Turkey Tracks: Improv Sauteed Cabbage

Turkey Tracks: December 31, 2016

Improv Sautéed Cabbage

I hardly ever use recipes any more.

I collect the good clean food found in one of our co-ops or that comes from my summer CSA or garden and just…cook it.

The other day I had one small cabbage, the size of a large softball, left from the summer CSA, Hope’s Edge. Cabbage keeps really well in a produce drawer. I don’t wrap it.

I had some leftover meatloaf, and it was lunchtime, and I was hungry.

So I put the meatloaf into the oven to warm–takes only about 15 minutes–and started sautéing the cabbage in some of my Wilderness Family Naturals centrifuge extracted, unheated coconut oil. (I order this coconut oil by the case and am always willing to see a jar to someone at cost as it is much cheaper to bulk order.)

I added a hunk of raw butter for added flavor and browning and good fat, some chopped shallots, some Penzey’s spices, local sea salt, and pepper. Penzey’s spices are highly rated by the Weston A. Price Foundation.

It’s looking good!

And it was…

The meatloaf got a little brown on top as someone stopped by to give me something. This one had added grated carrots and a handful of the greens I dried and whirred into tiny green flakes in the food processor last summer. (A recipe for meatloaf is elsewhere on this blog.)

But this lunch was delicious, nourishing, and filling.

Turkey Tracks:

Turkey Tracks: October 14, 2014

“My Salad”

We got a bag of mixed lettuce from our CSA (Community Shared Agriculture) farm, Hope’s Edge, last Friday.

Located just west of me, the farm has had some heavy frosts–though our yo-yo weather continues and today is nearly 70!

So, the lettuce was a welcome treat in our weekly share. This lettuce has…survived.

When one tries to eat within the seasons, lettuce runs out in the fall. I personally switch to lacto-fermented foods, like sauerkraut, when the lettuce runs out. I am so not a fan of the lettuce that gets shipped in here from California in plastic boxes. That lettuce has been gassed and is very old–like about 18 days old. Whatever zip was in it is long gone.

I’ve been savoring my bag of lettuce–knowing that the cukes, the tomatoes, the celery are all nearing the end of their days.

Here’s another poem from Jeanine Gervais, who seems to be in a creative mood these days. She’s eating, likely, what’s left in her garden these days.

My Salad

A Zen Buddhist monk book says

to practice

living

in the moment

say,

“I am washing the dishes

to wash the dishes”

and so I eat my salad

to eat my salad

15 seeds

in tiny halved cherry tomato

raspberry dressing

a pink blanket

covers green leaves

speckled by black pepper polka dots

the white of sliced

radishes

edged

in magenta

a still frame

captured.

By Jeanine H. Gervais

October 11, 2014

Turkey Tracks: CSA Bounty

Turkey Tracks: July 19, 2014

CSA Bounty

My CSA (Community Shared Agriculture) is Hope’s Edge, in Hope, Maine.

My pickup is on Friday, which was yesterday.

Friend Giovanna McCarthy picked up for me as I spent the day on Vinalhaven Island (an hour ferry’s ride away) with my book club.

So, I came home to two large sacks in the garage refrigerator that include a gorgeous fennel bulb, lots of greens, peas, spring onions, herbs, broccoli, and on and on.

It was…a haul.

So, I spent this morning processing food.

Jennifer McGruther of THE NOURISHED KITCHEN in a recent blog post noted that when she has a glut of greens, she dries them in the dehydrator and pulverizes them to green dust in her food processor and stores them in jars. She adds the “green dust” to soups and stews at will. I really liked that idea. (Thanks, Jennifer!)

So, my greens are upstairs drying out as we speak. AHA! It’s the inaugural summer use of the dehydrator, which runs day and night in August and September. I took the lid off so you can see. I’m drying kale and beet greens.

