Without question, Hurricane Irene wrecked havoc all along the East Coast. People died, farms flooded and roads washed away. And with Tropical Storm Lee having come up on her heels, the land is slow to recover.
At Even’ Star Farm, the effects are not overtly obvious. Sure, as you drive down Far Cry Road, you see a few remnants of fallen trees. But the green houses are in-tact and the barn is still standing.
The real impact is evidenced in the fields. While still alive, the tomato plants have stopped producing. The fruit is cracked and ugly. The only summer crops still producing are the eggplants, peppers and sweet potatoes. And it will be many weeks before the fall crops reach peak production.
The bright spot can be found in the woods… behind the north fields. Under the damp brush of fallen trees and decomposing leaves are the mushrooms. Pounds and pounds of glorious mushrooms… Honey Cap, Shiitake, Black Trumpets, Golden Chanterelles and the beloved Porcinis.
After the daily chores are done, with a few more hours of daylight, Brett and I venture into the woods. Despite the attack of mosquitoes (I will spare the photos of my red-pocked arms), Brett is buoyed by the expanse of mushrooms.
Porcinis…
Honey Mushrooms…
Chanterelles…
The mushrooms are inspected on site. If they are not suitable for consumption, either bug infested, slightly rotten or of a bitter variety, Brett perches them on a log so they can continue to spread their spores and propagate the woods with more fungi. Even the non-edible varities, he treats in this manner to keep the ecosystem in balance.
When we returned to the house, Brett said to me, “You must be really dedicated to your blog to stop and take photos when the mosquitoes are chowing on you.” Indeed. And this is not nearly as bad as the time we were mushrooming and I walked through a tick nest. When I took off my shoes, I found THOUSANDS of ticks covering my feet. I can assure you, I will never hear me quibble at the price of wild mushrooms. And you shouldn’t either.
Creamed Mushrooms 1 tbs. butter 1 1/2 lb. wild mushrooms 1/4 cup chopped shallots 1 tbs. sliced garlic 1 cup cream 1 tsp. whole grain mustard 1/2 bunch thyme 2 tbs. cognac Salt pepper and lemon juice to taste
Heat a large skillet over a medium-high heat and add butter. Sauté mushroom, garlic and shallots. Add cognac, and reduce before adding the cream and 2 tsp. chopped thyme. Reduce by half. Stir in mustard. Season to taste with salt, pepper and lemon juice.
There’s a sweet scent to the thick, humid air here in southern Maryland; a gentility and graciousness that permeates the culture the way the air fills my lungs. When I breathe it in, I’m transported to my childhood when I spent my summers in Alabama with my grandmother. People speak slowly, it’s too hot to do anything fast.
St. Mary’s County is just 90 miles south of Washington, DC, but is decidedly a southern county. Route 235 with farm stands and strip malls lining the road, bisects the county. The Chesapeake Bay a few hundred yards to the east and the Potomac River to the west.
On a barren stretch of the road between the Air Force Base and Point Lookout, Kellem’s Market hangs out a flag. They stock the few shelves with fishing gear. And the refrigerated case holds just a few pounds of fresh, local fish – whatever was caught that morning. It’s the best place in town to buy seafood.
Every morning I call Kellem’s to find out if they have any soft shell crabs – I’ve been craving them since my general gau’s dinner. The first day, they tell me they don’t have any peelers, the term for the blue crabs that will shed their shells. The next day they'll have some, and they offer to call me if they’ve shed their hard shell.
When they call, they apologize that someone had put the crabs in the ‘fridge, so they didn’t shed their shell. But they offered to call around on my behalf. Fifteen minutes later, Kellem’s calls back. His neighbor down the road has soft shells. He would pick them up for me, but he doesn’t have someone to watch the shop for him. I’ll have to get them myself. “Is that okay?” he asks.
He gives me directions… turn down the small street between the church and the market. The road will curve to the left and then to the right. Go along the dirt road until I see a sign for McKay’s. They will sell me some. I pull into the driveway, a house on the right and a little shed with an “open” sign on the left. Their land is right on the bay, with old crab pots piled high in the driveway.
On the dock, a shallow fish tank acts as the holding spot for the freshly fetched crab to shed their hard shells.
