An Impromptu Michaelmas {Pear + Blackberry Pie}

I didn't have any plans to celebrate Michaelmas this year, because with a 9/28 due date I was frankly hoping to be otherwise occupied. But when this morning rolled around with no labor at all, much less a baby, I decided to throw together an impromptu celebration with some of our best friends. It was so much fun that I was really able to enjoy day #1 of being "overdue," instead of just sitting in my extra-clean and well-nested house twiddling my thumbs and poring over hilarious lists of things to do to get labor started.

Since I had exactly no plans for today, I had all the time in the world to make a big project out of dinner. We had roast chicken, honey-glazed steamed carrots, and green beans. For dessert, a pear and blackberry pie! (Why these foods? Haley has it all laid out for you.)





And we put our capes of light to good use for the second year in a row! Stickin' it to the devil, one small person at a time. :-)







There's a beautiful free downloadable version of the St. Michael Prayer on Carolyn's blog today - check it out! Can't wait to see more of her beautiful work, soon to be available via her new Etsy shop, Brass & Mint Co.

Pear + Blackberry Pie

My favorite crust, as always.
5 cups peeled, cored, and chopped pears (1-inch pieces)
2 cups blackberries
zest of 1 lemon
juice of 1/2 lemon
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
pinch of kosher salt
2 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch
2 tablespoons milk or cream
coarse sugar for sprinkling

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Combine the fruit, lemon zest, and lemon juice in a large bowl. In a small bowl, whisk together the sugar, spices, salt, and cornstarch, and add them to the fruit. Toss together gently.

Roll out half of the pie crust and fit inside a 9- or 10-inch pie plate. Fill with the fruit mixture, and then roll out the second half of the crust and top the pie with a lattice. Brush with milk or cream and sprinkle with sugar. Bake for one hour to one hour and twenty minutes, until the crust is deeply brown and the filling is bubbling. Cool before slicing. Serve with vanilla ice cream!

Pear-Raspberry Pie

There's something about a pie. It's homey. Nostalgic. Comforting. The cozy interior of Hoosier Mama Pie Company is tiny: a couple of tables and chairs, an old sea-foam green dresser serving as a checkout counter, and a display case full of pie. But it's where I want to go when my spirits need lifting. I made my husband take me there after some careless knife handling necessitated a trip to the emergency room a few years ago. I sat there with my mom, sharing buttery pie and hot coffee after I found out I had lost a baby, only 8 weeks into my first pregnancy, almost exactly two years ago.

Paula Haney's new cookbook, The Hoosier Mama Book of Pie, is a veritable encyclopedia of pie knowledge. Step-by-step photos of important, hard-to-describe processes (pie crust, anyone?), funny stories, and page after page of fantastic recipes. Pear-raspberry was the first one to jump out at me, because the window for both fruits at the farmers market is happening right now. I know it won't come as a shock to you that I love to cook, and that time in the kitchen is relaxing and very rewarding for me, but making a pie is a special sort of culinary meditation. Mix the dough. Wait. Roll out the dough and shape it into a crust. Peel and slice the fruit. Toss. Wait. Bake for a long time. Wait. Wait. Slice and eat. It's almost a full day from start to finish, and so worth it. Every step is magic. And then, of course, there's pie for breakfast the next day: one of the highest pleasures in this life.



Pear-Raspberry Pie

from The Hoosier Mama Book of Pie



Make sure to use soft, really ripe pears. I didn't, and while the flavor was still amazing, the pears were a little crunchy. This recipe is printed as is from the cookbook. I'm not going to print any other recipes from this book, and I'm not including the crust recipe, because I think you should just go buy it. It's awesome. Go.

