Local Seasonal Eats

Spring Green and Tofu Stir-Fry with Red Onion Fried Rice Photo:Lindsay

As soon as we saw the bok choi at the Westside Community Market Saturday, I immediately thought of Stir-Fry.  I mean, come on, what makes for a better crunchy, flavorful green in the common stir-fry than the green and white bok choi?  So I set out to find other seasonal ingredients to throw in.  In addition to the bok choi from Primrose Community Farm, we used Asparagus from Green Barn Market, the last of the onions from Black Earth Valley Farm, and half a bag of sauté mix from Harmony Valley.

The veggies were tossed with some extra firm tofu and the last of our Trader Joe’s General Tso Stir Fry Sauce.  I did feel like I was cheating a little using the bottled sauce, but it did need to be finished off.  All the greens cooked down nicely, and in hindsight I could have probably used the whole bag of mix.  When the stir-fry was ready I transferred it to a covered serving dish and whipped up  some homemade Red Onion Fried Rice featuring red onions from Ka Vang Garden. This turned into a great one-wok meal; minimal cleanup, maximum flavor.  Can’t wait until the season brings some more colorful editions for the next stir-fry.

Red Onion Fried Rice Photo:Lindsay

Recipe: Red Onion Fried Rice (Modified from About.com:Chinese Food)

Fairy House Photo:Lindsay

This has nothing to do with Local Seasonal food other than being in our garden, but I had to share this fairy house my little sister built from stones and roots removed while we were planting veggies.  It reminds me of Flintstone style houses, sort of…

Tomato Seedling Photo:Lindsay

Lindsay’s employer has always been supportive of local agriculture, allowing the farmer who it purchased its land from to continue farming on the unused portions, serving produce from local CSAs in it’s cafeteria, and offering a modest community garden.

This year, they expanded the garden to allow anyone who was interested to have a plot.  We found some coworkers who were interested in helping, (to share in the bounty) and set off to grow some tasty produce.

I convinced my grandmother to start our seedlings with the ones she would be growing for her garden this year.  So when the garden opened for planting on Friday, I got a delivery from her: three varieties of tomato, two kinds of cucumber, leeks, zucchini, eggplant, jalapenos, green peppers, lettuce, cantaloupe, and kohlrabi.  I also went out and picked up some hearty onion sets, green bean seeds, and a squash.

Oh, did I mention the plot was 10 foot square?  For some reason, I guess my eagerness to garden distorted my perception of dimensions.

We walked down to the garden with more than enough produce for 3 plots.  In fact I ended up giving some away to another gardener and still left without planting the cantaloupe, kohlrabi, beans, and with quite a few seedlings of the other plants.

Luckily, we found out the garden ended up having a few unused plots, and were able to pick one up and trade it with the neighboring plot we had planted.   We’ll be going out today to plant that one and check on the damage caused by the hurricane heavy rain we had Monday night.  Here’s hoping the flooding on the site was minimal, and that the roots had some time to grab on to something before the waters came.

Combined with our porch garden, I’m hoping for quite the bounty this summer.

Jumbo Leeks Photo:Chad

So I’ve been to the Saturday and Wednesday Dane Country Farmer’s Market, the Saturday Westside Community Market, and Saturday Hilldale Farmers Market, which made my next obvious choice the Wednesday Hilldale Farmers Market.

I set off to the market around lunchtime and found the market to be similar in both number of vendors and customers as their Saturday market.  There was a great coffee van, providing both a cool aesthetic and delicious coffee to the shoppers.  Even live music was there again during the week.  I just needed a few things so I picked up:

• Radishes and Lettuce greens – Thor Farm
• Brown Eggs – Hammerand Farm
• Leeks – Happy Valley Farm
• Cucumbers and Tomatoes – Don’s Produce

I had no intentions for these ingredients until I saw an America’s Test Kitchen recipe for butterflied Chicken with Leek and Mushroom stuffing.  I’ll be rehydrating morels for this and using the liquids in the stuffing… Stay tuned!

Worm Bin Outdoors Photo:Lindsay

OK, so that is a bit over dramatic, but when I went to add some new scraps this week I noticed a small swarm of flies emerge from the container.  I immediately moved the box outside, and started doing some research.

It turns out these mighty composters can eat about ½ pound of scraps a day for the amount I have.  Apparently, I have been over-feeding them, and the extra material has served as the perfect breeding ground for some other garbage loving critters.

I followed the recommendations I found on redwormcomposting.com and laid down a thicker layer of paper over the bin.  Hopefully, by doing this, combined with a reduction in scraps until the worm colony gets a bit bigger, will help reduce the problem.

Moving the worms outside created a new problem though.  Worms prefer an ambient temperature of about 75 degrees and while the box was well shaded, the past few days were so hot that the internal temperature was edging towards 95 degrees.  That’s worm frying temperature!  So the farm received it’s second relocation of the week, down to our garage.  Hopefully the steady temperature and lack of predators will help these guys out.

Pork Chop and Sides Photo:Chad

I ended up being surprisingly busy last week, and didn’t get to post some of the simple meals I put together while Lindsay was out of town.  So here’s a couple of the hits of last week that I cooked up for myself.

