No such thing as "one pot"

So, I'm Greek, which basically means that I am constitutionally incapable of using only one pot.  The following "one pot" meal actually used 4 pots, a jar and two bags and that was before I got to the biscuits.

Squash soup with caramelized onions
2-3 cups veggie stock
Cream or half-half
1 quart squash puree (I used acorn)
3 medium garlic cloves, smashed and minced
1 large onion
3 tablespoons butter
1/2 T molasses

Make stock using the frozen bits and pieces you've been saving.  Add the puree, salt and pepper to taste and blend with a whisk.  In a cast iron skillet, melt the butter until it foams, then add the onions. Turn down the heat and sautée at least 10 minutes until onions start to brown and lose their shape. Add the molasses and continue to sautée on low heat, stirring occasionally. Add to the soup and stir.  Use the cream or half-half to thin and cool the soup after serving. Do not reheat the soup with the milk product in it as it will curdle.

For a little crunch, garnish with walnuts or pecans. Serve with....

Spicy cheesy biscuits
Standard biscuit recipe
1/2 cup grated cheese (any cheese at all will do)
roasted jalapeno pepper, seeded and minced

Mix the biscuit dough, adding the peppers and cheese to the dry ingredients, then blending with the wet. Cook per biscuit instructions.

This also qualifies as a 100% Dark Days meal, as all ingredients were preserved from my garden, or acquired from local sources.

Waste not

Apple, pear or peach peels. Cherry pits. Lemon rinds. Orange rinds. Chard stems.

You should not be throwing any of these away. Any time you use a lemon, orange or lime, zest it before you discard the rind. Leave the zest out for a couple of days on a paper towel, or zap it for a minute (literally, just one minute) in the microwave to dry it, and save it in an old spice jar. This will be the best zest you ever use short of fresh, and essentially free.

All vegetable discards, with the possible exception of potato peels, should be thrown in a ziplock and frozen for a quick stock.

Fruit peels can be turned into simple syrups--a couple of cups of peels, a couple of cups of water and some sugar and lemon juice makes enough syrup for a drink or two.

Here's another stick-to-your ribs Dark Days meal for a gloomy cold day, using this principal!

Potato-leek soup, with a twist
1 large or several small leeks
2 very large russets
3-4 white carrots
2 small parsnips
1 small turnip
2 T butter
1 teaspoon coriander seeds
1 teaspoon white peppercorns
Apple stock

Now, then, you've frozen those apple peels from all that apple sauce and pie, right? Right? Good. Because it makes a wonderful stock for soups--sweet and heavy, and able to give vegetarian soups the closest thing to an umami flavor you can get without adding soy sauce.  To make stock, put a quart or more of the peels into a quart of water and boil down to three cups (about 10-20 minutes). Drain and set aside.

Peel and roughly cut, into bite sized pieces, the root vegetables and boil until very soft.  Drain. Slice the leeks and saute in a couple tablespoons of a high-heat oil like grapeseed or olive. Add butter and the drained roots to the pan and stir over medium heat until the butter is melted. Grind the seasoning and stir it in.  Add the stock and simmer a couple hours (or less, if you're impatient). This is not a smooth soup, don't blend it please, you'll want to taste all those lovely chunks.

If you must, fry up some bacon and add it. Cool the soup with a little half-and-half (don't add it directly to the pot; if you reheat this soup with dairy in it, it will curdle).  I served this with homemade cheesy biscuits.

Neighborhoods

I confess. When Michelle Obama was in Chicago last week, and visited Walgreens, I stood in front of the television yelling at her.

Why was Michelle Obama, of all people, in Chicago-city of neighborhoods, home of the nation's most diverse ethnic population, in the middle of the richest farmland in the world, and leader of the WW2 Victory Gardens movement-standing in some anonymous Walgreens, praising them for importing tomatoes from Chile.

Why was she not walking down Clark Street in Rogers Park, where there are probably 15 locally-owned mercados featuring produce raised locally, and run by families living in the neighborhood. Why was she not on Devon Avenue in the 40th ward, another strip of vibrant local economy? How about 57th Street in her own neighborhood, and home, until the big boxes shut it down, of the famous 57th Street Food Co-op?

The solution to healthy food systems and urban vitality is not another vast parking lot, where private security will boot your car if you so much as step onto the sidewalk to mail a letter, but small, locally owned grocery stores, with sensible inspection protocols, and family management.

After the '68 riots, Chicago let its local economies die. Where once there were dozens of family businesses keeping the neighborhoods, especially the African-American neighborhoods alive, a decades-long shibboleth has been sold us, teaching us that "business" happens on Wall Street or LaSalle Street, over-regulating small businesses while letting the big guys get away with murder and the family silver, and selling our own livelihoods back to us in Big Boxes stocked with the fruits of foreign slave labor.

Once "business" is what your grandpa did, in his shop around the corner from his house, or downstairs from his apartment. You worked there on the weekends and after school, learning how to run a business, a business that you would take over, when your grandpa and your pa got too old. We've let not one, or two, but now three generations of business acumen just die in service to the supposed "efficiency" and low prices of Walmart and its ilk.

Just another reason to be disappointed in the Obamas. Michelle, Walgreen's is not the answer to food deserts or to sustainable economies. Walgreen's is the problem. Bring back the neighborhood pharmacists, tailors, shoe repairs, appliance repairs, and grocers.

A coalition of local food activists agrees with me. They've created the Statement of Local Food Economy. You can sign the statement, too--instructions here.


Root n fruit soup
1 medium parsnip
1 medium white carrot
1 medium orange carrot
1 cup cooked rice
1 cup pumpkin puree
2+ cups water

1 medium purple carrot, sliced
1 medium white carrot, sliced
small onion, cubed

salt and white pepper to taste

Roughly chop and then saute the parsnip, orange carrot and one of the white carrots in about 2 tablespoon butter, until very soft. Add a cup of water and boil under they start to fall apart. Add the pumpkin and another cup of water; bring to a light boil, then puree with an immersible blender (or decant into a food processor if you don't have the blender).