1 9-inch double-crust pie dough (preferably from page 24 of the cookbook linked above)
5 cups ripe pears, peeled, cored, and chopped into bite-size pieces
2 cups raspberries
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
pinch kosher salt

Place the pears, raspberries, and lemon juice in a medium bowl. Do not mix. Place the sugar, cornstarch, ginger, and salt in a small bowl and whisk until thoroughly combined. Gently fold the dry ingredients into the fruit, until most of the mixture is absorbed. Take care not to break up the raspberries. Sprinkle Crust Dust (a mixture of equal parts flour and sugar, designed to absorb some of the fruit juice and ensure a not-soggy bottom crust) into the empty pie shell. Pile the fruit into the shell and smooth the top with a spatula. Finish the pie with a lattice top, and freeze for at least 20 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Brush the lattice with Pie Wash (equal parts cream and whole milk) - be amazed at how easily you can brush a slightly frozen pie crust without smashing it - and sprinkle liberally with coarse-grained sugar. Bake for 60-80 minutes, rotating 180 degrees every 20 minutes, until the crust is dark golden brown and the juices are bubbling thickly. Cool for at least 2 hours before slicing.

Late Summer Minestrone

Hello?

...Anyone still here?

I accidentally took the summer off from blogging! I trust that you have been eating well, taking advantage of beautiful weather and farmers markets, and hopefully you've been online less this summer as well!

I'm back, because fall energizes me and makes me excited about what I'm cooking again! And I want to share! To kick off your weekend, a simple summer soup. Late summer means you can put whatever you want in it - seriously. Anything that looks good at the market, or that you have too much of in your garden. Yesterday I was reading a novel, in which a soup like this was described: a recipe that's never quite the same, served with whole grain bread and salted butter. Into the kitchen I flew!



(not pictured: pile mountain of unfolded clean laundry, several piles of clutter, unvacuumed floors all made possible by aforementioned novel-reading and soup-making.)

Late Summer Minestrone

3 tablespoons olive oil
1 leek, rinsed well and sliced
3 carrots, chopped
3 stalks celery, chopped
1 large clove garlic, minced
1 zucchini, chopped
1 cup shelled fresh cranberry beans (or cooked cannellini beans)
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 large can whole tomatoes
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
Salt and pepper
Asiago cheese, for serving

In a soup pot, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the leek, carrots, celery and garlic, and cook 3-4 minutes. Add the zucchini, beans, tomato paste, and tomatoes, crushing the tomatoes slightly with your hands as you add them. Fill the can again with water, and add that to the pot. Add the herbs, bring to a simmer, and reduce the heat to medium-low. Simmer 20-30 minutes, until the beans and vegetables are tender. Season to taste with salt and pepper, and serve with Asiago cheese grated on top.

Potato Leek Soup

It is a magical day today! 10.11.12! I'm not sure why these days feel so exciting to me - I suspect it is because we made 6.7.08 our wedding day, so the sequential dates feel important and fun and full of promise. We are also having the most beautiful fall weather imaginable; blue skies that could only be possible in October, spectacular sunrises, eye-popping color on the trees, and cool, crisp temperatures. It is an absolutely LOVELY time of year.  I hope you are enjoying it as well!

We haven't turned the heat on in our home yet this year, and I think my husband is suffering.  Here's a snippet of conversation from earlier this week:

Him: How are you doing, temperature-wise?
Me: Great! I'm very comfortable.
Him: Oh ok. That's good then.
Me: Why, are you cold?
Him: Well, it's 65 degrees in here.

Poor guy. When they say you've got a bun in the oven, you tend to focus on the "bun" part, and not so much on the "oven." Let me tell you, I am an oven. I try to make up for the lack of heat by roasting chickens and making soup! We'll be warm from the inside out.



