Don't Be Afraid of Your Kitchen: Adapting Recipes

I love recipes. I read and re-read cookbooks more often than I do my favorite novels, which is saying something. I’ve probably read Wuthering Heights five times...and Deborah Madison’s Local Flavors somewhere near fifty five times. Reading recipes has value far beyond meal making. Sure, you can read a recipe and create it in your kitchen. But reading recipes also helps home cooks to get new ideas about herb and spice combinations, vegetable pairings, and methods for handling ingredients. Perhaps most importantly, reading recipes can help you to develop a signature cooking style, and then branch out when the time comes for more growth. I often flip through my cookbooks (or Google) simply to get new ideas for using the ingredients I have on hand. 

Here’s the thing about recipes, though. If you meal plan using recipes, and especially if you use a wide variety of recipes, your shopping list can get really long really, really quickly. It seems the more foodie-ish a recipe is, the more likely it is to call for ingredients that aren’t pantry staples for most home chefs. The ingredient list can sometimes turn recipe hunting into a tedious chore rather than an enjoyable pastime, but it doesn’t have to be that way. With Brookford’s large variety of products available, it’s actually quite easy to apply a little know-how and adapt most recipes for ingredients you can get through your CSA share. In that spirit, I’ve put together a cheat sheet for adapting recipes to work with ingredients you can easily source from Brookford’s offerings. I may do this again at some point, because there are SO many ways to adapt recipes. For today, I’m covering fat, dairy, and vegetable swap outs.

FATS

Not all fats are interchangeable. For example, if you’re making a salad dressing and the recipe calls for olive oil, you will not have success using lard in its place. That said, if you’re cooking the fat, you have far more options for substituting ingredients. There are five fats that you can source from your CSA share: lard, butter, bacon fat, tallow, chicken fat. (The easiest way to prepare chicken fat or beef fat for use in recipes is to make stock, let it cool, and then remove the solidified fat from the top of the container).

DAIRY

There are SO many ways to swap out dairy products, and certainly more than I can concisely mention here. I’ve included substitutes for some ingredients that Brookford does produce because there are times when you may not have that particular item on hand, and where another Brookford product could work really well instead. This list serves as a starting point to help you get started.

VEGETABLES

Like dairy, this list is only a small representation of the versatile nature of vegetables and how they can be swapped out in recipes. Honestly, almost any vegetable can stand in for any other vegetable in most recipes. Many of the vegetables listed are produced by Brookford farm, but since they aren’t all available in all seasons, I thought it might be helpful to show how other seasonal varieties can stand in when needed. Use what is local and available, and be adventurous.

A few final thoughts. I often find and use recipes that call for ingredients that are listed based on outdated nutrition advice and/or the factory farmed quality of the typical American diet. I don’t shy away from using these recipes, rather, I have a few basic substitutions that I make nearly 100% of the time. To make all of your cooking healthier for you (and for the planet), you may want to adopt the following general rules in your kitchen:

• Avoid yellow seed oils, margarine, and “vegetable” oil. Substitute using Brookford ingredients (listed in my chart above) wherever possible. When that’s not possible, use organic, expeller pressed olive oil or coconut oil instead. Here’s a great article on the WHY behind all of this: http://wellnessmama.com/2193/never-eat-vegetable-oil/

• Avoid refined sugars. Replace them with maple syrup, green stevia, raw honey, or sucanat instead. Here’s why: https://authoritynutrition.com/9-reasons-to-avoid-sugar/

Also helpful to know is that most nuts can replace each other pretty easily, same goes for seeds. The same principle applies to most beans, and many herbs. That being said, swapping out ingredients WILL change a recipe. That’s okay. There’s a difference between changing a recipe to fit what you have on hand and ruining a recipe. Knowing how to substitute ingredients means that the recipes you find become foundations to build from rather than rigid blueprints. The more you practice, the easier it becomes. For me, this skillset takes the stress out of cooking and makes it a more enjoyable and creative process. You cannot live without food. Might as well make it fun!

How to Cook a Stewing Hen (and why you should!)

The first time I ever cooked a stewing hen, I grabbed it out of the freezer thinking it was a broiler. I prepped it in my usual way and tucked it into the oven. When dinnertime came, I was confused and disappointed. Our typical tender, juicy chicken was nowhere to be found. Instead, we had a sad looking bird, covered in tough, dry meat that was reminiscent of rubbery cardboard. Once I realized what had happened, it all made sense.

Treating a stewing hen the same as you would a broiler will almost always lead to disastrous results - yet it can seem like a tempting option if you’ve never experienced the end product. Stewing hens are far less expensive than their younger counterparts, and they don’t look all that different to the untrained eye. For novice cooks especially, it’s easy to convince oneself that with just the right touch, a roasted stewing hen just might work. Let me be clear: it won’t. It really, really won’t.

The thing is, stewing hens are an amazing ingredient to work with, and they deserve their own rightful spotlight fully separated from the accolades of their roasting pan-worthy counterparts. It’s a matter of knowing what you’re working with, why it’s important, and how to treat one. Let’s take a look.