Sautee the sliced onion and carrot in about a tablespoon of butter, until onion is translucent. Add to the puree, and add water until it reaches the desired consistency (personal choice). Salt and pepper to taste.

Serve with homemade shortbread biscuits.

Michaelmas

If you were a medieval farm laborer, you'd be getting paid today, for the last 3 month's work, as September 29th is a traditional Quarter Day, known in the Anglican calendar as the feast of St. Michael, or Michaelmas (pronounced "mikkelmuss" because, well, England). Fans of Thomas Hardy may remember Tess Durbeyville selling her services at a Quarter Day fair, and the drunken Michael Henchard auctioning off his family in an act that would come back to haunt him, decades later (hmmm, modern politicians would probably do well to re-read The Mayor of Casterbridge).

The Quarter Days--Lady Day (spring equinox), Midsummer Day (June solstice), Michaelmas (roughly the autumn equinox), and Christmas (winter solstice) and Cross-quarter days (Imbolc on February 2, May Day, Lammas (August 1), and Samhain (Halloween)--mark the ancient agrarian calendar.

Following these days puts you in rhythm with the earth and the ancestors, and reminds us that Hallmark and Macy's did not invent holidays, nor in fact did any modern religion. The holidays--holy days--are given to us by the universe, to mark the changing of the seasons and the passage of the earth around the sun. By focusing on the seasonal and celestial origin of these events, it becomes easier to resist the consumer culture that is consuming us, and to focus on the creative, the productive, and the holy.

It's traditional to make a goose on Michaelmas, although I'm making beef stew, since that's what I have in the house (and you see how out of rhythm I am? Why didn't I get a goose?) Other Michaelmas foods are carrots and other roots, and oat cakes.

The soup below is not very traditional, except inasmuch as it's made with a current harvest.

Cucumber Soup with corn and new potatoes
4-5 large cucumbers
1 large onion
1 T chopped fresh parsley
1 cup fingerling or new potatoes
niblets from 1-2 ears corn
2 T butter

1 tablespoon cornstarch (optional; for thickening. This recipe is from my MIL, who puts cornstarch in everything)
1 quart stock (chicken or vegetable; make sure it's a "white" stock or the soup will be ugly!)
>1 cup milk
2 cups half-half
2 yolks eggs
pepper and salt to taste

If any of the potatoes are larger than bite sized, cut them up, then boil them to al dente (not completely done!) and set aside.

Peel, seed and dice the largest cucumbers, leaving one for garnish. Dice onions and saute in butter with the parsley in the soup pot about 5 minutes (the cukes will turn a bright light green). Add water or stock, simmer 20 minutes. Mix cornstarch with milk, stir into the soup and bring it to a bare simmer, allowing to simmer for 10 minutes. Don't bring it to a full boil. Puree with an immersible mixer (or in a blender if you don't have a mixer; if you use a blender, let it cool a little before decanting it).

Lightly beat the half-half and egg yolks, pour a little boiling soup on to them, stirring at same time, then return it to the hot soup, stirring constantly; it must not boil again or it will curdle.

Add the potatoes and corn and heat; remember don't let it boil! Season to taste with white pepper and salt.

Soup

At this time of year, all I seem to make is soup.

Roasted squash, pear and leek soup
1½ pounds sqash (I used delicata)
2 pears
2-3 leeks
2-3 cups leek stock
Creme fraiche
Honey

Heat oven to 350/170

Halve and seed the squash; halve the pears. Prepare a baking sheet with spray oil, and place the pears and squash face down. Trim the greens off the leeks, and also place the leeks on the sheet. Bake for 45 minutes or until a knife slips easily into the squash. (Save the seeds and greens.) Allow to cool.

While the vegetables are roasting, use the greens from the leeks, and the squash seeds to make a stock: boil about 20 minutes in 4 cups of water, with a handful of green peppercorns and salt to taste. Boil down to 3 cups. Drain and set aside.

Peel the squash and 1 pear, and grind them to pulp in a blender or food processor, using a little of the stock. Transfer the pulp to a large soup pot, and add stock until it's a little more watery than you want in the finished soup. You will probably have stock left over; conserve it. Blend the squash soup smooth with an immersible blender. Simmer for about 10 to 15 minutes, until it's the consistency you like.

Cut up the leeks and the other pear (peel on), and gently fold into the soup. Garnish with freshly ground nutmeg and a dollop of creme fraiche. Drizzle very lightly with local honey.

Mystery squash

I grew squash this year.

I wasn't going to, because it's an "off-year" for my squash. I have problems with Squash Vine Borer, and once you've got it, you can't plant again for two years or you WILL have it again.

Well, I've got it again, but I swear it wasn't my fault. The squash just appeared. In my compost pile. I have no idea what kind of squash this was--most of the time when you try to save squash seeds, you end up with these weird hybrids, because it cross pollinates so easily.

This one turned out to be not just a squash hybrid, but as far as I can determine, a summer-winter hybrid, which I though was not supposed to happen, because they aren't the same family. But it had the color and skin of a yellow summer squash, the leaves of a winter squash, the flavor of a mild butternut, and the shape of a Muscade pumpkin.

The first and last of which I did not grow last year.

I managed one large fruit, about 3 pounds, before the SVB killed the plant.

Summer soup
3 cups summer squash, roasted, skinned and cubed
1 pound apricots, peeled
1 large onion
4 T butter

Stock:
3 cups water
leaves of 2-3 leeks, 2 large sprigs each mint and parsley
1/2 T green peppercorns
2 teaspoons kosher salt

1/4 teaspooon baking soda

Make this in a gallon pot, so it doesn't overflow. To roast the squash-- quarter, scoop out the seeds, and place meat-side down on a rimmed baking sheet sprayed with cooking spray, or lightly oiled. Carmelize the onions in 2T of butter. Set aside. In the same pot, melt the remaining butter then add the apricots (if anyone knows how to peel apricots, let me know, because I don't think I'm doing it right). Stirring constantly, render the moisture out of the apricots, then turn down the heat and add the squash. Simmer until it releases moisture. Add the hot stock and simmer until one cup of liquid has boiled away (about 10-15 minutes), stirring occasionally. Using an immersible blender, blend it to a smooth texture. Add the baking soda, which will mitigate the acid. Stand RIGHT THERE and keep stirring, because it will foam up.

