Tennessee Locavore

Facing the cruelty behind my cooking

The Clinch River is one of my favorite places in Tennessee. Sure - It's a creation of TVA and that in itself is a strike against it. But it's such a beautiful place that I find even that can't diminish my love for it.

TVA or the Tennessee Valley Authority has a very mixed heritage in our area. During the 1930s, the Tennessee Valley was a very poor area, even by Depression Era standards. TVA projects displaced over 15,000 people, covering over towns, native burial grounds and land that had been in families for years. On the other hand, TVA provided jobs to an area that was surrounded by poverty. Marcus's grandfather was an electrician at Norris Dam and a few other TVA projects. TVA reduced the devastating floods in this area but they also destroyed pristine areas when they built projects like the Tellico Dam. The creation of the Tellico Dam ruined one on of the best trout fisheries in the area when they dammed the Little Tennessee, and land that TVA acquired through eminent domain at a very low cost is now being sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars per acre to developers.

No matter what my feelings towards TVA are, Norris Lake is here to stay. The Clinch River starts in Southwest Virgina, near Tazwell. The Clinch and Powell River meet up at Norris Lake, formed when Norris Dam was built in 1936. Norris Dam is the first dam built by TVA and at the time was constructed in a modernist style - considered quite advanced and controversial at the time. It really is an impressive sight, especially at dusk.

Because the dam is 285 feet high, it impounds a large quantity of very cold water. This cold water is the perfect temperature for trout. In the 80s, TVA constructed a weir dam that speeds the river back up about two miles from the dam - this adds oxygen to the water and makes it even more habitable for trout.

On a hot summer's night, not many things are more refreshing then walking alongside the tailwaters. Not only is it beautiful but the rushing, cold water kicks up a cool breeze, even on a hot night. During the summer, there's usually fog that begins to form as sunset approaches.

Norris State Park, Cove Creek Wildlife Management Area and Chuck Swan State Forest all preserve areas around the lake. We've seen groundhogs, hawks, osprey, deer, skunks and foxes around here. 

On Friday, Marcus and I went blueberry picking at a farm nearby and stopped by the river so Marcus could fish for a bit. It was one of those days when the fishing alchemy was perfect and in the hour we were there, Marcus quickly caught several brown trout. Two were too small to keep and one was too big so they were quickly let go. Marcus asked me if we should keep the other ones to eat and I told him he could make that decision. It was a cop-out. If he decided to keep them, I wasn't responsible for their death. But even doing that made me feel bad - I could have asked him to let them go and he would have.

I'm a bit of a hypocrite when it comes to facing the cruelty of my cooking head on. Sure, we buy the majority of our meat from local, humane producers and we eat a lot less meat than the average consumer. But I don't feel guilty when I eat that meat. I don't feel like I personally caused that animal to die and it's because I'm so insulated from the process.

I think there's a lot of truth to the saying that if slaughterhouses all had glass walls, we'd be vegetarians. Most of us have insulated ourselves from the cruelty of our choices. We buy pork or beef at our grocery store, sanitized and packed in a neat little package. We don't have to see the horrific conditions those animals were raised under. We don't even have the courage to call it by it's animal name - cow meat or pig meat.

I've had people throw a fit when Marcus has mentioned that he sometimes hunts and fishes quite a bit. These people stand there in their leather shoes, holding a burger from McDonalds and tell us that hunting is cruel and have no idea of the irony of their statements. We've created a world where we don't have to see the consequences of our actions, at least when it comes to the meal on the kitchen table.

There's no getting away from the fact that creatures on this planet will die to produce the food that keeps you alive. You can be a vegan and animals will still have died to produce your food. Even humans will be harmed and possibly die to produce the food you eat. All kinds of animals die during the harvesting process. Merely using the land for the growing of food, rather than animal habitat, causes death. If you don't eat organic produce, farm workers will contract cancer because of the chemicals that are used in the farming of your food. Even if you eat organic foods, farm workers in foreign country will go hungry when the organic peaches they grow to provide for their families are turned down for not being up to standard. Even if you buy local, organic produce, you're still not blameless. An organic farmer I know lost 600 tomato plants in one night to deer. His losses were so great that he had to get a depredation permit in order to get any kind of harvest at all and to control his losses for next year.

I grow a lot of our produce in my suburban garden. Every year we fight off the birds and possums so we can harvest our tomatoes. They don't usually take enough to cause severe losses but I know the frustration of going out to the garden and finding nibbles and pecks in almost all of the not-quite-ripe tomatoes. A few weeks ago, we had a difficult choice to make. The biggest groundhog I had ever seen was in our back yard. They may be cute animals but anyone who's gardened knows that devastation they can cause in a garden in a single night. It disappeared, never to be seen again but what would we have done if it had decided to make its home nearby?

We need to strip off the marketing gloss of our dining choices and come face to face with the cruelty that comes as a result of our choices. That doesn't mean we need to go out and shoot a deer or kill a chicken ourselves, although I greatly admire people who are willing to do that. It does mean that we need to be aware that our food comes with a cost. We need to treat our food with the reverence that it deserves - we need to use it wisely. We need to appreciate the farmers that grew it and the lives that were lost in the production of it.

This life can be an amazing gift - full of beauty and wonder. But none of us can escape the fact that it can be cruel as well. In the gorgeous surroundings of the Clinch River valley, I was responsible for the death of three living creatures. The best thing I could do is to be grateful for the loss of those lives so that I could live.

Trout with Brown Butter-Caper Sauce

1/4 teaspoon olive oil
2 trout fillets - about 4 oz each
Salt and Pepper
2 tablespoons shallots (We used Egyptian Walking Onions from our garden)
1 heaping tablespoon of drained capers
1/2 teaspoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon butter

First off, if you caught your own fish, you need to clean them and fillet them. 