Potato Leek Soup
adapted from Twelve Months of Monastery Soups

4 tablespoons butter
3 large leeks, rinsed well and thinly sliced
4 potatoes, diced
1 carrot, peeled and sliced
1 rib celery, diced
1 teaspoon dried thyme
4 cups chicken or vegetable stock (or water)
1 cup milk
Salt and pepper to taste

Melt the butter in a large soup pot. Add the leeks and cook over medium heat for a few minutes, until slightly softened.  Add potatoes, carrots, and celery and saute about 5 more minutes. Season with thyme, and add the stock or water. Bring to a simmer and lower the heat to medium-low.  Continue simmering about 45 minutes, until potatoes and carrots are tender.  Puree about half the soup in a blender and return to the pot. Add the milk, stir, and heat through. Taste the soup and add salt and pepper to taste.

Baked Pumpkin Doughnuts with Brown Butter Glaze

A couple of Saturdays ago, we found ourselves facing a crisp fall day that had absolutely nothing planned in it! Days like these have been pretty much nonexistent in our lives lately, so I decided this would be the perfect day to find an orchard and go apple-picking! The problem with wanting to do such a quintessential fall activity is, if you happen to live in the middle of a big city, you might have to drive a couple of hours each way to get your u-pick fix. Unfortunately, we still haven't completely recovered from our travel marathon month of August (we drove over 2,000 miles), so we decided to strip the experience down to bare bones: fresh apples, of course, and (almost) more importantly, warm doughnuts.



For this recipe, you will need a special doughnut pan. You can usually snag one in the kitchen section of TJ Maxx, or you can order one online. Alternatively, you could definitely bake these in muffin tins (or mini muffin tins!), but then... they wouldn't be doughnuts, now would they? And let's just be real, please: a baked doughnut would never beat a fried one in a contest, but it's a lot less hassle (and a lot less blatantly indulgent).

Happy fall!!

Baked Pumpkin Doughnuts
adapted from shutterbean.com

makes 6

1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup pureed pumpkin
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1 egg
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

for the glaze:
1 cup powdered sugar
3 tablespoons butter
3-4 tablespoons milk
1/4-1/2 teaspoon mace (or a little more nutmeg)
1/2 cup pecan halves (optional)

Coat a doughnut pan with non-stick cooking spray.  Preheat oven to 325. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and salt. In a liquid measuring cup or small bowl, whisk together pumpkin, brown sugar, egg, vegetable oil, and vanilla. Add the wet ingredients to the dry, and whisk to combine.

Scoop the batter into a large freezer bag, snip off a corner of the bag, and pipe the batter into the prepared pan. Bake for 13-16 minutes, until donuts spring back when lightly touched.  Cool in the pan for 3 minutes, and then turn onto a rack to cool completely.

In a small saucepan over medium heat, melt the butter and cook, swirling constantly to keep from burning, until it turns golden and smells toasty and amazing. Add the butter to a small bowl with the powdered sugar, mace or nutmeg, and milk, and whisk together, adding more milk if necessary to achieve the right consistency. Toast the pecan halves in a dry skillet over medium heat, tossing frequently, until fragrant. Chop roughly.

When the doughnuts are completely cooled, dip each one into the glaze, allowing it to drip off, and sprinkle toasted pecans on top. Enjoy!

Pear Crisp for One

Before long, peach and berry season will be here, but now the fruit that's available is still apples and pears.  They may be looking a bit tired, and they've lost the novelty they held in the late fall. But chopped up and tossed with sugar and spice, topped with oats and crystallized ginger, and baked, they're still hitting the spot for me.



What seasonal fruit or vegetable are you most looking forward to this spring?



Pear Crisp for One

1 pear, peeled, cored, and cubed
1 tablespoon flour
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
pinch nutmeg
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

For the topping:
1/4 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
2 tablespoons flour
1 teaspoon finely minced crystallized ginger
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
pinch nutmeg
2 tablespoons brown sugar
2 tablespoons melted butter

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and butter an 8-ounce ramekin. In a small bowl, toss pears, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, sugar, and lemon juice together. Place mixture into the ramekin and dot the top with the cold butter. In another small bowl, combine oats, flour, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, brown sugar, and melted butter, and stir together until it's crumbly but starting to hold together. Sprinkle oat mixture on top of pears, and bake for 25-30 minutes, until pears are tender and topping is crispy and golden. Top with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

