Sign up for One Local Summer ’09

This year, Farm to Philly will kindly host One Local summer again.  

If you’re not familiar with OLS, the rules are simple:  cook up one meal each week during the challenge (June 1st through August 30th) using locally grown ingredients (exceptions: oil, salt and pepper, and spices).  Post about your meal on your blog, or email it to your regional coordinator – a round up will take place each Tuesday at Farm to Philly.

Participation is a great way to motivate yourself to find local ingredients, seek out unique regional ingredients, and post regularly to a blog!

Click here to sign up by May 30th.

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Thanks, hon!

I drink Pepsi about two times per year.  I have a sudden craving for cola, and I usually buy a 16oz bottle and make it last a couple of days.  So, when that craving hit on Saturday and my husband went out to run some errands, I asked him to grab me a bottle.  

He brought this back:

Pepsi made with cane sugar!  

Then, on his drive home today, he heard a story on NPR about these “throwback” drinks.  Check it out here if you’re interested.

I can’t imagine this makes my biannual Pepsi any better for me, but maybe a fraction more “whole?”

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Are These the Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies?

What is it about a chocolate chip cookie that drives us to try recipe after recipe, forever pursuing chocolate chip perfection?

Whatever it is, the May/June (yes, that’s right, May/June) issue of Cooks’ Illustrated includes a tweaked version of the classic Toll House Cookie recipe that immediately caught my eye in my search for Shangri-La.

I shoudl say that I did not jump on the NYT Chocolate Chip Cookie bandwagon last year, and I haven’t even attempted that recipe, which has made the rounds of nearly every food blogger in the blogiverse.  I haven’t found myself anywhere that I could pick up chocolate feves, I don’t always have cake flour, and I usually want cookies NOW, not tomorrow, after resting the dough.  That may very well be the cookie I’ve been searching for.  I’ll just have to go there one day.

The CI version was appealing for it’s familiar ingredients (flour, baking powder, butter, granulated sugar, dark brown sugar, vanilla, egg, chocolate chips) mixed with just enough kitchen dorkiness to make it something of an adventure.  

The real twist in this recipe is that most of the butter is melted and browned before being whisked with the sugars, egg and vanilla.  The other different technique is to let that mixture sit for a few minutes between three rounds of whisking.  

Sunday dawned rainy and dreary around here (Don’t get me wrong, rain=snow melt!) so I made a batch of the cookies.

Were they perfect?  I’m not sure.  They were, however, pretty darn good!  The browned butter definitely lends a toffee flavor that is more pronounced than in the everyday recipe.  The texture is crispy, chewy and moist, but I’m not sure it’s any better than a good traditional cookie. 

I’d definitely make these again, perhaps doubling the recipe.  The original recipe calls for cookies made of 3/4 cup of dough, yielding only 16 cookies.  CI likes the bigger cookie to allow for even more contrast in texture between the crispy outside and chewy inside.  I, however, wanted more than 16 cookies, so I made mine smaller and ended up with 28.  Those will definitely be gone by Wednesday!

A couple of other folks have already tried the recipe and have their own spin on it, and FamilyFriendsandFood got permission to include a copy of the recipe, if you’d like to check out her thoughts.   

So, perfect?  I think maybe my perfect cookie would be warm, homemade and baked by someone else in my kitchen, which they clean up after serving me cookies and milk.  But maybe that’s just me.

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Check out NH Maple Weekend!

 

Tapping at home!

Last year around this time, I did a post about how pothole season means maple syrup season around these parts.  You can check that out if you’d like more information about the nuts-and-bolts of maple sugaring (in NH, sugar is a verb!).  

Meanwhile, though, if you live in or around NH, I’d encourage you to check out your local sugar house this weekend during NH’s Maple Producer open houses.

Mmmmmmm…

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Convenience Store

My egg store. Sandwich, NH.

Fresh eggs.  Self-serve (write your name in the log and deposit cash in the box).

Make your own change.  

Open 24-hours.

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Dark Days: Variations on a Theme

Last week’s pot roast was a slow-cooked, braised meal.  This week’s meal is, too, I’m afraid.  This weather (bitter cold, windy) really lends itself to this type of cooking, though, and it’s the perfect time of year to use up those big, frozen cuts of meat that require an afternoon in the oven. 

This week: oxtails.

Oxtails aren’t really ox tails anymore.  They’re the tails of beef animals.  This was my first time cooking them, and I just sort of winged the recipe, figuring the technique for other tough cuts would work just fine.

I crisped a couple of pieces of bacon in my dutch oven, then removed the pieces.  I took out all but about a tablespoon of the fat and browned up the pieces of meat, removed those, then softened onions in a little more of the drippings.  Once those were soft, I threw in a few cloves of garlic and a tablespoon of tomato paste.  After stirring for about a minute, in went a couple cups of beef broth, a half cup of red wine, some thyme and a couple of bay leaves.  The meat and any accumulated juices went back in, I brought the whole thing up to a simmer and plopped it in the oven (covered) for about four hours, flipping the meat pieces once.

Oxtails are quite fatty, and even after trimming the big chunks off before cooking, I anticipated a pretty rich dish, so I refrigerated the whole pot overnight.  Before reheating in a 200 degree oven for about a half an hour, it was easy to remove the cap of fat from the broth.

