The Garden is Giving

I did not expect to see one of Patsy Cline's eggs before I left for spain, so you can imagine my delight when I went out this morning and she was still in the roost. I thought, perhaps she is laying a blue egg! I opened the door to the roost and she hopped up from a spot in the corner. She laid her egg right on top of Wynonna's egg, except that hers was GREEN! I am so excited that I am going to bring the green egg down to Pine State and see if Kevin can't fix me up a little green eggs and ham. 

All those potatoes and shallots and beans and carrots and tomatoes and eggs are from yesterdays harvest. I made hashbrowns with everything you see there. The carrots are earthy and bitter raw, but cooking them brought out the sweetness I was hoping for.

Also pictured is a fried quail egg. I find it hard to eat the quail eggs because they are so cute and precious, but I accidentally cracked this one with excitement so I had to eat it! It was absurdly tasty. 

A Wee Sick Day

I am so glad I spent those hot days of summer putting our veggies into stocks and soups. I officially have the sick, and am eating lots of nutritious chicken and rice soup, plus lamb aspic cubes for strength and kale from my autumn garden. It makes me feel better to remember making this soup with things from my own yard, plus a chicken.

Also, I do have to work tonight. This is why I am staying in bed all day and taking naps. It's important that I am ready for burgers and bloody mary bar staff meal later on! Plus tomorrow- chanterelle hunting!!!!

Homemade Pasta

As I am now the proud owner of a food processor, I wanted to start trying recipes immediately. The very first thing I did was push a lemon through the slicer, just for fun. Then I moved on to something a little more complicated- pasta. I got my recipe from James Beard's book Beard On Pasta as it is specifically for a food processor. It is so easy. Flour, eggs, oil and salt. I don't have a pasta roller and that was the only thing that slowed us down, but even rolling it by hand wasn't very difficult. I also was lucky enough to have an assistant, Lauren, to do most of the sweaty labor. The results were predictably fantastic- fresh pasta really is the best. We also made pesto with purple basil from the back yard.

Food Processor Pasta
Adapted from James Beard "Beard on Pasta"

1 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon sea salt
2 eggs
1 Tablespoon olive oil

For this recipe, use the metal blade attachment. Put flour and salt in the food processor work bowl. In a small bowl to the side, whisk olive oil and water. Feed this mixture into the food processor while it is turned on. If it is dry and not forming into a ball, add water just one drop at a time. You should not need very much at all. Once it forms into a ball, remove it from the f.p. and knead it for 5 minutes. I used my standing mixer for this, just to really geek out on my kitchen appliances. After kneading, wrap in plastic and chill for 1/2 hour or more. Then, roll it with your hand crank pasta roller, your kitchenaid attachment (lucky) or by hand, like me! We wanted wide ribbon noodles, but you can cut your pasta in whatever shape you'd like. Next I will make Jacky shaped pasta.

Staff Free Meals

So, vacation = no staff meal, but I made it out alive anyhow. As you can see, when I wasn't underwater I was eating.
We started our trip out right with my mom and brother, sitting on a dock by a saltwater river, eating even lobster and drinking wine. We were at this great place right near my Mom's house where you bring all of your own stuff- salads, bread, drinks, desserts, and they make the seafood and that's IT. We had steamers and lobster rolls and it was excellent. Afterwards we had ice cream cones and I battled my brother. The next day we got to try my friend Molly's sweet biscuits and scones at her revamped Rocky Acre Farm Stand in York, Maine. If you are in the area you should go see her some weekend! She is an excellent baker and even has good coffee to go along with it all.

The reason we go home specifically every August is for my grandmother's yearly lobster bake. This year was fantastic- the lobsters were sweet, and the corn was too. The brownies were nearly raw and each weighed several pounds... Being a horribly disgusting and unstoppable family, we went to the Ipswitch Mass. Clam Shack the very same week, where we ate pounds of fried clams and onion rings. It was insanely good and also gave me a stomach ache (which tells me I'm still alive, so that's good).

This year we extended our trip down to the North Carolina shore for more family visiting. Here we spent most of our time having a SPF 30 tanning contest and then fighting about who was winning. We also cooked a few meals, ate some sno-cones and bought some really special southern teeshirts. Also, I fed a seagull a nacho cheese Dorito out of my hands on a boat!