Mushroom and Leek Wild Rice

Thanksgiving in my parents' house always goes about the same way.  Mom wakes up super early and makes coffee and homemade cinnamon rolls with nuts and raisins.  I'm the next to get up, and then we'll sit down together and start going through the stack of old, splattered, hand-written recipes that make up our family's traditional dinner.  Bajee's stuffing, supremely moist and studded with fruit and pecans, Grandmom's traditional cornbread stuffing, candied yams, cranberry sauce and orange-cranberry relish, fluffy pale green jello salad, crescent rolls, the obligatory green vegetable, and 3 kinds of pie: pumpkin, cherry, and pecan.  Nothing changes, and I wouldn't want it to.  This is the one day a year when I believe that nothing can be improved about the meal.

We cook all day, stopping briefly to eat the cinnamon rolls when they're ready and catch a glimpse of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.  I always feel slightly bewildered when I see recipes for things like appetizers and starters for Thanksgiving.  It boggles my mind that people would put time and effort into fussy, complicated appetizers for people to eat before the biggest meal of the year.  There are so many problems with that!  First, who has time to make them?  Second, if people are munching on appetizers and snacks all day, how will they have room for dinner? 

Even though I think appetizers and new side dishes have no business near a Thanksgiving dinner, I am not immune to the pull of these things in other contexts.  So I'll make sausage, fig, and cranberry stuffing, or twice-baked sweet potatoes with chipotle-pecan streusel, or sweet potato cupcakes with toasted marshmallow frosting (!) some other time.  And I'll also eat mushroom and leek wild rice, stuffed into roasted winter squash, all week for lunch.

Mushroom and Leek Wild Rice

This would be a great vegan entree for Thanksgiving, if you tend that way.

1 cup wild rice, rinsed well
1/2 ounce dried porcini mushrooms
3 large portobello mushroom caps
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 bunch leeks, cleaned well, and sliced
1/4 teaspoon celery seed (or 1 rib fresh celery, chopped, if you have some on hand)
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1/4 cup dry sherry
salt and pepper to taste

Place dried mushrooms in a medium bowl, and pour 3 cups boiling water over them.  Allow to steep for 20 minutes, until the mushrooms are soft, and the liquid is caramel colored and very fragrant.  Using a slotted spoon, remove the mushrooms and set aside.  Pour the mushroom broth into a medium saucepan with the wild rice, bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer, covered, until liquid is absorbed and rice is tender.  This can take anywhere from 45-60 minutes, depending on the brand of rice you use, so keep your eye on it. 

While the rice is cooking, preheat the oven to 400 degrees.  Line a baking sheet with foil.  Gently scrape the gills from the portobello mushrooms using a spoon, taking care not to scoop out the mushroom flesh.  Slice into 1/2-inch-thick strips.  Arrange on a foil-lined baking sheet, drizzle with olive oil, and sprinkle with salt and pepper, and roast for about 10 minutes, until mushrooms are tender. Set aside.

Place olive oil in a wide shallow saucepan or skillet over medium heat.  Add leeks and saute 2-3 minutes, until soft.  Chop porcini and portobello mushrooms into bite-sized pieces and add to the pan.  Add seasonings and stir to combine.  Add sherry, and deglaze the pan, scraping up any brown bits.  Stir in wild rice, and season with salt and pepper to taste. 

Yield: 4-6 servings

Note: This dish tastes great as is, but if you're not vegan, stir in a couple of tablespoons of butter after removing the finished dish from the heat.  The butter adds a silkiness and finesse that makes it taste even more like a special occasion.