When it has settled back down, add the onions back in and continue to simmer for about 5 minutes. Serve with fresh baking-soda biscuits.

Just me, the lightning bugs and Son of Rabbit Kong

He’s not even intimidated anymore particularly. He stays just a little ahead of me on the paths and disappears into the underbrush. I think there must be a wormhole somewhere—he slips into an alternate universe.

But it’s nice being out here with him in the gloaming. The city is very quiet this year; I feel like it’s quieter than usual. It isn’t the heat-here by the lake it isn’t all that hot. There just isn’t any noise this year. If you close your eyes you can breathe in the scent of the dirt and feel a million miles from the city.

The new beans, barely a week old, are sturdy 4-inch high sprouts with 2 sets of leaves. Beans are my favorite sprouts—so sturdy and insistent. The beets are visible to the naked eye, and there are a couple tiny broccoli sprouts, but I’ll wait to log them. Still no sign of the succession carrots, but they take a little longer to germinate; as much as ten days.

Pulled a half-pound turnip with a beautiful waxy sheen and froze the greens for stock. Snagged a few ounces of beans, most of them too small but I’m afraid to leave them for my furry little nemesis. Other than herbs there’s nothing else ready yet. The earliest tomatoes are just starting to pink, the cukes and zukes got their first flowers just this week; the eggplants are still in the blossom-drop stage. Hopefully they’ll settle in and decide to fruit.

I’m sure as soon as I left the little sneak thief snuck back out to snack. His passage through the rustling leaves is the only sound out there.

Late broccoli soup
The last broccoli florets
Large basketful of broccoli leaves (small leaves and large leaves)
Tender stems from the broccoli plants
2 small garlic heads
1 medium onion, diced
2 early carrots
6-8 new potatoes sliced in half or quarters, or 1 large mature potato, peeled and diced.

3 cups stock
1 cup milk or half-half

With the large broccoli leaves, the garlic and onion peel and the carrot greens, make 3 cups of stock. Keep hot. Cook the potatoes about halfway in a separate pot, drain and set aside

Dice the onion, broccoli greens and stems and carrots. While the onions are sauteeing, scald 1 cup of milk or half-half. Saute the onions in butter or olive oil until tender, press and add the garlic and saute for 30 seconds, then add the broccoli and carrots. Saute until the broccoli is bright dark green, then lightly dredge with about 2-3 T of flour. Lightly brown, stirring constantly for 2 minutes. Turn off heat. When it has stopped sizzling add about a quarter cup of the scalded, still hot milk; it will form a thick paste. Turn the heat back on low, and continue adding the rest of the milk, stirring it smooth each time. Add the stock about a cup at a time until the soup is the desired consistency (your call- thin or thick).

For vegan, obviously, leave out the milk.

Serve with baguettes and lots of butter.

Empy nest

The nest was really empty over the weekend. Husband on a tour to New York, son on his world tour (I think they're in Texas today) and daughter on her way to Florida for spring break, (no, not like that, she has grown-up friends who live there, and she's going to do some figure skating training at the local rink).

What I should be doing is finding some friends and getting some girl-time with them, but what I'll actually do is hole up in my cocoon here. If I'm ever really single and retired I'm going to have to get a dog or it's doubtful I'd ever go out at all.

And in case you haven't noticed: this week Palm Sunday | Passover | Earth Day | Easter. Dye some eggs.

Root vegetable soup
1 celery root
4 medium potatoes
1 large parsnip
1 head of garlic
1 small yellow onion
1 T butter

2 cups vegetable stock

Garnish:
chopped fresh basil and chives
half-and-half

Peel and cut all vegetables into small pieces and boil until they are very very soft. Drain and return to pot. Add butter and mash. Add the hot stock (I used some chard stems I had frozen to make the stock-- 1 quart of stems, 1 quart of water, 1 T mixed white & green peppercorns) and blend using an immersible blender (or place into a blender or food processor, but really, invest in the immersible kind, they're great). Blend until very smooth. Thin with a little milk or more stock.

Add fresh chopped herbs and serve with crackers or biscuits.

The means of production

We think of sustainability as going "back to the land," and "real" as attaining the rural ideal that is so central to our American mythos.

But in fact, what differentiated us from our uncivilized origins was our invention of the city--a settled collection of people, working together for the common purpose of survival. In many ways, cities and towns are more "natural" places for us to live-- after all we are social creatures, suited by biology to living in groups. City dwellers are just as real as anyone else, and there are a lot more of us. And it's going to stay that way, whether you like it or not. It used to be that you lived on a farm, or in a small town. And then it was your parents who lived there. Then a generation came where they would just visit their grandparents on the farm. Now there's been a couple of generations for whom the farming past is out of living memory, and the family farm is a trip down an unfamiliar country road "I think it's around here somewhere."

Cities are where we live. And cities do a lot of things better-- diversity, economies of scale, specialization, cultural life. What we don't do, what we can't do, is grow things in concentrated farms. Based on our current food system, cities need to import their food. The very things that make cities attractive make food production expensive and cumbersome. In our current food system, cities have to import their food.

During and after the Great Migration when rural southerners moved to northern cities, during the waves of European and Chinese migration, and after the Dust Bowl which displaced hundreds of thousands of farm families, new city migrants brought their farming and gardening traditions with them. Unfortunately, as noted, that rural past is now so far past that it's barely even family story anymore, and the practical knowledge is lost in many families.

About 15% of any given city's land is "vacant." In cities suffering depression this number may be higher (hence the Urban Farm movement in Detroit). As far as I can find out about 16% of urban dwellers have access to enough yard to put in a garden. Doesn't sound like enough space to grow food for a million people, does it?

But in 1943, Chicagoans grew all the produce they needed, in vacant lots and backyards, as did many other large urban centers, through the Victory Garden movement.