The WHAT: A stewing hen is a retired egg layer. Stewing hens are an important component for honoring the life cycle of a farm. After several happy years eating grass and bugs, a hen’s egg laying ability naturally slows down, and she’s no longer a productive member of the flock. In order to keep up with the demand for eggs, farms must cull these older hens in order to make space for new layers. Butchering and selling these hens provides a revenue source for farms and allows the hen to continue to provide nourishment, this time in the form of high quality, pastured meat.

The WHY: At Brookford Farm, the diets of egg laying hens are supplemented with organic, soy-free food. This food, paired with the green pasture grasses and insects that the hens naturally forage on, creates a bird that has lived a full life of optimum nutrition. Unlike broilers that are raised for meat and fattened relatively quickly, stewing hens have the opportunity to develop very strong bones, and strong, lean muscles. These bones are incredibly mineral rich, and the fat from these hens is full of fat-soluble vitamins and nutrients. Because of their rich nutritional content, stewing hens make excellent stock. A stewing hen’s lean meat contains a high level of connective tissue, which works wonderfully for slow cooked dishes such as stew, soup, and chicken and dumplings.

The HOW: Stewing hens are very lean and contain a lot of connective tissue which must be broken down through low, slow cooking. You can cook a stewing hen on the stovetop in a large pot of simmering water for several hours, or, as many cooks prefer, you can use the crockpot. The main difference between methods is that the stovetop will create a more concentrated stock, as the water evaporates out during cooking. The crockpot will typically create a large batch of less concentrated stock. Because it is easier to control the temperature and maintain a low simmer in a crockpot, many cooks prefer that option. It also provides a safer option for cooking your stewing hen for extended periods of time, such as overnight, or times when you may be out of the house during the day.

For either method, you begin by placing the stewing hen in the pot along with vegetables and herbs of your choosing. Whenever possible, I use vegetable scraps for this, rather than vegetables I might otherwise want to eat (they will be discarded at the end). Good vegetable scraps to use are carrot tops and peelings, celery leaves and trimmings, onion, leek, scallion, or garlic trimmings, parsley leaves and stems - really the sky's the limit. For herbs and spices, I like to add two bay leaves, several peppercorns, and a little thyme. Add about two tablespoons of apple cider vinegar and fill the pot with water. (The vinegar helps to release the minerals from the bones.) Turn the heat to low and slowly bring to a simmer. Maintain the simmer for as long as needed. After a while, the meat will tenderize and begin to fall off the bones. Generally, 4 hours is the minimum simmer time, and 24 hours is the max.

Remove the chicken carcass and attached meat from the pot and set it in a bowl to cool. Strain the broth into a bowl or other container(s) for storage. (It’s typically easier to do this once it has had some time to cool). If you’ve simmered your hen for a very long time, you will likely have a good deal of meat in the strainer - pick that out and save it to use. Once the carcass has cooled, remove all of the meat for use in stews, soups, tacos, casseroles, chicken salad...really anything that you would use cooked and shredded chicken for. Some people save the carcass to add to their next batch of stock. You can keep recycling bones in this way until they crumble; you will have better results with this if you always add some “new” bones along with the old. Note that the cooled broth will likely develop a layer of bright yellow fat on top. This will solidify when refrigerated. Don’t throw this fat away! As a solid layer over the broth, it will help it to keep for longer in the fridge. It is also full of healthy vitamins and nutrients that you want to eat. You can choose to mix it into the broth when eating it, or scoop it off to use in the same way you would use any other cooking oil or fat.

It’s really a very easy and rewarding process, and one that is definitely worth learning. While stewing hens are decidedly NOT for roasting, they are a wonderful way to honor the life of an animal by using the whole body: the meat, the broth, the fat, and the bones.

Winter Foods...Spring Menus (When still it feels like winter outside)

Oh, mother nature, you like to keep us on our toes. We all thought we were going to slide by with a mild winter that would blossom into a warm, early spring. Yet following that mild winter, spring is now here...in full, frigid, wintry force. With a forecast that shows snowflakes as a real possibility for the second week in a row during this month of April, I’m starting to feel a bit desperate, and hungry for sunny, mild days to work in my garden and play outside. I want to watch things sprout from the ground and to be finished heating our house for the season. And I want to eat spring food. But weather and harvests aren’t things that can be rushed or changed. This is what it is.

We aren’t without hope, though. Even if it’s snowing outside and the season is still providing us with cool weather food, we can employ a few strategies in the kitchen to trick ourselves into thinking that spring is here. While the ingredients in your CSA box may at first glance evoke thoughts of heavy, rich meals, I’m offering up a strategy for light, fresh flavors and dishes that will fix your winter-in-springtime blues. In that spirit, I bring you a spring menu for cool weather food.

I’ve assembled recipes for two menus - the first for those who enjoy robust flavors, and a second that highlights the more classic qualities of the ingredients. Some of the dishes will work well as a meal all on their own, while others will pair nicely with eggs, bread, fermented vegetables, lentils, or bread to make a meal. These menus pull from ingredients in recent CSA shares including the frozen tomatoes and garlic scapes. So hang in there. Whip up some spring-ified cold weather food, play some music that tricks you into thinking the sun is shining, and remember that warmer days are coming soon. Oh, and if this cold weather has you craving the warmth of an adult beverage, check out the Melting Olaf - the perfect opportunity to highlight one of those lovely Brookford carrots as a garnish while enjoying a little chuckle.