"Your life is an occasion.  Rise to it." -Mr. Magorium

Roasted Buttercup Squash

The last day that they had the outdoor farmer's market near my office this year was a cold, drizzly, dreary day that made you just feel so sorry for the few farmers who had decided to man their stands until the bitter end.  Three days later, the market near my house (yup, I'm lucky enough to have a weekday one about 2 blocks from work, and a weekend one steps from my apartment) opened warm, sunny, and breezy - the kind of fall day you live for, that you can't help but savor.  I've been trying to branch out to different hard squashes (butternut and acorn rut, anyone?), and that day I found a Red Thai squash (the orange one above) and a Buttercup squash (the green).  Oh yeah!  And a magic brussels sprout wand.  Don't you love that they grow like that?  Look at this picture of a whole field of them!  It's like alien vegetables!

They look very similar to acorn squash, don't they?  Taste similar, too - more flavorful, I thought.  Into each little quarter went a bit of butter, maple syrup, a pinch of salt and a whisper of cayenne pepper.  For a second I was reminded of my brief, ill-advised foray into the world of the Master Cleanse and shivered.  Then I popped these babies into the oven, and in about 45 minutes, here's what came out:

Ahhhhh.  Comfort food.  Look at those little pools of love! 

A pan-seared pork chop, some brussels sprouts, and roasted squash.  Virtues: low-carb, more vegetables than non-vegetables, multiple colors.  Vices: butter.  But who's counting?

Roasted Cranberry-Apple Sauce

I love chilly weather.  I love sweaters and fuzzy slippers and, Lord help me, I love my Snuggie.

Photo from Snuggie Sightings.  Bet you didn't know that was a thing!

Apparently, I'm not the only one.

Other things I love about the advent of chilly weather: roasting and baking!  Squash, apples, and cranberries.  Warm spicy drinks.  The Starbucks holiday cup!  Although I do think it's just a bit early for department stores to be busting out the Christmas music and decorations.

Seriously, though - I love roasted food.  And in the summer it feels almost like a sin to fire up the oven for dinner.  When it's cold (and you're quickly realizing that your apartment does not have the insulation quality you might hope for), firing up the oven is comforting and practical and fills your house with happy smells!  Especially if you make this roasted applesauce, which was one of the best experiments I've tried in a while.

This recipe is so simple and delicious - sweet apples, tart cranberries, and a spicy punch of fresh grated ginger. I used a mixture of apples that I had leftover from the Bucktown Apple Pie Contest (which I just realized I never told you about!  Silly me!).  Make sure to select apples that are good for baking or sauce, like Cortland, Jonathan, Honeycrisp, Braeburn, and Northern Spy.  See this article from Midwest Living for a great primer on the relative virtues of different types of apples.  When you mix different types together, you get a more complex flavor in the finished product.

So pretty!

Roasted Cranberry-Apple Sauce

About 10 pounds fresh apples, peeled, cored, and roughly chopped (about 20 large apples)
1 bag fresh cranberries, picked over for soft or rotten-looking ones
juice of 1 lemon
2 tablespoons fresh ginger, grated
1/4 cup natural cane sugar
1/2 cup maple syrup

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Mix all ingredients together in a large mixing bowl.  Spray a large roasting pan (or a couple of smaller pans, if you're like me) with nonstick cooking spray, and spread the apple and cranberry mixture out in an even layer.  Place pan into the oven, and roast for about 30-40 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes.  When the cranberries have burst, and the apples are completely soft and juicy, remove from the oven and mash with a potato masher.  Taste and add more maple syrup if you like.

Yield: 3 pints

Curried Butternut Squash Soup

I took a yoga class last week.  My first Baptiste Power Yoga class ever.  I've been practicing yoga on and off for several years, but I've never felt a particular sense of commitment to one form or another.  I like Bikram, but it tends to be hard to fit it into my schedule.  Ashtanga is great; I like the idea of building heat from the inside using breath and flowing through the postures.  I've always felt challenged by the classes I've taken, but Baptiste?  Baptiste should be in a category of its own.  It takes the external heat of Bikram and combines it with the internal vinyasa/breath heat of Ashtanga, and it is SO. HARD.  (Also, I just want to mention Om on the Range - fantastic teachers, clean facility, lots of different classes in two different locations, and such a welcoming atmosphere.  I love it!  Go try it - $20 for your first unlimited week!)

