Superb Squash Risotto (at Last)

I don't have the engineering gene. I know this because, not only do I have several engineer-type friends who love nothing better than twiddling and fiddling and tweaking whatever their project of the day is, but I live with two people who have E-N-G-I-N-E-E-R spelled out in bold letters in their DNA.

Insanely beautiful, incredibly good.

My husband, for instance, decided he wanted to make sourdough bread. Not just any sourdough bread, mind you, but the perfect sourdough loaf. He harvested yeast from the bottom of a bottle of beer—Doggie Claws from Hair of the Dog, to be exact—and made his own sourdough starter. Then he spent, oh, about two years testing recipes from various sources, none of which gave him the result he was looking for but which we were obliged to consume. Fortunately some friends (bless you, Kathryn and Jeff) gave him the Tartine Bread book (and bless you, Chad Robertson), which in no time at all sent him into a baking-in-cast iron frenzy and supplied us with divine homemade bread thenceforth.

Of course, that didn't stop him. Oh, no. Since then he's experimented with various combinations of flours—all-purpose, whole wheat, barley, rye—from different places—Bob's Red Mill, Ayers Creek Farm, Camas Country Mill—to find out what effect they had on his loaves. He's tweaked the number of times he folds (not kneads) the dough, and how long it sits before he bakes it (currently at three days from start to finish).

I'm telling you, this is so beyond my patience level.

The sauté before adding liquid.

One example is squash risotto. Tried one recipe, it didn't really turn out the way I'd hoped, so I abandoned it. A year or so later, tried another one, was disappointed again. That pretty much ended my interest in experimenting.

Then one evening there were a couple of delicata squash that had been sitting on the counter and needed to be used, so I thought, well, why not. The skin of delicatas, as you probably know, aren't tough and can be eaten without peeling. So, remembering a beet risotto recipe that starts with raw beets, I whacked them into half-inch cubes and tried one…last…time.

A half hour or so later, I brought it to the table and…it was great!

And while it may not be a whiz-bang, James Beard-award-ready version, I think it's pretty darn good and meets my non-engineer standards for a one-dish, hearty and tasty meal. But those of you who do have that fiddly, twiddly, tweaky bent can feel free to have at it. I'm happy with it as is.

Delicata Squash and Kale Risotto

2 Tbsp. butter
3 Tbsp. olive oil
1 onion, chopped fine
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 delicata squash, seeded and cut in 1/2” cubes*
2 c. arborio rice
1/2 c. white wine
4-5 c. stock
2 c. kale or other leafy green (spinach, chard, arugula, etc.), sliced in thin strips (chiffonade)
1/2 c. Parmegiano Reggiano plus more for sprinkling

Heat oil and butter in deep skillet over medium-high heat. Add onion and sauté until tender. Add garlic and sauté briefly until fragrant. Add rice and sauté for a minute or two, then add squash and white wine. Stir until wine is absorbed, then start adding stock a ladle at a time, stirring often (though you don't have to stir it constantly). As each addition of stock is absorbed, add more until the rice is tender but still has a little crunch. Add greens and stir until it wilts. Add 1/2 c. cheese and stir. Serve.

* I also made this recipe using roasted, peeled and cubed Sibley squash and it was terrific, so feel free to sub in your favorite squash.

Need Winter Greens? Check Your Sidewalk!

It's the time of year when I'm longing for the appearance of spring greens like fiddleheads, nettles, miner's lettuce and the various sprouts of cruciferous vegetables known as raab or rabe. After all, on my dog walks through the neighborhood I'm seeing the first shoots of daffodils poking up through the dead leaves from last fall, and my daphne is already sporting pink heads of the blossoms that will be perfuming my front walk in short order.

Now my friend Katherine Deumling of Cook With What You Have has just reminded me that a great source of fresh greens is to be found by simply stepping out my front door. Better yet, they're free! Hairy bittercress, aka Cardamine hirsuta, is a member of the mustard family with the same peppery bite as its leafier cousins. The bane of gardeners and farmers alike, it can take over a raised bed in no time when its seed heads explode, giving it the moniker, or rather the much-cursed name, of pop weed.