Once they shed they are quickly scooped up (in less than 24 hours, the soft shells will be hard again) and transferred to the fridge until they are sold.
An older woman emerges from the house. “Can I help you?”
She takes me into the refrigerated shed and shows me her selection of crabs – dozens of soft crabs in various sizes, ranging in price from $1.50 each to $2.50 (significantly less than the $4 frozen ones offered at a store close to the Base). I buy 8 large ones, and wonder who else will find this place and buy the rest…
Soft Shell Crabs with Corn Cakes and Green Goddess Dressing
1 tbs. capers 1 cup spinach or arugula leaves, washed and picked over 1 bunch scallions, washed, slice green only in 1/2 inch lengths 1 bunch tarragon leaves picked from the stem 1/4 cup sour cream 1 cup mayonnaise 1 tbs. white wine vinegar 1 tsp. kosher salt 1/4 tsp. cracked black pepper
Puree capers, spinach, scallions, tarragon, and sour cream in a food processor. Fold in mayonnaise, and season with vinegar, salt and pepper
Corn Cakes (makes about 12 cakes) ¾ cups flour ½ cup corn meal ½ tsp. baking soda ½ tsp. baking powder 1 tsp. salt 1 tsp. sugar 1 ¼ cup buttermilk 2 tbs. melted butter 1 egg 1 cup corn kernals 2 scallions, chopped
Puree ½ cup corn with buttermilk. Combine dry ingredients in a bowl. Make a well, add the wet ingredients. Stir to incorporate. Cook cakes in a non-stick pan over medium heat.
Soft Shell Crabs 8 soft shells, cleaned ½ cup flour 1 egg mixed with ½ cup corn starch oil for pan frying
Toss soft shells in egg/starch mixture, and then dust with flour. Pan fry in oil until crispy on both sides
When I arrive on the farm, Brett takes me on a tour of the fields– showing me where the different crops are (with a rigorous schedule of crop rotation, it changes every year), what’s in season and what’s fading. There’s a squash bug that’s feasting away on the courge longue de nice. The cucumbers are starting to wane. And the cherry tomatoes are just going crazy. He takes me into the packing room. Crates and crates of tomatoes, eggplants, potatoes and melons are stacked high.
I also have time to ask my gardening questions… the aphids on my kale and Brussels sprouts continue to plague me. I’ve tried (organic) sprays, planting marigolds in between the rows and releasing lady bugs onto the plants to eat the aphids. Nothing seems to work. Brett suggested that I have too much nitrogen in my soil. This makes sense since I tend to add a decent amount of compost to my soil every year because I don’t have the space for crop rotation.
After all these years of visiting the farm, I have my own routine. The first few days are focused on canning tomatoes. Brett has set aside cases of tomatoes for me, and I start cutting them up. Halved tomatoes for smoking and chunks for stewing. A separate container of tomatoes get a very coarse chop and are destined for ketchup.
Once the tomatoes are ready for cooking, Brett lights a fire under the 100 gallon kettle. I cook the tomatoes in batches. And while they’re simmering, we start another fire under the canner – a flat-bed kettle that will hold about 100 canning jars and enough water to cover them.
Despite the plethora of tomatoes and the canning capacity of the farm’s outdoor kitchen, I only can about 60 jars of tomatoes. I make 6 gallons of ketchup, but only take 1 gallon for my own stash. I leave the rest for Brett and his crew. With the canning out of the way, I fall into a more lazy routine. In the morning, I do my work – catching up on email, writing. I fix the crew’s lunch. I pick okra in the afternoon. Around 3pm, Brett heads back to the house, fixes us a few cocktail and we head over to the Bay to check on the crab pots. Even with the warm weather, a few male crabs find their way into the pots every day. The crabs make a great afternoon snack while I’m fixing dinner. But when they become abundant, I shell the meat and make them into a meal.