Of course, when you leave the class, you barely remember how hard it was because you're practically high with all the endorphins.  Amazing.  I ended up taking 3 classes last week, and I'm desperately looking for a hole in my upcoming schedule so I can go back again.

Isn't it funny how one little decision can make such a difference in the direction of your whole life?  One day, I'm lethargic, eating Chee-tos on the couch and watching 6 episodes of Scrubs in a row.  The next day, I take a yoga class, and it's like I've suddenly regained the ability to take good care of myself!  I come home from yoga, take a shower, put a clay mask on my face, and make myself a nutritious meal. 

Who knew that the basic laws of physics could be so aptly applied to peoples' lives?  Physics was the only math/science class I actually enjoyed in high school.  I liked exploring the explanations of realities that we experience every day but rarely think about.  Evidently interest is not enough, because my inadequate math skills landed me a C in the class (give me a list of vocab words any day), but maybe it worked out.  I'll just apply my limited understanding of physics to yoga, luscious fall soups and life lessons.

Curried Butternut Squash Soup

When I was growing up, my mom used to make a dish of roasted bone-in chicken, potatoes, apples and carrots, in a yellowish mustard-honey-curry sauce.  It was a fantastic cool-weather dinner, and was easy on her, too, since it only used one baking dish.  This soup is my take on those same flavors, without the chicken.  To make it truly vegan, replace the honey with agave nectar.

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 sweet onion, diced
2 stalks celery, sliced
2-3 carrots, peeled and chopped
1 medium butternut squash, peeled, seeded, and cubed
2 teaspoons curry powder
1 tablespoon honey
1 tablespoon yellow mustard
1 15-oz. can garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed
1 15-oz can light coconut milk
2 tart apples (preferably Granny Smith), cored and chopped
salt to taste

Place the olive oil in a Dutch oven or soup pot over medium heat.  Add the onion and saute, stirring often, until it starts to soften.  Add celery and carrots and continue to cook for 3-4 minutes.  Add butternut squash.  Cook, stirring occasionally, until vegetables are starting to brown slightly on the edges.  Add curry powder, honey, and mustard, and stir well.  Add 2-3 cups of water (depending on how thin you like your soup), stir to combine, and bring soup to a simmer.  Cover and simmer for about 5 minutes, until vegetables are almost done.  Add apples and garbanzo beans and simmer a few minutes more, until just tender.  Stir in coconut milk at the very end, and season with salt to taste.

This is great by itself, or over brown rice or quinoa for an even heartier meal.

Yield: about 6 servings.

Maple-Cinnamon Poached Pears

I know it's Wednesday, but that's not too early to start thinking about brunch again, is it?  This thing I made last weekend is a combination of two of my favorite things: fall and breakfast!  Oh cinnamon, how I love you.  Oh, pears.  Oh, cool weather and clear crisp skies and sunshine on bright red leaves!  ...Are you annoyed?  Sorry.  I can't help it!  I hope these ridiculously delicious waffles make up for my unendurable enthusiasm for the changing seasons.

Maple-Cinnamon Poached Pears

These are particularly good with toasted pecans on top of waffles or pancakes! 

4 ripe pears
1/3 cup apple cider
4 tablespoons maple syrup
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon butter

Cut pears into eighths, and cut out the cores with a paring knife.  Place the pears in a pan over medium heat and pour cider, syrup and cinnamon over.  Stir together and bring to a boil.  Cook for 5-8 minutes, until liquid is thickened and syrupy and pears are soft. 