Chop your shallots and get your capers and lemon ready. Add oil to a non-stick skillet and put over medium heat. Heat for 2 minutes. Salt and pepper both sides of fillets and add to pan. 

When the edges of the fillet start to turn white, flip. This will take 1 to 1 1/2 minutes. After flipping, cook for another 1 1/2 or until fish flakes easily with a fork. 

Remove fillets from pan, put on a plate and tent with foil to keep warm.

Add butter to skillet. Watch carefully because in a non-stick skillet it's hard to see when it begins to brown. It usually takes about 2 to 2 1/2 minutes for us. 

When it's beginning to turn brown, add shallots and sautee for two minutes until they begin to soften.

Then add lemon juice and capers, cook for another minute.  

Pour sauce over fish and serve.

For a printable recipe, click here!

This meal is part of my One Local Summer meal for this week.  Admittedly, capers aren't local but I'm hoping that next year, I'll have pickled nasturtium buds to use as a substitute.  The butter was made from Cruze Farm milk and we used some of the caper juice to sub in for the lemon.  Instead of shallots, we used Egyptian Walking Onions from our garden.  We served this fish with roasted Dragon Langerie, Masai and Purple Trionfo Violetto beans from our garden.  Dessert was a blueberry cornmeal cake made with local blueberries and local cornmeal.

One Local Summer - Week Ten

The idea of eating locally being difficult this time of year makes me laugh, especially when I would really have to work to eat a mainly non-local diet.  It's been pretty hot here so most of our meals have been of the non-cooked variety - like salads or sandwiches.  We've had a lot of watermelon and feta salads, scads of BLTs, and I made mayonnaise with local eggs that was so good we made a meal of steamed vegetables just dipped in it.  If you had ever told me that I would enjoy a meal that consisted mainly of mayo, I probably would have laughed at you.  But homemade mayonnaise with a little garlic added is heaven.

When I do cook, I try to cook something that will last us for several meals.  This week, I made a huge pork roast with meat from River Ridge Farms.  I served it with tortillas made with homemade lard rendered from local pork fat and two types of salsa - both from my garden.  We have a bumper crop of tomatillos this year so I made a roasted tomatillo salsa with local onions and garlic and added hot peppers and cilantro from our garden.  The other salsa was a grilled tomato salsa with a bunch of heirloom tomatoes from our garden. 

The only thing I haven't been able to escape from is canning.  Nothing heats up an un-air conditioned kitchen quicker than canning.  I don't really have a choice though because this is the time of year that everything is ripe.  I made several pints of plum jam and took some frozen sour cherries and made black forest jam and cherry chutney.  I made a deal with a local farmer and he gives me his "ugly" tomatoes and I can them and give him half.  Cracked tomatoes won't keep so yesterday I spent several hours canning them in a 91 degree kitchen.  I also got my hands of some elderberries and made some gorgeous elderberry jelly.

I'm not going to lie.  There are times I wonder why the hell I do this stuff?  When I'm standing over a boiling water canner, it seems so much easier to just buy canned tomatoes or jam. But come winter, there is such a feeling of satisfaction in knowing exactly where my food is coming from.  I also like remembering the farmers I bought from in the summer during a time when it seems like winter will never end. Those little jars remind me that summer abundance will come again, no matter how dark or dreary the days seem.

One Local Summer - Week Nine

This week has been a very hectic week so I'm going to just give a quick re-cap now and post recipes later this week.

We've eaten tons of tomato salads.  Red peppers are finally getting ripe and we've been stuffing ourselves with them.  We've had a painful experience(because of our own stupidity) with peppers from our garden that have been dubbed the Russian Roulette pepper.  Every morning begins with local eggs and local peaches.  And we were able to do one of our favorite summer meals with almost all local ingredients.  The only non-local ingredients were the flour for the cornbread and some salt.

Here's our official local meal for this week:
Shelly beans sauteed with local bacon, onions, garlic and simmered in local chicken broth.
Sauteed collard greens flavored with local bacon, local hot peppers and local sweet red peppers
Cornbread made with local buttermilk, local cornmeal, local butter and local lard and cracklins.

One Local Summer - Week 8

I don't think we've had a meal this week that hasn't included some kind of local produce.  When the bulk of your grocery bill is spent at the farmer's market, it's difficult to get too esoteric with your cooking.  Sure, I made muhammara that included pomegranate molasses.  But that same dish contained leftover bread from a local baker, roasted peppers from my garden and tomato paste canned last year.  However, I think my favorite meals this week have been the two or three where the majority of the ingredients traveled less than 50 feet.

Salt boiled new potatoes dressed with a little butter made from Cruze farm milk.  Nothing tastes better than the sweet mealiness of new potatoes that 20 minutes earlier were lurking in the dirt of your garden bed.  Sliced Burgundy Traveler tomatoes dressed with a little red wine vinegar and olive oil glisten on the plate.  And I've recently discovered a new passion - roasted green beans.  I type that with some trepidation because I don't want anyone to think that I'm a freaky health nut that would turn down peach cobbler to nibble on some kale.  However, I think I could eat my weight in roasted green beans.  The olive oil caramelizes them and turns them into a crispy snack food with the slightest hint of vegetable flavor.  I would eat these as a snack, at 2am in the morning when I was drunk and have lost whatever compunction I might have about gorging on high calorie snack chips.  That's how much I like them.  Peach Brown Butter Bars have become a favorite new discovery and I've made them several times.  But my favorite meals are simple meals like we had last night.  Eating local is a wonderful thing. Eating out of your back yard?  Even better.

Really Inauthentic Okonomiyaki

When you've spent several hours in the garden in ninety degree weather, the last thing you're going to worry about is whether or not the recipe you're making is "true" to a particular cuisine.  You want something quick to make, something that uses up a decent amount of produce, something reasonably healthy and something that tastes great.

