Strawberry Perfection

A perfectly ripe strawberry is a beautiful experience. The moment the red fruit enters the mouth, the sweet, tangy sensations are heavenly.  My english class at College of Alameda had a potluck on Tuesday, and I brought strawberries fresh from the Webster St. farmer's market. People in my class kept asking who brought them and remarking how sweet they were. I couldn't agree more. It seems as though, so far this May, local strawberries have been incredible.

Speaking of strawberries... The strawberry plants in our backyard have been busy turning the sun and rain we've had into delicate little berries.  I say delicate because if there were a strawberry sizing scale, these would be on the petite end of it.

Fava Beans: Past and Present

Fava beans. This name cracks me up. Just say the words "fava beans" five times out loud and see if it doesn't sound funny.  Apparently they are also known as "broad beans," but I've always heard the name "fava beans" used. 

The fava bean is a very old bean.  It's an old world food.  Meaning it originated in Europe/the Middle East. In fact, it fed the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans.  This is a bean that was cultivated and eaten by entire ancient civilizations. It was also the only bean known to the old world before the discovery of the Americas.  Yet today, the fava bean doesn't seem to be all that popular.  I can't even remember when the last time was that I cooked up something with fava beans. 

Enough with the history lessons.  The reason I'm writing about fava beans is because we got some fresh ones in our farm box. I wasn't going to let 'em go to waste so I had to make something out of them. I made a fava bean puree. It's ingredients are simple, fava beans, olive oil, garlic, rosemary, salt and pepper. 

First I took the beans out of the pods.

 Then, I blanched them in a pot of boiling water, just for a bit. When the skins were loosened I took them out and popped them out of the tough skins. 

Next, I put them on the stove with some olive oil, sliced garlic, and a sprig of rosemary from the garden. This is when they started smelling good!

Out of the pot.

When the beans were nice and tender, I took 'em out and mashed them up with two forks (and added a bit more olive oil to make the puree smoother). Season with salt and pepper. 

Final step: Spread on crackers and eat!

Roasted Asparagus and Carrots

One of my favorite farmer's markets has to be the Grand Lake market over in Oakland. It takes place on Saturday's.  The variety of produce is phenomenal. There are tons of booths - you name it, they have it (as long as it's in season of course!) This past Saturday I was lucky enough to make it over. One thing I always like to look for is "different" or "unique" produce. Well this week it was in the form of purple carrots. Kind of strange, but I figured what the heck, they at least look kinda cool... Would they taste as good as their orange counterparts? I got a bunch of the regular ones to compare.    

Well a few days went by and those carrots were still sittin' in the fridge. It also just so happened that we had a bunch of fresh asparagus. This asparagus season I discovered one of the most delicious ways to eat asparagus is simply roasted in the oven. The trick is to peel the skin off the stalks before you roast them. They become incredibly juicy and delicious. With all these carrots and asparagus, why not roast them together? Here's how I did it: 

First off, cut about a half inch from the bottom of the asparagus and cut off all but an inch of the carrot tops (I think they're more fun to eat this way). Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Rinse the vegetables well. Peel the skin from the carrots and the from the asparagus stocks (not near the top where they are pointy). 

The washed and peeled veggies

Toss the carrots and asparagus with olive oil. Use just enough to lightly coat the vegetables (they shouldn't be dripping in oil). Toss with salt to taste. The marjoram in my herb garden has gotten gigantic recently so I chopped up the leaves from two sprigs and tossed it with the vegetables as well.

After being tossed with the oil and salt they're ready to go into the oven

Spread your vegetables on baking sheets and roast until tender. It's ok if the outsides brown a bit. The length of times depends on the thickness of your vegetables. Mine took about 20-25 minutes. If the vegetables are not of the same thickness, have one pan with skinnier ones and one with the larger ones, this way you can remove a pan and they should all be done at the same time.

Hot out of the oven and ready to eat!

Yum. And in case you were wondering, the purple ones were tasty, but the orange carrots were definitely sweeter. 