Pasta with Tomato-Crab Sauce 4 live blue crabs 1 tbs. chopped garlic 1 small onion or shallot, peeled and chopped ¼ cup white wine 2 cups chopped or jarred tomatoes 1 – 2 eggplant cubed 1 tbs. butter 1 tbs. fresh basil Salt, pepper and lemon juice to taste ¾ pound fettuccine (I rolled my own pasta) Canola oil
1. Scrub the crabs clean under cold water. Dry on a paper towel. 2. Heat a large skillet over high heat. Add the oil and then the crabs, upside down. Let the crab shells toast in the oil for a few minutes. 3. Add the onions and garlic to the crab pan and cook for 2 minutes until they begin to soften. Then add the white wine and tomatoes. If the pan seems dry, add 1/3 cup of water too. 4. Cover the pan and let the crabs steam for about 5 minutes. Remove crabs from pan, making sure to scrape off and save the tomatoes. 5. Let the crabs cool and remove the meat. 6. Cook the eggplant: season cubes with salt and pepper. Heat a large skillet over high heat. Add a tablespoon of olive oil and then the eggplant. Let sit for a few minutes so the eggplant can brown. Toss and continue cooking until eggplant is tender. Set aside. 7. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Cook pasta for 1 minute less than the package instructions 8. While pasta is cooking, toss the crab meat and eggplant with the tomato sauce. Add a pat of butter, basil. Season to taste with salt, pepper and lemon juice. 9. When pasta is done, drain. Toss pasta with sauce.
From the farm: tomatoes, eggplant, basil, eggs From the bay: crabs
By the time the second pig is in the scalder, the butchers are well on their way to figuring out the anatomy of the animal. The head is removed, and Jeff cuts out the tongue and cheeks, and trims the jowls. Karen holds the legs apart so that Rusty can deftly saw the animal in half with a butcher saw. Tal and I stand ready, each to receive a half. I initially grab the animal tentatively, so as not to bloody my coat, but I quickly realize that I must brace the 150 lb. side with my whole body in order to carry it the final 10 feet to the butcher table. Rusty demonstrates on the first half, and I follow along on the second half: I remove the tenderloin from the ribs. The ham and picnic (the front and back leg quarters) are cut off. The ribs are separated from the loin chops and the belly.
The second pig is brought into the barn, and we relax a bit. People with clean hands open beers or serve bourbon-soaked cherries. It’s cold in the barn and the propane heaters aren’t enough to take the chill out of the air. But the music on the radio is lively, and the spirit is good.
Before confronting the second pig, we break down the first one further: The skin and its underlying layer of fat (“back fat”) are removed for salt pork. The bellies are trimmed into bacons, and rubbed with salt and brown sugar to begin the curing process (in three weeks, when the curing is complete, they will be smoked to finish them off). Meat from the picnics are trimmed for sausages. Pork chops are cut to a generous 2” thickness.
By five o’clock the animals are all butchered. The bacons have begun to cure. The scrap meat has been set aside for sausage, as has the lard. The back fat has been salted.
Back at the house, Jeff has been busily preparing dinner: cleaning the kidneys to sauté, poaching the fresh tongues, making sauces. Drea is putting the final glazes on a chocolate cake. A stuffed turkey, the main dish, is already roasting in the oven.
We do a preliminary clean up of the barn and then take our much needed showers. Tal brings in the wines, Pinot Gris, Riesling, and Pinot Noir, a perfect pairing for our dinner:
Sautéed Pork Tongue with a mustard-apple sauce Sautéed Pork Kidney with a Tarragon Reduction Turkey stuffed with Peachy-Mamas and Glutinous Rice Fresh Mesclun Salad Chocolate Torte with Rosemary Crème Anglaise
The next day, there is still much work ahead: processing the meat for sausages and prosciutto. But now we can add to the breakfast menu: Fried Pork Nuggets (Chicharrones) with Creamy-Cheesy Corn Grits and homemade, smoked chile salsa.
After breakfast, we divvy up the tasks for making sausage. Karen and I are appointed the official grinders. Brett seasons, and Jeff cooks-up tasters. For each of the recipes, we pass around samples to see if we like the recipe… a little more salt? a little more spice? a touch of vinegar? When we finally get it just right, Bob and Ron stuff the sausages into pre-soaked casings. Jeff pricks and twists them, and hangs them out to dry. Once they are dry, Brett, Drea and Chris package them.
We start with Chorizo, utilizing the hearts, some meat and 30% fat. We season with chilies, fennel, cumin, onions, garlic and oregano. Next comes Sicilian Sausage laden with garlic and freshly dried fennel seeds, then Classic Italian Sausage, Liverwurst, and then the dried sausages: Soppreseto and Pepperoni.