Heidi Swanson's Japanese Pizza recipe fits the bill perfectly.  No - it's not a traditional recipe for okonomiyaki but it's quick and really tasty.  It's also perfect for using up odds and ends of vegetables from the garden.  I've subbed in kohlrabi, turnip, beets and zucchini and it's all been tasty.  We've gotten in the habit of eating this at least once a week and we've yet to get tired of it.

Japanese Pizza (Inspired by 101Cookbooks recipe)

Serves 1-2

2 cups shredded vegetables, (I used 1 3/4 cup cabbage and 1/4 cup grated carrot)

1 cup leeks, chopped (wash these suckers well)

2 cloves garlic, minced

2/3 cup white whole wheat flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon tamari

2 eggs, beaten

1 tablespoon olive oil

Dipping Sauce - mix together:

1 tablespoon siracha (this makes a very spice sauce so add to taste)

2 tablespoons mayonnaise

 

Combine the vegetables in a bowl. Toss the vegetables with the flour until they're all covered with a dusting of flour.  Add salt and tamari to the egg and stir the egg mixture into the vegetables.  Mix until everything is evenly coated.  

Heat a nonstick skillet over medium heat and add olive oil.  Spoon the cabbage mixture into the pan and using a spatula, press it into a round pancake shape, making it as flat as you can.  Cook 5 to 7 minutes - you want it to turn a nice brown color.  To flip, slide out onto a plate.  Put another plate on top of that plate and flip over.  Add a little more oil to pan, let heat for 20-30 seconds and slide the pancake back into the skillet.  Let cook another 5-7 minutes.  Cut into wedges and serve hot with dipping sauce.

The only non-local ingredients in the above meal is the tamari, the siracha, the flour and olive oil.  The mayo was actually made with olive oil and local eggs.  This week has once again been full of local eating.  Last night, we had a group of friends over and we all shared pizza made with local tomatoes and vegetables, heirloom tomato salad and brown sugar peach ice cream made with local milk and eggs and local peaches.  Breakfasts are usually local eggs made some way and a bowl of local fruit, usually peaches.  Lunches are either leftovers or salads made from leftover bread, tomatoes and whatever local produce needs to be used.  To be honest, I can't imagine not using local ingredients this time of year.  Not only do you get to support your neighbors, but it's just good food. 

Summer in a bowl

 You know it's summer when you've done both of the following things.  The first is picking a tomato off the vine and biting into it while the juice runs down your arm and drips off your elbow.  The second is having to go get the floss after dinner because you've got bits of corn from corn on the cob stuck between your teeth.  Only then are you in the full flow of summer!

Sweet corn is an ephemeral thing.  Of course you can get it only in summer, but good sweet corn is still somewhat difficult to find.  If you grow it yourself, you can quickly find out how fast raccoons and groundhogs can find it.  If you buy it from a farmer, it often isn't the best it can be.  Good old fashioned sweet corn is best cooked this way.  One - start a pot of water boiling.  Two - pick the corn and eat.  When you're dealing with sweet corn brought to market, you can't do that so you need to go by taste.  A lot of times the corn will either be super sweet but rather insipid without a lot of good corn taste.  This is the result of newer varieties of corn that have been developed to appeal to our country's infatuation with sugar.  I like my corn sweet but I also want it to taste like corn.  Or if the farmer's grown a really old fashioned variety, it sometimes isn't sweet enough.  Whenever I hit the farmer's market, I buy an ear and walk around the corner from the farmer, open that husk up and try it out.  If it's got a good corn taste and it's sweet, I go back and buy a couple of dozen of ears.  As soon as I get home, I start a pot of water boiling or fire up the grill.  Cooked corn will hold beautifully in the fridge for several days and you can actually freeze cooked corn on the cob and you'd be surprised at how fresh it tastes a few months later.  

Tonight, I wanted to make a corn chowder that focused on the corn but also had a little smokiness and body to it.  I love Sungold cherry tomatoes in this soup because they are so sweet and tropical tasting.  This is an easy soup to mess around with.  I think it would be great with basil added and grilled corn would be fantastic in it, especially if you served it with toast topped with smoked mozzarella. 

Summer in a Bowl Sweet Corn Chowder:

6 ears steamed corn on the cob

3 strips bacon (cook another strip or two if you're like me and sneak bits out while cooking)

1 large onion, diced into 1/4 inch pieces

2 medium potatoes, peeled and sliced into 1/4 inch cubes

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon pepper

10-12 SunGold or SunSugar cherry tomatoes, quartered (you can use other tomatoes, stick with the sweeter, golden kinds)

1 cup whole milk

Cut each corncob in half cross-ways and stand each half on the flat end and using a knife, cut the corn away from the cob.  I usually run the blunt end of the knife down the cob to get as much of the juices and corn out as possible.  Save all of this in a bowl and put the corncobs in a 1.5 quart pot and fill with cold water.  Bring to a boil and let boil for 2-3 minutes.  Reduce the heat and simmer while you prepare the rest of the soup.  

Cut the bacon into small pieces and cook over medium heat in a non-stick skillet.  After the bacon begins to brown a bit and some of the fat is rendered, add the potato and onion.  Sprinkle with salt and pepper.  Cook for about seven minutes, until the onion begins to soften a bit.

Strain the water the corncobs have been cooking in into a larger saucepan.  Add the onions, bacon and potatoes to this liquid.  Bring to a boil and the reduce the heat so the soup is simmering.  Cook for about 15 minutes until the potatoes are tender.

Add tomatoes to soup and cook for two minutes.  Add milk and corn to soup and heat through.  Taste and add salt to your liking.  Serve.

This was my official One Local Summer meal for this week.  Everything except for the salt and pepper was local.  We've had a lot of local meals this week.  The blackberries and the peaches are in full swing around here and the first, really good heirloom tomatoes are getting ripe.  We've been grilling out a lot and whenever we do that, we grill extra summer squash for meals later in the week.  We made another pizza with homemade sourdough and topped it with leftover grilled zucchini, homemade mozzarella and basil from the garden.  We made an americanized version of Okonomiyaki which quickly used up a head of local cabbage and local leeks that were getting a little old. And we've made several local meals of homemade bread, tomatoes and basil from the backyard and homemade mozzarella made from local milk.  Local eating is anything but a hardship this time of year.

