Chicken Chili for a Crowd (~16pp)

My last Tamworth chicken made this chili oh-so-worth it.  Next up: Riverslea Farm chickens!  Space is still available for our Tortilla Soup and Stock kitchen session.  Reserve today: gimmetheknife@gmail.com

I dunno, is it really only about the chili?

Noooo.

But an awesome chili certainly helps pop those garnishes!

You can easily halve this recipe.

Here's the slow food version ('fast food' version follows):

Couple things we've eaten since April.... :~)

Our own 'Best BLT' tomatoes (New Roots stock) with fresh mozz and five kinds of basil (I grew 7 varieties this summer!): Tuscan, lemon, pesto perpetuo, Thai, and dark opal.  Add a generous sprinkling of flor de sal and an ample drizzle of your best evoo, and grab a bib. 

I forget how many people this served.  Oh, that's right, three.  Oink, oink.

A recent craving for an oldie but goodie...seitan pot pie.  Buttery Crust was killer...flaky.  Flaky killer, qu'est-ce que c'est!  Run, run, run awaaaay.... No, don't.

Somewhat-locally made seitan (Sheffield's from VT), Barker's carrots and potatoes, our own peas and a few pearl onions all folded into a luscious homemade veggie stock and cream sauce.  Love fall.  Love pot pie.  Love food.

Ina's Crust:

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 cup vegetable shortening (I prefer
• 1 stick cold unsalted butter, diced
• 1/2 to 2/3 cup ice water
• 1 egg beaten with 1 tablespoon water, for egg wash
• Flaked sea salt and cracked black pepper

Mix the flour, salt, and baking powder in the bowl of a food processor fitted with a metal blade. Add shortening and butter and toss quickly with your fingers until each piece is coated with flour. Pulse 10 times, or until the fat is the size of peas. With the motor running, add the ice water; process only enough to moisten the dough and have it just come together. Dump the dough out onto a floured board and knead quickly into a ball. Wrap the dough in plastic and allow it to rest in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.  Roll out and use as desired.

I slapped egg wash all around the top side of my filled pot pie dish before draping the pie dough over.  Be sure to brush the top of your crust all over with egg wash, then season with S & P.

The BEST soup for a cold!

It seems lots of people have come down with a head cold this past week!  Thanks to those of you who helped spread it our way.  Being the good person that I am, I'll give you my antidote: a light and refreshing, yet dark and rich, chicken tortilla soup.  An elixir, if you will.  With a bit of chili for aiding the nasal passages, lime for counteracting congestion, and some chard for its superb phytonutrient, anti-inflammatory and antioxident properties, this tortilla soup definitely has what any doctor could order.  Store bought stock?  Blech!  It just isn't the same.  Make your own stock -- it's easy to do, much healthier for you, way tastier, and it can be done in an hour, tops!

Tips and hints are in green.

STOCK:

• 1 whole chicken, ~3-4lbs, rinsed
• flavors: 1 med. onion, handful of leek greens, 2-3 carrots, 2 celery stalks...all coarsely chopped
• 2-3 bay leaves
• 2-3 cloves garlic, crushed
• tbsp coriander seeds
• tbsp cumin seeds
• tsp peppercorns
• sprigs of parsley, thyme...

Heirloom Tomato and Corn Stew w/ Blackened Chicken

There could be several names for this concoction: "southwestern stew" (if you added chili and cilantro), "chicken and corn stew" (if you really want chicken to take the show), "kitchen sink soup" (for the surplus of farmstand veggies, and if you added stock), or even, simply, "vegetable stew."

Heirloom tomato sauce with lemon and cinnamon basil

This was definitely one of the best tomato sauces ever tasted in this house.  Ripe, Great White heirloom fruits made for a superb, low-acid, creamy sauce. There are a number of heirloom "white" tomatoes; 'Great White' is the best according to employee-owned 'Johnny Selected Seeds' out of Winslow, ME.  The fruit is meaty with few seeds, which makes for easy saucing.  Don't be fooled by its mild flavor when eating raw; cooked, these babies turn out one heck of a sauce.

For this recipe, we used ~4 lbs of tomatoes.  'Great White' is prolific; we got lots from our two plants!

Begin with 3-5 lbs of your favorite tomato...

Fresh black trumpet mushrooms - the season is now!

From the chanterelle family, black trumpets result in the silkiest texture when cooked.  Wash the stems under a stream of running water, then saute in a bit of olive oil over medium-high heat.  A hint of salt is nice, followed by a splash of a good, deep red wine such as a zinfandel.  Finish with a pat of butter stirred in off the heat.

