Although I missed out getting on my own CSA farm share this year, one of my good friends got one and has been generous in handing over her beets to me. I love beets just plain, cool, sliced and sweet, but this week I wanted to make something with them. I turned to Mark Bittman, a.k.a. "The Minimalist", and found exactly the answer to my beet question: Beet Rösti with Rosemary. I wasn't familiar with rösti before reading this recipe, but upon learning that it is a Swiss potato pancake, I'd like to become better friends.
Here is my very slight adaptation of Bittman's recipe:
5 medium/small beets, peeled
1 tsp fresh rosemary, chopped
salt & pepper
1/3 cup flour
2 TBS butter
3 TBS sour cream
2 tsp fresh horseradish
1. Grate the beets, either by hand or in a food processor. If you're grating by hand, wear an apron or clothes on which you wouldn't mind a purple stain. (I recommend the processor!)
2. Mix shredded beets with rosemary, S&P, and half the amount of flour. After incorporating, add the rest of the flour and toss. Bittman doesn't say why you should do this, but I would guess that this allows you to coat the shredded beets evenly and without flour clumps.
3. Melt 1 TBS of butter in a frying pan, heat over a medium flame until foam begins to subside. Press beet mixture into the pan with a spatula, let cook for 8-10 minutes over medium heat until crisp. It's important that the beets cook through, so don't rush it. Shake it around in the pan every so often, it does have a soft sizzle as it cooks. In the meantime, mix sour cream and horseradish in a small bowl, with a little black pepper if you like.
4. To flip, use the inverted plate method, and let cook for another 8-10 minutes.
5. Remove the rösti from pan, cut into fourths, and top with a dollop of the sour cream mixture. The spiciness of the horseradish pairs deliciously with the sweetness of the beets, and the sour cream matches just as perfectly as it does with a latke. Serve at room temperature.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Beet Time!
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
What the hell do I do with fava beans?
image courtesy epicurious.com*
As it turns out, I make a salad. A quite delightful one, at that.
In our first week with the CSA, we got a delivery that included all the vegetable ingredients for this salad - asparagus, fava beans, and salad greens. We didn't have the pecorino cheese that the recipe called for, but I made do with a hunk of parmigiano reggiano. The salad itself was pretty simple - the veggies were tossed in olive oil with a little salt and pepper (is there anything in the world that isn't delicious with just EVOO, salt and pepper?), cheese shaved on top, and doused liberally with balsamic vinegar - but it was light, flavorful, and unexpectedly filling. Definitely a thumbs up.
I'd never encountered fava beans before, and after reading up on how to prepare them I thought it would be a pain - most recipes require you to shell the beans, steam or blanch the beans, and then peel off the outside layer to get the good stuff inside. And, okay, it *is* kind of a pain, but my husband and I were already sitting in front of the TV watching the Red Sox game, so it's not like we had anything better to do than shell and peel fava beans. It went quickly between the two of us, anyway.
I was also a little wary of the raw asparagus in the salad, but boy was I wrong. It was fabulous! I don't know if it was the raw-ness (the tips were blanched, but that was it) or their farm fresh-ness, but it was definitely the best asparagus I've had in a long time. Maybe even ever.
All in all, tonight served to remind me exactly what I love about being part of a CSA: discovering new recipes through having to cook with foods I'd never grab in the supermarket, and the joy of getting those foods super fresh and at peak season (I didn't even mention the fantastic strawberries and CHERRIES!). Plus I get to feel all self-righteous about supporting the local economy and sustainable organic agriculture! Hee.
Next up: What to do with a couple pounds of sugar snap peas?
*my photo skills just can't compare... and our salad was much bigger and messier, anyway!
Monday, April 16, 2007
CSA PSA
I'm fortunate enough to live in one of the few areas of the US, maybe even the world, where eating according to the 100 mile diet entails very little work. Northern California produces tons of great food year round, so there's really no excuse not to eat local. Having read "The Omnivore's Dilemma", and read/watched "Fast Food Nation", I'm always grumbling about the industrialized food chain, and global warming, and on and on... so, long story short, my husband and I decided to put our money where our mouths are - literally! - and join a local CSA.
For those not familiar with the term, CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture. Essentially, you pay a monthly or yearly fee to a local farm and in return get a share of the farm's produce every week (or every other week). Different farms operate differently - some are organic and others are not, some sell extra produce to restaurants and some don't, some require money up-front for planting season while others let you join anytime, some deliver straight to your door and others have only a few pickup locations, they can have 50 members or 1000 - but the basic idea is the same. You support local farmers, and you get to eat the freshest and most flavorful fruits and veggies the area has to offer. And I do mean flavorful! Since the produce isn't being shipped long distances or stored for long periods of time, farmers can choose to plant varieties that have been bred for their taste rather than their hardiness. Also cool, most CSAs aren't super expensive. We're getting a box of freshly picked fruits and veggies, "enough to feed two vegetarians" for a week, for about $20 per box, which is on the cheap side for certified organic.
The Bay Area offers a lot of CSAs, so I had my work cut out for me in picking one. Ultimately, we settled on Terra Firma Farms - they're a fairly large CSA, so they grow a big variety of fruit and vegetable crops, and don't have to supplement using produce that's grown further away, which was important to me. Plus, they have a pickup spot that's close to our new apartment, not to mention two extremely cute bulldog mascots.
I'm really looking forward to getting CSA produce again. Back when we lived in Massachusetts, we had a work-share with the Heirloom Harvest CSA (instead of paying cash, we put in 8 hours of work on the farm each week to earn our shares), and it introduced me to all kinds of vegetables that I would normally have skipped right over in the grocery store. I also loved the "challenge" of eating seasonally, both in the winter (how many variations on kale and white bean soup can you come up with?) and in the summer (can you make enough salsa and pasta sauce to use up this week's haul of tomatoes?); it seemed like there was always SOMETHING on hand to inspire me to cook. I'm especially excited about the prospect of trying out new recipes and posting 'em here.
If you're interested in joining a CSA, localharvest.org has a tool to help find one close to you... and they really are a great way to do something good for the planet, your local economy, your health and your wallet, all at the same time. It's a win/win/win/win!
And just for fun, here's a cute movie I came across to promote local organics in a clever way: Store Wars.