I used the chard leaves and a lot of the CSA produce in a summer soup–whose base is a VERY rich turkey bone broth. I wrangled my 23-pound Thanksgiving turkey for two whole days this week, which freed up needed freezer space and produced a lot of cooked meat. (The cooked drumsticks I refroze and will use them to build more bone broth AND some delicious dark meat for a soup/stew.) The turkey came from Golden Brook Farm, owned by Susan McBride and Chris Richmond.

Here’s the soup. I ate it for lunch, and it was so delicious. It has the turkey bone broth, garlic scapes, onions, carrots, the fennel bulb, wintered-over potatoes, a handful of small broccoli crowns from the garden, celery, dried cherry tomatoes from last summer, fresh herbs–and that’s all I can remember. I stir the chard leaves in at the last minute. And I used the turkey fat on top of the jars of broth to sauté the veggies. The only thing from “away” was the celery.

Jennifer McGruther in THE NOURISHED KITCHEN has a terrific recipe (or so it looks) for fermenting chard stems. So, I tried it, but added, also, the beet green stems to fill out the jar. She uses a savory pickling mixture and has what looks to be a lovely combination in the book. I didn’t have all the spices at the seed/whole level, so fell back on a pickling mixture I already had.

In one of the fermented mixtures I’m eating now–that I put up last fall–I put in some whole tatsoi/baby bokchoi leaves with their stems. They are delicious–the stems are crunchy and lovely, so I have no doubt that these stems I did today will be fun.

Thanks, again, Jennifer.

Turkey Tracks: My Bowl Runneth Over

Turkey Tracks: June 29, 2014

My Bowl Runneth Over

My strawberries are coming in!

Here’s the first day’s pick–Friday. Something over two quarts. The bowl is large.

These berries are, if I remember right, called “Sparkle” and are renowned for their taste.

The second day was even bigger. I took a bigger bowl out to the garden. Got around three quarts.

Today, Sunday, a smaller pick, but the berries are still large, and the bushes are loaded with developing strawberries that are still green.

I also cut the garlic scapes (delicious!) and will make a soup with them. I made a chicken bone broth over the past two days. And, I picked the heads off of each of the broccoli plants–now they will bush out and grow more heads. Or so I hope.

Our first CSA pickup out at Hope’s Edge was last Friday. We got the loveliest sack full of lettuce, greens, herbs, green onions AND three pounds of wintered-over potatoes–a tasty treat. Get out the duck fat for frying some up!

It’s swimming HOT today. But not so humid. It’s the first solid summer heat we’ve had.

Yeah Summer!

Turkey Tracks: August Dinner

Turkey Tracks: August 25, 2013

August Dinner

On Friday I pick up my produce from my CSA (Community Shared Agriculture). We CSA members are now at the point where we are getting A LOT of food. As I put away the food, I isolated these ingredients for my supper.

I LOVE Romano green beans. They are my favorites. (Well, ok, I like the haricot verts, too. And the Dragon’s Tongue. And the Providers.) After the CSA, I came home and made a fresh bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich–on gluten free bread–Sami’s–and saved the bacon grease. Lard is really good for you, actually. By keeping the grease on the stove from lunch to dinner, I was creating an asset to use later.

That purple veggie is a kolhrabi. They also come in green. They’re good grated or sliced thinly and sautéed. They’re nice, too, diced and thrown into a lighter summer veggie soup.

First, I cut up the eggplant, put it into a colander over a bowl, and salted it.

Next, I made a fresh salad–made by grating the kohlrabi and some of these tender new carrots. I added in some corn I took off the cob a few days ago–I always cook extra corn and reserve the kernels for salads this time of year. Again, that’s creating an asset for later. I shaved in some parsley. And over it all, I poured a mustardy, garlicky vinaigrette. I keep that kind of salad dressing all made out on the counter–where it just gets better and better. It’s another asset. The salad went into the frig to mellow out. (It is good for several days.)