I served the tail pieces with buttered, homemade noodles, leftover from Italian night. The noodles obviously got smushed before freezing, so some of them were more dumpling pieces than noodles.  They tasted good anyway!

• From NH: Bacon, oxtails, onions, garlic, beef broth, noodles
• From NE: Butter
• From Away: Tomato paste, salt, pepper, spices, wine

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Winter Markets this Weekend!

Hope to see you out and about, and that the weather cooperates for everyone!

South Tamworth, NH 10-2 p.m. @ Union Hall, Local meat, dairy, breads, pies, jams, vegetables, natural cosmetics, honey, frozen berries and fruits and more! 

Winter/Holiday Market sponsored by SeacoastEatLocal.  Lots of vendors here…think stocking up and last-minute gifts!  Click the link for a list of vendors and directions to Macintosh Culinary Academy.

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Dark Days ’08-’09: Thanksgiving

Well, there was a turkey!

And it was from about 12 miles away.  By the time I ordered the bird, all they had left were 20+ pounders.  There were only four of us for dinner.  Needless to say, are still eating turkey.

We are also still eating pie.

Did I mention there were only four of us?  Nearly a whole pie per person!

Most of the meal was local, really.  Not quite as local as last year, when I knew where pretty much everything came from.  I had to miss the pre-Thanksgiving Winter Farmer’s Market for the Turkey Trot.  But still, I’d say, pretty much all within 100 miles.  Also, I ran out of chicken stock this year and had to call in the organic, store bought back up.

The menu (links are to the recipes I used – heavy on Food Network this year):

• Turkey: 12 miles
• Potatoes: Maine
• Butternut Squash: CSA squash, Cabot butter, chicken stock, from away
• Turnip Gratin: CSA turnips, Cabot butter and regional cream, Greyure, from away (turns out, even with cheese and cream, I just don’t love the turnips)
• Sausage, dried cranberry and apple stuffing (I toasted my own bread cubes rather than use bagged, as the recipe calls for): Rock Farm sausage, local bakery bread, NH apples, chicken stock, organic celery and leeks and dried cranberries: from away (a great recipe!)
• Homemade rolls from my father-in-law
• Honey spcied cranberry sauce: CSA cranberries, cider from Concord, NH, honey from Meredith, NH, spices from away
• Pumpkin Banana Mousse Tart: CSA pumpkin, Cabot butter, regional cream, eggs from Sandwich, NH, banana, orange and spices from away (this is VERY yummy!)
• Two other pies homemade by my mother-in-law: mince and pecan

Phew…I’m full just thinking about it all again!

And then, on Friday, it snowed.

The old-timers say that snow right around Thanksgiving means a snowy winter.  We’ll have to see.  Last year’s winter was the snowiest on record in generations.  We can only hope we’ll get a little less than that!

On to the Christmas planning now, I suppose.  Ugh.

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Adventures in Littleton, NH

At the beginning of this month, on our way back from a long weekend in Montreal, we stopped in the charming town of Littleton, NH.  It’s directly off of I-93, and we drove past the fast food stops and gas stations that are just off the exit.  We were looking for the Littleton Grist Mill, a restored water-powered mill that produces organic, stoneground flours and grains.

The mill is behind Main Street, right on the river, so we accidentally drove too far.  I’m glad we did because we stumbled upon this:

How can you not appreciate a random horse cemetery?  And how could we not check it out?

Not sure you can read this – it basically tells the story of the man who founded the cemetery (Eli Wallace) to bury his wife’s favorite horses, who really were their only children.  These are the kinds of places that make small New England towns what they are.  Click here for the whole description.

We meandered back to Main Street, parked and crossed the street.

And behind the row of shops on the road, we found the mill.

The Littleton Grist Mill was restored by two families starting in 1997.  You can walk around inside and view the old workings and the old grinding stones.  Due to health regulations, the modern grinding stones are kept in a “clean room.”

Littleton sits on the banks of the Ammonoosuc River, and the mill is right next to a classic covered bridge.

While the products are organic and milled locally, the grains are not produced in NH.

I came home with some rye flour and cornbread mix.

On the way back to the car, we stopped at Chutters.  These folks boast that they have the World’s Largest Candy Counter.  I can’t verify this, but I can show you what it looks like (along with a lady with shoes that make me laugh – I think they’re perfect for the candy counter).

Have you ever seen these?  I hadn’t, so I had to try them.

FYI, they’re mints!  Some swedish fish, blackberry and raspberry gummies and some circus peanuts found their way home with me, too!

If you ever find yourself on the northern end of I-93, be sure to stop by Littleton!

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Fried Green Tomatoes

We have several green tomatoes sitting on the windowsill.  They were the last of the fruit and had really no chance of surviving the impending chilly nights.

So, we tried them fried, using this recipe (I added cayenne and garlic powder to the cornmeal).

The verdict?

Okay, I guess.  How bad could fried, salted anything be?  The tomatoes soften, and the cornmeal forms a really crunch crust.

I’d recommend serving them with some ranch dressing or other creamy accompaniment.  The tomatoes are a little bitter.

Sorry I don’t have a photo of the finished product – camera battery depleted!  They look pretty much like the photo in the recipe, though.

Happy frying!

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