Sucesses and Failures in Local Cooking w Spring Ingredients

We subscribe to a "Cabin Fever" CSA share this year. It gives us a box of goodies from a cooperative of local growers from the beginning of April until the middle of June, which is about the time when our garden will be exploding. It isn't actually enough to keep us fed all week, so supplements from the freezer and our garden are working really well.

It was a slow spring here, so there are very few greens so far, and more value-added products like corn meal, honey, maple syrup, and cheese. This week we got ramps, which I'd never had before. They get a huge thumbs up - filling the taste space between spring onions and garlic. In Appalachia, there are ramp festivals every year heralding the Spring. Ramps used to be poor people food, but now they are trendy, so farmers get 17$ a pound now as opposed to the 2$ they'd get 10 years ago.

I took the local wheat flour we got in the CSA box last week, combined it with salt, yeast, local honey, and water to make the pizza dough, and topped it with some of the last of our homemade tomato paste, local goat gouda cheese, and the sauteed ramps. Was it the best thing I ever tasted? No. But it was pretty doggone yummy!

Sauteed the ramps and their green tops in a little butter.

The local gouda got a rough grate and went onto the pizza

As usual, I never remember to take pics until we've begun eating.

Then yesterday, I decided to use the recipe for a cheesy grit souffle that my CSA posted to their weekly blog. The recipe called for hominy grits, but the CSA suggested I use some of the local cornmeal instead. I added spinach instead of the suggested ramps (all gone), and it looked like a really lovely polenta.

Until I cooked it. I don't have a souffle dish, but the recipe said it needed to bake in the oven in a water bath. I put it in a springform pan, and put that in my largest frying pan filled with water, which then went into the oven. I knew immediately that I'd made a mistake. Some of the water seeped into the springform.

An hour later, I took the thing out and it looked pretty good. It had a nice crust on the top and seemed springy and eggy. The second I unsnapped the Springform though, it all oozed out the sides. Nothing else had become spongey or souffle-like but the top layer. Two hours down the drain.

We did eat it. It was polenta, basically, and a tasty polenta at that. It was also one of the more filling meals I'd ever had. Peasant food gets the job done.

Falafel for all!

I'm a little obsessed with falafel, but ordering in in this god-forsaken town tastes nothing like pushcart falafel on the streets of NY. A little better is buying one of those boxed mixes from the store and frying your own. Still better is doing it all from scratch. I've included the recipe here because it's an awesome thing to do with dried beans and a few local veggies. Unfortunately, my stove is out so I will have to live vicariously through you all. The best thing about it is that you don't have to cook the beans first: saves you an hour and lots of energy!

Ingredients:

1 3/4 cup dried white beans (usually chickpeas)
2 cloves garlic, crushed (used more if you want)
1 tsp ground coriander
1 Tbsp cumin
a pinch of cayenne or red chili pepper
1 c chopped parsley
1 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp baking soda (my fav!)
1 Tbsp fresh lemon juice (you can use the rest to make hummus to go with this)
Corn oil for frying

Soak beans over night, drain them and then put everything in a food processor except the oil. If you don't have a food processor, just mash the hell out of everything with a mezzaluna and combine it by hand. You want it almost smooth though, so it'll take a while. In a small saucepan (or a deep fryer if you're that connected) heat the oil until water or batter sizzles immediately. Roll the mixture into balls and deep fry on all sides (less than 5 minutes). You can eat them hot or room temperature, over a salad, by themselves, in a pita with lettuce and tomato, but always with tahini.