are soft and sweet, add a couple of handfuls of chard at a time. Sprinkle on a little salt and stir until wilted. You can also flick on a little water to help with wilting. Add more chard and repeat until all the chard is wilted and mixed with the onions.
4. Sprinkle on balsamic vinegar. Stir and taste. Add more vinegar to your taste.
5. Top with cranberries and nuts. Serve warm.

You can substitute other greens for the Swiss chard. Whichever you choose, you’ll have a healthy and tasty dish to enjoy one of the gems of the season.

Farm store provides winter treats

For the past month I’ve been adjusting to a new job and a new routine. It gives me less time for cooking but it does put me within a walk of the welcoming Berea College Farm Store. 

Berea College was founded by ardent abolitionists and radical reformers. The school’s motto is: God has made of one blood all peoples of the earth.”

In keeping with its scriptural founding, the school is also committed to environmental sustainability. During this past fall, the school opened a farm store that sells the college’s farm’s raised products as well as other Kentucky Proud goods. So far, I’ve enjoyed the pure maple syrup, ground beef, Valentine chocolates, winter squash, winter greens and cheese. 

Berea will have its first plant sale of the season at the College Gardens and Greenhouse, located on Scaffold Cane Road, on March 15^th. To keep up with all of the local food news, you can sign up for the Farm Store Newsletter. In the meantime, I'm off to the kitchen to enjoy a recipe for wine and mustard sauce from the March issue of Cooking Light magazine.It's going to be wonderful with locally-raised chicken and the roasted carrots, red onions and the butternut squash from the Berea Farm Store.

Our final pumpkin becomes Liberian

Last year, I forgot about a winter squash that was waiting for us to enjoy it and it grew soft, leaving a smelling mess on a side table in the dining room. I learned my lesson. I’ve been keeping closer tabs on this year’s crop. We’ve used all of butternut squash but still had one pumpkin left. I vaguely recalled seeing an easy pumpkin recipe that I wanted to try in Simply in Season. 

As you read the recipe, keep in mind that the kale is my addition. It’s hard for me to eat a meal without something green. I also want to point out that a Mexican friend of mine told me her family cooks pumpkin in a similar way. My guess is that they use different seasonings. I might try it again and add cumin as well as a little salsa.

Liberian Pumpkin

2-3 cups pumpkin or butternut squash chopped into 1-inch pieces
1 chopped onion
hot chili peppers (chopped, hot pepper sauce or red pepper (my addition)

In large saucepan, sauté in 2 TBSP oil until onion is translucent. Cover and cook until pumpkin is cooked, 10 minutes.

Add 1 cup broth of your choosing and cook for 10 minutes.

Brown 1 cup sausage (I mixed mine with ground beef). Add and cook uncovered until liquid is absorbed.

Serve over noodles or your favorite grain. I made barley, which tasted great with this recipe.

By the way, be sure to go to the Simply in Season website where you can order their book or sign up to receive their recipe of the week.

Preserved fruit improves breakfast

I love variety in breakfast choices. I think about that during fruit growing season when I envision the cold darkness of a winter morning, like we’re having these days. So while our raspberries were growing, I froze handfuls in small bags. When we found beautifully ripe plums, I tried to make jelly. The freezing turned out well (hard for it not to). The jelly-making, however, gave me jars of plum syrup and jars of a hard, could’ve-been-jelly-at-one-point, substance. I didn’t get any true plum jelly.

Fear not, plum fans. I have found a couple of good ways to use that jelly to add a little bit of local fruit to breakfast. One is as a syrup for French Toast.  Another is as a sweetener in oatmeal.

This morning, I made steel-cut oats for breakfast. As I neared the end of the cooking cycle, I thought about adding honey to give them a little sweetness. Then I remembered the hard, plum jelly. I spooned out a little bit and added it to the oatmeal. It dissolved into the oats so I added a little more.

Next, I took one of those small bags of raspberries out of the freezer. In hot oatmeal, it doesn’t take long for them to unthaw. I also toasted a few pumpkin seeds to top my breakfast. After eating a healthy bowl of it, I knew it was a success.

My other experiences came last week when I made French Toast, which some of you know from my past postings is a breakfast favorite of mine. To turn the jelly into a thick syrup, I reconstituted it in a warm skillet, adding small amounts of water until it was almost the consistency I sought. I also added raspberries from the freezer into the syrup then topped the treat with lightly toast walnuts and pumpkin seeds.

I’m already wondering what else I can do with that hard jelly because there’s still plenty hanging around on my shelf.