There is nothing...I repeat, nothing more awesome than Neil Diamond.

My love for Neil Diamond knows no bounds.  In my younger, much cooler days, I used to be horrified by the musical selections of my father.  He had a deep and abiding love for Irish folk music and James Taylor.  And Dad - seriously, could you turn down the Carly Simon?!!  Now that I fully embrace my dorkdom, I'm free to love whatever music entertains me.  Which is why Neil Diamond's "America" will always have a place on my July 4th playlist, along with The Bruce's "Born in the USA" and 2 Live Crew's "Banned in the USA".

Unlike the merry band of corporate shills at The Center For "Consumer Freedom", I celebrated my freedom by eating my way through a day where as many foods as possible were produced by local food producers.  We kicked off the day by heading to our local farmer's market where we stuffed ourselves with locally produced baked goods.  I even convinced myself that the carrot cake I had for breakfast had to be healthy because it lacked cream cheese icing.  

For lunch, we had leftovers from the day before - grilled local lamb and onions, flatbread made with my sourdough and tomato salad made from tomatoes and herbs in our back yard.

For a snack, we had grilled local corn.  It was the first corn of the season.  I think the splotches on the porch floor made by butter dripping off our elbows might wear off by summer's end.

We managed to make it to about 3pm before imbibing any booze and when I got a taste of the Basil Peach White Wine Sangria made with local peaches, I wish we had started drinking earlier.  The basil we picked from our garden made this drink - it kept it from being too sweet and cloying.

For a late dinner, we made our traditional 4th meal - smoked turkey legs.  For some medieval reason, I really love turkey legs.  They really bring out the T-Rex in me.  We served it with homemade baked beans made with local honey, local tomato sauce, frozen local shelley beans and local bacon.  We served it with one of the best potato salads I've ever had(made with local potatoes and herbs from our garden of course!).  

I don't hate potato salad but the majority of them are too heavy for me and I always feel like the potatoes in those salads are just the excuse for mainlining as much mayonnaise as possible.  Smitten Kitchen's Horseradish Potato Salad is just what I've been looking for.   The focus is on the potatoes but the sour cream dressing makes this dish sing.  I've always been a fan of the sinus tingling properties of horseradish and when you combine it with the chives, dill and onion in this dish, well - I'm just glad no one but my husband saw me scraping the plate with my finger.

Horseradish Potato Salad (adapted from Smitten Kitchen)

3 pounds small (2-inch) potatoes
1/4 cup red onion, chopped
1 tablespoon white-wine vinegar
1 cup sour cream
2 tablespoons fresh dill, finely chopped
1/4 cup chopped fresh chives
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
3 tablespoons prepared horseradish
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper

Boil potatoes until they're fork tender.  Cool them room temperature and quarter. Mix remaining ingredients and fold the potatoes into this mixture.

After we finished eating, we waddled upstairs onto our upper porch where we had one of the best views in Knoxville of the downtown fireworks.  There are times where I wonder why we bought this ramshackle old house but every time we get to relax, away from crowds and get such a great view of the fireworks, my faith in our decision is restored.

I hope you all had a great 4th and you all got down with your bad old selves!  Let Freedom (and 2 Live Crew) Reign!

One Local Summer - Week Four

This week has been full of OLS meals!  On Monday, I made a delicious frittata with local eggs, ham, zucchini, potatoes and onions.  In fact, even the mozzarella we subbed in for the cheddar was local because we made it from Cruze Farm milk!  Tuesday, we made tortillas using local lard and filled them with local chicken and onions.  Only the cheese wasn't local.  We served them with homemade salsa made from local ingredients.  Wednesday was tomato toast made with homemade bread, local garlic and tomatoes from our back yard.  On Thursday, we made one of my favorite grilled meals, Vietnamese Chicken, made with local chicken and grilled local zucchini and onions.  We finished the night off with a cherry crisp made from frozen local cherries. We made a simple pasta sauce out of local zucchini, tomatoes and garlic on Friday and served that with a grated beet salad made from beets from our friends' yard.  On Saturday, we started the day off with local raspberries, blueberries and blackberries and had that with a scone from VG's Bakery.  We had a wonderful sandwich for dinner made with our homemade local milk mozzarella, leftover grilled zucchini and onions, homemade basil mayo and ciabatta rolls from VG's bakery.

However, today was our "official" OLS meal and everything we ate today was local, except for some feta cheese and flour.  We started the morning out with local eggs scrambled with feta and local garlic scapes.  For lunch we had local beet greens and swiss chard sauteed with local bacon and served that with steamed local new potatoes with local butter and dill.  Tonight for dinner, we had a pizza with local potatoes and leeks and local goat cheese.  I even made a sourdough crust so we didn't have to use yeast in our pizza crust!  For dessert, we had homemade peach granita we made from local peaches.  I had wanted to make sorbet but all the recipes I found contained lemon juice.  Instead, we made peach granita from David Lebovitz's book, Perfect Scoop. I do have an ice cream maker but the beauty of this dish is that you don't need one to make this.  I had never had granita and I had visions of it being an icy mess.  I'm an idiot because this is good stuff.  I love that it doesn't have a lot of sugar and it was perfect for the 93 degree day we had today.

Peach Granita:

6 ripe peaches, peeled
1 1/3 cup water
1/2 cup sugar

Slice peaches and cut into small chunks.  Cook with 1 cup water in a medium saucepan over medium heat.  Cook until cooked through which is about ten minutes.  Remove from heat and stir in sugar and let cool.  When cool, place in blender with remaining 1/3 cup water and blend until smooth.  