Menu for Adventurous Palates

Potato parsnip latkes

Grilled cabbage with bacon

Thai carrot soup

Turnip salad with bacon and pickled onions

Double green garlic soup

Tandoori carrots

Open faced shaved beet sandwiches

Menu for Lovers of the Classics

Roasted potato salad

Root vegetables and eggs

Green cabbage salad

Garlic scape pizza

Pickled beet salad with chive oil

Tomato risotto

Roasted carrot, potato, and parsnip soup

DIPS!

A couple weeks ago, I posted some ideas for snacking using ingredients from your CSA share. This week, I wanted to continue on that thread by focusing on the ever versatile dip. Many of the dairy choices offered by Brookford Farm make fantastic bases for dips both sweet and savory: kefir, yogurt, Greek yogurt, and sour cream will all work. Dips are a great way to get kids to eat vegetables they might otherwise shy away from. Toddlers, in particular, often love dippers and might surprise you by their willingness to eat all things crunchy when given the opportunity.

There are lots of recipes out there for all kinds of dairy based dips. Here, I’ll share some general guidelines to help you become a pro.

• Generally speaking, Greek yogurt and sour cream can be used “as is.” Kefir and regular yogurt benefit from thickening before use in dips. This is really very easy. It requires a fine mesh strainer and a coffee filter or thin piece of fabric. Place the strainer over a bowl, and place the coffee filter or fabric in the strainer. Pour the kefir or yogurt into the lined strainer, and place the bowl (with strainer inside) into the fridge. The whey will drip into the bowl, leaving you with a thicker product in the strainer. Leave the bowl in the fridge as long as it takes to reach the desired consistency (typically anywhere from 3-12 hours).

• For most dip recipes, yogurt, greek yogurt, and kefir can be used interchangeably. It’s the add in ingredients that will determine the flavor of your final product, so it’s okay to use what’s on hand.

• Get creative with dippers. Raw fruit and veggies are great for dipping. Crackers, meat cubes, breadsticks, chips, homemade veggie chips, and toast also work really well.

• Feel free to be adventurous with add-ins. Beans, herbs, many fruits and vegetables, and several cheeses are very, very happy to mix with yogurt (or kefir, or sour cream) and become dip. A few recipes to get you started: this yogurt and chickpea dip, and this avocado and cumin dip.

• Remember that herbs and spices are the ticket to versatility. Try cumin and chili powder, sauteed garlic with dill, cinnamon and nutmeg, or lemon and oregano. (For starters).

• Know that you CAN make your favorites. Don’t believe me? Try this onion dip, this ranch dip, or this horseradish dip, and then we’ll talk! ;)

Finding Harmony - gardening when you have a CSA share

It’s seed starting time. For those who love to garden as much as I do, you can appreciate how exciting this is. IT’S REALLY EXCITING! All those seed catalogs that whispered of spring from my coffee table all winter, with their heirloom offerings and non-GMO, organic, rainbow of variety - this is when it all comes to fruition. From that frosty morning in late February when I finally sat down to narrow my selections; a necessary task because $400 in seeds is probably not necessary or prudent...fast forward to these March days where my dining room table finds itself covered in soft, dark soil, seed trays, and packet after packet of edible potential. Every year I set up a rather heinous greenhouse smack in the middle of my living room, and the children and I peek in daily to spritz and rotate and generally love on those pale green shoots emerging within. It has somehow become a rather sophisticated yet grassroots operation of love and gardening. It is our early spring ritual that feeds our imaginations and our souls.

But why? We host a CSA pickup site at OUR HOUSE. We sometimes buy two veggie shares to get us through the summer. Why, oh why, oh why the greenhouse and the seeds and the garden too?

Because? Because.

Because love of things that grow. Because interacting with that process of growth and life and nourishment feels as essential as breath itself. Because teaching my children that we are intimately connected to our food feels more important to me than anything they could ever learn at school. Because the rhythm of the seasons plays that much more beautifully when we join in and become part of the music. Because hope is a seed and proof is watching that seed unfold. Because I can’t help but want to feel life in as many ways as I can. Because I want to stretch into time rather than fight against it.

Because.

So we garden. Out of love for life and a passionate sense of obligation to drive roots into the earth. It’s not only for the food - not even necessarily for the food. It’s more about survival in a hundred different ways.

Whether or not to garden can be a tricky point to ponder for CSA customers. To this, I offer forth the idea that a garden and a CSA share are not mutually exclusive. We can donate the food, freeze it, can it, share it with neighbors and the elderly. Gardening is art. Do art for the process of doing art. For how it feeds the soul. Garden because humans need to feel dirt in their hands and definitely between their toes. And because the fruits of that labor make the world a better place - and how better to share love than to share the result of this process?

There are some simple ways to create a garden that harmonizes with your CSA share rather than conspires against it. Here are the strategies that I’ve adopted over the years:

• Grow flowers, because the world can use more beauty.

• Grow crops to donate. Most food pantries will accept produce from home gardens to give to families in need. Considering that canned and processed foods are the typical staples that families receive from food pantries, fresh produce is really valuable here.

• Plant more herbs! Herbs are easy to dry, freeze, or use fresh. Having an abundance of fresh herbs will help make your summer CSA share that much more delicious.