Backyard Garden Photos

To make up for the utter lack of photos in my last post, I took some photos of my backyard garden. Enjoy!

Chard and Lettuce

Strawberry Plants

Santa Rosa Plum Tree

Our brand new Meyer Lemon Tree

March Meeting Risotto-fest

This time I was able to go to the farmer's market the morning of the meeting for some super fresh produce. I went to a farmer's market which I had never been to, the Old Oakland Friday market. I believe it's from 8am to 2pm and it's right off of Broadway on 9th. It's a rather large market and definitely bigger than the Alameda Tuesday one. It's right near Chinatown, so there were many booths with asian greens which, I have to admit, I have no clue as to what a lot of them were. Some of the other things at the market were; asparagus, citrus (including some very large pomelos), apples, leeks, green garlic, and STRAWBERRIES! Yes, it's official. We are now moving into strawberry season. Of course I had to buy three baskets of organically grown, shiny, stunning red strawberries. I ate a few (yes, they tasted as good as they looked) and saved the rest for the meeting.

On to the meeting! The focus was risotto. I don't mean one type of risotto, we made three different types. Risotto seems like something fancy, or something that we eat in restaurants, and yet, it is incredibly simple to make at home. The basic idea is that you sauté an onion in butter until it is soft and translucent. Then you add the Arborio rice (this is the most commonly available variety for risotto) and cook for about 4 minutes (careful not to let it brown). Then you pour in some dry white wine and cook until the rice has absorbed it all. Next, pour in 1 cup of warm chicken broth and cook at a vigorous simmer, stirring fairly often. When the rice absorbs the broth, simply add more broth by the 1/2 cup until the rice is tender. It takes about 20-30 minutes in all and right when it's just about done you add in a bit more butter (or cream) and Parmesan cheese and stir vigorously to develop the starch.

We spent the first part of the meeting prepping vegetables and herbs for the three different types of risotto. You're probably wondering what the heck these three different types are! We made an Asparagus Lemon risotto, a Leek and Green Garlic Risotto, and a Parsley and Green Pea risotto. We split into three groups, with each group making one type of risotto.

When the risottos were done cooking we sat down to eat. Chester took a vote of which risotto everyone liked best... The Leek and Green Garlic came in first place, the Asparagus Lemon came in a close second, and the poor Parsley and Green Pea risotto came in last. Most people felt this one tasted much too strongly of parsley. I think my favorite was the Asparagus Lemon. It was delicious.

After we finished the risotto it was time for dessert. All three baskets of strawberries had been sliced and we had made whipped cream by hand. I think this is one of the best and easiest ways to enjoy fresh strawberries. Simply a dessert cup of strawberries with a dollop (or mountain if you like) of lightly sweetened whipped cream. Apparently everyone else thought this was a good way to eat strawberries as well, because there was not a single piece of strawberry left over and the bowl was scraped clean!

Now you might have noticed that there are not many pictures in this post and there is not a single one of the food. It is because we didn't take any! You must be thinking, what?!? How did she not take any pictures of all this good food? I confess that I was so caught up in the flurry of cooking that I forgot to take any, and I also forgot to have other people take pictures. I do apologize and I will make sure there are LOTS of picture from next month's meeting. 

Spring Risotto, Potatoes and Herbs

There has been some wonderful asparagus coming into season and with that in mind we are going to make an asparagus and lemon risotto at this month's meeting. If I end up going to the farmer's market tomorrow morning, we might make a second type of risotto as well... Possibly a pea risotto? Or maybe a leek and green garlic risotto? At any rate, we will definitely learn how to make some yummy risotto with some of the lovely spring produce that has been appearing. 

My backyard garden has also been loving the alternating rain and somewhat warm weather we have been having. This means the parsley, marjoram, rosemary, and thyme have all been growing profusely. There's a good chance we will make roasted new potatoes with garlic and herb. At any rate, we will be using lot's of fresh herbs at tomorrow's meeting!