Pour the mixture into a shallow non-reactive pan in the freezer. Check after 30 minutes. As the mixture begins to freeze, use a fork to scrape the frozen puree that froze around the edges into the center. Return to freezer.

Check every 30 minutes, scraping each time.  David says it usually takes 2 hours but when we went to bed last night, it still wasn't frozen enough and it had been 3.5 hours.  So we some for breakfast!  If it gets too hard, just leave it out for a bit.

Zucchini-Potato Frittata

I am in love with this dish!  I've had frittatas before and I haven't been too fond of them.  The eggs have always seemed tough and it just wasn't something that I found myself craving.  Yet, frittatas are one of the easiest ways to use up vegetable odds and ends.  And I have had a tortilla that was really good when I was up in Milwaukee a couple of summers ago.  So it's turned into a bit of a quest - I was going to find a frittata recipe I liked if it killed me.  Luckily, I haven't been killed by untasty egg-based dishes - instead, I found this recipe and on a whim, I tried it.  It's everything I hoped a frittata could be.  It's fairly easy.  It retains the creaminess of the eggs and relies heavily on the vegetables in it to bulk up the recipe.  Plus cold leftovers of this are amazing!  

Zucchini-Potato Frittata
serves 4-6
Recipe reprinted from Andrea Chesman's Serving Up the Harvest with permission from Storey Publishing

1 medium zucchini or yellow summer squash, sliced
Salt
4-5 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, or more as needed
1 1/2 pounds waxy potatoes, thinly sliced
1 large onion, halved and thinly sliced
1/4 pound smoked Canadian bacon or ham, diced
6 eggs
Freshly ground black pepper
1 cup grated Cheddar

1. Combine the zucchini and 1 teaspoon salt in a colander and toss well. Set aside to drain for 30 minutes.

2. Heat 3 tablespoons of the oil over medium-high heat in a large, well-seasoned cast-iron skillet or ovenproof nonstick skillet. Add the potatoes and onion, reduce the heat to medium-low, and cook, flipping and stirring occasionally, until the potatoes are soft, about 20 minutes. Increase the heat to medium-high and continue cooking, tossing occasionally, until the potatoes are are brown, about 5 minutes. Remove the potatoes with a slotted spoon but keep the skillet on the burner.

3. Transfer the zucchini to a clean kitchen towel and pat dry. Add the zucchini and Canadian bacon to the skillet and sauté over medium-high heat, until the zucchini is just tender, about 4 minutes. Remove the zucchini and Canadian bacon with a slotted spoon. Keep the skillet over the heat.

4. Beat the eggs and pepper to taste in a medium bowl until well blended. Fold in the potatoes, zucchini and Canadian bacon, and cheese.

5. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Add 1 to 2 tablespoons of the remaining oil to the skillet as needed to lightly coat the bottom. Pour in the egg mixture, reduce the heat to medium-low, and cook without stirring until the bottom is set, about 10 minutes.

6. Transfer the skillet to the oven and bake until the top is set, 5 to 15 minutes, checking every 5 minutes.

7. Place a serving plate on top of the skillet and carefully invert. The frittata should fall out of the pan. Cut into wedges and serve.

Sorry about the bad pictures - they should be improving soon.  Marcus has started taking most of them with the macro feature on my camera and we're shooting them outside on our porch so we can get at much natural light as possible.  This picture should be the last awful one!

Roasting every vegetable in sight!

I have become a convert to roasted vegetables.  I always knew they were good but I mainly stuck with root vegetables.  I had no idea what I was missing out on.  I tried roasted carrots and broccoli last year and they were so good, I've been tempted to try more.  Roasted asparagus was delicious this spring.  I had a whole mess of fresh snap beans from the farmer's market and while I wanted to enjoy them without a lot of adornments, I didn't want to just steam them.  So I tried roasting them.  These are fantastic.  

Roasted Green Beans

1/2 tablespoon olive oil

1 pound green beans

Cook at 450 for 15 minutes until they're as brown on the undersides as you'd like them to be.

I served these with salt boiled new potatoes.  I'd post a picture but all my pictures came out with the potatoes looking like olives!

One Local Summer - Week Three

We have been roasting here in East Tennessee.  It's been over 90 degrees the past few days with high humidity.  Combine that with a kitchen that has no air conditioning (or walls, cabinets and ceiling but that's a story for another day!) and cooking is the last thing you want to do.  We've been grilling out a lot and doubling up recipes so we have lots of leftovers.  Later this week I'll post recipes for roasted green beans and an amazing recipe for a potato, squash and ham frittata.  I thought I didn't like frittatas but luckily, I was wrong.  My favorite recipe this week comes from one of my fail safe cookbooks,A Year in a Vegetarian Kitchen by Jack Bishop.  It was very easy to make and it was delicious hot and cold.  It's also deceptively filling.  The only non-local ingredient was the lime juice and the ginger, which although it wasn't local, was still reasonably close - it's from Alabama.  This soup served with grilled chicken thighs from Laurel Creek Farms was my "official" One Local Summer meal.  We finished it off with a peach cobbler that was completely local except for the flour. We sweetened it with local honey and homemade butter from local cream.  The ice cream was made with local honey and local milk and cream.

Chilled Curried Yellow Squash Soup with Cilantro-Lime Puree

5 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 1/2 pounds yellow summer squash, chopped (about 5 small squash)
1 medium onion, chopped
1 tablespoon minced ginger root
3 medium cloves garlic, minced
2 teaspoons curry powder
6 cups vegetable broth
1 medium russet potato (about 8 ounces), peeled and diced
Salt
1/2 cup packed fresh cilantro leaves
1 tablespoon fresh lime juice

Heat 2 T oil in a Dutch oven over medium heat until shimmering.  Add the squash and onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until golden brown, about 8 to 10 minutes.  Stir in the ginger, garlic, and curry powder and cook just until fragrant, about one minute.  Add the broth, potato, and salt to taste and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer until the potato is very tender, about 25 minutes.  Cool slightly, purée the soup in batches until very smooth.  Adjust the seasonings.  Transfer to an airtight container and chill thoroughly.  When ready to serve, purée the cilantro, lime juice, and remaining 3 T oil in a blender until smooth.  Salt to taste.  Taste the chilled soup and adjust seasonings as necessary.  Ladle soup into small bowls.  Drizzle some cilantro purée over each bowl and serve.  Serves six to eight.

