Tennessee Locavore

Camel Crickets and a Winter Squash & Potato Casserole with Gruyere Cheese

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Whenever I leave on a trip, I only need one guess in order to know what my husband will be eating while I'm gone - mashed potatoes.  Sometimes he mixes it up and makes hash browns and if he's feeling particularly crazy, he might make potatoes au gratin. My boy loves potatoes.  And really who can blame him?  They're one of the most comforting foods known to mankind.  

What makes my husband's potato love even more amazing is how traumatized he was by a bad potato experience.  When he was thirteen, his grandma sent him to the root cellar underneath the smokehouse to get some potatoes for Sunday dinner.  Marcus opened the door and as he did so, in his own words, about a billion camel crickets were on the back of the door and jumped on him.  After jumping up and down while screaming like a banshee, he made a pact to never enter the root cellar again.  In our house, my husband is the regular bug smasher or remover, except if it's a camel cricket.  We've only had two in our house during the seven years we've lived here but each time, I've been brought in to dispatch it.  Ask him about the camel cricket move I do with my hand on his arm to freak him out.

I have a lot of love for potatoes, this despite the fact that my parents once tried to kill us by feeding us about three tons of potatoes.  Ok - maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration. But it honestly seemed like three tons of potatoes at the time.  When we lived in Brentwood, TN, my Dad put in a rather large garden.  As I remember, he planted two rows of potatoes.  I remember feeling like Almanzo from Farmer Boy when it came time to harvest them. I remember my Dad being a bit flummoxed by the quantities of potatoes that we harvested. The rest of that summer, lunch consisted of a potato with cheese melted on it.  Amazingly enough, the potatoes were so good, my brother and I didn't get sick of them.  But we do refer to it as our potato year.

Monday night, we had our neighborhood potluck and I needed to make something to bring.  I tend to bring vegetarian dishes to potlucks because I have so many friends that are vegetarians and I want there to be something they can eat at these functions.  These dishes also have to be Southern potluck worthy which usually means they need to not be too weird and it's always a winner if it involves cream or cheese.  

As I browse the web, I save recipes that I want to try later.  Doing a search on recipes containing potatoes, I found a wonderful casserole posted by Marisa McClellan who writes the wonderful blog, Food In Jars.  If you want more information about canning and preserving food, her blog is a must read.  I've gotten so many helpful tips and advice from her site.  

This casserole is delicious on so many different levels.  It's true comfort food but the sage and the nutmeg fancy it up a bit.  The sweetness of the winter squash adds a bit of twist to the standard mashed potato casserole.  It's light and fluffy and the Gruyère cheese mixed throughout the dish and sprinkled on top makes it truly amazing.  I was told by our friends and neighbors at the potluck that this was totally blog worthy.  Since it was the first dish gone, I think we found a winner.

Potato & Winter Squash Casserole with Gruyère Cheese
Adapted from Marisa McClellan
Serves 10-12 as a side dish

2 lbs potatoes, peeled,sliced in half and cut into 1/2 inch slices(choose a good mashing potato - I used Yukon Gold)
2 lbs winter squash, peeled,sliced in half and cut into 1/2 inch slices(I used butternut)
2 cups shredded Gruyere Cheese (this is about 9 ounces)
3/4 cups shredded Parmesan (this is about 1 ounce)
4 tablespoons butter
3 eggs, beaten
3-4 finely minced sage leaves
1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
3/4 teaspoon salt (or to taste)

Bring a large pot of water to boil and add the potatoes & squash.  Cover, reduce heat and cook at a slow boil until soft (this took us 25 minutes).

While potatoes and squash are cooking, grate cheese and toss together.  Reserve 1 cup for sprinkling over the top.  

Drain potatoes and squash, reserving one cup of cooking water.  Return potatoes and squash to pot and mash well.  Add butter and 1 3/4 cups of cheese and mix well.  Add seasonings, stir and taste.  Adjust seasoning if needed.  Let cool for 5-10 minutes and stir in beaten eggs.  Add reserved cooking water until mixture is just slightly pourable.  

Pour potato & squash mixture into a baking dish and top with the remaining cheese.  Bake at 350 degrees until until the top is browned and the casserole bubbles (this took us 45 minutes). Serve!

 

 

Please click here for a printable recipe!  

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Dark Days Challenge - Week 5 and Potato Latkes

I thought I'd wet my blogging feet again by posting about the Dark Days Challenge that Laura from Urban Hennery has hosted for the last three years. I'm getting a late start because work has been so crazy but for the next three months, I've made a pledge to eat at least one meal a week that is comprised of only local food.  My only exceptions to this rule will be spices, oil and flour.  Eating a local diet is fairly easy in this part of the country, but winter always presents a bigger challenge.  Our farmer's markets close down and our local food co-op carries very little in terms of local produce.  To get us through the winter, I can and freeze a lot.  I also focus on eating very seasonal meals - we eat a lot more starches and meat during the winter months than we ever do during the rest of the year.

As part of my Dark Days meal, we had homemade latkes, applesauce that I canned this fall and a jar of sauerkraut that I got from a friend made from local cabbage.  The applesauce was originally supposed to be apple butter but I tried a new recipe that used cider vinegar and I hated it.  I didn't want to waste it so I added more apple to it and turned it into applesauce.  I've got a couple of heads of local cabbage in my crisper that I hope to turn into homemade sauerkraut because I've never made it before but a friend of mine had already made some and gave me a jar. 

Every year around this time, Marcus and I make a meal that includes latkes as a component.  I'm not jewish but I've always loved the story of Hanukkah.  Foods that are cooked in large quantities of oil are a very important part of a Hanukkah celebration because of what the oil symbolizes.  After the Maccabean Jews liberated the temple in Jerusalem, only one small container of pure olive oil was found to use to light the menorah in the temple.  Miraculously, that small container of oil was enough to keep the menorah lit for eight days which was enough time to prepare a fresh supply of oil.  

As far as I'm concerned, any recipe that uses a large quantity of oil and potatoes is going to be delicious.  I've tried several recipes over the last few years but my favorite is one that we came up with that utilizes a technique that a friend told me about.  After grating each potato, add the grated potato to a bowl of water.  After all the potatoes (and the onion) have been grated, gather all the shredded vegetables together in a clean dish towel and wring them out, getting as much of the liquid out as possible.  This keeps you from having to use a binder like flour and makes better latkes in my opinion.

Potato Latkes
Makes 12 medium latkes

1 1/2 pounds potatoes
1 medium onion
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1/2 teaspoon salt
Canola oil

Peel potatoes and shred using the larger holed side of a grater.  Add each potato after it's been shredded to a large bowl of water.  After all potatoes are shredded and are soaking in the water, grate the onion.  Drain potatoes in a colander and add onion to colander.    Get a large, clean dishtowel and spread the potato-onion mixture into a thin layer over two thirds of the dish towel.  Roll up dish towel like a jelly roll and wring very throughly.  In a bowl, combine the potato-onion mixture with the lightly beaten eggs and the salt.  

In a 10-12 inch skillet, heat a quarter inch of canola oil over medium to medium high heat.  The oil should be hot but not smoking.  You can make these latkes as big or as small as you'd like but we usually use about 1/4 to 1/3 cup of the mixture.  Add to pan, flatten slightly with a spoon and cook until brown on one side.  Flip and brown on other side - this works out to roughly five minutes on each side.  Drain hot latkes on paper towels.  You can keep them warm in an oven set at 250 degrees.

If you have leftovers, re-heat them in a 350 degree oven on a baking pan for 10-12 minutes.

For printable recipe, click here!

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.