The taste is far superior then any picture I could take. Try scrambling eggs with some Braggs liquid Aminos and cooking them with toasted sesame oil for your lube in the pan. Truly amazing . I was making some omelet for an Asian noodle dish, but now upon tasting I’m imagining all the possibilities.
Oh my do I have battle scars from this weekends blackberry foraging. On my first hike up with the dogs on Saturday to my “spot” , low and behold there is a women picking MY berries! I was just planning on scouting how the crop was doing but luckily I had a bag and after a few polite words I started in on the harvest.
Having only shorts and flip flops on, I had to retreat and get better prepared.
After those crazy hail and thunder storms passed I went back up with the proper foraging attire on. Since she had picked all the easy ones I had to go even deeper then usual. I found some areas that seemed to be favored by some large animal, as all the foliage in front of the thicket was flattened! Hopefully Fifi the Chihuahua will always warn me if a bear is approaching. All in all I got about 7lbs of blackberried and found some new territory too. I’ve frozen the berries because I think I’ll have one more trip and then I’ll make the jam. To preserve the wild tartness I use half the amount of sugar as berries.
12 cups berries=6cups sugar.
If you are in the Boston area, or I’ve just heard the Sydney, Australia area: you are in luck.
You have access to some of the best bread in the world. Iggy’s bread, my favorite, also makes a par baked pizza crust that is fantastic. In white or wheat this makes pizza on the grill a dream.
A couple of ones I’ve tried lately:
1. Greek Yogurt as sauce with some cracked pepper and sea salt, fresh pineapple and grilled hot wax hungarian peppers, fresh mozzarella and goat cheese, topped with a sprinkle of sliced basil.
2. Mayo as sauce (don’t laugh), jalapeno slices, grated mozzarella, bacon, and tomato slices fried in bacon fat. Grill until cheese is melting, then make two indents with a spoon and crack to eggs into the indents.
Grill about 7 more minutes and then run a knife through the yolk so it runs over pizza before serving.
Everything is better with bacon, but this flatbread was…oouch so good.
Anyone with a garden or CSA share usually ends up with more zucchini then they know what to do with. Since I have both a CSA share – plug for Enterprise Farm in Wately MA here, and my own garden, here’s what I’ve worked out.
MY Zucchini Bread:
3 Cups flour (2 whole wheat pastry)
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
3 tsp. cinnamon
3 eggs
1 cup vegetable oil
2 1/4 cup turbinado (or maple )sugar (sub 2 Tbsp. organic molasses for 1/4 cup sugar for healthier version)
3 tsp. vanilla
1 Giant oversized garden zucchini OR 3-4 cups grated and pressed in a clean kitchen towel to remove moisture
.
1 cups chopped nuts or raw pumpkin seeds(optional)
Grease and flour two 4×8 pans, oven 325.
Dry in one bowl, beat wet in another, add dry to wet.
Mix in zucchini and nuts/seeds, Bake 40-60 or until knife comes out clean.
Raw Zucchini Salad:
Zucchini rounds cut fine on a mandolin.
Mint Yogurt dressing: Fresh mint and any other green herbs you got. Love chives, basil, thyme and oregano works, as long as fresh. This dressing is a great way to use up your garden herbs that are over growing.
1 cup yogurt 1 clove garlic, some honey, salt, and pepper to taste. If you have a stick blender that’s the way to go. No need to chop anything!
Zucchini Cakes/Fritters:
2-4 cups grated zucchini with the moisture removed very thoroughly.
3-4 eggs depending on how much zucchini, you want it wetter for fritters.
1 finely diced small onion
Juice and zest from 1 lemon.
Instant mash potatoes until right consistency. The ones at Whole Foods are plain dehydrated potatoes and not full of additives and preservatives.
Serve with a garlic aioli.
The best eggs ever are always from backyard chickens. There is something special about the taste when the chicken eats mostly table scraps and not just grain and chicken feed. Whenever we see anyone with a cooler at the end of the driveway and a sign, we always stop and get some. Up in New Hampshire we have found the golden eggs at the end of the rainbow.
A little ice cream and farmstand on 114 in Weare. They don’t always hVe eggs, and they don’t advertise them.
You inquire at the window and then they have to “call up to grandma to ask”.
Meanwhile the chickens are running all around and begging ice cream left and right. These are ice cream eggs. I never before had one so delicious .
Having been served a beet juice pickled egg a couple of times I always wanted to try it myself. So when I boiled some beets this past week I reserved the beet juice in a large glass jar. Added equal parts apple cider vinegar and about a teaspoon of salt.
Let it sit 3-4 days in the frig and then check on them. I Deviled them with mayo and Sriracha chili sauce, then topped with a little diced Kim Chee. It was delicious !
Here is our almost 8lbs of blue booty. Everyone pitched in to gather this many yesterday. The heatwave should subside later in the week and there’ll be pie! You really can’t beat the America’s Test Kitchen recipe, it’s on their website. I’ll use their no fail Vodka crust recipe as well, but sub in 1 cup of Barley Flour for the awesome texture.
fourstarfarms.com for great unusual and small milled flours.
The rest of the berries go into the chest freezer for cooler days when we’ll make jam. Don’t let anyone fool you into jam kits. One less cup sugar per cups of fruit is all I do, or less if the fruit is good and sweet. You just have to boil it down a good long time in a decent double walled pot. Put fruit and sugar in the pot, bring to boil, simmer on low. Put a small plate in the freezer, you know your jam is done when you put a little on the fozen plate and tip it. If it’s real runny keep simmering. Small batches can just go into recycled glass jars in the fridge. If your going for a big batch like this, you do want to go through the whole canning process, so they’ll keep in the pantry.
Don’t be intimidated by getting into canning. Fruit us actually very easy.
Lettuce wraps make great picnic food for a hot summer night. I was inspired by the gorgeous full head of radicchio I got in my CSA box from Enterprise Farm. Big shout out here to Enterprise Farm in Western MA, without their year round weekly vegetable box I don’t know what I would do.
You could also use another soft lettuce such as Butter (Boston). Fillings could be almost anything with an Asian flair. Put everything in containers and assemble wraps as you eat on site.
For our rooftop picnic lettuce wraps:
Grilled Chicken thighs cut into thin slices. Marinate or rub with your favorite Asian flavors.
Red Cabbage slaw dressed with Seasoned Rice vinegar, tahini, soy sauce, toasted sesame oil and a little mayo.
Mandolin sliced baby cucumbers and carrots in honey, lime, toasted sesame oil, salt marinade.
We had a poster of Woodchucks eating dandelions in my kitchen growing up. The caption read, ” learn to eat your problems for breakfast” it left a mark on me and I’ve always tried to do just that. When my community garden plot was being taken over by mint- I took home like a bushel and made mint pesto. Use any pesto recipe if your need ratios, I made a ton because it freezes well. In my food processor :
Mint
Fresh squeezed lemon juice ( a little more then for basil pesto)
Olive oil
1/2 Sunflower seeds
1/2 Papita ( raw pumpkin seeds)
Garlic
Salt
Really just taste as you go but so good with goat cheese, as a spread or on flatbead grilled!
Seen here on whole wheat pasta, Kalamata olives, steam broccoli , sheep feta.
The avocados and mangos are so cheap right now ! Which also means they are peaking, and flippin’ delicious! Threw some over baby spinach and albacore tuna. Yum!
eatwithana 