One Local Summer - week two

I don't usually comment too much on political issues or current events (unless it's food or farming policy).  It just seems so surreal to me to be sitting here on my couch composing my One Local Summer post while in Iran, people are risking and/or losing their lives to gain a modicum of the freedoms that many Americans take for granted every day.  If you're interested in following the events there, here are the best three sites I've found besides Twitter.

Andrew Sullivan
Huffington Post's Live Blog
National Iranian American Council

This week has been a week of easy local eating.  Lots of salads still and the first summer squash of the season have arrived at the farmer's market.  I still have tons of swiss chard left that my parent's gave me and it was starting to look a little bedraggled.  I cut the leaves off the roots and washed them in my OXO Salad Spinner.  I'm not big on kitchen gadgets but this is one of the best purchases we've made.  It makes cleaning greens so much easier.  That perked them up enough to keep through the weekend.  I've made this quiche recipe before so I just subbed in chard for the spinach.  I also made a wonderful swiss chard and artichoke dip for a party last night.  I'll be posting that later this week.  Another winner was the Potato LeeK Soup we made earlier this week. 

Tonight I made a recipe from Italian Vegetarian Cookbook by Jack Bishop.  I have several of his cookbooks and they really can't be beat for simple, wonderful meals.  I made Polenta with Garlicky Greens but I had to make a few substitutions.  I'm out of spinach from the garden and it seemed silly to buy some at the market when I had so much chard and other vegetables to use up.  I had some broccoli left over from last week so I used that in place of the spinach.  I diced it pretty finely.  I also used the chard stems.  I added both of these to the pan after the garlic and cooked them a bit before I added the chard leaves.  Everything (even the cornmeal) was local except for the olive oil and salt.  Now dessert was not even remotely local but when you have leftover chocolate birthday cake, that's really not the time to be zealot. 

Polenta with Garlicky Greens
Servings: 4 to 6

Ingredients:
2 cups cornmeal
Salt and pepper
1 ½ lb. chard
1 ½ lb. spinach
¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
2 medium onions, thinly sliced
6 garlic cloves, slivered
2 tbsp unsalted butter

Directions:
To prepare Polenta: Pour 8 cups of water into a saucepan and bring to boil. Add 2 tsp of salt and lower the heat to medium. Whisk in the cornmeal in a slow, steady stream. This should take almost 1 min. Make sure to whisk the cornmeal continuously to prevent lumps from forming. Continue whisking as the cornmeal comes back to a boil. Simmer, whisking constantly, until the polenta starts to thicken, 1 to 2 mins. Reduce the heat until the polenta is at the barest simmer. Cover the pot and cook very slowly, stirring with a wooden spoon every 10 mins or so, until the cornmeal loses its raw flavor, 35-40 mins.

To prepare the Greens: While the polenta is cooking, remove and discard the stems from the chard and spinach. Tear leaves into small pieces. Wash the leaves in a large bowl of cold water to get rid of any dirt. Shake the leaves to remove excess water, but do not dry them. Set aside.

Heat the oil in a large saucepan. Add the onions and saute over medium heat until translucent, 5 mins. Stir in the garlic and cook until golden, about 2 mins. Add the greens to the pain. Stir to coat the leaves with oil. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Cover and cook, stirring 2 or 3 times, until the greens are tender, 5-7 mins. Remove the cover and simmer until some of the liquid evaporates, 2-3 mins. The greens should be moist, but not swimming in liquid. When the polenta has finished cooking, stir in the butter and add more salt if needed.

Potato Leek Soup

We were tired and out of leftovers for dinner.  After searching the fridge and checking out the recipe folder on my computer, we came up with this recipe.  It was really easy to make and very tasty. 

Potato Leek Soup

3-4 medium potatoes 
3 cups chicken or vegetable broth
4 small leeks
1 tablespoon butter (You really can use whatever amount of butter you want to use here - especially if you use a nonstick pan)
Milk - I ended up using just a half cup
Salt and pepper

Dice potatoes.  I left the skin on since the soup is pureed.  Simmer in broth for 25 minutes - you want them to be tender.  Meanwhile, clean leeks.  Chop leeks using only white and pale green parts of the stalk.  Make sure to save the tops for stock!  Saute leeks in butter until translucent.  Combine the leeks, potatoes and broth in a blender and blend until smooth.  Remember not to fill the blender more than half full.  Return to pan and thin with milk - use as much or as little as you would like.  You can also add a little cream to make this richer.  I use Cruze Farms whole milk here.  Heat until it's warm and season with salt and pepper and serve.

One Local Summer - Week One

I apologize for the lack of posting - one of our furbabies died a couple of weeks ago after a short but serious illness.  Between running around to our local and university vet, keeping his meds and six feeding times straight, sleepless nights and getting all the furbaby love we could pack in, it's been a long six weeks.  Little Man was one of two kittens that Marcus and I hand raised and we've always joked that we'll always consider them our first born kids - just slightly furrier.  He was our baby and a huge part of our lives and his time on this earth was just too short. 