The day has its challenges: The non-commercial grade meat grinders overheat, we run out of sausage casings. Our tempo slows… my mood sours a little as I grind five gallons of liver for the liverwurst, the liver turning into liquid mush as it oozes out of the grinder. Jeff offers to finish the liver for me. But it sours him as well.
Bob drives off in search of more natural casings. (We don’t use the pigs’ intestines because cleaning them is not only very laborious but also very smelly!) We wrapped the grinders with ice-packs, and made a round of cleaning the kitchen. Even the bourbon-soaked cherries do not enliven our spirits.
Three hundred pounds of sausage is an ambitious task without proper equipment. (It wasn’t until the grinders overheated that we realized we did not have the proper tools).
By seven o’clock, we have ground and stuffed all we could. We are mostly done. The soppresetos are in the basement drying, and we begin to clean up. Shareholders pack their cars with sausages and chops; they will return to the farm later for the cured meats.
We are tired, but energized by our accomplishments.
As Bob is packing his truck he notices deer prancing in the fields. Bob and Rusty shoot a deer… but that’s another story.
The phone rang… Brett was on the other end of the line telling me it was time. The weather forecast for the weekend was chilly and the pigs had finally reached their finishing weight. Did I want to come down to help with the pig matanza?
As a chef, I like to be as close to the source of my food as possible. I grab every opportunity to visit Brett’s farm to cook with tomatoes that are still warm from the sun, eggs that are only hours old, and chickens that actually have taste and texture. When Brett invited me to join the matanza (Spanish for slaughter, perhaps a euphemism for the rest of us) I knew I had to attend. Having experienced the hard physical labor, along with blood, guts and stench of a turkey matanza the previous autumn, I was a bit squeamish about pigs: Larger animals, larger gore-factor. Because I had not purchased a share in the animals, I had no obligation to attend. But with the hope of taking home some nonpareil pork, I eagerly accepted the invitation.
The pigs arrived on the farm in July when they were just 3 weeks old, and no more than 50 pounds, about the size of a basset hound. They lived in an old chicken coup. By mid-August, they were quickly outgrowing their home. Brett and his friend Bob built their new home: a pen the size of a football field that would house the pigs until the matanza, scheduled for the end of January, 5 months later. I helped drive stakes into the ground that would brace the fencing and electric wire. The pen was completed with a shaded area to escape the summer sun and a mud pit to cool off in.
By late January, the pigs reached their desired “slaughter weight” of about 500 pounds. And the outside air temperature was cool enough so that no additional refrigeration was needed to preserve the more than 1000 pounds of meat and sausage that would be generated.
Twelve of us arrive for the weekend. Most are shareholders, owners in a portion of the pigs, and all are Brett’s friends. Bob, Brett’s closest friend, who runs a pet store in southern Maryland, owns 2 pigs. Bob has been helping to care for the pigs: building the larger pen in August, feeding them and regularly hosing the mudpit, to ensure the drought did not dry it up. Ron, another local, owns one pig. Rusty and Karen who had been Brett and Chris’s neighbors in Arlington, are kindred spirits. Despite their urban home, they often come to the bay to hunt, fish and garden. Jeff is a chef in Bethesda, MD, and like me has become addicted to the quality of Brett’s product. Even though he cannot sell the Pig at his restaurant, he could not resist buying a share of one, and participating in the experience. His girlfriend, vegetarian and pastry chef, Drea, joins him. And finally, Tal arrives, a wine merchant to the DC area restaurants.
My Friday responsibility is to provide the evening meal. Brett suggests I cook chickens: he has too many. Of course, when I arrive on the farm at 1pm, they are still in their freshest state – squawking around the farm. By 6 o’clock, the chickens have been slaughtered, plucked and cleaned, and are happily braising in the oven.
At 5 a.m. Saturday morning, Brett heads out to the field next to the barn to set up the scalding pot. A large black cauldron sits atop a wood pit-fire . It will take about two hours for the water to reach 165 degrees Fahrenheit, the ideal temperature for soaking the slaughtered pigs so that the hair can be removed. About ten feet from the scalder, tables are set up for the initial cleaning of the animal. The pig will then be carried into the barn for further “processing”.
By 7a.m. the rest of us begin to stir. We feast on a true farm breakfast — fresh cream biscuits and fried farm eggs, washed down with coffee.