A trip north this past weekend resulted in a great visit to the Tamworth farmers' market, and an awesome score of freshly foraged wild mushrooms, deep green bunches of celery, and succulent red bell peppers as big as Italian eggplants -- perfect timing for turning a recent purchase of New Roots Farm grass-fed ground beef and Barker's Farm heirloom potatoes into a luscious, comforting Sunday night dinner!  Tonight's dish: Pan seared grass-fed beef burgers with a luscious black trumpet mushroom-zinfandel sauce, garnished with Sun Gold cherry tomatoes and accompanied by buttermilk mashed potatoes with leeks, red bell pepper, celery leaf and aged sheep's milk cheese.  Phew, I'm out of breath.

Food With Color

Click on any of the pictures to see them enlarged 100%.

Here we have grilled Beach Pea's rosemary batard, brushed with homemade garlic scape pesto, topped with grilled eggplant (New Roots Farm) smothered in provolone cheese,  8-ball and 1-ball zucchini (small, round, baseball-size green and yellow fruits from Stonewall Farm), grilled sweet Ailsa Craig onions (Touching Earth Farm), slices of luscious tomatoes (Barker's Farm), and, finally, mounds of arugula (Riverside Farm).  Now THAT'S a farmers' market sandwich!  Pass the chips, please!

An heirloom cuke, these White Wonders are heading for another batch of my Summer Herb and Cucumber Soup.   Their creamy white flesh is slightly sweeter than regular cukes.  P.S.  I used basil, parsley and fennel fronds in this batch of soup, and garnished bowls of it with borage and lemon gem marigold flowers.  Delish!  

Cute little flying saucers.

Can you guess what this is?

Awesome Gazpacho

What to eat when it's 100 degrees outside at dinnertime?

This could be called "kitchen sink" gazpacho, or "ohmygod, I don't care what you call it, it's delicious" gazpacho, or, "NH farmers' market" gazpacho, or "my mother would love this" gazpacho...."   No need to concern yourself with what you don't have -- just use what you do have, and don't worry about measuring!  At this time of year, surely your tastebuds are intune with the local produce, and you've got plenty to choose from!

Fennel-Cucumber Salad, Turkey Bacon BLT

Fresh fennel from Willow Pond Farm was the inspiration for this salad...not to mention the cukes and super sweet cherry tomatoes from McKenzie's Farm, and sweet snap peas from our garden!  All were tossed in a bit of leftover homemade pico de gallo (see pic below for details) and freshly chopped fennel leaves.  Crunchy, sweet and tangy...Delicious!

Great sandwiches begin with great bread!  Here, foccacia with a balsamic glaze patiently awaits its fate with turkey bacon...

Lettuce, Tomatoes and Broccoli, Oh My!

Clockwise from upper left: garlic scapes, Stout Oak Farm; fresh cut wildflowers, Winnicut River Farm; perfectly ripe strawberries, Applecrest Farm and Heron Pond Farm; zucchini (!), Barker's Farm; broccoli (!), Heron Pond Farm; scallions and radishes, Catnip Acres Farm; romaine lettuce, Meadow's Mirth Farm; and (center), cherry tomatoes, slicing tomatoes and pickling cukes, McKenzie's Farm

The farmers' markets are roaring!  Now's the time for garlic scapes.  Keep reading for the best scape pesto recipe I've made yet!

Fruits of Summer, Solanum Style! Pt 1

First, my apologies for a month-long hiatus without any warning.  Gardening duties and my social life required a little attention (not to mention my work with the NH Rivers Council)!  Here in the northeast there has been minimal rainfall--at least in terms of what vegetation requires (good, long soaking rains).  So in addition to pruning/thinning, weeding, rotating crops (um, in my case, small beds) and staying on top of harvesting, I've also had to deal with the "dreaded hose" (I hate having to tap into an aquifer!).  Regardless, our heirloom tomato plants have provided plenty of fruit (as have our eggplants, but more on those in the next post, promise - they're so easy to grow and super fun to experience!).  Here's a glimpse of the varieties of tomato we're growing this summer:

Clockwise from 9 o'clock: One slice of Brandywine (super unbelievable flavor!); two slices of Cherokee Purple (not just great flavor, but unique coloring as well); one slice of Black Prince (a small version of the Cherokee, really); and two slices of Green Zebras nestled in with some grape tomatoes.  Zebras are not heirlooms, but they've been grown for a very long time without any muddling, so they tend to get sold under the same category.

And what to make to capture the essence of these babies?  You could always settle for a plate of sliced juicy toms with fresh mozzarella cheese and torn basil leaves, finished with a generous swirl of luscious olive oil and a healthy sprinkling of coarse sea salt!  (I'm drooling already....)  But how about a bowl of gorgeous gazapacho?  It's truly summer's elixir, and I have just the recipe for you in four easy steps!