• Remember the elderly. The elderly population is the most underserved when it comes to accessing food assistance - often because they are too ashamed to ask for help. Those who do receive assistance are often afraid to spend it on fresh produce for fear it will spoil.

• Plant things you can freeze. If you loved the frozen items included in this winter’s CSA share, think how great it would be to go into the winter months with a freezer stocked full! Freezing your own vegetables is a great way to plan ahead for the cooler, more sparse months.

• Plant things you can ferment. Same idea as the things you can plant to freeze. I grow many, many turnips for this reason.

• Plant vegetables that can be preserved through canning. 

• Plant things you can dehydrate. So, you’re getting the idea. But think broadly on this one. You can dehydrate tomatoes, peppers, vegetables for soups and stews...whether you're fermenting, canning, freezing, or dehydrating, the summer garden is your opportunity to help ensure variety during the winter. 

• Grow the things you can’t get enough of. In my family, it’s greens and tomatoes. When in season, we eat greens at least three times a day. They go into salads, smoothies, eggs, soups, stews, sandwiches - often they are sauteed with garlic and serve as the base for other delicious toppings. Tomatoes get eaten like apples or chopped up and tossed into salsa which is then put on EVERYTHING.

• Eat more vegetables when they’re in season. If you’re striving to eat seasonally, this makes a lot of sense from a health and nutrition standpoint. What items in your diet could you handle less of? Less grain? Less sugar? Less processed food? Less meat? Having a lot of vegetables around gives you the push to replace some of those less nutritionally dense foods with the rich offerings of summer’s variety. For example, when my family has a barbecue, we don’t serve a bunch of chips and grain based side dishes. We grill some meat, and then loads and loads of vegetables brushed with olive oil and salt.

• Share with neighbors and family. I make “garden boxes” all summer long to surprise friends and family.

• Take up juicing during the summer months, using vegetables from your garden and CSA share. Juicing is a great way to get extra vitamins in your diet. Compost or bake with the pulp to make sure none of the goodness goes to waste.

• Grow medicinal crops. Two of my favorite things to grow are chamomile and calendula, and I have two entire garden beds reserved for this purpose. They are beautiful to grow, fun to harvest, and beneficial for the whole family.

• Add vegetables to your smoothies. Beets, carrots, and greens can all hide very well in smoothies. Choose just one to add to a smoothie every day, and you’ll find your demand for vegetables suddenly goes way up!

Snacks!

I spend a lot of time thinking, talking, and writing about how to make the transition to local and seasonal eating. For most of us, this transition starts with trying to overhaul our meals. After some time and practice, it’s not so difficult to transition breakfast, lunch, and dinner into meals that work with what’s available locally. But what about snacking? And what about KIDS?

If you’re making the transition to a whole diet share and wondering how to make it work for your entire family, I assure you that it truly can be done. Like anything, it takes time to form new habits and rewire your thinking. The advantage of doing so is a healthier family, and more ways to use your CSA food. The following is just a starting point for using your CSA share to make nutritious and yummy snacks for your whole household. Since we don’t all have hours and hours to spend in the kitchen, the list is split into two sections - those that are fast and simple to prepare, and those that require a little more time or planning.

Quick and simple snacks:

• Hard boiled eggs

• Sliced raw vegetables

• Veggie/meat/bread/cheese kebabs (use skewers for big kebabs and toothpicks for mini kebabs.)

• Smoothies - use kefir, yogurt, or raw milk as a base. A small beet adds lovely color. Add a carrot, a small turnip, or a handful of greens for a veggie punch. Any fruit - frozen or fresh - will add sweetness. (If your kiddos need a little extra sweetening, try using a banana as the fruit, or adding a few dates, some maple syrup, or local honey).

• Toast served with sliced veggies, cheeses, or meats for DIY open faced sandwiches

• Yogurt with maple syrup or honey drizzled on top

• Milk swirled with a little molasses or maple syrup

Snacks that take a little time:

• Muffins - many vegetables can make delicious muffins, either sweet or savory! Try searching online for recipes employing beets, zucchini, carrots, sweet potatoes, squash, or pumpkin

• Cookies - all of the veggies that make delicious muffins can also make really yummy cookies. Because most root vegetables have a higher sugar content, they lend themselves nicely to this use and require less added sweetener

• Deviled eggs

• Homemade crackers - whole wheat, carrot, sweet potato, beet

• Vegetable Chips - kale, or pretty much any root vegetable!

• Homemade vegetable and fruit leather

• Gummies - that’s right...you can make your own fruit and vegetable gummies pretty easily!

• Homemade frozen yogurt/milk/kefir pops - Pour a smoothie into popsicle molds, wait a few hours, and you’re good to go!

Sauerkraut!

I had planned to write a post this week about creative and healthy snack solutions using CSA fare, but then I opened this week’s veggie box and knew my plan would have to be put on hold. What vegetable offering so quickly influenced my plan? Sauerkraut!