Next, I washed and snapped the Romano beans and put them into a saucepan with some of the bacon grease, water, and some salt. I wanted them “Southern Style”–or cooked until soft.

Then, I cut up all my lovely vegetables and put them into the cast-iron skillet where I fried the bacon. i also added a lump of unrefined coconut oil, which is so, so good for you and very, very stable–unlike frying with olive oil. (I reserve olive oil now mostly for eating on salads.)

What you see in this pan is the following: the eggplant, the fresh onion, yellow squash, zucchini squash, some fava beans i soaked in salted water and peeled (assets, yes, bukt boy are they a lot of work), and some sliced new potatoes. Add some good sea salt.

When the veggies had cooked down a bit, I added the tomato and some basil, some chive, and some mint from the garden. Maybe some tarragon, too. (An herb garden is a major asset.) I don’t know what it is about mint in this kind of dish, but it’s delicious. See the color developing?

It’s your call as to when you think the dish is ready. Here’s how far I took this batch–and the flavor was deep and rich and gorgeous. I shaved in some parsley to finish it.

Meanwhile, I had put chicken thighs into the oven–dressed with butter and lemon slices.

When the chicken was done–I poured myself a glass of orange/cucumber/lemon/rosemary infused water. (You can see I need to make more sauerkraut–which is chock full of enzymes and probiotics. I try to eat a little every day of one of these lacto-fermented veggie concoctions.)

And here’s my plate of beautiful, beautiful summer food:

I should have added one of the lacto-fermented dill pickles i just took out of the crock and refrigerated. The roasted lemon slices carmelize, become sweet, and are delicious.

Best of all, I will have at least two meals to reheat and enjoy–or some fun foods to have for lunch.

And, look, folks. Not a recipe in sight. This kind of cooking is my most favorite. You cook, simply, what is in season because that’s all you need to do. The fresh, wonderful food will do the rest for you.

Turkey Tracks: Counting Joys

Turkey Tracks: June 30, 2013

Counting Joys

I am counting joys today.

Sunshine, after days of rain.

The new Corian kitchen counters are in.

And aren’t they beautiful? I have snagged my sweaters on the shredding formica for the very last time.

The whole kitchen seems brighter and lighter… The color is beautiful with the oak floors and white cabinets…

Many, many thanks to Lynn Gushee of Dream Kitchens in Rockland. She’s amazing and is also helping me with some other details in the kitchen that needed tackling.

The leaky 70-gallon water tank is gone. Mark and Cappy of Mark’s Appliance said they had never seen the inside of a water tank so corroded. Friend Meg Barclay, an architect, tells me that was probably due to the acidity of our water from local granite.

We did more than replace the tank–we replaced the whole heating system, which was old and getting cranky. The old boiler sat on the floor and was about 2 feet by 5 feet. It took up the whole utility room and put out a constant wall of heat–so that in the humid summer, everything in the utility room was covered with a layer of running, condensing water.

Here’s the new boiler and the new water tank “helper.” This system is more efficient and will use less propane (my house is heated by water, which I love). The new helper has a lifetime warranty.

Yes, the new boiler is that little white box on the wall.

A new dog fence has been installed. Penny is delirious and so am I. She will not be patrolling the street below and nipping at feet peddling bicycles. Thanks to Sarah Rheault and the folks from Invisible Fence.

The moss has been cleaned off the roof. Thanks Horch Roofing.

The garage stairs, open to a bad fall from either the stairs or the floor of the attic, has been walled in. Thanks to Ronald VanHeeswijk. Neither I nor the grandchildren will fall off that death trap onto the concrete floor below. Best of all, they can make the attic of the garage their own space this summer.

The back deck privacy wall has been painted and shored up for another year. It’s pretty much rotten, and I will replace it next year. Thanks to Margaret Rauenhorst, Ronald VanHeeswijk, and John Marr.

All the leaky faucets have been fixed, thanks to plumbers Wes Avery and Ben Varner.

