Best of the Spring: Swing Away

I've been on a good run lately.  Hittin' it outta the ball park, taking it all the way, killing it, taking names, destroying it, hitting it spot on, nailing it.  No matter what double entendre you use, I've been freaking good at picking out recipes lately.  Of course, it's always a community effort so thank you Jessi, Trodimon, MelCC and others who have contributed: this good run is for you.

Bo Ssam

First up, way back in March when the days were drizzly and 40 degrees seemed like a heat wave, there was a tweet that started it all.  "Just saw this on @hungrynation (via @food52). Needs to be a pork shoulder dinner experiment. http://bit.ly/9Ts8x2" from @tokissthecook.  Our experiment worked so well, I made it again for my mom's 60th birthday.  Talk about momentous.  Talk about delicious.  Talk about hitting one way out of the park. 

Ginger scallion sauce, jalapeno garlic puree, soy sauce. 

 

Salty, sweet shredded pork shoulder, sugar-vinegared sushi rice

 

 Fingerling, Asparagus, Goat Cheese Pizza
Right around this time, farmers markets are getting a little bare bones, until aspargus appears.  Bright green shoots just after our last snow bring smiles to the faces of drearied, wearied farmers market shoppers.  We were long overdue for a meeting of the minds:  Trodimon vs some dear friends from college days: MelCC and her indy filmmaker. They met the chickens and the man and gorged on some outstanding, local, fresh pizza.  I appreciate the foods and friends that take you from one season to another.  Talk about easing transition.

 Supplemented by, not-so-local but oh-so-savory Spicy Sausage & Gorgonzola Pizza.

  
Red Snapper
Up next, something that's been staring me straight in the eye lately.

I've never filleted a fish.  Until 3 weeks ago.  Picking up cooking school certainly does keep you on your toes. I've made a promise, or at least a sincere effort to use one skill per week in my everyday cooking that I have learned and now that we're past julienne carrots, I've had to get my game face on.  One sunny, warm, fatigued Friday night I found myself leaning over the counter at Whole Foods asking the fish monger if I could touch and smell the fish he presented.  The folks next to me who were buying pre-seasoned and breaded cutlets of cod, thought I had gone a bit over the deep end.  Nick the monger was obliging saying, "Yeah this snapper is from the Gulf-- err, not near the oil though?!"  Slick to the touch, firm flesh and glossy eye told me this little guy was a keeper.  

Dragged home, butterflied leaving one side of the flesh still attached to the bones, and nestled on a bed of Spanish White Beans & Spinach. It stared me in the eye, and I stared right back.

Chicken al Mattone
This one hasn't been staring me in the face, but lingering in my mind for almost a year now.  It happens frequently that my memory stores flavors and images, a little more realistic than I believe is normal.  This cover of Bon Appetit from September 2009 has been taunting me since then.  

I'm on the hunt for whole chicken recipes since making friends with a chicken farmer at GCM last summer, and finding that oven roasted whole chicken could get me through a whole week of salads, wraps, sandwiches and more.  Pre-cooked chicken is the perfect summer fare. For this one, you remove the backbone, butterfly the whole chicken and stick it under a brick.  Forget the "marinate for 24 hours"-- none of us have the forethought for such things in summer.  Rub on the oil, herbs and garlic and let it go.  It's hands down the best roasted chicken I've ever had.  So good, I didn't get to snap a picture of it plated before it was inhaled.  I killed this one real good.

I'm just saying, when it comes right down to it, sometimes on momentous occasions, you've got to just hit it out of the park.  Mama Green Sug says, "go big or go home!!"

Our hens are growing up

Please tell me if you are a pet owner, that it is perfectly normal and healthy to track life on the stages of your pet's growth.  Just as I type that phrase, it feels that this whole 'chickens in the city' is me feathering my nest much more than I had intended.  I swear I'm not nesting.  I'm still running about, taking weekend trips to microbreweries just to get out of the city and see the horizon for a bit.  I have only gone to one Cubs game this year and plan to multiply that number shortly. However.  Sigh.  I'm starting to mark time by this kind of growth:

They started hand-held:

They were little and cute and chirping away in our back porch.