We don't need to put in farms to be able to grow food in cities, of course. Everyone with a yard can have a garden. It doesn't even need to be your own. Lots of people join community gardens, although there is way more interest than there is land for this use and new regulations are starting to discourage the start of new ones on public land in some places. But while there are lots of gardeners with no land, there are even more private landholders with no gardens. There is a small but growing local industry in hiring out your gardening--someone else puts a garden in your yard. In exchange for the land, you get some of the harvest. Or do what The Peterson Garden Project in Chicago did-- find some vacant, privately-owned land, and talk the landowner into letting you put in a garden, even if just for a couple of years until the land sells.

Everyone should grow at least some of their own food. I come from five generations of city dwellers myself-- not a gardener in the bunch. If I can learn to garden, anyone can. Taking back control of this most basic need, even if it's just tomatoes or blueberries in a pot on a porch, is reconnecting urban Americans with the land that is so important to our psyches. And it's giving us back the means of production, giving ordinary people control of this most basic need.

Cucumber-corn chowder
1 quart cucumber, cubed
2 cups corn
1 large carrot, sliced
1 large onion, sliced
10 small new potatoes, halved (or equivalent red or yukon)
2 cloves garlic
1 T chopped fresh parsley
4 T butter
2T flour
2 cups stock (chicken or vegetable; make sure it's a "white" stock or the soup will be ugly!)
>1 cup milk
1 cup half-half
2 yolks eggs
pepper and salt to taste

Cook the potatoes separately in water or the microwave, until al dente (a little underdone; they'll finish cooking in the soup). I used frozen cukes, but if you have fresh, peel, seed and dice. Dice onions and garlic (or use a garlic press) and saute in 2 T butter with the parsley and dill seeds in the soup pot about 5 minutes (the cukes will turn a bright light green). Heat the stock to a simmer. While it's heating, add the additional butter to the vegetables, melt, then dredge with the flour, letting it simmer, but not brown, about 2 minutes. Add half the stock about a quarter cup at a time, allowing mixing it well with the dredged vegetables. It should thicken each time. Add the rest of the stock, simmer 20 minutes. Add the potatoes, carrots, corn and milk, bring to a light simmer. Continue to simmer until it thickens slightly. Allow to cool to just a little too hot to eat.

Lightly beat the half-half and egg yolks, pour a little boiling soup on to them, stirring at same time, then return it to the hot soup, stirring constantly; it must not boil again or it will curdle. Season to taste with white pepper and salt. Thin with a little half-and-half just before serving.

You can add a little sauteed andouille sausage to this for the carnivores among you.

Just dropping in

No words of wisdom today; here's a recipe I filed away awhile back that I don't think I ever posted. A stick-to-your-ribs winter soup for a chilly day.

Squash-apple Soup with roasted ginger

1-2 pound squash (I used pattipan today, but butternut, acorn or pumpkin also work)
1 large apple
about 1" of fresh ginger root
Olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
1/2 pound of bacon, chopped (optional, for carnivores)
4-6 cups stock
2 teaspoons white pepper
salt, to taste

Quarter and seed squash, brush lightly with olive oil. On a separate baking sheet (or in a pie pan), place about a 2 inch chunk of fresh ginger plus two large apples, cored and peeled, and brushed with olive oil. Roast apples and ginger for 20 minutes, and squash for 35 minutes in a 350F oven, or until a knife slips in easily. Allow to cool and then peel both the ginger and the squash. Put in food processer and puree. Make a stock with the peels (add all peels-squash, ginger, apple- plus a few white peppercorns and salt to 2 quarts of water, boil down to 1 1/2 quarts).

Sauté onion and bacon lightly in large pot. Add squash/apple puree, water, apple cider, brown sugar, stock, salt, and spices. Cover and simmer for 1 hour. Stir frequently. Blend to thicken in blender-size batches. Serve with sour cream: one teaspoon on each serving.

Recycling recipes

I read somewhere recently that the typical family uses just about 10 different recipes; when I look at the label cloud I see that, indeed, there are 11 recipes here tagged "family favorites." It would be interesting to take, say, 50 families and see how many common recipes they have among themselves-- you could instantly grow your repertoire by just making someone else's family favorite.

It sounds a little depressing, to know that you're repeating a meal every ten days. But are you really? Or are you taking basic concepts and adapting, changing, reinventing?

There are some basic concepts, starting with meat or vegetarian. Subdivide those into different types of meat and vegetables. Further divide that by cooking method. Start changing up the additional ingredients. Pretty soon you've got not 10 basic recipes, but a hundred.

When you cook seasonally, this activity completes itself. I can't cook with fresh peas or string beans right now, because there aren't any, so I'm using swiss chard and brussels sprouts as the green in all my dishes. What I was making with eggplant in July I am now making with squash. It's a little scary the first time you look in the fridge to pull out something for, say, biryani, and discover that it isn't there. So you take a deep breath and substitute.

Now, the good news is, you've been eating for years and probably have a decent sense of what substitutions you can make. The other good news is, if it doesn't work there's always carry out.

Here's Monday's adapted soup:

Squash soup with caramelized radishes

3 T butter, melted in a pan
4 cloves of garlic, slightly crushed
20 medium radishes, halved

Melt the butter, turn the heat down to low and add the vegetables. Brown them over a very low flame until soft and browned, about 20 minutes. Add to the soup just before serving. Here's a couple of squash soup recipes:

Butternut-cider soup
Roasted autumn-veggie soup

How foodie culture has made people afraid to cook

It's not just cheap, available, easy and frankly tasty boxed food, fast food and prepared foods (even the so-called "organic" companies have gotten into the act) that have made ordinary people reluctant to cook.

It's also the popularity of writers like Martha Stewart and even Michael Pollan or Barbara Kingsolver, as well as cooking shows that emphasize high end ingredients, professional preparers, and exotic dishes.

I love to cook, and I'm pretty good at it, but these shows, books, and articles are just plain intimidating.