A quick sweep around the yard revealed tons of the little buggers coming up in all the garden beds, with some more mature clumps like the ones above hanging out on some freshly turned flower beds.  To use in cooking, look for them in places you're sure haven't been sprayed with chemicals, and that are out of the reach of dogs who may have a yen to mark the spot for some reason. Bring them in, rinse them off and chop at will. Katherine recommends using them in deviled eggs, and says they're also terrific added to a salad, a sandwich or a quesadilla for a mustardy zing.

Brussels Sprouts? Burn 'em!

And no, I don't mean at the stake, though served with a nice steak might be just the ticket. Here contributor Jim Dixon of Real Good Food extolls both his love for this brassica and his penchant for getting a certain reaction.

Of all the Brassicas, Brussels sprouts caramelize the best (or maybe it's the Maillard reaction; food chemists can sort that out). When I want to cook sprouts, "burning" is my first choice. Cut them in halves or quarters lengthwise (I like quarters since they provide two flat surfaces). Use a heavy skillet, preferably cast iron, that's big enough to hold the sprouts in a single layer.

Heat enough extra virgin olive oil to cover the bottom of the skillet over medium high for a few minutes, then add the sprouts (include any bits of leaves that might come off when you're cutting them). Use tongs or your fingers (carefully!) to arrange them so a flat side is down, then cook for about 5 minutes. They start to color very quickly.

Turn them over and brown the other flat side for awhile, then go ahead and stir randomly every few minutes. When they're very brown or even slightly burnt looking, add a sliced red onion (or any onion, but I like red onions with sprouts) and a good pinch of salt. Turn the heat down a little and cook for another 10 minutes or so until the onion is soft.

At this point you have a few options. A drizzle of honey is a good one, especially if you also add something spicy (red pepper flake, a little cayenne, or hot sauce). A splash of Katz vinegar with honey or cane syrup provides the sweet-sour flavor of agrodolce. Whole grain mustard, using a fair amount, like a quarter cup, makes some of the best Brussels sprouts ever (let it cook for about 5 minutes at the very end). If you can find vincotto, drizzle a little over the sprouts; traditional balsamic vinegar is even better. You may never roast Brussels sprouts again.

The Great Wapato Hunt, Revisited

My friend, author, forager and hunter extraordinaire, Hank Shaw, had wanted to come up to Oregon to forage for wapato, a wild tuber that is rare in his home territory of Northern California. Anthony Boutard at Ayers Creek Farm had mentioned he'd found arrowhead in the wetland on his farm, so I asked if Hank and I could come out on his next trip north. I posted about our expedition earlier. This is an excerpt from Hank's post.

Arrowhead, wapato, katniss, duck potato, sagittaria. This is a plant of a hundred names. And there is a reason for that. The various species of sagittaria live all over the world—and all are eaten by someone. What you call it depends on where you live. If you are not familiar with them, wapato is one of the finest wild “potatoes” you will ever eat.

Wapato, also called arrowhead for obvious reasons.

There are about 30 species of arrowhead worldwide. They are an aquatic species, growing in great clumps in swamps and alongside slow-moving steams or rivers. They need permanent, or near-permanent water, and grow tubers ranging from the size of a marble to the size of a goose’s egg. You mostly eat the tubers, but my friend Sam Thayer says the young shoots—before the leaves are fully unfurled—are delicious cooked like spinach and have the same sweetish, corn-like flavor as the tubers. If you can find them, you want Sagittaria latifolia, which has the largest tubers.

As you may have imagined, the plant gets one of its names from the leaves, which are shaped like an arrowhead.

Buried in the mud underneath these leaves are long, clumpy rhizomes that are the heart of the plant. As the season progresses, the plant sets tubers (actually corms, botanically speaking) that grow and sweeten until they hit their peak in fall. To collect them, you need to get wet. The ideal situation is what we had in Oregon last fall: My friend Kathleen and I were invited to a friend’s farm, and he pointed us to the wapato patches in the wetlands near his fields. The water was barely calf deep, which allowed us to wade in and reach down into the muck to feel for the tubers. This is a far more effective method than twisting your feet into the muck—but only if you are wearing waders. Thayer, a well-known hard case, prefers to strip down to shorts, jumping into chilly water and using his bare feet to do the job. I am shivering just thinking about it.

Wapato tubers, peeled.