Fluff started disappearing, feet and feathers grew

they learned to how to make friends.

and how to perch.

 

And then, my dear girls got a real home, not just a cardboard box, brought to you buy mypetchicken.com.

 

We're calling a chicken condo, rather than coop.  And since they're Old Town hens, they'll probably be getting little Tiffany's bracelets for their second birthday.  Classy ladies.

The hens are happily nested, though still won't be laying until September.  In the meantime I tossed in a few strawberry tops and asparagus ends and the girls went wild.

So I have housed-soon-to-be-nested, happy chickens.  And somehow, as they're now the size that's a bit too large to be held, but not quite yet laying, I think I had better think about where I will grow my beans this year, and when to move the herbs outside.  We're mid-spring-sized chicken.

Crop Mobbing

Friday afternoon as the markets slowed down and the grain brokers came back to the office after spending the day on the floor of the CBOT, I was cornered by one of our grain brokers.  Rumors have been running through my firm that 'Joanna was raising chickens'--and this guy hunted me down.  "Really?!" he said, "I thought that all was a big joke!  But I've been thinking about raising them myself?!"  I'm shocked and delighted all at once and the conversation begins:  "I mean, how shocking is it that this is the first generation in the history of humanity that doesn't know how to grow it's own food?!"  "Yes and since that bothers me and I want to do something about it, I've been named the crazy one on the desk?!"

I've been running into a lot of kindred spirits lately.  Turns out, raising chickens in Chicago has two reactions:  there are those who are shocked, appauled, disgusted, incensed that you would DARE to do something that dirty in their backyard. "What are you going to do with all that poop!!" is the most common question.  My answer: I'm not intending to pick every last piece of it up with a ziplock baggie. (no offense to the dog lovers out there but honestly, it seems like a funny logical block)  The other response is one of comraderie.  I'm finding more and more folks who have been thinking about composting/buying local/cooking more/raising chickens even.  And my chickens, have become the avenue for having these kinds of conversations. 

I ran across this NYT article in mid-February and immediately thought-- is there anyone in Chicago doing this?  As a periphery member of the AUA I am slowly finding more and more ways to meet like-minded folks who are passionate about knowing where food comes from and who are interested in helping the traveling between there and here.  So... a few weeks ago this thread was posted:

    *Kismet Fruit Farm*, a 6 year old fruit farm, needs to salvage raspberry
    shoots and canes and strawberry crowns from their previous farm site.
    Their commitment to support community food production anywhere,
    aligns them with Cob Connection for this great opportunity for our
    supporters  - to go home with the fruits of their labors.

    Most of the digging work will be done by tractor, so mostly we will bend,
    collect, and organize while we talk, laugh, sing and get to know each other.

    In exchange for your hard work and eagerness to get out of the city and onto
    a farm this spring, you will be fed dinner, breathe fresh air, and share in
    the bounty!

And so I did.

7 am on Saturday morning Trodimon and I went cruising up to Western Michigan to help.  As it turns out, Kismet has been sharing land with a pair of established farmers and needed to move crops from the land-share to their own land.  Land owners Joan and John were there to help, much to Kismet's surprise.  There seems to be more going on in this relationship but since we're there to pick canes and crowns, we save our questions for later.

Joan and John are the kinds of farmers that look like a postcard: she's out there in a skirt, a SKIRT in the fields! in a dress that looks delightfully homemade.  His grey beard grazes his chest as he bends slowly to pick up the canes left by those without such a careful eye.

We talk about my chickens and how to preserve eggs in a crock for your pantry in the 19th century manner with a kind of limewater something.  We talk about my one failed attempt at making mozzarella from scratch and her goat cheese made from her three momma goats.  "Oh we have 9 babies that are just one month old, would you all like to come and see them?  Sure, you can come see the whole place-- our solar panels and wind turbines and everything."  Joan & John's bread and butter is their organic blueberry farm but they also have a team of oxen for maple syruping, three momma goats for milk and 15-ish chickens (it's hard to keep track when they keep having chicks and turning up on the dinner table).