They purport to be encouraging people to cook, but frankly, I'm not going to have "pizza night" where I have to make pizza from scratch, however seasonal, local, organic and whole I'm trying to be; it entirely defeats the benefit of pizza night, which is that there is no prep and no clean up. Do these writers not get that? I'm never going to hunt for chanterelles; I didn't even know what they were before I read The Omnivore's Dilemma, and I don't know anyone with a backyard clay oven. Can I cook a whole goat in my Kenmore, do you think?

We're never going to get people back to preparing their own home-cooked food by only talking about $12-a-pound morels, and turning up our noses at the perfectly fine, pre-sliced plain white mushrooms available at the Safeway. I love making scones, but grating frozen butter, per America's Test Kitchen, is just a pain in the ass. But apparently this is the only way to make "perfect" scones. We don't need another Hell's Kitchen, or Rick Bayless with his flawless urban farm; we need Prince spaghetti night again, where Grandma makes sauce to put on the readily available pasta from the grocery store.

Tomato-apple soup

This is a wonderful "leftovers" meal, which I made with the apple peelings from a simple homemade apple sauce (peel and chop up apples, throw them in a saucepan, simmer until it turns into sauce. A four-year-old could do this.) I served it with this morning's banana-apple scones.

10 small to medium tomatoes, cut in half
Apple peels and cores from 8 apples
3 large cloves of garlic, peeled and slightly crushed
1 cup apple cider, or any vegetable broth

Spray a baking sheet with cooking spray, and put all the veggies/fruits on it. Lightly salt and pepper (I used sea salt, but any salt will do), and drizzle with olive oil. Roast for 1 hour in a warm oven (300F), or until the tomatoes start to brown and shrivel very slightly. Put all in a 2 quart sauce pan, including draining any liquid. Add the cider or stock; all the veggies should be covered, just. If they are not, add more water. Simmer until the tomatoes have lost all shape and the skins have slipped off. Run this through a food mill until all seeds, skins, pits, etc have been seived out, return to the sauce pan and smooth with a handheld immersible blender, or smooth it in the blender or food processor. Makes enough for two large or three to four smaller servings.

This does not need any additional spice, herb, or garnish.

Giving food away

I hate to give away food.

Sounds hateful, doesn't it? But I have a terrible time picking produce from my garden with the intent to donate it to a food pantry, or gift it to a friend.

This guilty little secret was mitigated this year because I took charge of the "Farm2Give" plots at Peterson Garden--seven 4x6 beds which were put in specifically to give away. So I got to feel all good about myself, as we've donated more than 50 pounds of food so far.

But I've had a lot of extra produce in my own garden as well, and it's all sitting in my larder.

I started thinking about this because my dear friend B has been hit hard with both breast cancer and an ovarian cyst-- they found the two tumors within a span of a few days. So I spent the morning today making food for her-- cucumber soup, squash soup, pesto, jam-- from my precious store. The squash soup especially is delicious. The pesto used up half of the plants that are still in leaf. I love B with all my heart, but it's killing me to give this stuff away.

I suppose in a way that makes it the more special-- it's not much of a gift if it doesn't mean anything to you.

The hoarding of food is built into our genes. Above I use the term "precious store" facetiously, but food is, in fact precious. It barely even qualifies as race memory to save food. Within living memory, you saved food or you and your family died. Modern food keeps- in refrigerators, or in cans, or simply on the shelf through untested modifications like irradiation. I would guess that something like potato chips have a shelf life measured in years. Because food is now easy-- grown, cooked, and preserved by someone else-- we don't value our food as much.

I value my food. It's entirely possible that I love my winter melons more than I love my children; I hope it's never put to the test. I don't quite name each tomato, but I do refer to them by gender. My food is precious to me. Here's hoping that the goddess understands, and bestows extra blessing on it for my friend.

Roasted autumn vegetable soup with roasted squash seeds
1 medium squash (about a pound), seeded (conserve the seeds)
4-5 small parsnips
2-3 cloves garlic
3 cups vegetable stock (I used a carrot green-based stock)
garam masala
white pepper

To roast the squash, parsnips and garlic: heat the oven to 350. Halve squash lengthwise and scoop out the seeds. Set these aside. Peel and roughly cut the parsnips (about 1" chunks), and peel the garlic. Put all on a baking sheet, and either brush fully with olive oil, or spray with a cooking spray. Put in the hot oven for about 40 minutes. Check the garlic at 20 minutes; if it's started to brown, remove it. When the vegetables are all done, allow them to cool until you can handle them. Scrape out the squash meat, and put this in a large soup pot with the garlic, parsnip chunks, and spices. Simmer for 20 minutes, or until the parsnips are soft, then blend with an immersible blender, or decant into a food processor or blender, until smooth. Non-vegans serve with a little cream, topped with:

Roasted squash seeds
Gently remove the meat and string from the conserved squash seeds (just squeeze them in your hands; the seeds will pop out). Spread these on the same baking sheet you just used (why wash two?) and allow them to dry for about 10 minutes. They'll go from slimy to sticky; you don't want them to dry all the way. Dredge them with seasalt until they are completely coated, then with some garam masala. Pat them down on the baking sheet, and roast at 350 for 5 to 8 minutes, or until lightly brown.

Bloom Day, September

What do blooming flowers have to do with common sense food? Nothing, really. I also have a large ornamental garden and I like to share the pictures with the crew that participates in Garden Bloggers Bloom Day (15th of every month).

But in a way, my take on Bloom Day is like my take on food-- there are flowers that anyone can grow, just like there are meals that anyone can make. So here's some flowers that grew because I stuck a seed in the ground, and a soup that looks like gourmet fare, but tastes straight off the farmer's table.

Above, right: Nasturtium "Spitfire" from Renee's Seeds for the Seed Grow Project.

Left, Cosmos "Rose Bon Bon" from Renee's Seeds for the Seed Grow Project, below, Caryopteris, traded with a contact on MyFolia.com and bottom, Hyssop.















For the full September Bloom Day photos check out my flickr! Thanks to May Dreams for coming up with and hosting Bloom Day!