Then to work: The first pig to be slaughtered is always a challenge. The systems have not yet been tested and standardized. Several shareholders go down to the pig pen to lure the pigs to the edge of the fencing with donuts (really!). When the pig approaches, he’s shot in the head with a handgun rifle. It is swift, and he dies quickly (and happy that his last meal was a Krispy Kreme). The remaining pigs are knee deep in their insouciance and mud, and follow the same lure of donuts when it is their turn.
The first pig’s hooves are tied together with rope and then hoisted onto the tractor. Brett drives the tractor to the scalder, with the pig dangling by its hooves. After a quick hosing to rinse off excess dirt, it is rigged onto an A-frame pulley, then lowered into the scalding water for one and a half minutes, and moved over to the work table. The hair easily shaves off with a metal scraper.
Only the gutting is truly smelly. The pig must be cut carefully with a sharp knife down the underside of the belly, taking care not to rupture the bladder or intestines, which would taint the meat. Once cut, Brett reaches into the belly and pulls out the innards, tying off the bladder and intestines before dumping them into a wheelbarrow from which they are discarded into the fields, mulching the ground and providing a meal for the vultures overhead. The liver, kidneys and heart are saved.
Several work-hands then move the pig into a wheelbarrow, and precariously push their load into the barn. The animal is hung on several hooks, rinsed again with a hose, and the butchery begins.
Then the whole process is repeated with the other five pigs…..
This sweet potato could feed a family of four. For a week. And despite its appearance, no steroids or growth hormones were used. It came from my friend Brett’s farm – Even’ Star – in Southern Maryland; who, by the way, was just featured yesterday in an article in the Washington Post.
I was cooking dinner a few weeks ago for me and a friend. After cubing just a quarter of it, I knew I there would be way more potatoes than we could eat. And with a fear of the remainder languishing in the ‘frigde until I got around to cooking it, I decided to experiment with freezing.
Sweet potatoes sometimes oxidize. Not as much as apples or russet potatoes, but they get enough black streaking that I thought freezing them in the raw form would not be a good idea. Instead, I par-boiled the cubes in salted water for 2 minutes, just enough to destroy whatever oxidizing components there might be.
I laid the par cooked cubes on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper and popped the whole thing in the freezer.
A few weeks later, I used the frozen sweets to make sweet potato raviolis. Everyone loved them!
Because I pureed the sweets, there were no issues with texture. I still want to experiment – and try roasting the pre-frozen cubes to see if they develop a crust or if they just fall apart.
As Brett says, “Very large sweet potatoes are unjustly scorned by novices, but old-time Southern cooks treasure the mammoths for ease of use. They also know that a slowly grown but big sweet potato is more flavorful than a typical conventionally grown, smaller sweet potato whose growth was rushed and babied with agricultural chemicals.”
So don’t be shy about the very large sweet potatoes. Know that whatever you can’t use on the first day can be frozen for a later preparation.
If you are friends with a farmer, you know the only way to spend time with them is to visit them on their farm, and follow them around the fields as they tend to their crops and livestock. I learned this long ago when I became friends with Brett. While cultivating a friendship, I also learned how to save seed; “process” chicken, turkeys and pigs; sort tomatoes; and plant and harvest all sorts of vegetables.
Perhaps similar to working in a kitchen, there’s always something to be done – vegetables need harvesting, fields need weeding or irrigating, plants need staking, and of course produce needs to be sold. In the winter, the chores perhaps are not as time-sensitive, but the list is still long.
It was no surprise when I visited the O’Dwyers in November at their farm (Langwater Farm) that I would have minimal time to talk with them before the chores began to call. They just finished their first season of cropping on 5 acres in North Easton, and by all counts they had a highly successful season. As they plan for the next season, they are busy building two new greenhouses, clearing fields and developing strategies to finance new, labor-saving equipment.
The farm-stand is still open and well stocked with lots of leafy greens, cruciferous veggies and roots. I picked up some romenesco cauliflower, just because it looked so cool, and a bag of parsnips.
Perhaps not the best way to showcase the parsnips, but an exceptional dish… is a variation on Thomas Keller’s Recipe… The combination of parsnip, vanilla and saffron will knock your socks off. Really.