Speaking of backyard (or frontyard) gardens, for quite some time now, there has been a campaign going on to encourage the president to plant a vegetable garden in a part of the White House lawn. This garden would be similar to the victory garden that Eleanor Roosevelt planted during World War II, which inspired millions of Americans to do the same. Well, great news! This past week Michelle Obama and a group of schoolchildren from a Washington D.C. school, broke ground on the new White House kitchen garden! I even heard that they plan on having a White House beehive! How cool is that?

 At tomorrow's meeting we will discuss why growing your own food (even in the tiniest of gardens) is good for the environment, saving money, eating healthily and having delicious produce at your fingertips! 

Here's a neat video about the campaign for the White House vegetable garden:

Blue Potatoes

I got into a cooking frenzy last night and one of the things I made was these Peruvian Blue Potatoes. I roasted them with whole garlic cloves, thyme, rosemary, salt, pepper, and olive oil. Oh my god they were good!

February Meeting

This month's meeting grew by two people. There were eight of us total. Quite a few budding young chefs in one kitchen! It makes me wish my house had a larger kitchen. But that definitely won't be happening anytime soon.

The meeting started off with a discussion. I posed the question, "What is sustainable food?" There were many good answers. Someone chimed in and said, "It's food that sustains you," yes... but not quite what I had in mind. We got to talking about how sustainable food is raised in a manner that is healthy for the environment, for people, treats animals humanely, and provides a fair wage to the workers and farmers.

Vivi brought up how she'd seen a documentary about the food industry, including genetically modified crops and the not-so-wonderful corporation Monsanto. I, too, had seen this documentary a few years ago. It's called "The Future of Food," very interesting and definitely a worthwhile watch.

Chester bemoaned the fact that we would not be cooking any meat. He mentioned how his family has six chickens in their freezer that they had raised and killed themselves (that's the type of local and sustainable I'm talking about!) I promise that in the future we will do a meeting that focuses on learning about factory farms, industrialization of meat, and how to eat meat in a way that is healthier for the environment and the people eating it. Of course we'll also cook it! (Here's one type of meat that I do like.)

Once we began cooking, everything was a little chaotic. The vinaigrette was made first. The kumquats were sliced and seeded (a rather tedious job). There was lot's of washing vegetables, cutting, slicing, zesting, peeling, and mixing.

Vinaigrette, chopped mint, fennel greens, blood and navel oranges, olives, and fennel

On to the gruyère soufflé. As Deborah Madison put it, "Few dishes are as dramatic as a soufflé. The whole dish swells like an enormous inhalation -- then, within moments of serving, collapses." Everyone was eager to help make the soufflé. First the eggs were separated and the cheese grated. The milk was heated with the aromatics (bay leaf, thyme, onion slices). The roux was made (flour cooked in butter) and once the milk steeped to absorb the flavors of the aromatics it was added to the roux to make a béchamel (basic white sauce). In went some salt, pepper, cayenne, nutmeg and fresh thyme. The heat was turned off. The bright yellow egg yolks were added and then the gruyère. The egg whites were beaten (by hand!) until they became light and fluffy, forming firm peaks. The egg whites were carefully folded into the egg yolk mixture and poured into the prepared pan. It was time for the heat of the oven to work its magic.

Into the oven

Out of the oven!

While all this was going on, the kumquats were poaching in a syrup of sugar, water and a whole vanilla bean. The aroma was incredibly enticing.

While the soufflé baked, the salad was tossed. Everything in it was locally grown.

Salad Ingredients:

• 2 blood oranges
• 1 navel orange
• 1 head butter lettuce
• 2 tablespoons chopped fennel greens
• 10 small mint leaves
• 1 small fennel bulb
• 12 oil-cured black olives
  

Everyone did an amazing job with the soufflé. When it came out of the oven it was golden brown, high and mighty, and all puffed up like a king. We all sat down at the table to eat. The soufflé was a big hit, and there wasn't even a crumb left over (we probably could have eaten two soufflés). Everyone ate the salad -- fennel, oranges and all (who says kids/teens don't have sophisticated tastes!) The kumquats came out yummy as well. Unfortunately I forgot to plan something to eat them over, oops.