Squash-apple Soup with roasted ginger

1-2 pound squash (I used pattipan today, but butternut, acorn or pumpkin also work)
1 large apple
about 1" of fresh ginger root
Olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
1/2 pound of bacon, chopped (optional, for carnivores)
4-6 cups stock
2 teaspoons white pepper
salt, to taste

Quarter and seed squash, brush lightly with olive oil. On a separate baking sheet (or in a pie pan), place about a 2 inch chunk of fresh ginger plus two large apples, cored and peeled, and brushed with olive oil. Roast apples and ginger for 20 minutes, and squash for 35 minutes in a 350F oven, or until a knife slips in easily. Allow to cool and then peel both the ginger and the squash. Put in food processer and puree. Make a stock with the peels (add all peels-squash, ginger, apple- plus a few white peppercorns and salt to 2 quarts of water, boil down to 1 1/2 quarts).

Sauté onion and bacon lightly in large pot. Add squash/apple puree, water, apple cider, brown sugar, stock, salt, and spices. Cover and simmer for 1 hour. Stir frequently. Blend to thicken in blender-size batches. Serve with sour cream: one teaspoon on each serving.

How a garden grows

For maybe the first decade that I gardened, I focused on the ornamental garden and did vegetables just in a small way— lettuce, tomatoes, peppers, carrots, herbs in the small plot off the garage (now the Garage Garden). Somewhere in the 90s I put in the Wagon Wheel, although the earliest paper journal, and earliest plan, I can find is dated 1999 . I think I had been building the garden for at least 10 years when the Wagon Wheel went in (so called because it was a half circle divided into spokes).

The vegetable started small and safe. As late as 2004 most of the gardening work was still ornamental as I added beds and switched from annuals to perennials learning as I went what worked and what didn’t. There’s a lotta plants in plant heaven because of my ignorance. It was putting in the Knot garden in 2005 (now the Serpentine) that jump-started the veggies.

Once you switch to perennials, the ornamental beds start to take care of themselves. I still divide plants of course, and move them around (kind of like moving furniture, and one of my favorite garden tasks). And I have my first new ornamental bed in years—the Woodland—which is still a few years from figuring itself out. I’m thinking it will eventually be a tiny prairie meadow.

I’ve tried something new every year, although I’m kind of running out of space, and have managed to avoid intriguing plants that I know we won’t eat, like kohlrabi and hot peppers, and high maintenance ones that I know I won’t take care of, like roses and exotics. I dug out my old paper journals, and here’s what I’ve managed to trace, of edible plants that I added, and then kept year after year:

• Somewhere in the dim mists of time: raspberries and the garage garden
• 1999- the basic vegetable garden takes shape in the Wagon Wheel (the bed itself was built I think mid 90s, because the kids remember it from grade school): snow peas, lettuce, broccoli (don’t remember doing broccoli that far back, but it's in the journals!), carrots, onions, tomatoes, peppers.
• 2000- fennel for the first time (stuck with it for 8 years before finally giving up)
• 2001- first pumpkin
• 2002-3- can’t find the journals, but cucumbers and zucchini snuck in here somewhere, although I did zucchini again this year for the first time in ages.
• 2004- first actual reference I can find to cukes, but I’m pretty sure I had done them before
• 2005-6 (shared journal between 2 years, and cleverly did not differentiate the years) the Knot garden goes in as an herb garden, with 10 types of herbs. Also put in beets for the first time.
• 2007- first (unsuccessful) attempt at squash, and discovery of on-line gardening blogs, where I lurked for a couple of years, especially Mr. Brown Thumb and You Grow Girl.
• 2008- first eggplant, turnips, chard, despite this being the year I broke my ankle right after the main planting; I also experimented with attempting a full second crop of summer vegetables, with mixed success.
• 2009- corn, brussels sprouts, cabbage, and wintersowing, strawberries (from seed)
• 2010- climbing beans (always did bush beans before and in future always will again. Hate the climbers), and took a leap of faith by planting asparagus from seed.

Which brings us to today, harvesting corn and cukes, beans and cherry tomatoes, dill and parsley. I can't believe I've never posted this recipe before, as it is my all-time favorite summer soup.

Cream of Cucumber Soup
4-5 large cucumbers
1 large onion
1 T dill seeds
2 cloves garlic
1 T chopped fresh parsley
2 T butter

1 tablespoon cornstarch (optional; for thickening. This recipe is from my MIL, who puts cornstarch in everything)
1 quart stock (chicken or vegetable; make sure it's a "white" stock or the soup will be ugly!)
>1 cup milk
2 cups half-half
2 yolks eggs (I got a double yoke one when making this just now!)
pepper and salt to taste

Different colored cherry tomatoes

Peel, seed and dice the largest cucumbers, leaving one for garnish. Dice onions and garlic (or use a garlic press) and saute in butter with the parsley and dill seeds in the soup pot about 5 minutes (the cukes will turn a bright light green). Add water or stock, simmer 20 minutes. Mix cornstarch with milk, stir into the soup and bring it to a light boil; allow it to boil about 10 minutes. Puree with an immersible mixer (or in a blender if you don't have a mixer; if you use a blender, let it cool a little before decanting it).

Lightly beat the half-half and egg yolks, pour a little boiling soup on to them, stirring at same time, then return it to the hot soup, stirring constantly; it must not boil again or it will curdle. Season to taste with white pepper and salt.

You can give this soup a nice green color (and add nutritional value) by making a "dye" with spinach: Wash and drain spinach, pound it in a mortar, roll it in cheesecloth and wring it into a large measuring cup. Pour into the soup and stir thoroughly.

Cut the cherry tomatoes into halves, and the remaining cucumber into discs. Garnish the soup with the cut vegetables and a sprig of parsley just before serving.

What's happening at Peterson Gardens?

I'm working with a wonderful group of people, headed up by LaManda Joy of The Yarden on a great new community project-- the Peterson Garden Project. Little plan (not so little) is to get this community garden going in Chicago's 40th ward (northwest side). Big plan is to inspire Chicagoans to revive the Victory Gardens movement and grow their own food.