Mulch and weeding and all the spring tasks have been accomplished, thanks to David Hannan.

Hope’s Edge, our CSA, has started, thanks to Tom Griffin and crew.

The strawberries are ripe in the garden. The garlic scapes are ready to be cut. The peas are coming in. The cold frame is full of lettuce. And, it’s summer in Maine!

Turkey Tracks: Current Projects

Turkey Tracks: April 6, 2013

Current Projects

Spring is on the move, but we’ve had a chilly, if sunny, week.

One of my current projects is to practice taking more videos in order to learn what works and what doesn’t. I erased quite a few for various reasons. One reason is that it is very hard to hold the cameras steady. Here’s one of the Camden Harbor at low tide, with the spring-full river pouring into it. At high tide, the water would rise to a foot or two below the docks. The wind is high and the noise of it and of the river interferes a bit with what I’m saying.

It’s elver season, and people trap them at the mouths of rivers–as near as I can determine. Elvers are little eels that fetch the most astonishing prices per pound. These little guys are sold alive to the Japanese, mostly, who then raise them to be much bigger before eating them.

Have you ever eaten eel? It’s delicious actually. You could try it in a sushi restaurant. It’s cooked with a sweet sauce of some sort.

Anyway, here’s the video:

I’ve almost finished a pair of socks for my sister-in-law, Maryann Enright. She chose the yarn just before John died. We had a nice visit one day around early December to our newest yarn shop in Rockland, Maine, called Over The Rainbow. It’s a fabulous yarn shop, and we are so lucky to have it. I think these socks might be a bit wilder than Maryann imagined, but she will rise to the occasion with them. The yarn does not have black in it, but deep navy and dark plum and a tiny bit of dark brown.

I am working on an applique quilt made with big blocks of green turtles. I have not done any applique in some time and am very slow at it, so I refreshed my skills (ha! that’s a joke) with this little Easter Card for Maryann–in a class at Coastal Quilters taught by Barb Melchiskey, who is a master appliquer. If I were doing this card again, I’d chose either a colored card or a colored background. The two whites aren’t working so well together, and I don’t like the lines running away from the eggs. But the eggs! Ah, the eggs. Perfect for this very eggy household.

The turtle applique quilt will get a lot of quilting to bring out texture in the blocks–on the domestic machine. But, here’s one block ready to go. Now I need to do more. I have not decided whether to do 6 or 9 blocks…

What is really drawing me is the scrap quilt taking shape on the design wall. This one calls me from other rooms to work on it. I have fallen in love with Bonnie Hunter and ALL of her books: LEADERS AND ENDERS, SCRAPS AND SHIRTTAILS I AND II, and STRING FLING. She embodies the kind of work I love best to do–make functional quilts that people can curl up under or into and use as much of the stash fabrics as possible.

Bonnie’s motto is reuse, repurpose, recycle. She has a monthly column in QUILTMAKERS and her web site is awesome. There must be 50 free quilting patterns on that web site. She’s coming in May to our state guild, Pine Tree Quilting Guild, on May 5th, and I will be there to see her quilts and meet her, God willing and the creek don’t rise.

Bonnie Hunter also promotes Victoria Findlay Wolfe’s new book: 15 MINUTES OF PLAY , which is so much fun. Both Hunger and Wolfe are having way too much fun with their quilts, and both employ string piecing methods to great advantage and fun in their quilts.

Anyway, Hunter uses a method that I really like. She cuts any pieces of fabric in her stash smaller than a fat quarter, or at the biggest, a half yard, into strips: 3 1/2 inches, 2 1/2 inches, 2 inches, 1 1/2 inches. (I also cut 5 inches as I have rather a lot of those now and want to make a broken dishes block with them.) These measurements work well together. She divides these strips into light and dark piles. When she starts a project, she’s already done a lot of cutting. And she can cut the strips further down with rulers, like the Easy Angle ruler, into the shapes she wants. (She also likes the Tri Rec ruler set.) I’ve been using the Easy Angle ruler, and it makes PERFECT half square triangles, as long as you have an accurate 1/4 inch sewed seam.