Roasted Vegetable Ragu

Last Saturday night, I had a few friends over for a Slow Food $5 Challenge dinner!  Did you participate in the challenge?  It's a pretty simple idea: a movement to take back the value meal.  To teach people that good, clean, fair food does not have to break the bank.  Well, we proved it this weekend.  Here's what we had for $5 (or less) apiece:

Crostini with White Bean Dip
Spaghetti with Roasted Vegetable Ragu
Apple Pie with Maple Whipped Cream

There was enough food to feed 8, and we ate the leftovers for a couple of days.

Also, my friend brought the sweetest hostess gift with her!

Fresh herbs from her garden; thyme, basil, lemon thyme, thai basil, and mint!

Here's the price breakdown:

Olive oil, about 1 cup total, $3

1 baguette, $3
1 pound dried spaghetti, $1

White bean dip ($7.55):
1/2 pound runner cannellini beans, $2.25
carrots, celery, and onion to flavor the beans, about $1
2/3 cup toasted sliced almonds, $3
juice and zest of 1 lemon, $.30

Roasted vegetable ragu ($5):
3 pounds Roma tomatoes, $1.50
1 bunch purple heirloom carrots, $2
1 eggplant, $1
1 zucchini, $.50
1 yellow pepper, $1

Apple pie (8.25):
3 pounds Honeycrisp apples, $3.75
1 cup pastured organic butter, $2.50
Flour, sugar, spices; maybe $2

Grand Total: $27.80
Divided by 8 =  ...drumroll please...

$3.48 each!

WHAT?!  I am shocked.  Are you shocked that for (much) less than the price of a burger and fries at McDonald's, you can have a 3-course, locally-sourced, homemade, all-natural, healthy, DELICIOUS meal?!

Here, go cook it yourself.

Purple carrots!

Roasted Vegetable Ragu

I thought of this idea after I made this amazing fresh tomato sauce a couple of weeks ago.  It's a little bit heartier early autumn version of the same thing.

1 pound dried spaghetti

3 pounds Roma tomatoes
6 medium carrots, diced
1 eggplant
1 yellow bell pepper, cut into small chunks
1 small zucchini, quartered and cut into 1/2-inch pieces

1/4 cup olive oil
a handful of basil leaves
2 cloves garlic

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees.  Toss carrots with olive oil and sprinkle with kosher salt and begin roasting.  Slice eggplant into 3/4-inch rounds and place onto a paper towel-lined cookie sheet.  Sprinkle generously with salt, and lay another layer of paper towels on top.  Press down on each slice, and then let them sit for at least 10 minutes to release some of their bitter juices.  Cube and add to the carrots after they have been roasting about 20 minutes, adding oil if needed to make sure that each piece is coated.  Roast eggplant and carrots another 20 minutes, and then add zucchini.  Toss, and roast another 10 minutes before adding peppers for the final 20 minutes.  After about an hour of roasting, vegetables should be golden and tender.  Meanwhile, prepare the tomatoes.

Peel the tomatoes by scoring each one on the bottom, dipping them in boiling water for about 60 seconds, and then plunging them into an ice water bath.  The skins will slip right off.  Halve each tomato and seed them over a strainer set over a bowl (to collect the juice).  Crush the tomatoes using your hands (so fun!) and add them to a wide deep saucepan over low heat.  Discard the seeds, but reserve the juice (you can add it to the sauce if it gets too dry later on).  Cook the tomatoes, continuing to crush with a potato masher as they cook.  Cook for about 15 minutes before adding all the roasted vegetables. and then simmer over low heat for 30-40 minutes.

Place the olive oil, basil, and garlic in a small saucepan over low heat just until the oil starts to sizzle, then remove from heat and allow to steep until you're ready to use it, at least 10 minutes.

Cook pasta in boiling, salted water until al dente.  Drain, reserving about a cup of starchy pasta water.  Strain solids from olive oil and stir into sauce until incorporated.  Toss pasta and sauce together, adding a little pasta water if the sauce seems too dry.  Remove from heat and add one or two tablespoons of butter, and toss until melted.  Serve with grated Parmesan cheese and sliced basil.