Les, one of the gardeners and a member of the core planning group, was there last night, supervising the site:

"Coming in this evening was quite spectacular. People were already working in the garden and as time went on, people were bringing in plants, shovels, and their excited faces; ready to plant in their wonderful garden space! Definitely was a great feeling just watching these people. I didn't even work on my plot because I didn't want to take up any shovels or wheel barrels, they seem so happy to work and I didn't want to stop them!!! So fun and I'm so happy to be part of this. I just kept thinking as the next group kept coming, about the movie "Field of Dreams," ..."if you build it, they will come." And they did and this wasn't even half of the garden who came out. I'm sure this weekend will bring a drove of people, already caring for their plants or starting to fill their beds with soil or helping each other out, which I seen neighbors doing already!!!

And btw Blackhawks win the Stanley Cup!!!

We probably won't have anyone growing asparagus (yet! who knows?) but you could make this soup right now if you had a garden, substituting peas for the aspargus (or spinach! or in the fall, tomatoes or parsnips!)

Puree of Asparagus (or any vegetable) soup

• 2 bunches fresh, in season asparagus
• 1 medium onion, chopped
  
• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 5 to 6 cups broth (chicken or vegetable; I used a radish-based one that I had on hand)
  
• 1 pint half-and-half (leave this out, obs, for vegan)
  
• 3 small potatoes (especially for vegan, this will help thicken it)
  
• seasoning: 1-2 teaspoons ground white pepper, 1 teaspoon ground (fresh if you have it) coriander, sea salt to taste
  

Cut asparagus tips about 1 1/2 inches from top, and stalks into 1/2-inch piece; set aside. Cut potato into small chunks and boil until soft. Discard water, then return the potato, asparagus and diced onion to the same pot and saute in the butter until asparagus is soft. Remove about 10 tips and set aside. Add broth and cook until asparagus is very soft, aboug 15 to 20 minutes, then add cream and simmer about 5 minutes. Add

Purée soup in batches in a blender, or with a hand-held immersible blender in the pot until smooth, transferring to a bowl (use caution when blending hot liquids). Add more broth or a little milk or cream to thin soup to desired consistency. Garnish with reserved asparagus tips and fresh parsley.

Butternut and garden centers

I'm a fan of the big box stores.

For tools, soil, pots, additives and all sorts of garden hardware and accessories they always have the most reliable stock, and the best prices. For plants and nursery starts, I prefer the smaller, family-run greenhouses, although for unfamiliar plants, I'll head to whichever nursery I think will have the best staff.

As you get into gardening, you start to learn where to go for what. There's a Home Depot very close to my house; I always go there first because of that proximity, and I always regret it. It's poorly run, staff is not only not knowledgeable, if they don't know something they will lie to you or try to convince you that you are wrong (for instance telling me that there is no difference between potting soil and seed starting mix). Further, when I walked in there about two weeks ago to start gearing up for seed starting and spring prep, the place was in chaos. Soil out of stock, seeds unshelved, carts and crates blocking the aisles, no dedicated staff. When I mentioned that gardeners start in February, I was told "not experienced gardeners." Hmmm.

So I travel the additional 3 miles to Lowe's, where I find the shelves stocked, staffed and stupendous. I bought several seed packets (I always go for the big brands on hard-to-grow plants, especially if I'm new to either the plant or to starting that plant from seed. I like the utter reliability of Burpees or Ferry Morse.) I don't know if it's Lowe's and Home Depot in general, or those ones in particular, but that Lowe's gets it for gardeners, while the Home Depot doesn't.

I have a favorite nursery, too, where I go for starts on solanums, onions, and herbs. They have utterly reliable plants, a huge variety and selection, and a nice country ambience. What they don't have is staff. Not just knowledgeable staff. Any staff. There are the gardeners, who won't talk to you (and possibly don't speak the same language I do), and there's the guy at the register, who redefines the concept of "taciturn." To shop at this nursery, you have to know what you're doing. So this is a nursery for the experienced gardener.

Then there's Gethsemane Gardens (really), which I've been going to since they were a little Christmas tree seller 25 years ago on an empty lot near our old apartment. They grew with their customers; even a few years ago you could still give them a check with no ID. Now they're one of the premier garden centers on the North Side of Chicago, with a national reputation. They've specialized in pocket gardens and containers (at which they excel), but they've lost their appeal to me as a community. However, I still go to Gethsemane when I have a garden question. I know there will be a specialist in whatever plant I'm thinking about.

So what makes a good garden center? Knowing which one to go to for your needs. The one that makes you feel comfortable, that offers you knowledge that you may not have, and accepts your needs and knowledge as valid. The one with the best price, or the one with the prettiest plant. The best garden center is lots of garden centers.

Now, what does this all have to do with butternut squash? Nothing. It's just what I'm making tonight.

Roasted butternut apple cider soup with toasted almonds

One medium to large butternut squash, roasted
1 medium or 1/2 large onion, sliced and carmelized
3 cups vegetable or chicken stock
1 cup apple cider
1 cup almond slices, lightly toasted

To roast the squash, cut into quarters and scoop out the seeds. (Conserve the seeds in a 2 qt sauce pan, along with the onion skins.) Place meat-side down on a lightly greased cookie sheet, and bake at 350F/160C for an hour, or until you can easily insert a knife. When it's cool, scoop out the meat and transfer to a 1 gallon soup pot. Set aside. Add the skins to the seeds with some green peppercorns, salt, and water, and boil it for the stock, about 20 minutes.

While the stock is cooking, toast the almonds in a dry frying pan, about 5 minutes at high heat; keep the almonds moving so they don't burn. Then carmelize the onions in the same pan, in about 2 pats of butter.

Add the stock and the apple cider to the meat and blend smooth with an immersible blender. Add the onions and the almonds. Serve with a splash of cream or half-and-half.

Best thing about this soup is the smell-butter, almond, pepper corn. Yum. Can't get that at a big box store.

The velveteen gardener

What makes a gardener "real?"

