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.

Gathering Together Farm: Growing for 27 Years

"I still go to the markets because I love talking to people about food."
- John Eveland, Gathering Together Farm

On a quiet stretch of the Marys River just outside Corvallis in the tiny town of Philomath, John Eveland (top photo) and his wife, Sally Brewer, are running a certified organic farm on a combination of rented parcels and land that's been bought from neighbors over the past 27 years. John estimates that in 2014, total sales at their Gathering Together Farm will top two million dollars between 12 farmers' markets—three in Corvallis, six in Portland, the Beaverton Farmers Market and two at the coast—a year-round CSA, wholesale customers, restaurant customers and the farmstand and restaurant on the property.

John checking a hoophouse.

John and Sally don't get to keep all that money, of course, since, aside from hard costs, at the peak of harvest season John signs 128 full and part-time paychecks every month and even in the slower winter months he employs a crew of 40. The farm has two managers, Rodrigo Garcia and Joelene Jebbia; a chef, J.C. Mersmann, who runs the farm restaurant and catering arm; as well as an HR department.

All this started on just two acres of land in 1984. It wasn't meant to be more than that, originally, just enough to supply the vegetarian restaurant, Nearly Normal's, that John, his first wife and three friends started in Corvallis in 1980. Dissatisfied with the quality of vegetables they could get from distributors, a group of them decided to try to become farmers and grow their own. The other partners found it a bit more of a commitment than they anticipated and dropped out, leaving John and his first wife (and eventually him and Sally), to manage the new farm on their own.

Year-round markets were a game-changer.

John said that, unlike today when we have a rainbow of heirloom vegetables to choose from, back in those early days carrots came in one color, orange, and tomatoes were big red slicers, mostly beefsteaks. From the beginning the farm used hoop houses, a series of plastic-covered hoops set over rows of crops, to extend their growing season, but things would pretty much shut down in November until planting season began again in January.

"The game has changed with winter markets," he said, and more varieties of cold-tolerant crops that do well in the maritime Northwest made it possible to keep plants in the ground through the winter. But what really pushed Gathering Together Farm into its current year-round status was that his crew needed full time employment to stay in the area, so the farm now grows leeks ("They're bullet-proof," Eveland said.), turnips, rutabagas,  parsnips, kale and a popular winter salad mix, with more added every year.

The covered patio at the restaurant at the farmstand.

Plus, he said, "People are a lot more sophisticated in terms of their taste and what they're looking for." Unlike the old days where shoppers would turn up their noses at root vegetables or anything that wasn't a standard shape, he said they're now willing to try new things and buy non-uniform vegetables. And for those crops that might have blemishes but are otherwise perfectly good to eat, the farm has developed what are called "value-added" products like salsas, jams, pickles and sauces.

Delicatas are perfect for soup (recipe below).

Now pushing 66 years old, Eveland laughed and said he plans to be out in the field until he drops. Turning momentarily serious, he said that it's been critical to develop a staffing structure that provides a pool of expertise and knowledge to keep the farm humming along, especially since he considers himself "a creator, not a maintainer."

Reflecting on nearly three decades of farming, Eveland said it's certainly a much bigger, more complex farm than he would have ever dreamed of back in those early days.

"We're proud of what we've created in the community and the reputation we've earned," he said. "I just hope we've created something solid that makes the world a better place in some small way."

Ricky’s Delectable Delicata Soup
Adapted from Gathering Together Farm

The farm’s CSA coordinator, Hannah, says this is her favorite soup. It comes from Ricky, one of the cooks in the farm’s restaurant.

2 medium onions, julienned
4 garlic cloves, minced
2 leeks, whites only, chopped
8 oz. roasted red peppers
3 small delicata squash or 2 large ones (the flesh should equal 4 cups)
1 qt. vegetable stock (chicken stock works well, too)
1/2 c. cream
Pinch of cayenne
Juice of 1/2 lemon
Salt to taste

Preheat oven to 350°.

Halve squashes and scoop out seeds. Roast in oven until flesh is tender when pierced with a fork, about 40 min. Cool and scoop out flesh to make 4 cups. Purée in blender or food processor.

Over medium heat, sauté onions, garlic and leeks until they are softened and glassy.

Add roasted peppers, delicata purée and stock. Bring to a simmer and cook for 15 minutes. Add cream, cayenne, lemon juice and salt to taste. Stir well to combine.

Purée the soup in a blender in batches or use an immersion blender. You can also serve it without blending; the finely sliced onions and slivers of pepper make it quite a pretty soup as is.

Note: You can also speed up the process by peeling the delicatas with a vegetable peeler, halving them, scooping out the seeds and chopping them into 1" cubes. Add cubed squash when you add the stock, increase the cooking time to 30 minutes, then purée. This also works with other types of cucurbitaceae like butternut, acorn, etc.

This article was developed in collaboration with the Beaverton Farmers Market, a sponsor of this blog. Top photo of John Eveland by Jake Stangel.

Roasted Chicken: Variations on a Theme

Roasted chicken is, without question, one of the top two favorites for dinner around our house. Simple, delicious, satisfying and relatively quick to put on the table, it's both a company-worthy entree and a warming mid-week meal. If you buy a big enough bird, you might have enough left over to make a pot pie, soup or hearty chicken salad. Plus the carcass is terrific for stock.

James Beard is my go-to guy in terms of method, the chicken roasting on a bed of sautéed vegetables. Which means that they gradually roast in the fat and juices from the bird, a brilliant idea that provides a ready-made side dish from the vegetables and a killer base for gravy from the juices.

The other night I was getting ready to roast a chicken and, instead of mashing potatoes, I was going to roast some delicata squash that had been sitting around waiting to be of service. That's when the lightbulb went off—you've no doubt already guessed this, but I can be a little slow sometimes—and I chopped up onion and garlic, gave it a quick sauté, then combined it with the squash.

The rest, as they say, is history…and something I'm going to keep playing with using other vegetables. Stay tuned!

Roasted Chicken with Squash

3 Tbsp. olive oil
1 onion, roughly chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped fine
3 small delicata squash, seeded and cut in 1/2" cubes, about 3 cups or so*
1/2 c. white wine or dry vermouth
1 roasting chicken
1/2 lemon
Handful of fresh herbs (sage, rosemary, thyme or tarragon)
Salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Pour 2 Tbsp. oil into a frying pan and saute onions, carrots and celery (or whatever vegetables you might have) till slightly tender but not fully cooked. Place in mixing bowl with cubed squash and combine. Put squash mixture in 9" by 12" Pyrex casserole dish. Pour wine over vegetables.

Rub chicken with remaining 1 Tbsp. oil, throw 1 tsp. or so salt and the lemon and herbs into the cavity and place the chicken on its side on top of the vegetables. Place in oven and roast for 25 minutes. Remove from oven, turn chicken on its other side and roast for another 25 minutes. Remove from oven, turn chicken so it is breast-side up, baste with pan juices and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Roast another 15 minutes, remove and baste, then roast a final 20 minutes or, for our tastes, until an instant-read thermometer reads 160 degrees on the inside of the lower thigh. Remove from oven, allow to rest for 10 minutes. We cut it into pieces, but the breasts we remove whole and slice crosswise.

* The skin of delicatas is thin, so don't bother peeling it…just eat as is. Other winter squash would work just as well, but peel them before cubing.