While at the Market Square Farmer's Market Saturday morning, Marcus and I were reminded that local eating can sometimes be a disappointment.  We tend to get a lot of our fruit from the Fruit and Berry Patch.  They're not organic producers but they try to limit the amount of chemicals they use, especially since they're a Pick Your Own kind of place.  Last summer, we discovered the wonders of their cherries - both sweet and sour pie cherries.  I dried a decent amount of sweet cherries last year because I'm not a fan of raisins and these are a great substitute.  I also fell in love with pie cherries.  They're not quite as much fun to pick because they're not as tasty straight off the tree but they're amazing to cook with.  We managed to make the pitting more enjoyable once we found a really good cherry pitter and we concocted the Cherry Pitter Cocktail which involves sour cherry juice, limeade and vodka.  The weather this year has not been kind to the early fruits.  We had a lack of rain and then got all of our rain all at once which has caused a lot of farmer's strawberries and cherries to rot.  So after falling in love with cherries last year, I'll have to try to get by on the few bags we have left in our freezer.  Cherries from the grocery store don't hold a candle to them and you can't find fresh pie cherries in the store because they're so delicate.  We did make several cherry crisps this week - I'll post the recipe for the crisp later on this month.  It's easy to make a large batch of crisp topping and keep it in the freezer so you can make fruit crisps whenever you want.  We also made up some cherry sorbet that we also made last year.  Another dessert that we've made a lot of is Strawberry Shortcake.  Just mix up a batch of biscuits (I'll have to get Marcus to post a tutorial - the boy can make a biscuit to rival anyone's family recipe), slice some strawberries and top with whipped cream.  Thanks goodness we haven't had a late frost so the other fruits look to be doing ok - just pray for enough rain at the right time!

We've been eating a lot of breakfasts involving swiss chard.  My brother brought back eight pounds of it from my parents and we're trying to eat as much as we can before freezing it.  We usually add it to scrambled eggs that are topped with Locust Grove cheese.  Bacon is from Laurel Creek farms and bread is made from non-local flour but local sourdough and topped with local, homemade butter and jam made from local cherries or homegrown strawberries.  Lunch is usually leftovers or a salad made from local lettuce and greens, local hard-boiled eggs and local bacon.  One meal we've made several times is Pasta with Peas and Cream.  The pasta and cheese isn't local but everything else is and it is heavenly.  Fridays are pizza nights here so we made crust using our sourdough starter, homemade frozen pizza sauce made with our own tomatoes and topped with our favorite toppings this time of year, garlic scapes and caramelized onions.  We also made up a stir-fry using local ground pork, local broccoli, local bok choy and the first garlic of the season.

Our entirely local meal tonight was broiled pork neck-bones from River Ridge Farms, salt boiled new potatoes from Good Earth Farms and steamed snap peas from our garden.  Butter to top the veggies was made from Cruze Farm Milk.  Dessert is sliced strawberries.

One Local Summer 2009 - Sign up now!

 

Farm to Philly is hosting this year's One Local Summer Challenge.  Marcus and I have done this the past couple of years and it's a lot of fun.  All you have to do is agree to eat one meal a week that uses only local ingredients (exceptions: oil, salt and pepper, and spices) and either post about it on your blog or email it to the regional coordinator.  If you're new to eating local foods, this is a really fun way to get more involved.  I got lots of great ideas and recipes reading about what other people had tried.  The sign-up deadline is May 30. 

One Local Summer - week seven

The past few weeks have been pretty crazy with lots of wedding stuff to do but we still managed to eat most of our meals local.  Here are some of the things we've had:

Chicken & mushroom kebabs with Tamari-Miso roasted eggplant slices - only the oil, vinegar, spices, tamari and miso weren't local.

BT sandwich with homemade mayo, local bacon, homegrown tomatoes and homemade bread.  The oil and vinegar in the mayo wasn't local.  Technically, the bread wasn't either because the flour isn't local.  However, I count buying locally made bread as eating local and how much more local can you get than your own kitchen?  The bread was to die for!!!  I didn't mistype that - this was a BT sandwich, not a BLT.  Lettuce is way out of season here.

Roasted pouisson(that's a young chicken) with roasted local potatoes and onions and fresh tomato salad - the tomatoes are starting to produce in our backyard so we have tomatoes with white, yellow, orange, red, pink, green, purple and striped tomatoes going into our salads.

Steak with a made up on the spot chimichurri sauce using green tomatoes, parsley, vietnamese coriander (my new favorite plant).  Only the oil and red wine vinegar weren't local.  Plus we threw together a salad with young chard leaves, some herbs and purslane from our garden.  Even if I can't keep up with the weeds, I can at least eat some of them.

This summer has been the summer of fruit.  We had very little fruit last year because of the late frost so we've been gorging ourselves this year.  Lots of peaches and plums now and we're going to head out this week to pick blackberries and blueberries.  I can't wait to make a Blueberry Crisp!

Mark and I are going to start trying out recipes for the apple butter we want to give as favors at our wedding.  If anyone has a favorite apple butter recipe, I'd love to hear about it.  I'm also looking for apple suggestions.  Our favorite is Stayman Winesaps but I'm open to other choices.

One Local Summer - week three

Summer is finally getting into swing here so there's a lot of wonderful local produce to choose from.  Last night was proof of that.  We started with Tomato Toast made with local tomatoes, local bread and garlic we harvested last week from our garden (we grew 18 kinds!).  Then we had grilled local zucchini and squash marinated in a dressing made with olive oil, red wine vinegar and herbs from our garden.  We served that with a few slices of a local cheese called Cumberland. Dinner was grilled local peaches that we basted with homemade butter and honey.  I also finished up our last batch of cherry sorbet.  Mark and I then spent 3 hours pitting two huge buckets of sour cherries - how wild and crazy our Saturday nights are now!  We turned several cups into sweetened dried cherries and the rest we froze to use in cobblers and pies.

One Local Summer - week two

I love this time of the year.  Eating locally is so easy and we often find that we've eaten a meal that's entirely local without even thinking about it.  We had an abundance of shelling peas in our garden as well as more radishes.  Most of our spring crops are done so we've spent most of the time this week planting more tomatoes, hot and sweet peppers.