This quilt started using Bonnie’s method described in LEADERS AND ENDERS, where you keep a basket next to your machine with some block parts in it–like two-inch squares. When you would need to cut thread on another project, instead, you just feed a light and dark set of squares through the machine and cut off the piece you wanted to free on the back side of the needle. In no time, you have a pile of sets of two squares sewn together. You can finger press those and sew them to another set for a four-square–and so on.

Well!

Here’s what happened in short order at my sewing machine–the idea came from Hunter’s LEADERS AND ENDERS. And it’s putting a real hurt on my green stash fabrics!!!! I’m no longer just piecing squares through the machine while working on another project. I’m making time to make as many blocks as I can.

Here’s the block: a form of a Jacob’s Ladder block, depending on where you locate the dark and light of the half-square triangles.

I iron the half-square triangle blocks along the way, but I don’t iron the whole block until I’ve finished it. I’ve had to trim up very, very few of them. All have been a bit too big–with stretching from ironing mostly I think. None have been too small. Most are perfect.

The squares quickly overflowed from the basket as I cut into my stash.

The basket got filled with half-square triangle pieces:

And I have a pile of strips all cut and ready to be cut further–and separated by value–so Bonnie is right that just a bit of cutting each day delivers a lot of sewing for days to come. She also says that she groups medium and dark values together and relies on the REALLY light fabrics to create contrast in a quilt like this one.

I finished and mailed a beautiful quilt for a beautiful bride, Ashley Malphrus, who will be married in Charleston later this month. I will put up pictures when I get home from Charleston, and the bride has seen the quilt. But I am delighted with it.

So, I will leave you with this picture: the last bouquet of flowers from our CSA, Hope’s Edge, last summer. Those days are coming around again. Look at all that green in the windows.

Turkey Tracks: Pie Pumpkins and Pie

Turkey Tracks: November 13, 2011

Pie Pumpkins and Pie

The best pie pumpkins are long–like a huge salami. They’re dark green that starts to turn orange in patches–they turn orange when you cook them.

I usually get one from our CSA, Hope’s Edge. And I buy a few more, roast them, and freeze the meat–for winter pies. Organic, of course.

Just slice the pumpkins in half, scoop out the seeds, put them on a shallow pan that has some sides–the roasting pumpkins can give off juice–and roast them for at least an hour at 350 degrees. You’ll know when they are done–they’ll smell delicious and will fork easily. Let them cool, scoop out the meat, and freeze or make a pie.

It takes about 2 cups of pumpkin to make a 9 or 10-inch pie. Each of these halves makes about two cups. Convenient, huh?

My favorite recipe comes from NOURISHING TRADITIONS, by Sally Fallon and Dr. Mary Enig.

Start with a flakey pie crust of your choice. (Use butter or really good lard–not any of those fake fats like vegetable lards or margarine.)

2 cups pumpkin

3 eggs–if small, use 4 eggs

3/4 cups rapadura–which is dried cane juice. I also use organic sugar. The rapadura has a stronger taste, but the pumpkin can take it.

1 tablespoon fresh grated ginger

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon each salt, powdered cloves, nutmeg

grated rind of lemon

1 cup piima cream, or creme fraiche–piima is a cultured cream. You could also use sour cream.

2 tablespoons brandy

Mix everything together well, pour into your pie shell, and bake at 350 degrees for 35-45 minutes. The time will depend on the size of your eggs and the liquid in your pumpkin. I used 3 small eggs, and the pie took more like an hour to puff in the middle. If it takes longer, cover the pie with some parchment paper to prevent burning. (Don’t use aluminum foil! For anything!!)

This pie is as light as a feather and absolutely delicious.

Serve with REAL whipped cream.