Whether you’ve read this blog once or follow it weekly, you’ve probably seen me mention fermentation at least a dozen times. Usually, I’m encouraging CSA members to dive into the world of fermentation, and I do encourage you to do so. Fermentation is a way to extend the life of your vegetables, add variety to seasonal eating, increase the nutritional value of your food, and add extra probiotics to your diet. It’s also delicious. But fermenting scares people away. Even seasoned home cooks are often wary of the process. What if things get moldy? Is it safe? Surely I’ll do it wrong! Because I talk to people about fermentation a lot, I’ve come to the conclusion that the fears surrounding fermented foods arise from the fact that fermentation is a bit of a lost art. Most of us didn’t grow up watching our mothers and grandmothers ferment things. When we learned to make grilled cheese and crack eggs, nobody taught us how to prolong the life of our vegetables. Why would they? Grocery stores can give us any produce we want all year round. We can buy things fresh, frozen, canned, or freeze dried. I fear our technology is ousting the art. Aside from that, many people in America haven’t tasted authentically fermented foods before. Things like contemporary pickles and sauerkraut are now made using vinegar, which gives them a very different flavor profile from their fermented counterparts. It is for this reason that seeing true, fermented sauerkraut in the vegetable boxes immediately changed my course of action for this week's post. I’m excited that people will have the opportunity to try some fermented food without having to go through the process of making it (which, by the way, is really easy!), and to interact with the idea of fermentation in a new way.

When I was new to fermenting, I bought Wild Fermentation by Sandor Katz. I was immediately captivated by his opening words:

 “Fermentation is everywhere, always. It is an everyday miracle, the path of least resistance. Microscopic bacteria and fungi (encompassing yeasts and molds) are in every breath we take and every bite we eat. Try - as many do - to eradicate them with antibacterial soaps, antifungal creams, and antibiotic drugs, there is no escaping them. They are ubiquitous agents of transformation, feasting upon decaying matter, constantly shifting dynamic life forces from one miraculous and horrible creation to the next.

Microbial cultures are essential to life’s processes, such as digestion and immunity. We humans are in a symbiotic relationship with these single-cell life forms. Microflora, as they are often called, digest food into nutrients our bodies can absorb, protect us from potentially dangerous organisms, and teach our immune systems how to function. Not only are we dependent upon microorganisms, we are their descendants: According to the fossil record, all forms of life on Earth spring from bacterial origins. Microorganisms are our ancestors and our allies. They keep the soil fertile and comprise an indispensable part of the cycle of life. Without them, there could be no other life.”

While factory farming and industrialization have homogenized, pasteurized, processed, modified, and sanitized our food beyond recognition, fermentation offers the sacred opportunity to celebrate the harmony of our bodies and the earth. To nourish ourselves while accepting that we cannot and should not scrub the life away until there is nothing left. Whereas modern food practices are borne of the necessary fear that is part of factory farming, fermentation is borne of a celebration of life and the holistic safety of honoring nature.

Do not fear the jar that is included in this week’s veggie box. Savor and enjoy its contents fully! If you are new to fermented foods, here are some things you may find helpful to know.

-Lactofermented food tastes different. Many people say it is an acquired taste, though I know many people who like it immediately. Whereas these days, many pickled foods taste vinegary, fermented foods can taste salty, briny, earthy, pungent, sour, and zesty.

- A few good ways for first-timers to try sauerkraut are sprinkled on soups, tucked into a sandwich, tossed with a salad, or as a topping for eggs, pork (my favorite!), or other meats.

-Fermentation occurs when the natural bacteria (present in all food) feeds on the naturally present sugars and starches and creates lactic acid.

-Fermentation creates beneficial enzymes, probiotics, b vitamins, and breaks the food down into a more easily digested form.

-A diet rich with fermented foods is a great immune system booster, because it helps to repopulate the gut with the bacteria we need to keep our immune systems strong.

-Fermented foods have a rich history throughout the world and across many cultures. They remain diet staples for millions of people today.

-A gut that is well balanced with healthy bacteria is better able to absorb vitamins and minerals during digestion. Eating fermented foods on a regular basis will help you gain more nutritional benefit from all of the foods you already eat.

-Start small if you’re feeling unsure, and think of fermented food as medicine. If you don’t care for the taste of fermented food at first, give it time. Try eating a little bit a few times a week, being mindful of all the benefits your body is enjoying. You may be surprised how quickly you come to crave that delicious briny crunch!

Potato Crust Quiche

As I’ve often mentioned on this blog, I’m a fan of eggs for dinner. It’s difficult to find another food that is so user friendly: cost effective, highly nutritious, and quick to prepare. So many reasons. I particularly love quiche because it is versatile and delicious, and works just as well as leftovers as it does fresh from the oven. Quiche works for any season - simply change the vegetables for the filling depending on what you have available. I recently discovered a new way to make quiche that I’m pretty excited about and wanted to share: quiche made with a roasted potato crust. It’s a fun and easy alternative to both crustless quiche and quiche made with a traditional pastry crust. This version is particularly nice to make ahead and keep in the refrigerator for a quick meal or snack. The potato crust won’t get soggy and helps make it a bit sturdier if you want to grab some to go.