Seared Swordfish with Parsnip Puree, Vanilla Saffron Sauce and Wilted Spinach
4 swordfish filets – approximately 6 oz. each 1 lb. parsnips 1 cup cream 1 lb. spinach 1 orange zested ½ vanilla bean ¼ tsp. saffron ¼ cup wine ½ cup chicken stock 2 cloves garlic, sliced 1 shallot, diced 1 tbs. butter plain oil salt, pepper and lemon juice to taste
1. Make parsnip puree: Peel parsnips, and cut into chunks. Put in a pot of cold, salted water. Bring to a boil, cook until tender. Drain parsnips (reserving about 1 cup of liquid), and puree with ½ cup heavy cream, and cooking liquid as necessary. Season to taste with salt, pepper and lemon juice.
2. Prepare the spinach: Heat a large skillet. Add 1 tsp. of oil. Sauté garlic with orange zest for one minute. Add spinach, and cook until wilted, about w minutes. Remove from heat and set aside
3. Make the sauce: Heat butter in a sauce pan. Add shallots, and cook for 2 minutes, or until soft. Add saffron and vanilla. Deglaze with white wine. Reduce until 1 tbs. of liquid remains. Add cream and chicken stock. Season to taste with salt, pepper and lemon juice.
4. Cook the swordfish: Heat a large skillet. Season char with salt, pepper and a generous squeeze of lemon juice. Add oil to the pan, and cook the fish until golden brown. Turn over and cook through, 2 – 3 minutes depending on the thickness of the filet.
5. Serve swordfish with parsnip puree, spinach and sauce.
The first time I went fishing with Brett, we caught at least a dozen fish. Within minutes of casting my line, I felt the rod twitch – a sign that a fish was nibbling on the bait. I quickly jerked the line back, setting the hook, and reeled the fish in. We took the fish off, put it in a bucket and recast the line. Two minutes later… another twitch and another fish…
Since that time, Brett and I have not caught a single fish together. We’ve woken at the crack of dawn when the tides and moon were just perfect… paddled out to the middle of lakes…. Cast off the shore, cast off the docks, cast off rocks jetting out into the sea, gone on charter boats…. And not one single fish.
I visited the farm last week, determined to break our curse. We headed down to the neighbor’s dock along the Chesapeake Bay (I should confess, we have harvested many crabs from the pots tied to that dock). We brought three rods, and an assortment of bait – crabs, live fish, dead fish and lure. We cast to the left, center and right… near the dock and 100 yards off shore.
And this is why they call it “fishing” and not “catching.”
We headed back to the farm despondent.
To console myself, I walked to the greenhouse where there’s a block of fig trees. Normally, Brett reserves the harvest for his customers, but on this day he indulged me.
There’s something very sensual about harvesting figs… I look for magenta plump fruit then gently take them in my hand to test for softness. And equally alluring is biting into that first fig, the way they open up to expose the fuchsia flower inside with crunchy seeds, soft fruit and honey sweetness.
I intentionally pick figs slightly under-ripe before they become, to my taste, cloyingly sweet. Left on the counter, they fully ripen within 12 hours. Or to preserve them for a day or two, they should be refrigerated.
If you can manage to save the figs for cooking (I could easily eat every single one raw), they are delicious grilled, roasted with a little balsamic, wrapped with prosciutto or served with blue or goat cheese.
Prosciutto Wrapped Grilled Figs with Blue Cheese and Balsamic
1/4 cup white wine 1 shallot, diced 3 oz. roquefort cheese 2 tbs. whole butter 2 cups balsamic vinegar 8 figs 8 slices prosciutto 1 tsp. fresh thyme
1. Slice figs in half. Sprinkle with thyme. Wrap in prosciutto and secure with a toothpick
2. Put 2 cups of balsamic vinegar in a pot, reduce over high heat until about 1/2 cup remains and the balsamic is syrupy. Remove from heat.
3. In medium sauce pan, add white wine and shallots. Reduce over high heat until only 2 tbs. of liquid remain. Reduce heat to low (or turn heat off completely), and vigorously whisk in cheese and 2 tbs. of whole butter. Set aside in warm place (does not reheat well).
4. Grill figs until prosciutto is slightly charred and figs are heated through. (alternatively, set under the broiler for a few minutes). Serve with bleu cheese and balsamic glaze.