Turkey Tracks: Love Lies Bleeding: Hope’s Edge Flowers

Turkey Tracks: September 2, 2011

Love Lies Bleeding: Hope’s Edge Flowers

Today is Friday, and on Friday’s I got out to Hope’s Edge, our CSA (Community Shared Agriculture) farm, to pick up our food. I take a Mason jar and a pair of scissors along with me and cut a bouquet of flowers from the three long rows of flowers Farmer Tom plants for us each year. I can fill the jar with water so the flowers don’t wilt hopelessly on the way home.

How pretty is this view? Not even Hurricane Irene diminished this view.

Each week the selection of flowers changes as different varieties come into their own.

Here’s a bouquet from a few weeks ago. Outrageous, huh?

That amazing dark pink draping “flower” is called Love Lies Bleeding.

Here’s last week’s bouquet:

And, here’s a picture John took on a recent visit that I really like:

Hope’s Edge folks are hard-working folks who raise the most amazing food for us to eat! We are so blessed!

I wish for you a CSA program like Hope’s Edge.

Turkey Tracks: Blueberry Buckle

Turkey Tracks: July 24, 2011

Blueberry Buckle

We’re still making desserts this summer from recipes in RUSTIC FRUIT DESSERTS, Julie Richardson and Cory Schreiber: http://www.amazon.com/Rustic-Fruit-Desserts-Crumbles-Pandowdies/dp/1580089763. (A book suggested by Tara Derr.) We freeze about 20 pounds of ORGANIC wild Maine blueberries every August, which our wonderful CSA, Hope’s Edge, makes available to us. I don’t know if you’ve ever had wild Maine blueberries. They are much smaller than the big round ones most people can get in supermarkets. And, they’re chock full of flavor. Once you’ve had these little guys, the big blueberries seem utterly tasteless. So, be warned!

Now, the “wild” Maine blueberries are anything but wild. Yes, there are some wild blueberries at the edges of our woods. But, commercial wild blueberries are a wild myth! They’re heavily cultivated, actually. And in the harvest year, which is every other year, the commercial (as in NOT organic) are heavily sprayed with all sorts of heinous and poisonous pesticides and herbicides that get into the watershed (atrazine compounds)–in Maine we have a LOT of watershed–just take a look at a map of Maine–and that stay in the ground for up to 175 days, like the organophosphates often used as pesticides. Organophosphates attack an insect’s nervous system. And it remains a mystery to me why people think a compound that attacks nervous systems is NOT going to affect THEIR nervous systems–especially when it hangs around for 175 days on the ground, gets tracked into homes on shoes and clothes, and when it, often, gets INTO the plants and berries themselves and CANNOT be washed out.

Many of these chemicals kill bees and any other insect that gets in the spray, which, in turn, affects the bird population. But, since commercial bees (poor things) are trucked in from across the country to pollinate the crop BEFORE it is sprayed, it’s our LOCAL bees and hives that are at risk. (How dumb is that?) And, many of these chemicals affect a human’s endocrine system (read reproductive ability), cause birth defects, cancer, and so on. (How doubly dumb is that?) The EPA is going to render a new verdict on atrazine in the near future, and it’s already been banned in Europe.

So, if you want to try a “wild” Maine blueberry–for heaven’s sake–buy organic ones. Or come up here and pick some yourself!

Anyway, since I usually make blueberry cobblers, making a blueberry buckle was an experiment. So, far, it’s been voted the favorite dessert and has been repeated once more. (It’s GREAT for breakfast too.) It’s a rich cake, studded with blueberries and lemon, topped with a crunchy crumb topping, and drizzled with an intense lemon glaze when it’s still warm. Here’s a picture:

Here’s a better one!

	janet leclair on My New Sewing Area
	Teeny on My New Sewing Area
	quilterkelse on My New Sewing Area
	Judith Brill on My New Sewing Area
	lynettecw on My New Sewing Area