One of my favorite spring treats is from a recipe in Local Flavors.  Combine unsalted butter with diced radishes.  Spread on bread and sprinkle with sea salt.  This is so good!  We've had several of these sandwiches this past week.  We've also made Peas with pasta and cream a couple of times.  One night we made a ground pork stir fry with snowpeas, side shoots of broccoli and garlic scapes, all from our garden.  I made goat cheese from local goat milk and some butter from the cream we skimmed off the top of our Cruze Farm milk.

Today was one of those days where we realized we had eaten completely local without even trying.  We split a white chocolate and cherry scone from VG's Bakery.  We ate this with a smoothie made from homegrown frozen strawberries, yogurt and honey.  Only the yogurt wasn't local.  I plan to try my hand  making yogurt later this summer.

Lunch was sauteed spinach from A Place from the Heart Farm with a hamburger patty.  The ground beef was from Laurel Creek Farm.  It was pretty hot out today so we had a snack of homemade cherry sorbet.  Supper tonight was a grilled sirloin steak from Laurel Creek Farm and grilled marinated summer squash from A Place from the Heart Farm.  The only nonlocal ingredients were the olive oil and red wine vinegar in the marinade - the herbs and garlic were from our garden.  An hour ago, we split the first ripe peach of the year from The Fruit and Berry Patch.

Tomorrow we're on our way to check out our reception area for our wedding.  Instead of fast food, we're taking sandwiches, cherries and a peach.  The first sandwich will be made with bread from VG's Bakery, leftover grilled squash and my homemade goat cheese.  The other sandwich will be store bought cream cheese mixed with chives and green garlic and topped with local cucumbers.  Mickey D's cant touch that!

Garlic Scape Pesto

This is wonderful tossed with pasta.  You can also use it in place of garlic butter to make some yummy garlic bread.  Thin it out with sour cream and it makes a great salad dressing or dip.  Use it as a base for pizza.  I freeze pesto to use all year for my version of "fast food".  Boil some pasta, add pesto and sundried tomatoes.  Mix in any leftover vegetables.

Garlic Scape Pesto:

½ lb. scapes (chopped into 1" pieces)

1½ cups olive oil

2 cups grated parmesan cheese

In a blender, combine the scapes and olive oil. Pour mixture into bowl and blend the cheese in by hand. I freeze this in ice cube trays - the cubes get put in a freezer bag.

One Local Summer - week ???

I started a week too early so I'm going to start labeling them as they should be.  That's why this one has a ???

This morning, Mark and I had local eggs scrambled with homemade goat cheese and swiss chard from our garden.  We also had a smoothie with local milk, frozen homegrown strawberries and a little bit of oatmeal blended in(not local).  I know the oatmeal sounds weird but it's very tasty.

It's been miserably hot here - we hit 95 yesterday!  We had to get a couple of garden beds set up because I've got some more heirloom tomato plants that need a home.  Because it was so hot, we weren't very hungry so we had homemade garlic scape pesto(recipe coming soon) on bread from a local bakery.  We ate local cherries as a snack and drank gallons of water.

Dinner tonight wasn't completely local but it was frugal.  I've got penne pasta that needs to be used up so we made Pasta with Peas and Cream again.  The peas were from my garden(I used Waverex petite pois and Wando shelling peas) and the cream was from Cruze Farms.  Dessert was homemade cherry sorbet we made from local sweet cherries.

I'm planning on picking pie cherries Tuesday (tomorrow is my birthday and I will be drinking very nonlocal margaritas) so I hope to have some recipes for preserving them that I can post.  This friday will also be the start of our traditional summer pizza nights so I plant on making some mozerella before then.

One Local Summer Report - week one

I'm going to start updating my daily menu postings blog again - this helps keep me inspired and gives me ideas for future meals.  But these posts will be just for meals I'm reporting to OLS 2008.

First - a big thank you to Joyce for taking on the task of our regional coordinator!  You're awesome Joyce!

Second - I apologize for the lack of pictures.  I've misplaced our camera!  Hopefully, we'll find it soon. 

This weekend was a local food-a-thon here in the TNLocavore household!  We started out Saturday with a picnic breakfast.  We brought along hard boiled local eggs, homegrown sliced strawberries with vanilla sugar and we picked up green garlic/rosemary focaccia and biscotti from our farmer's market.  We got a whole bunch of veggies while we were there as well.  Then we headed down to the University of Tennessee trial gardens for a picnic!  Lunch was decidedly unlocal - we did some hardcore gardening so we split a fast food chicken sandwich.  Dinner was much tastier.  We had roast chicken from Laurel Creek Farms and roast asparagus from another local farmer.  I don't think anything could taste more like spring to me than asparagus!  The only nonlocal ingredients used were salt, pepper and olive oil. 

Breakfast today was local eggs and bacon from Laurel Creek Farms, hash browns from local potatoes and bagels from a local bakery with our own homemade strawberry freezer jam.  You can't get much more local than 25 feet from your front door!  Lunch was leftovers from yesterday.  Dinner was stir-fry.  I pulled up the mizuna, spinach and tatsoi plants today so we used the last few leaves.  We also picked snow peas in our garden and the last few side shoots of broccoli.  We stir-fried green garlic in some organic grape seed oil.  We added ground pork from River Ridge Farm and then added in the snow peas and broccoli. When they were almost finished cooking, we added in the greens.  We swirled in some pepper paste we made last summer, some soy sauce and a little brown sugar.  Dessert was strawberries topped with homemade lemon curd.  Now I know lemons aren't local but I like to think we made up for that by using local eggs, and butter we made ourselves from local milk.  The sugar also wasn't local but we did substitute in some local honey for some of it.

Tomorrow we're making homemade goat cheese and pesto from some of our garlic scapes combined with some we found at the farmer's market!  Then we meet with a possible caterer for our wedding in November!  I hope he's as excited about using local produce as we are.  Otherwise the search continues!