When I pick a sprig of basil from my garden, I usually don’t think much about throwing a leaf or two into the compost bin if I don’t use it. After all, the basil plant benefits from a consistent snipping to increase its production. But when I’m visiting my friend Brett at his farm, Even’ Star, he berates me. Brett uses every last bit of food.
I went down to the farm this week for my annual tomato canning extravaganza. When I arrived, Brett had set aside tomatoes for me to use – cases and cases of #2 tomatoes. These are the tomatoes that have blemishes – slightly bruised, bug-holed and perhaps a little moldy. If you cut away the bad parts (and give those to the chickens), the tomatoes are perfectly wonderful – just as sweet and flavorful as the more perfect looking #1s. Because the tomatoes are cooked down and pureed into sauce, their initial appearance becomes irrelevant. He tries to sell these tomatoes to his customers at deep discounts, but he still has cases more which are destined as chicken food if I don’t use them.
The same philosophy of utilizing every scrap holds true at meal time too… even though the walk-in cooler is bursting with fresh produce to be sold at the farmers markets and through his CSA, we still use the #2 veggies to cook our own meals and meals for the work crew. In addition to using the #2’s, I try to use up all the bits and pieces of leftovers.
After canning my stewed tomatoes, I still had a little sauce left. I also had some leftover corn from the chowder. I foraged in the refrigerator and found rice, Monterey jack cheese and a Ziploc bag of blemished Cubanelle peppers… all the fixings for stuffed peppers!
Because cubanelle peppers are more tubular than the standard-stuffing bell pepper, they require a roasting before stuffing. This softens the flesh and makes stuffing much easier. Their smaller size also means the stuffing will heat/cook more quickly, so a pre-roasting of the peppers, means the final roasting will only take 10 – 15 minutes, tops.
Roasted Stuffed Cubanelles
8 cubanelles
1 tbs. plain oil
1/2 cup cooked rice
1 cup raw or cooked corn kernels
½ cup grated Monterey jack cheese
Optional additions and flavorings: jalapenos, basil, scallions, black beans, leftover cooked chicken
Tomato sauce
Salt and pepper to taste
1. Toss peppers in oil and lay out in a single layer on a cookie sheet. Roast peppers at 400F for 15 minutes or until the skin starts to blister and turn light brown. Take them out of the oven and let cool.
2. Meanwhile, mix together the rice, corn, cheese and any other desired flavorings. Check seasoning for salt and pepper.
3. Cut the tops off the peppers and scoop out the seeds. Stuff the filling into the cavity of the pepper.
4. Return the stuffed peppers to the oven and bake for 10 – 15 minutes.
5. Serve with tomato sauce.
I never know what sort of adventure awaits me when I visit the farm. Brett may have a chicken “matanza” scheduled, some great tomato at peak harvest, or a wild animal that made its way into the walk-refrigerator.
This time it was (a rather tame) tuna belly that a friend had recently caught on a fishing trip. It was already a few days old by the time we got it, but even still, it was fresher than anything we could have gotten at the fish market.
And perfect for eating raw – as sushi or tartar. The tuna was a paler red than what I usually see at the market – this is from the fat that’s imperceptibly marbled through the meat. The tuna was more tender, and the taste more luscious.
When cooking on the farm, we make do with what’s on hand. He and his family prefer maki rolls. Their well-stocked pantry has plenty of rice, nori (seaweed) and wasabi on hand, making this an easy, go-to meal.
Our maki rolls were not traditional – I did not properly fan the rice as it cooled so it would glisten, though I did season it with rice vinegar, salt and sugar. I seasoned the tuna with a little soy sauce before rolling.
After using all the nori to make rolls, we still had some tuna. I used lettuce leaves instead to wrap the remainder.
An old favorite is tuna timbale with avocado and smoked salmon. Brett had a few ripe avocadoes, but no smoked salmon. The avocado was seasoned with scallions, cilantro, a touch of chipotle and lime juice. The tuna was seasoned with soy sauce and scallions. For an extra layer of color, I garnished the plate with a few sprigs of the greenhouse lettuce and a drizzle of wasabi. If I had wasabi peas, I would have sprinkled a few on the plate for textural contrast and a quick shot of heat.