I wanted to use the sorrel I had picked up, but didn’t feel like doing anything too fancy, so adding it to some mashed potatoes sounded like a reasonable option.  The meal ended up being a pan-fried pork chop, steamed spinach with sauteed garlic, and a side of sorrel mashed potatoes.  This meal featured pork chops from Pecatonica Farms, spinach from Prairie Farm Produce, garlic from Country Line, and sorrel from Cook with Herbs.  The potatoes ended up having a unique flavor.  I would call it almost sour, but not in a bad way.  The steamed spinach was flavorless, and I vow to go back to my traditional method of cooking it up in oil, even if it isn’t as healthy.

Carmelized Onion Pizza Photo:Lindsay

Friday, Lindsay rubbed in that she would be having some great sushi for dinner (third time that trip), so as a form of childish revenge, I decided to make a kitchen sink pizza, which just happens to be one of her favorite meals. I started with the frozen pizza dough from last time, topped it with a “sauce” of caramelized onions, leeks, and garlic.  Then I added sliced orange tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, blue cheese, and pepperoni.  I used onions from Black Earth Valley, leeks and garlic from Country Line, Orange Tomatoes from Don’s Produce, mozzarella from Crave Brothers, blue cheese from Hook’s, and even the Pepperoni was “local” coming from Patrick Cudahy Deli from Cudahy, WI.

I made this pizza in the oven on the new pizza stone, instead of on the grill.  Except for being a little “wet” from the high-moisture mozzarella, it was amazing.  I even saved a few slices for Lindsay.

Bok Choi Photo:Lindsay

After visiting the Saturday Hilldale Farmer’s Market 2 weeks ago, I got a great recommendation from Nichole over at Madison A to Z.  After reading about my disappointment regarding the lack of coffee the week prior, she suggested the nearby Westside Community Market, where there was FREE coffee.

With the new knowledge of another biking distance market, and this one with free coffee, I was sold.

While we had planned on trying to get over there early, Lindsay’s flight didn’t come in until very late Friday night.  Letting her sleep in, we didn’t get to the market ’til almost noon, missing the free coffee by almost an hour (it’s available until 11, or whenever it runs out).

The farmers and vendors still had plenty of goods available, and much like the Hilldale market, the reduced crowd made for a very pleasant experience and plenty of time to talk to each seller.  We saw some familiar names from both the downtown and Hilldale markets, as well as some new ones.  Here’s what we ended up with:

• Red Onions – Ka Vang Garden
• Pork shoulder and Beef Soup Bone – Jordandal Farms
• Bok Choi – Primrose Community Farm
• Country Sourdough – Madison Sourdough
• Tomatoes – Flyte Family Farm
• Yogurt  - Sugar River Dairy

In addition to picking up our week’s goods, I also got to talk with one of the market’s board members about the history of the market.

As Lindsay and I found out, the Westside Community Market, sometimes mistakenly called the Hill Farms Market, was started back in 2005 when a group of longtime Hilldale Vendors decided they wanted to move locations in response to the new location set out for them at Hilldale.  The vendors established a board made up of member-vendors, and set guidelines mimicking the rules of the Dane County Farmers Market.  This limits the vendors to selling only goods they produce or grow.

The market is car, biker, and pedestrian friendly, with plenty of free parking available.

Overall, we really enjoyed the market and all the great vendors we got to talk to. We’ll definitely go back to the WCM again – but this time I’d make sure to go early enough to score some of that free coffee!

Rhubarb and Raspberry Scone Photo:Lindsay

Have you ever been to a coffee shop and seen the rack of freshly baked scones only to think: “there’s no way I could make those?” Then you know exactly how I felt last week.

I was at Marigold Kitchen having breakfast before venturing out into the Wednesday farmer’s market, and their baked scones were calling to me.  While peach and blueberry are great flavors, I don’t have either ingredient available local or preserved from last seasons harvest.

What I did have was rhubarb from Country Line Plant’s and Produce and frozen fall raspberries.  With that as my base, and access to Cook’s Illustrated’s website, I had what I needed to make some flaky Rhubarb Raspberry Scones.

The recipe from Cook’s is unfortunately hidden behind their subscription service, but I guess I can’t hold it against them for charging for all of the great work they do.  If you are not familiar with Cook’s, I’d definitely recommend checking them out.  They have thoroughly researched recipes, product reviews, and technique demonstrations.

For their scone recipe, they recommend frozen shredded butter, keeping all the liquids cold, and kneading as little as possible.

The naturally moisture filled rhubarb and raspberry mixture made for a slightly less aesthetically pleasing pastry, but the taste was out of this world.

In an effort to emulate the frosting on the Marigold Kitchen scones, I made a raspberry cream frosting for mine, but when I sampled them, it was clear they didn’t need it as they were plenty sweet enough.  Next time just a sprinkle of sugar will be fine.

Rhubarb and Raspberry Scone Photo:Lindsay

Recipe: Rhubarb and Raspberry Scones (From Cook’s Illustrated, July 2007)