Sam does this because in his spot, the tubers are often in waist-deep water—too deep to do the reach-down method Kathleen and I used. I’d do it that way, too, if I had to. Here in my part of California, wapato is rare. In fact, I’ve only found it in a few places here, mostly tucked into corners of the Delta, where the picture above was taken. I hear it grows in rice fields, but I’ve never seen it there.

One advantage while harvesting wapato is that the tasty tubers float. Yep, when you dislodge them, they float up to the surface, making your job a lot easier. If you get into them, you can gather in serious quantity, too. Kathleen and I got this bag of about 5 pounds of tubers in less than 1 hour, in a patch no bigger than a master bathroom.

Read the rest of Hank's post and get his recipe for fried arrowhead chips. Photos by Holly Heyser (top) and Hank Shaw (middle and bottom).

Food News: USDA Features Two Portland Metro Farmers

The Cully neighborhood of Northeast Portland is a hotbed of urban experimentation, with new restaurants and bakeries popping up like proverbial weeds on Northeast 42nd Avenue, along with co-housing developments and small-scale urban agriculture. A recent article on the US Department of Agriculture blog profiled one farmer, Stacey Givens of The Side Yard Farm, who needed to expand crop production and extend her growing season so that she could offer more produce over a longer period to her roster of restaurant accounts.

The high tunnel at Side Yard Farm.

One answer to her quandary was to construct a high tunnel, a type of greenhouse with polyethylene walls and roof that heats up from the sun's solar radiation. Like any greenhouse structure, the heat generated warms plants and soil faster than heat can escape it. But, like most small farmers, the price of constructing such a structure was way beyond Givens' means. That was when a friend told her about a program through the USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) that was geared to help small-scale farmers like her build high tunnels to expand their businesses.

The article quotes Kim Galland, NRCS district conservationist for Multnomah County, who said, "These high tunnels are producing food on a local basis for an area that has a metropolitan base, so it cuts down on the energy consumption of the region.

"It allows Stacey to plant earlier in the spring and later into the fall, while protecting her crops from frost. High tunnels allow farmers to get higher yields, better production, hit the market earlier and provide longer service to their customers—and it’s all being done on a small-scale urban farm."

Photo from USDA blog.

* * *

Another Oregon farmer was profiled recently on the USDA blog as one of the farmers who are realizing the benefits of improving the health and function of their soil through working with the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS).

An organic farmer and co-owner with his wife, Amy Benson, of Square Peg Farm in Forest Grove, Chris Roehm has always seen healthy soil as a prime goal of their farm, but he said they saw almost immediate results when they fine-tuned their existing system by integrating cattle and forage crops into their rotation.

"One of the components of our soil health management plan that we are happiest with is the integration of growing forage crops for grazing animals with our annual vegetable production," Roehm said in the article. He also noted that even their farmers' market customers noticed the increase in yield. "The first year after that foraged ground has been turned over is like magic, everything just flies up out of the ground, there are hardly any weeds, the bugs don’t know what to do; it’s really fantastic."

Crustacean Celebration: Crab Bouillabaisse

You can blame climate change for the reason Dungeness crab season was delayed this year. Domoic acid, a dangerous neurotoxin that can cause loss of short-term memory, seizures and sometimes even death, became a problem because of unusually warm ocean temperatures off the West Coast from Alaska to California. These warm waters caused a bloom of an algae called Pseudo-nitzschia, which produces the domoic acid, and while the toxin doesn't affect crabs, clams, anchovies and other fish, it does build up in their bodies when they feed.

It takes crabs a fair amount of time to purge the toxin from their systems once the algae bloom dies off. The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife declared Oregon's Dungeness to be safe for consumption as of January 4, 2016, nearly a month later than normal. One of my first responses, naturally, was to go out and buy one for myself. And since I'd been craving a fish stew, I decided to make my first ever bouillabaisse.

Since I'd never made one before, some research was in order. The first resource was my icon of home cook-friendly French cuisine, Ms. Julia Child. One of her recipes calls for making a court bouillon of fish heads, bones and trimmings and adding onions, leeks, tomatoes, herbs and seasonings, which is strained and then used to cook live lobsters—two!—white fish, some shellfish and an eel. Yes, an eel. Well.