Straight to the source

This weekend we attended the wedding of some good friends of ours on Notre Dame's campus in South Bend, Indiana.  Since graduation, a lot of our friends have scattered far and wide across the country and the world, and weddings have been some of the only times we've all been able to see each other.  My husband was incredibly blessed to meet the great friends he did in college, and I am constantly thankful that they all managed to select such fabulous wives.

I love going to weddings.  I love to see how people's personalities shine through in all the decisions they've made about so many tiny details.  And there was personality galore at this wedding: instead of traditional place cards, the bride and groom gave each guest a 4-ounce jar of homemade raspberry jam with their name and table number on top.  And look at these centerpieces!

 

Vintage tins found in Grandpa's basement, and vintage glass vases and Mason jars to hold flowers.  Wooden boxes full of apples!  I die.  It was just the right amount of whimsy.

 

Personalized reusable grocery bags were tied with ribbon to the back of each chair.

 

And the groom's sister handmade all the pies for the reception!  They were delicious.

The grocery bags came in handy right away!  On the way back to Chicago, we stopped at Garwood Orchard and U-Pick Farm in La Porte, Indiana.  We picked 23 pounds of honeycrisp apples, and a half-bushel of Roma tomatoes, and then at the farm store we got eggplants, peppers, butternut squash, and of COURSE, cider and donuts.

It was the perfect end to a lovely weekend!  Not to mention the fact that it solved all my worries about not being able to go to the market this weekend - we went straight to the source!  Waaaay better.

Here we go!

I like to decorate with vegetables.

Like many of the best journeys, this one begins with a trip to the farmers' market.

Going to the market is the highlight of my week.  Getting outside in the sunshine and the fresh air, walking among the stalls and selecting the most beautiful-looking fruits and vegetables, talking to the farmers.  It's an experience I wouldn't miss.  Which is why I've making biweekly trips to the market all summer.  It's been lovely.  This week, at the start of the Locavore Challenge, I felt a little more pressure to be a smart shopper.  I'll be out of town all weekend at a wedding, so I won't be able to make my weekend trip.  Normally, this would not worry me.  If I forget something at the market, I'll just make a quick trip to the grocery store!  But I have pledged to eat locally, which makes the store a little bit tricky.

Not to say that you absolutely can't get local food at the grocery store - not at all!  Yesterday I found Michigan blueberries at Costco.  But last week, I saw Guatemalan blackberries at Whole Foods.  That was exactly the opposite of what I would have expected, but it just proves that you have to read labels.  And not just nutritional labels!  Just because something is in season where you live doesn't mean that your local grocery is sourcing their produce locally.

So anyway, here's what I got today, and what I plan to do with it:

2 quarts of peaches (homemade ice cream, canned peach halves in simple syrup)
1 quart of plums (breakfast and snacks)
about 6 pounds of tomatoes (canned whole tomatoes)
giant red and golden beets (salad for lunch next week)
20 red hot cherry peppers (homemade hot sauce)
gourds and mini pumpkins (to look pretty)

Locavore Challenge!

Photo from www.greencitymarket.org

Yesterday, I signed up for the Green City Market's two-week Locavore Challenge, pledging to eat only local food, to the best of my ability, from September 8 (tomorrow!) until September 22.  There's no better time of year I could think of to attempt such a lofty challenge.  It's going to be so fun, and so delicious!

I'm going to use these two weeks as a "back-to-school" time for myself, learning more about local food and artisan food producers in the Chicago area.  And of course I'll share what I learn (and what I'm eating) with you!

Want to join me?  Go to the Locavore Challenge website and sign up!  Let me know in the comments if you're coming along for the ride!  I'd love to have company, and you better believe we're going to eat like kings and queens for two straight weeks!