You will need:

1-2 potatoes

4 eggs

1 ½ cups milk or cream

salt and pepper to taste

herbs of your choosing

vegetables/cheese/meat of your choosing

Begin by thinly slicing potatoes; about ¼ thick. Depending on how big your potatoes are, the amount you will need will vary - you’re aiming to have enough slices to line a pie plate. You can use any type of potato - I used sweet potatoes. Lightly oil the pie plate, and then line it with the potato slices. If you have extra slices, set them aside to saute and add to the filling. Brush the slices with a light coating of olive oil or melted coconut oil, and then sprinkle with salt and pepper. Pop the pie plate into an oven preheated to 410 degrees, and cook for approximately 15-20 minutes, until they are starting to brown and have softened. Remove from oven and set aside.

While the potato crust is cooking, prepare the quiche filling. You can use any vegetables, meats, or cheeses that make your heart happy. For mine, I used bacon, sliced leeks, mache, garlic, and more sweet potato. Saute the vegetables until browned. I waited to add the mache at the end, because it is delicate and cooks quickly. While cooking the vegetables, cook/prepare any meats or cheese that you plan to add. Toss the vegetables with the prepared meat/cheese in a bowl, making sure they’re well combined. In a separate bowl, prepare the custard by beating together the eggs, cream or milk, salt, pepper, and herbs.

Carefully spoon the vegetable blend right onto the potato crust, and then pour the custard mixture over it. Gently shake the pan, if needed, to help the custard settle into the veggie mixture. Return the pan to the oven and cook until puffed and golden, about thirty minutes. Serves 3-5.

An Interview with Matt

One of the things that I love most about sourcing my family’s food from a local farm is knowing the story behind the food. I love the raw real-lifeness of it. Raw real-lifeness, if we can operate under the assumption that this is an actual term, means things like CSA deliveries that are sometimes late. Not because of a computer glitch, but because it was snowy and the truck wouldn’t start. Because a farm is a living, breathing entity where factory produced perfection isn’t a thing and because sometimes humans are human and run into pesky real life events. This raw real-lifeness is the same world that I operate in. A world where being human means having flaws and getting messy - but this is the price of realness. This morning I woke up with a lousy cold and I stepped outside and was overwhelmed by the softly melting winter. Through the congestion that’s threatening to suffocate me, I could smell spring stirring from deep within the ground. It hit me that while we may have weeks of winter ahead, this moment was reaching out with the soft chirping of birds and the soft nuzzle of sunlight and raw muddy beauty. I may not be able to smell much at the moment, but I could smell that grassy, earthy, snow-melty air. The juxtaposition of head cold with winter and an unlikely spring morning - this is raw real-lifeness. It is why I embrace the human touches that come with sourcing food from a farm. This is the life I want to lead. One that is messy and beautiful and undeniably real. The grocery stores can keep their aseptic packaging and fancy marketing language. Their focus groups and clever conveniences and shiny exterior. I will take my beets with a side of earth. My CSA with a side of humanity. Because I like to joke around with the delivery drivers on CSA day. I like to chat about our kids and our favorite ways to prepare Brookford food. I get to see and value the commonalities that thread us together as fellow venturers in this world. On an energetic and cellular level, this makes a difference. The touches of other people’s humanity overlapping into your own. Raw real-lifeness.

It is for this sentimental love of humanity and the way we are all woven together that I’m especially excited about today’s post. Last year on the blog, I interviewed Dane, of the Canterbury Bread Shop (who bakes the bread for the Brookford CSA). To date that was one of my favorite posts, because: raw real-lifeness. I’ve been working on today’s post since this fall, when I sent some interview questions to Matt Murphy, Brookford’s Harvest Manager. Judging from the veggie crew shout outs that he had written and sent out to members via email, I had an inkling that he might have some interesting things to say about food and farming. Raw real-lifeness contributed to this autumn-started interview now finally making its way into post form in the last melty stretch of winter, but I think it was worth the wait. I hope you’ll enjoy this glimpse into another piece of the humanity that helps make Brookford Farm what it is.

Me: Tell us a little about yourself. Where did you grow up, what are your hobbies?

Matt: I grew up in Contoocook, NH, not far from the farm. As bored country kids we used to come jump off the bridge that no longer exists just past the farm (while it was still an eye/soul jarring sod farm) on the bank of the Merrimack. I grew up playing outdoors all over this incredible state: hiking, biking, paddling, on skis of all kinds, on boards of all kinds...if it got me outdoors, and particularly if it got my adrenaline going, I was into it. Today, I spend most of my free time hiking around with my wife and dog, cooking, riding bicycles, fixing up old bicycles, and trying to keep my archery skills sharp for the hunting season that I'm inevitably too busy/tired to partake in.

Me: How did you get interested and involved in farming? Is it something you always thought you would do? Or a surprise?

Matt: It was a complete surprise. I left NH for a university in Montreal to study new media, film, and anthropology, but by graduation I knew that I no longer wanted to work in the film industry, and that I wanted to eventually return to the rural US. Those years admiring and adjusting to urbanity built into me an immense concern for methods of production, consumption, land use, and humanity's relationship with and view of this here earth we inhabit--you know, all the usual stuff. So, following a strong inkling, I got a sense of agricultural work the year after I graduated, working a season on a pair of vineyards in New Zealand (and then exploring the country by motorcycle!). I returned to the United States determined to farm, but not before chasing my (now) wife through NYC and Philadelphia, and working at nearly every level of the food service industry in those cities: from managing multiple restaurant locations, to collecting tons upon tons of commercial food waste for composting, and most of the work in between. Just over a year ago my wife finished her second degree, we moved to the corner of the world I grew up in, and I started working for Brookford Farm.