It's always hard to get home after an awesome vacation, but I'm glad to be back in Portland. My tomatoes are ripe and beautiful, I got up the courage to rip out all of my zucchini plants, and the Portland Pie Off is only 5 days away. I need to start practicing recipes!

Zucchini Fest '09

Holy shit do we have too much zucchini! The squash plants are completely out of control- please notice the photo that includes Hiro for scale- His enormous head is smaller than the squash leaves! He looks positively tiny!
I am doing my best to keep up with it- in fact, I'm starting to get obsessed with it. Why not shave some into waffle batter? Would anyone like a 10 zucchini omelette? Zucchini bread, zucchini noodles. Fritters. Cakes. Salads. Lets do it! It's only a matter of time before my purple beans and tomatoes take over the kitchen, but for now squash is king. Today I started zucchini bread madness, where I plan on taking this vegetable and turning into bad for you. And I plan on doing this a lot. This bread is AWESOME. It's very moist, earthy and delicate. And it loves to be smothered in butter and sprinkled with sea salt, just like me! Or... whatever. It's really good.

THE RECIPE*
*adapted from Bakers Illustrated.

1 lb. zucchini (no big seeds- get rid of those if you're working with a big zuc), shredded
3/4 cup of sugar
2 eggs
3/4 stick of unsalted butter
1/4 cup of plain, full fat yogurt (I like-no- love, Nancy's)
juice from one lemon

2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 cup toasted walnuts
1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

Preheat oven to 375 degrees and grease a standard 9" loaf pan. Shred the zucchini into a bowl (I found that one pound= 3 small zucchini). Mix 2 tablespoons of your sugar with the shreds and put all of it in a strainer. Let sit while you do everything else- a lot of the water from the squash needs to drain.

Toast the walnuts for a few minutes and then let cool. Melt butter, let cool. In a small bowl, mix the rest of the sugar with the yogurt, eggs, melted and cooled butter, and lemon juice. In a large bowl, mix the dry ingredients with the cooled walnuts included. Add the drained (and don't be afraid to give it a good squeezing with some paper towels to get out any remaining liquid) zucchini to the wet mix, and then incorporate the wet and dry together. Stir until everything comes together, but don't over mix. Pour into the greased loaf pan, and then bake for 55 minutes or so. Don't over bake! When a toothpick comes out mostly clean, it's done. Let it cool most of the way before serving! Give it to your friends and neighbors!

Another great way to eat this wonderful squash is as a pasta. My favorite food writer, Molly Wizenberg, suggests julienning the zucchini so that it looks like noodles. Saute it in oil and add to real pasta with fresh pesto and you're in for a treat! I ate this last night and added WAY to much salt, but it was still alright. I'm trying again tonight- with pesto from my garden! Way to go you crazy basil plants!

Coming soon- cippolini onions, patty pan squash, and something I have not yet identified!

Sprout

The garden is in full sprout mode. My starts (tomatoes, peppers, basil) have all added on some serious inches, and the rest are doing their best to catch up. We found the ultimate vintage lounge chair and cast iron fire pit, and the bar is fully stocked. And yet Kevin and I are in the weirdest, most stressful position right now where we are waiting for our loan to finalize, but are living in the house in the mean time. So we don't own it... but we are supposed to... but we don't really feel comfortable unpacking... let alone getting comfortable... So. Mostly I am just having old man problems like heartburn and a short temper and Kevin is suffering horrible allergies and isn't his usual chipper self either.
My dad bought us a stove, being the hero that he is. It is from the 1950's and not only has two ovens but also one of them is a convection oven. He bought it "for my baking". Awww! Dad, didn't you get the memo? I've moved on to frying*!!!!!!! Seriously though, I hope we don't have to move out and find a place to store this thing. It's fucking huge.
I have decided, as an effort to avoid studying for finals (really- the fun never stops) to post a few photos from our fabulous rental property that hopefully by tomorrow will be ours for keepsies. Please admire my fruit trees, giant yard and stinky dogs.

*Now available at Pine State- my very own fried to order strawberry rhubarb hand-pies. They are SHIT HOT.