It's a complex activity, and easy to out-source at many steps, from design, to installation, to seed starting, to care, to harvest. Garden walks and competitions often disqualify anyone who has had a professional plan and/or install a garden, except for hardscaping.

Many food growers, myself included until recently, "outsource" their seed starting, buying nursery starts at various stages of growth (the bigger, the more expensive, but also the more reliable). There are plants, like peppers, onions, leeks, and tomatoes, that you simply can't start in the ground in a place like Chicago with its late frost date and unreliable late spring freeze danger (well into May). We don't have a long enough growing season, and small backyards like mine lose the sun to close-in buildings late in the season, shortening it further. Always in the past, I only started the easy plants direct from seed-- peas and beans and turnips, that will grow anywhere.

So am I not a "real" gardener because I let someone else start my seeds? When I started journaling my garden on line at MyFolia I initially developed quite an inferiority complex because everyone else seemed to be a "real" gardener (my definition, not theirs!), despite the fact that I'd been gardening since most of them were in diapers.

In the last couple of years my day job has gotten smaller and my garden bigger, to where I now have enough time to go the extra mile and seed start indoors, while also too little money to buy nursery starts. I'm a "real" gardener this year and last out of time and necessity. At Folia, the consensus was that a "real" gardener gets his or her hands dirty.

But I think like our old friend the Velveteen Rabbit, a gardener becomes real, not through her methods or involvement, but through the love she feels for her plants, and the feedback of friends; through the flowers in her vase, and the food she shares:

Mushroom Barley Soup
2 cups cubed red potatoes
1/2 cup uncooked barley
6 cups vegetable stock
1 cup apple cider
1/3 cup dry sherry
1 large onion, sliced very thin
2-3 pints mushrooms, roughly chopped
1/2 teaspoon lemon juice
2-3 gloves crushed, minced garlic
1 tsp basil, dry or 3 tsp fresh, chopped fine
2 T parsley dry, or 3 T fresh, chopped fine
dash cayenne, dash black pepper
10-12 large swiss chard leaves, chopped roughly (optional)
salt to taste

Combine potatoes, barley, and stock in a large pot (I used a 1 gallon pot, seemed about right), bring to a low boil, then simmer about 30 minutes, until barley is cooked.

Carmelize onions in about 2 T olive oil. (Carmelizing onions looks and sounds complex, but it's basically just cooking the dickens out of them, more tedious than difficult.) Mix about 1 teaspoon olive oil with the mushrooms, add to onions with lemon juice, saute until mushrooms release liquid. Add garlic and herbs, saute a few minutes. Add sherry and cider, bring to a low simmer, then add to the barley/potato pot. Add the chard and simmer covered 20 minutes.

(Then there's the question of whether I'm a "real" cook. Or do I just play one on the internet?)

Fast food

The dilemma of the working family has knocked home cooking off the map for millions of households. You get home late and tired; so much easier to grab some carry-out on the way home, or order a pizza, or throw a frozen lasagna into the oven. Plus, these things are far better in quality, price and nutrition than they were when I was a child, and in some cases approach home cooking in cost.

On my way home the other night I knew that I'd be eating alone, and thought about picking up a rotisserie chicken. But I thought I remembered that there was some leftover rice and fish, or maybe some of the chicken and squash. Besides, it almost seems like too much trouble even to go through the drive-through, let alone stop at the grocery store.

I got myself all excited about leftovers, but when I got home I discovered they were gone. I didn't even have enough food in the house to doctor one of the Thai Kitchen box meals. What I did have was 3 stalks of celery, a romano cheese, three tomatoes and bisquik.

I sat down to eat with the wonderful book of memory and recipes by Molly Wizenberg of Orangette.

Quick tomato soup, with cheese and garlic biscuits
3 large tomatoes
3 stalks celery, diced
1 large clove garlic, crushed and chopped fine
1 small can or 1 1/2 cups broth (beef, chicken or vegetable)
parsley, salt and pepper

Saute the celery and garlic in a soup pot until soft. Core and seed the tomatoes, add them to the celery mixture and saute, stirring constantly, until it breaks down. Add the broth and seasonings, simmer for 30 minutes.

For the biscuits, add 1/4 cup of finely grated romano cheese, 1 teaspoon crushed garlic and 3-6 additional teaspoons of milk to the regular recipe. Bake as directed, adding time if necessary for the additional moisture.

Even with the 30 minutes simmering time, which frankly you could shorten, the whole thing took less time than it would have taken to pick something up on the way home.

A shortcut through mushrooms

You are officially a geek if you get the title reference.

Credit for this one to Julia Child, from whom I learned about using lemon juice to get flavor out of mushrooms.

Cream of mushroom soup
2 pints of mushrooms (just mushrooms. Don't get fancy on me)
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon dried tarragon
1/2 teaspoon ground white pepper
salt to taste
1 T flour
1 1/2 cups milk, scalded
1 cup heavy cream
1 cup white wine

Melt the butter in a sauce pan (i.e. a soup pot). Keep it at a low simmer (don't let it brown) until the center clarifies; all the foam should be at the edges. While you are doing this, heat the milk to just boiling (about 4 minutes in the microwave). Throw all the mushrooms into the clarified butter at once and toss them until they've absorbed all the butter. This will take seconds.

Pour in the lemon juice and simmer until the mushrooms have released a lot of liquid (picture). This is a cooking miracle, and it's how you get your mushroom soup to taste like mushrooms, and not like cream with mushrooms in it. Add tarragon, salt, pepper; toss. Dredge with the flour (use more flour if you like thicker soup) and toss until the mixture has no flour lumps in it.

Now the next cooking miracle: Pour the scalded milk, still hot, onto the mushrooms. For some reason it will not curdle. Please talk to Julia about this, I have no idea why this works. Stir until liquid is smooth. Add the cream and the white wine. Serve with a slice of home made bread and the rest of the wine in a glass. (Never use wine for cooking that you wouldn't drink.)

I buy the sliced mushrooms which cost the same as the whole ones and will save you a lot of work