Me: Can you describe a typical day on the farm?

Matt: Long and rewarding. I can't really get too much more specific, because there are countless variables, which is one of the reasons I love the work so much. If anything, the triage/juggling of said variables is the most typical part of my work days. With so many different crops being planted, weeded, harvested, washed, sorted, and packed in different ways for different customers, I try to determine how much is/will be available of everything, and react to sales orders, allocating and supervising the helping hands that make it all happen.

Me: How do vegetable farmers keep busy in winter?

Matt: Moving around and cleaning absurd quantities of storage crops, eking all that we can out of our greenhouses, fixing tools, and building new infrastructure, systems, and methodology for the coming season. Oh and finally getting around to an interview request received four months ago!

Me: What's your favorite thing about working for Brookford Farm?

Matt: As a 'full diet' farm, take-home items (seconds, gleans, nearly expired foods) are pretty incredible around here. When I have time to cook, I eat very well.

Me: What's your favorite vegetable to eat? And your favorite way to cook it?

Matt: Kale: it goes with pretty much everything, and is incredibly nourishing. My favorite kale preparations leave it raw, but rubbed/softened with acid, usually lemon juice.

Me: What's your favorite vegetable to grow? Why?

Matt: Kale again: it is arguably the most vigorous, hardy, bountiful, and forgiving crop we grow, and it grows nearly all year long.

Me: Your top three favorite recipes/things to eat?

Matt: My chili, brick oven pizza, and sandwiches of all kinds (from burritos to bahn mi)

Me: If you could create one change in the way people eat in the US, what would it be?

Matt: The understanding that we are what we eat, not just during, but before and after what we eat is physically within our bodies. We eat/are what our food ate/was fed to it to shape its various bodies: we eat/are our foods means of production. And so we are our food after we have exhausted its material value to us and it becomes 'waste' of various forms. And so we should seek to know, think critically about, and improve upon these means of production and 'waste' management in pursuit of our own health. And that this applies to all forms of consumption, not just food. I think we should eat less oil, for example.

Me: What advice would you give to someone who is joining the CSA for the first time?

Matt: Prepare to be challenged as a cook, and hang in there. One of the truest challenges of any cook's skill, as demonstrated by a litany of competitive cooking shows, is reacting to and creating meals around a limited or unplanned selection of ingredients. Having a wealth of recipes to reference (thanks internet!) always helps, but it's still a challenge. It can be a tough adjustment initially, because the globally distributed food system has us able to entertain nearly any culinary whim at any time. But this challenge becomes increasingly rewarding with time, and I suspect that you'll find as I have that it is ultimately far more rewarding to figure out how to make something you want from what you have, than to merely decide exactly what you want and go procure it.

Me: How does local and seasonal eating manifest itself in your own life?

Matt: It is the focus of my work and probably most of my free time.

Me: What are your suggestions for somebody who wants to commit to more local and seasonal eating?

Matt: Find go-to resources for recipe ideas based on available ingredients, patronize your local farmer’s market, and give yourself lots of time to adjust, leaving room for occasional lapses in your new standards--dropping the global food distribution system cold turkey would be too jarring for most (no one is fun when they're hangry), better to make incremental progress.

Me: For the crops that are most plentiful in the late winter months (potatoes, parsnips, etc)...how do you keep meals interesting and varied? Or do you embrace the season and not worry about variation so much?

Matt: Spice. My spice collection is enormous. I love spicy food, and find that much of the spicier international cuisine has some of the most interesting and varied approaches to late winter storage crops. While much of it ends up at the bottom of our chicken roasting pan, a great quantity of the root vegetables eaten in my house the past few years were prepared using recipes from a cookbook on making traditional Indian dishes using a slow cooker. For instance, the next time broccoli or cauliflower comes out of the freezer, it's ending up with our potatoes in some Aloo Gobi. Yum.

Me: What's your go-to for a quick meal?

Matt: Eggs in various forms. Eggs on toast with with some vegetables and cheese is a favorite.

Me: There have been some changes made to the winter CSA; the addition of frozen vegetables and an add-on apple share. How did those changes come to be, and how do you think the session will be overall? What are you most excited about for this year's fall/winter veggie share?

Matt: We gained a great new food preserving specialist on the farm staff this year. Though Irina formerly worked as a fuel chemist for the Russian space program--she's literally a rocket scientist--she clearly carries her agrarian roots with her as a way of life, and happily shared her food preservation knowledge with us this summer to process and freeze any surplus vegetables we could bring her. I think it's an incredible addition to the more limited fresh produce we can offer throughout the winter. We should have a different frozen item in the CSA shares every week now, and I'm extremely excited to make use of the frozen items myself, and hope all of our customers are too! The apples were the result of our ever-growing professional relationship with Hackelboro Orchard here in Canterbury, where nearly all of our winter storage crops are tucked away in a giant spare refrigerator, awaiting their time to return to the farm for washing and packing. Harry up at Hackelboro grows some of the finest apples available anywhere, and luckily for us, he has more than he knows what to do with. Happily, Luke had an idea about what to do with some, and so began the CSA add-on. It's a toss-up for me as to whether I find the frozen veg or the apples more exciting--I choose both!

