The next Food Network show...

...should be Real Cooks on the Farm.  In it, contestants would have two hours to calmly prepare a healthy meal but everything, except for five ingredients of the contestant's choosing (seasonings, olive oil etc) , would have to be from the farm s/he was plopped down in and NOTHING would be prepared ahead of time (including the butter).  Now, on this farm, there would be a dairy cow, and plenty of poultry.  There would also be beef cattle, sheep and pigs, but I highly doubt you could process these larger animals in the amount of time given.  A huge vegetable garden would be available, and you would hope it would be high summer so that there were actually yummy vegetables in it (you can only do so much with greens and asparagus and the show isn't titled "Extreme Farm Cooking").  There would also be an orchard and berry brambles to find fruit in. If you were lucky to be in a farm in the south, you would have citrus available as well.

We don't have cable, so we don't regularly get to watch the Food Network, but we were staying at a place that did have television this past weekend.  And I confess, I am a little bit of a Food Network junkie.  So this new food show inspiration came to me the other evening when I was in a rush to create a good, substantially portioned meal for my family (sometimes I am accused of making "tapas" sized portions).  I had no time for advanced planning as we ended up being gone all day, but I did know I had a plethora of food available to me.  I'll be damned if I just caved and said "let's go order a pizza".  We have been traveling a lot the last few weeks and the "dining out" category of our budget was literally bursting at the seams. 

So, luckily we had some marinating venison in the fridge (a gift from a friend last fall which we had thawed earlier in the week).  I realize this would be cheating on the new show, but chicken would be an equally good protein and I am confident I could process one of those in about 20 minutes. Knowing the venison needs mere minutes over high heat to cook, I first headed to the garden to gather greens.  I have plenty of different lettuces, but to spice it up a bit, I added arugula and beet greens, some oregano, sage and rosemary.  I also pulled our first three carrots from the garden and picked a few pea pods. 

I had also noticed that the black caps (wild blackberries) were in abundance by our creek, so I went and gathered those (somewhat labor intensive as the berries are small, but so tasty).

I threw the lettuce, herbs, and arugula in the bowl after three washes in the salad spinner (to guarantee that no slugs remained), shelled the peas, chopped the carrots and then added the black caps.  We had bought some River Rat cheese up in Clayton, NY when we were visiting the Thousand Islands, so I added some chunks of that (I guess that would be one of my five ingredients off the farm).  I then added almond slivers (another off-farm ingredient).  For the dressing I used a raspberry vinegar and avocado oil (I know, strange combination, but really good).  I then cooked the venison over high heat (for about 4 minutes total) and put 8-9 pieces on top of the salad. 

There, done.  Probably 40 minutes from start to finish.  If I was doing chicken, it would take a little longer as the bird would have taken about 1 1/2 hours to roast--still within the two hour time limit though.  It's interesting to think about what wouldn't be possible to make in a two hour time slot: bread would be difficult as you wouldn't have time to process the grain into flour. And your main protein would be turkey, chicken, and eggs (or you could do the wild thing, and go for squirrel, possom, muskrat, frogs, I suppose).  It would certainly be entertaining to see what people came up with.

All jesting aside with the Food Network show, it is possible to put together a good meal from scratch, and despite the time pressure, it was actually enjoyable.  Meal time can be stressful and/or monotonous, two adjectives I'd like to eliminate from my vocabularly.  To simplify things, after five years together, my darling husband and I have finally decided to take my mother's fine strategy and prepare a weekly dinner menu.  We will then go one step further and decide who is cooking it each night.

As Julia Child would say, "Bon Appetit!"

Summertime Sensibility, Spreads and Strawberries

School's out!  In all honesty, I was feeling a little bit adrift last Friday, particularly when I turned in my school keys.  I will truly miss my team members and the rest of the middle school faculty.  The group of people I worked with were sensible and grounded.  There was none of the drama that is associated with many workplaces.  We worked well together and were a functional, well-oiled unit.  Our different personalities complemented each other fabulously, and it is a shame that the middle school is no longer in existence. 