They have lived off the grid since they moved onto the farm 30 years ago.  Wind and solar power the electricity for the house.  Heat comes from wood that John mills from the trees on the land.  They are building a beautiful new farmhouse and John is milling all of the wood for flooring, wainscotting, porches, the list goes on.  They're incredible people.  Like-minded, doesn't even begin to describe it.  Through the tour of their farm, I'm realizing: you are precisely the people that I'm changing my life to be like.  I'm not able to live off the grid or make all of my own goat cheese, but I'm learning lessons in home preserving and raising chickens and talking to the farmers that I'm buying from because of people like you.

It's a funny thing when you imagine a life that you're trying to shadow and then find yourself meeting those very folks.








All this to say, I just wanted to show you all what their life looked like.  No, I don't think I'm ready to move to a nineteenth century farm house.  But I do want to live a life as responsibly as Joan and John.  I want to be proud of the life that I'm living and take ownership of what I'm using.  I want to live in a way that creates conversation and inspires other people to do the things that they've been thinking in the back of their minds.

We returned home to grid-powered apartments and a fridge full of store bought food.  I think we even ordered out pizza because we were both too tired to cook.  Baby steps.  We brought back strawberry crowns of our own for planting.  This summer, as my strawberries fruit, I will make jam and when the blueberries are in season, I plan to make a run up to Joan & John's to pick my own and chat with Joan about the very best kinds of blueberry preserves. 

Any and all are welcome.

Eggs to Chickens

Now isn't that the natural progression?  The cyclical question for me is quite easy.  The egg ALWAYS came before the chicken.  It all started here:

Eggs on toast is my absolute favorite homemade breakfast.  If I could have two eggs, sunny side up and a piece of whole wheat toast for breakfast every morning I swear I would be the most productive, alert broker there ever was.  Punching the clock at 6:30 am leaves little room in my morning schedule for breakfast, let alone one that's pan-fried, so I have resigned myself to every Saturday and Sunday morning making a pretty looking breakfast for myself.  Either like this one above or this one here or the ones here, it's a must to keep my early morning habits consistent and healthy.

The breakfast above is a particularly memorable one.  This winter, I finally visited an old friend from college whose side hobby had been an intriguing point for quite some time:  he owns two little Rhode Island Reds that live in a coop, outside his apartment in Lincoln Square. After greeting the ladies, watching them poke around in the dirt and brick patio for the better part of an hour on a chilly grey January Saturday morning, we ventured back to the kitchen where he retrieved from his freezer three lovely brown eggs.  "Here" he said, "I've got much more than I know what to do with."

Sometimes when you see someone else doing something that looks crazy and impossible, something clicks in your mind and makes it seem like you yourself could actually do it too.  Didn't you ever get into something you never dreamed of because someone that you knew was already doing it and that somehow took some pressure off?  I will not be so naive or foolish to pretend that I'm the first one ever doing this (puh-lease people have been raising chickens for centuries!) nor even the first in Chicago (check out this lovely google group for more info), though I may be the first in Old Town... 

4 little peeping chicks, nay, squawking chicks were delivered to my doorstep on Tuesday morning.  They had been injected with a LOT of electrolytes and packaged up with some heat packs and straw in a box and shipped overnight from a hatchery in Naperville. I believe they were born on Sunday, which would make them exactly one week old today.  Here is Paprikash on her first week birthday with daffodils that just bloomed today:

So here's hoping that you're along for this adventure too, and prepared for many an egg recipe come October.  In the girls honor, I threw a petit "wine and chicks" evening for some girlfriends.  What's better on a dreary Friday night in March than a little red wine and chirping hens (human and gallus families).  And what better dessert should one have with Easter heavy upon us, than coconut cupcakes.

Thanks to Ina Garden for always knowing precisely what I should cook for parties and having the best cupcake recipes there ever were.

Chickadee Coconut Cupcakes
3 sticks unsalted butter, at room temp
2 cups sugar
5 large eggs, at room temp
1 1/2 t pure Mexican vanilla
1 1/2 t pure almond extract
3 c flour
1 t baking powder
1/2 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
1 c buttermilk
14 oz sweetened, shredded coconut

For the frosting:
8 oz cream cheese at room temperature
1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter
1 t Mexican vanilla
1/4 t almond extract
2-3 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted

Preheat oven to 350.
Cream together butter and sugar with an electric mixer on high until light and fluffy as a little 1 week old chick.  Add eggs, one at a time, beating slowly between each add.  Add vanilla and almond extracts and mix well.