Baking with carrots

A couple of weeks ago, I shared some ideas for baking with beets. For folks who start to feel a little stir crazy with seasonal eating toward the second half of winter, changing the way you use common seasonal ingredients can be a life saver. Along that same thread, this week, I’m focusing on baking with carrots.

In our early days with the CSA, we’d sometimes accumulate a large backlog of carrots in our crisper. I’ve always liked carrots more in theory than in reality, so using a dozen or so every week wasn’t my habit. These are the recipes that can save  you in those moments. Carrots don’t tend to accumulate around here any more, because they’ve become the best fast, healthy snacks in the house. We don’t peel them or cut them. A whole carrot, just like an apple but without the pesky seeds and core. My husband brings one for lunch at work every day, and it’s the snack my kid know I’ll suggest if they find themselves starving twenty minutes before dinner is ready. I’ve also found that I absolutely adore fermented ginger carrots. Carrots are suddenly in high demand around here. If I ever want to bake with them these days, I kind of have to sneak some into a dark corner of the fridge to keep them from being gobbled up. But this covert measure is worth it. Carrots can do SO much in the baking department. Like beets, they lend themselves to both sweet and savory goods. Wherever possible, I’ve included gluten free recipes as well as traditional options. You may be surprised how quickly you go through your CSA vegetables when you start adding more variety to how you use them. Have fun!

Cake:

Paleo carrot cake

The “best” carrot cake ever

Pancakes:

Coconut carrot pancakes (vegan)

Paleo carrot cake pancakes

Bread:

Savory carrot bread

Gluten free coconut carrot bread

Crackers:

Vegan and gluten free tomato carrot crackers

Gluten free carrot sesame crackers

Cookies:

Gluten free carrot cake cookies

Carrot cake oatmeal cookies

Muffins:

Carrot muffins

Paleo carrot muffins

A February Love Letter to Spring

We’re just about a month away from the start of the spring CSA session. Somehow. Always somehow, time just rolls (races?) along. Because last year’s spring session sold out quickly, I wanted to spend a little bit of time focusing on it before time gets away from us once more. As I look ahead to tomorrow’s forecasted high of four degrees, I can hardly contain my joy and sense of relief that while I’m hunkering down near the fire, the fact that I’m writing this very post is proof positive that the earth will soon begin to wake up and shake off the last frosty traces of winter. We’ll hike through the melty snow on warm days and drink in the smell of thawing earth. Mud season will happen. I’ll watch anxiously for pale green buds to form on the trees. The birds will return to their posts and resume their habit of waking me before the sun. For the lover of seasons, the spring CSA session is just special. It’s the time when we work through the last of winter’s starchy offerings, hopefully savoring them before they fade away, replaced by all things green. It’s when many of us begin preparing our own gardens, with anxious hopes of bountiful harvests full of all the color and flavor we yearn for during winter. It’s when delicate green leaves unfold and make their way to our kitchens, delicately packed in CSA boxes and bursting with goodness. Spring is all tender shoots and soft crunch. Maybe not all. But those are the qualities that stand out in my mind when I think about those first mild days where the air smells like mud and each day stretches out just a little bit longer than the one before. The spring CSA is both an offering of mindfulness and hope in a bowl.

Apart from my sentimental love of spring is the very practical convenience that comes from the relatively short span of the spring session. With both the winter and summer sessions spanning twenty weeks, the spring CSA session is a great opportunity to try out new Brookford products and new eating habits. If you’ve wondered what it would be like trying to do the majority of your eating from a whole diet share, the twelve weeks of the spring session provide a nice window to give it a try. The shorter time span means less financial commitment and an easier mental shift. With the sad state of our country’s current food supply system, the reality is that the vast majority of us, no matter how committed we are to sustainable eating practices, can probably make some improvements. Eating habits are so ingrained and ritualistic that it can be really challenging to step out of our comfort zones. It’s easy to take our habits for granted, to excuse them based on time or money or convenience, and to assume that the way that we do things now is the way it has to be. Yet our long term well being needs us to make a change.

As we look ahead to the inevitable thawing that will happen over the next six or so weeks, consider whether this may be the time to experiment with trimming your environmental footprint while rejuvenating your health. Perhaps this spring, you commit to twelve weeks of pastured, soy-free eggs. Maybe it’s time to try sourcing your meats locally. You could make it the spring of artisan bread...or cheese. And maybe you, like me, cannot resist the lovely offerings that burst through the topsoil as it warms - the garlic scapes and early carrots and tender greens. If that's the case, you'll need a veggie share too. Perhaps you've heard that raw milk changes as the herd heads back out to green grass. Perhaps you'll need to try the milk and cream yourself, just to say that once in your life you drank sunshine. There are endless ways to make a difference in your health, our economy, and the environment - simply by purchasing your food directly from a farm and the real people who work there. 

And speaking of the real people who work there, stay tuned over the next week for an interview with Matt, Brookford’s Harvest Manager. Because knowing who’s helping to grow your food matters...and it’s pretty cool.

The spring CSA registration is open now - sign up before it sells out!