I moved on to Jimmy—you may know him as James Beard, but we're very close—who spent a great deal of time with Julia and whose bouillabaisse recipe is a somewhat simplified version of hers.  Though I was impressed with his "soupe de poisson," which calls for taking a couple of pounds of fish (scales, bones and all), cooking it for about half an hour in water, then straining off the "juice"  and adding tomatoes and onions to it. He then throws in some vermicelli, saffron and…this is so Jimmy…Swiss cheese!

A couple of online checks and I had the basic outline of what I was going to do. All it took was a trip to the fish counter at the store, then picking up a couple of things that weren't in my vegetable bin at home, and within an hour of starting the process—thank heavens for having homemade fish stock in my freezer—we were sitting down to steaming bowls of this beautiful fish stew!

Easy Bouillabaisse

1/4 tsp. saffron
1 tsp. salt
2 Tbsp. olive oil
1 onion, chopped in 1/2" dice
2 small fennel bulbs or 1 large bulb, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
3 tomatoes, chopped in 1/2" dice
1 c. dry white wine
3 qts. fish stock
2 lbs. white fish (cod, tilapia, halibut, rockfish, etc.), sliced in 1" pieces
1 lb. clams
1/2 lb. mussels
1/2 lb. shrimp
1 Dungeness crab, cooked and meat picked from shell

Put saffron threads in mortar and pestle with salt and grind until the saffron is mostly powdered. Set aside.

Heat olive oil in large soup pot or Dutch oven over medium-high heat until it shimmers. Add onion and sauté till translucent. Add fennel and garlic and sauté till tender. Add ground saffron, tomatoes, white wine and stock. Bring to a boil, then immediately reduce to simmer for 20 minutes. Add fish, shellfish and crab. Bring to a boil, then reduce to simmer for 10 min.

For even more seriously great crab recipes, from crab cakes to chowders to pasta dishes, check out the Crustacean Celebration chronicles.

Discovering the Salish Sea: San Juan Island, Pt. 2

Water. I love it. Whether in it, on it or under it. My favorite summer activity growing up was going to the local swimming pool and spending as much time under the water as I could. Let the other kids chase their friends around the pool and splash—I was more interested in seeing what was going on beneath the surface, the quietness, the reflections of the sunlight dancing on every surface.

Yes, I was as happy as I look. (Hi, Kim!)

Which makes the San Juan Islands pretty much the perfect destination for a water-lover like me, with ferries chugging between small island-bound port towns and with water-based activities—kayaking, sailing, beachcombing, swimming, canoeing, you-name-it-they've-got-it—in abundance. So when I read that the media trip to explore the Salish Sea came with a choice of a kayaking expedition on its calm inland waterways, any other activities offered fell by the wayside.

We met Nate, the be-dreadlocked, smiling young tour guide from Discovery Sea Kayaks in Friday Harbor, and as he drove us to our launch site at San Juan County Park, he explained the route we'd be taking that day as well as procedures we'd need to follow. After hauling our boats down to the water, he paired us up, fitted us into our gear, adjusted the boat pedals and pushed us off. Freedom!

Paddling by the lighthouse at Lime Kiln Point.

Well, pretty much, anyway. The captain of our two-person kayak—I opted to sit up front—was family travel blogger Kimberly Tate, who ably piloted us out into the main channel as we headed south down the island to Lime Kiln Point State Park. As you can see from the photos, the day was spectacular…a not-too-warm, not-too-cool, virtually cloudless day with a very light breeze, perfect for paddling.

As we made our way to the park, Nate talked knowledgeably about the various creatures we saw, including seals and jellyfish, and the natural life of the island. He was impressively well-informed about the history of the place, from loggers and fishermen to the workers in the lime kilns that were visible from the water. He kept us on a steady pace, and three hours later when we pulled our kayaks back up on the beach, he estimated we'd paddled close to an incredible six miles that morning.

Perfect post-paddle spot, the Cask & Schooner.

After that, lunch was a necessity, and luckily for us it just so happened that the Cask and Schooner pub was just down the block from the Sea Quest storefront. Kim and I, exhausted but exhilerated, plopped down at a table and ordered pints of ice-cold microbrews, with which we toasted our intrepid-ness. The fish and chips were one of the better versions I've had in recent memory, though I'd have mowed through just about anything set before me after that morning of exertion.