In a separate bowl, whisk together, flour, powder, soda, salt.  In threes, add the flour mix and buttermilk to the sugar & butter mix, in shifts.  Mix just until combined.  Fold in 7 ounces of coconut.

Line a muffin tin with paper liners, fill liner to the top with batter and bake for 25-30 minutes.  Allow the cakes to cool in the pan for 10 minutes before moving to a cooling rack.

While cakes are baking, cream together cheese, butter, vanilla and almond with an electric mixer on low.  Add confectioners' sugar and mix until smooth.

Frost the cupcakes and sprinkle with remaining coconut.

Espressos In Brazil

Last week, I was in Brazil for work and in true "when in Rome" fashion I found myself consuming up to 6-10 espressos a day.  Two for breakfast, 2 during morning meetings, 1 with lunch, 2 during my afternoon meetings, and one after dinner.  Hang on, that's decidedly 10.  Shameful.  While I cut my caffeine consumption back to normal levels, I thought I'd share with you all just how representative my consumption levels were displayed throughout my photos of the trip. Here are a few smatterings for your viewing pleasure:

Breakfast at Praia Ipanema Hotel (much recommended for any stay in Rio, stay away from Cococabana)

Breakfast meeting & mid-meeting cafes

Alright alright, so I wasn't drinking coffee the WHOLE time: Chopp: cheap delicious cold Brasilian lager & Ipanema Beach

How does the phrase go?  An espresso a day keeps the sleepiness away?

And just for kicks:  water & a biscotio de polvilho watching futevolle

Guarana, amazonian fruit soda & pao de queijo.   The view from the top of Pao de Acucar

I'm missing the flavors of Brasil already.

Mexicana to Thai: a carnitas/cabbage study

I solemnly swear to those interested parties that this is my last publicly sung praise of my slow cooker.  I'm moving on to bigger (physically) and better (come on, it's JOHN!) cookbooks, namely this one.  It was a delightful peace offering from a biz trip to NOLA and I'm quite eager to get at it but before I do,  Trodímo̱n please allow me this final last tribute to my lovely slow cooker.

I received this slow cooker from la maman de Trodimon for Christmas.  As a matter of irony, I was incidentally so vocal about my desire for a slow cooker that I also received one from my culinacurious father.  On December 26, 2009 I was the proud owner of TWO slow cookers-- and sometimes I still wish I had two, if only because it would be a physical manifestation of my true love.  Alas, practicality calls and I really needed new cutting boards, knives, a slotted spoon-- you know, the essentials.  For those that are still using old cutting boards that are warped and don't have the fancy stick-ems on the bottom: UPGRADE!  It makes all the difference.

Back to the matter at hand, she who gave the slow cooker happened to be celebrating  une petite anniversaire, and naturally it was not enough to only have a stellar lunch here; we needed to have a two day celebration.  I personally believe that birthdays should be week-long extravaganzas, so a two-day is a must.  With the last evening of slow cooking ahead and a birthday at hand, a new recipe was needed.

Bon Appetit ran a spread on slow cooking in their latest issue, much to my delight, and in it was a lovely recipe for carnitas.  With a pork shoulder in the freezer from a local farmers market, it seemed an easy choice.  I left my slow cooker on low for 8 hours, and then at warming for another 3-- final tip to the slow cooker: when it comes to meats, the longer on the warm setting, the better.  Don't be afraid of a 6 hour cook time-- you can go longer.  In fact, this recipe doesn't call for any liquids to add and I was a bit nervous about the meat drying out.  When you're throwing together salt, pepper, oregano & pork, having good quality meat is key.  I picked up a pork shoulder from Jake's Country Meats at the Logan Square Market and it was phenomenal. 