With it being a somewhat emotional day, I came home and realized I had locked myself out of the house.  Note to self:  don't give the key to the house sitter a week before you actually leave town, you just never know when you need that hide-a-key.  So there I was, without a spare, at 5:30 in the evening, in a very short summer dress (I had just come from the retirement luncheon).  I did have a cell phone (surprisingly), and I called a couple people, hoping I had given at least someone a key in the past.  No luck.  But, a dear friend came over and helped me break in (not easy) without doing any permanent damage.   We then shared a couple beers watching the sun set over the hills.  So, be sensible, and make sure your neighbors have a copy of your house key!

In the garden, the garlic scapes are up.  I never really know what to do with scapes, but it would be very insensible to not use them in some way, shape or form.  It is possible to grill or saute them.  I also learned last year that you can make garlic pesto out of them as well.  I don't really follow recipes when making pesto-I just do a lot of tasting to figure out if the proportions are right.  So, basically, you would use garlic scapes (with the flower part cut off) instead of basil, and walnuts instead of pine nuts (walnuts are cheaper).  Throw some Parmesan cheese in there and of course olive oil and blend.  I freeze the pesto in ice cube trays then put in a plastic baggie in the freezer.  When you want a great snack spread, mix the pesto with the same amount of cream cheese.  Yum!

Another recipe which I made for my team party last week is as follows:

Spicy Chesapeake Chicken Spread
 2 packages (8 oz) softened cream cheese
1 TBS bottled steak sauce (I used BBQ sauce as that was what I had around)
1/4 tsp curry powder
red and black pepper to taste
1 1/2 cups minced cooked chicken (I also threw some turkey in there as I had it around)
1/3 cup minced celery
1/4 cup chopped parsley
1/4 cup chopped toasted almonds
crackers

1. Beat together cream cheese, steak sauce, curry powder and pepper.
2. Blend in cooked chicken and celery and 2 TBS parsley.  Refrigerate remaining parsley (or just don't pick it until later).
3. Shape mixture into log.  Wrap in plastic and chill for 4 hours or overnight.
4. Toss together remaining parsley and almonds and coat log with this mixture.
5. Serve with crackers (duh).

You may want to half the recipe as my darling husband and I were eating chicken spread sandwiches for three days, and that was after the people at the party had it!

Finally, let's be sensible about strawberries.  We love fresh strawberries and we use them throughout the year in smoothies, on french toast and waffles, or in sauces, spreads and dressings. I also make lots of strawberry preserves when I can find the time.  However, the season for finding relatively cheap strawberries is relatively short and I don't have time to make jam.  But I do buy them in bulk at the farmers market (I can buy a flat of 8 quarts for $30), rinse them, remove the tops, spread on cookie sheets and freeze.  When frozen, put in plastic baggies or containers.  Out of sight, out of mind (for the moment).

Enjoy the first "real" week of summer!

The Vegetable Patch

Returning from vacation, I went up to our garden to see what had transpired over the previous ten days. The good news was that the bush beans were abundant. I have already frozen 8 quarts and I suspect I will get another 5-6 before the season ends. A favorite green bean dish that we use with the frozen beans is simply to saute them with some pine nuts (or almonds) in olive oil and a little butter; add some fresh nutmeg, pepper and salt and voila. Done. Also in the good news category is that I have squash this year! Last year, with the cold, damp weather, none of my squash (winter, cucumbers, summer) materialized. So now I am left with the dilemma of what to do with the oodles of zucchini. I have already stuffed some and made some into bread. I will probably end up pickling some when I pickle the cukes later on. And then I will shred and freeze the remainder for use in bread and casseroles during the winter.

The bad news is that we had a torrential rain storm after several days of hot, dry weather. This meant that much of the second planting of peas and the third planting of lettuce essentially got washed away. Bummer.

Also, the potatoes and tomatoes look questionable. After a horrible late blight season last year, I am somewhat paranoid. I brought samples of each to our Cooperative Extension and they were unable to determine if blight was present. Apparently, the leaves are in really good condition, but the black lesion on the stem (and that plant was the only one with the black lesion) concerned her as it did me. Her advice was just to keep a close eye on the situation. So far I have and everything is stable. We'll just have to wait and see.