The perfect capper to this day of outdoor water adventure was a whale-watching tour between San Juan Island and Port Townsend, the next destination on the trip. The Glacier Spirit, a mid-size boat with a comfy cabin and large windows, is part of the Puget Sound Express fleet owned by the Hanke family, who have been sailing the waters of the Salish Sea for three generations. Because it was a perfect, clear day, I spent most of the time on the wrap-around deck outside, the sunlight sparkling off the water.

Humpback whale diving.

These folks know the local whales' favorite hangouts, so it wasn't long before we saw our first whale gliding by. Regulations require that boats give the creatures a 200-yard berth and stay out of their path, as well as keeping a slow pace when they're within 400 yards—keeping the risk of any potential encounters to a minimum, as well as reducing engine noise that could disturb the whales' habitat.

During the three-hour tour (insert Gilligan's Island jokes here) we saw several whales spouting and, between sightings, the captain gave a running commentary on the habits and proclivities of the various types of whales that inhabit the area. As we neared our destination we had the great privilege of seeing two visiting humpback whales breaching, spouting and diving. And, despite the distance required, we were able to hear them breathing when they surfaced, a sight and a sound that brought tears to my eyes and is an experience I'll never forget. Such magnificent creatures.

Read the other posts in this series: San Juan Island, Pt. 1 and Port Townsend and Fort Worden.

Farm Bulletin: Growing a Better Popcorn

I had always assumed that farmers either bought seed from seed companies or saved seed from their own crops, simply replanting them every year. It never occurred to me that farmers could actually develop their own crops by selecting for various characteristics like flavor and the ability to thrive in the field in winter. This essay by contributor Anthony Boutard of Ayers Creek Farm outlines his journey with one variety of corn to achieve a particular result—a perfect popcorn.

It came to us as "Pennsylvania Dutch Butter Flavored Popcorn," a dry mouthful by any measure, and one of numerous popcorn varieties we tried early in the corn project. We have found when seed house descriptions lovingly linger of the color of the kernel and its diminutive proportions, just around the corner disappointment also lingers. That is a certainty. A few years ago, Glass Gem corn was released with great fanfare. Rhapsodic descriptions of its immense and ancient beauty spilled forth. Our mailbox filled with forwarded links to the breathless description. Not a whisper about its flavor, though, and since then the hype has faded. The best we have heard is that it is not really bad. In contrast, the descriptions of the Pennsylvania Dutch Butter Flavored Popcorn made note of the buttery flavor, going so far as to assert that butter was wasted on it. That hooked us.

This year's harvest…that's alotta popcorn!

The first year we planted Pennsylvania Dutch Butter Flavored Popcorn we were immediately struck by what a mess it was, not just a plain, off-white kernel, but the ears were runty and malformed, a substantial proportion of kernels prone to silk cut, a defect which means they don't pop. The plants lodged—fell over—at the merest zephyr. Then there was the insanely long name. Linda Colwell helped us many a gloomy afternoon as we salvaged the early crops. The challenge posed by the litany of flaws could not distract us from the lovely flavor. Reminiscent of Osgood Fielding III* as he patiently hears out Daphne's long list flaws, no corn is perfect.

Amish Butter polenta, great with lamb (recipe).

With time, we have managed to eliminate most of the flaws in Pennsylvania Dutch Butter Flavored Popcorn. The geneticist Barbara McClintock describes the process as getting "a sense of the organism." Previously, we have described the process as developing a design brief. Once smitten, your focus shifts to teasing out certain qualities. The grower uncovers the genetic map walking down the row and observing each plant, cataloging the variation. One of the first flaws was easily eliminated by renaming it the not-quite-synonymous but much shorter "Amish Butter." From 38 letters down to an efficient eleven. Likewise, silk cut went rapidly from 38% to 11%, and now it is just a fraction of a percent. Slowly, other growers have followed suit on the name, some keeping the "flavored popcorn" as though it would clarify something.

Linda Colwell's Sibley squash tamales.