But then, here I am with 3/4ers a head of cabbage and where to go from there?  I've fallen in love with the Brassicaceae family, so I could not leave such a delightful specimen alone.  New challenge:  how to cook with cabbage.  But let's be honest, none of us like cooked cabbage. I can handle a little saurkraut every now and again but cooked, wilty cabbage?  No merci.  Call in for backup:  I have two friends at work that have been a delightful discovery.  Turns out, when you start to be vocal about your love of food, you never know what effect that can have on a friendship.  One of these you've heard of before but the other, a delighful franco-fille has been an incredible source of new recipes and ideas and cooking dates. (*note to self, we're WAY overdue for another one... ) So Tweedle-dee and Tweedle dum came in to save the day.  Try this they suggest.  Both ladies made this last summer and it won top prize at their respective July 4th celebrations.

But since a cabbage salad cannot stand alone, it came with a side of Thai curry shrimp and Trodimon's homebrew.


Winter Seasonal Thai Cabbage Slaw  adapted from Bon Appetits
1/2 head of green cabbage, shredded into 1/4 inch strips
1 1/2 cups frozen corn
handful baby carrots, chopped
handful of cilantro, chopped

1 T fresh squeezed orange juice
1 T canola oil
1 T asian rice vinegar

Toss veggies and cilantro.  In a separate bowl whisk oj, oil and vinegar.  toss together and voila!  Serve with one of those cheap asian pre-fab noodle dinners.

Locavore plug:  I can't barely stand buying wilty greens from the grocery store these days but am growing fairly weary of potatoes 24-7.  This salad is delightfully seasonally appropriate: cabbage is being sent in most CSAs during this time of year; I used fresh squeezed orange juice from oranges I picked in CA three weeks ago and dragged in my carry-on all the way back.  The frozen corn from the Cap's grandparents' farm (which has appeared before), carrots from a farmer's market and err... cilantro.  Forgive the one exception.

Comforty Chocolate Cake

January has been hard.  A dear friend lost her mother-in-law.  Another lost his brother-in-law.  Another lost an 'aunt/mother/sister/friend.'

Why is it that so often when life gets messy, friends and good food are the things we turn to?  This Christmas, I was given a lovely book called The Physiology of Taste.  A delightfully philosophical Frenchman belabored over the development of taste, digestion, restaurants and all the social interactions which surround food.  Imagine if you will, my delight on Christmas: food?!  french?! and philsophy?!  This is going to be my main book of choice on my next jaunt cross-country, I wanted to share with you a bit what he says about chocolate:

It has been shown as proof positive that carefully prepared chocolate is as healthful a food as it is pleasant; that it is nourishing and easily digested; that it does not cause the same harmful effects to the feminine beauty which are blamed on coffee, but is on the contrary a remedy for them; that it is above all helpful to people who must do a great deal of mental work, to those who labor in the pulpit or the courtroom and especially to travelers, that it has produced good results in cases of chronic illness and that it has even been used as the last resource in diseases of pylorus. 

And I think he could have gone further. I think chocolate does mighty good for those in grief.  Please, make this for those you love.  It's comforting and thick and good and can be a rest and remedy for those who are belabored and need it.


Comforty Chocolate cake with coffee ganache 
adapted from Moosewood Restaurant Low-Fat Favorites
1/2 circle of Abuelita Mexican Chocolate disc
1/4 c canola oil
1 1/2 c flour
1/4 c unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4 t salt
1/2 t baking soda
1 t baking powder
1 c packed brown sugar
1 large egg
2 large egg whites
1 t Mexican vanilla extract
3/4 c buttermilk 


Preheat oven 350.  Grease a 10 inch pie pan.
In a small saucepan, heat oil and melt chocolate-- watch carefully!! (I burned my first batch)  Pour into a medium sized bowl and set aside to cool.
In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa, salt, soda and powder. Set aside.
Add sugar to melted chocolate and beat until well blended.  Add egg and whites, one at a time, beating well after each addition.  Stir in the vanilla.  Add 1/4 c of buttermilk alternating with adding 1/3 c of flour mixture, beating well after each addition.  
Pour batter into pie pan and bake for 40-45 minutes or until your toothpicked center comes out clean.  

Coffee Ganache
6 t of this morning's coffee
1/4c powdered sugar


Beat well to combine.  Add more coffee if too thick, conversely more sugar if too thin.
Drizzle atop each piece of Comforty Chocolate cake.