Early on, we also discovered is its fine quality as ground corn. Popcorn has the highest protein content of the corn types, and it makes perfect sense that this variety that happens to pop would make a good cornmeal for cooking up as polenta. The white polenta works well with fungi, cheese, lamb and seafood. It also makes a lovely hominy, superb in a seafood pozole. After the New Year, Linda came over with a selection of her expertly prepared Amish Butter tamales. Just as we have developed a sense of the organism, Linda has developed a keen sense of the ingredient. This is why we must leave out popcorn from its name, unless we are selling kernels for that purpose. No corn is perfect, but Amish Butter is damn close. Come to think of it, Jack Lemmon was pretty close to perfect as well.

* Osgood Fielding III (Character)
from Some Like It Hot (1959)

Osgood Fielding III (l, played by Joe E. Brown) and Daphne (played by Jack Lemmon)

Jerry: Oh no you don't! Osgood, I'm gonna level with you. We can't get married at all.
Osgood: Why not?
Jerry: Well, in the first place, I'm not a natural blonde.
Osgood: Doesn't matter.
Jerry: I smoke! I smoke all the time!
Osgood: I don't care.
Jerry: Well, I have a terrible past. For three years now, I've been living with a saxophone player.
Osgood: I forgive you.
Jerry: [tragically] I can never have children!
Osgood: We can adopt some.
Jerry: But you don't understand, Osgood! Ohh...
[Jerry finally gives up and pulls off his wig]
Jerry: [normal voice] I'm a man!
Osgood: [shrugs] Well, nobody's perfect!
[Jerry looks on with disbelief as Osgood continues smiling with indifference. Fade out]

Don't Fall for Fake Extra Virgin

If you saw or heard about the segment that the CBS program 60 Minutes aired last Sunday about extra virgin olive oil, you might have come away with the feeling that you can't trust anyone who sells the stuff to be telling the truth. Contributor Jim Dixon of Real Good Food is a guy who travels to Italy and knows the small producers who grow the olives and make the oils he carries. Here he adds more information to what you may have heard about the issue.

Another story about fake extra virgin olive oil aired on 60 Minutes this weekend. It implicated the Mafia so it was even more titillating than earlier reports. It's no secret that most of what's labeled "extra virgin olive oil" doesn't meet the commonly accepted definition of the highest grade of olive oil. When there's money to be made, there are people eager to defraud consumers to make it.

Jim Dixon of Real Good Food.

Tom Mueller, author of Extra Virginity: The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil, was featured in the piece and covered the issue best on his own website. He writes, "The world of Italian olive oil never ceases to confirm my best, and worst, suspicions. When I taste olive oil made by honest Italian growers and millers, I’m often amazed by its freshness and complexity—and even more amazed that they are still in business. The single-minded devotion of these food artisans, who built Italy’s culinary fame, is almost superhuman when you consider how consistently they’re being undercut by olive oil crooks, and abandoned by their own government. In fact, forces within the Italian government often help the crooks." Read the whole thing and his book to appreciate what the people who make real extra virgin olive oil face trying to make a living.

While the Mafia connection grabs the headlines, the real issue is the fact that it's perfectly legal to sell fake extra virgin here in the US. As much as 75% of the olive oil sold here labeled "extra virgin" is really refined olive oil blended with some virgin olive oil. And while Italy gets blamed most often (as Mueller points out, the Italians do more than other oil-producing countries to catch the cheaters, so they get the press), every country growing olives for oil does the same thing.

Seal of the California Olive Oil Council.

Indifferent producers make oil that doesn't taste good, the result of any number of defects ranging from bad fruit to poorly maintained presses. This oil is "rectified," or fixed, by an industrial refining  process that strips away the bad flavors. It also eliminates the good flavors and healthful attributes. The resulting neutral oil is blended with virgin olive oil and sold here as extra virgin. I wrote about olive oil standards years ago if you're interested in more details (I no longer recommend Bertolli oil as I did back then).

News like this always brings requests from consumers about choosing a real extra virgin oil. The 60 Minutes companion piece doesn't help much. The only way to distinguish real extra virgin in the supermarket is the California Olive Oil Council's seal [issued to California olive oils that pass its rigorous certification standards]. It guarantees the oil is really extra virgin. Your other choice is buying from a trusted vendor (like Real Good Food).

Please support the hard-working Italians who struggle against the odds to make amazing, delicious, true extra virgin olive oil.