Entries from The Amateur Gourmet tagged with 'farmer's market'
Where To Buy Ethical Meat?
My friend Rob wrote me the following e-mail yesterday and because it's such a good question, I thought I'd answer it right here on the blog. Hey Adam, I was reading reviews of [Jonathan Safran] Foer's new book "Eating Animals" on being a vegetarian and renewing my pledge to only eat "humane" meat -- free range, cruelty free, local, organic, etc. But I cannot for the life of me figure out which places are "approved." Is there any way to figure this out? Would this make for a good blog? It seems to be a topic a lot of people are talking about... - Rob...
Breasts are trouble. Legs are easy.
[Hey, this is Adam The Amateur Gourmet. I'm on vacation in Barcelona, Spain and while I'm gone I've asked some awesome people to fill in for me. Now, I have to confess, when I e-mailed prospective guest bloggers, there was one person I was certain would never say yes. That person is one of the most feared food bloggers alive, a blogger who talks of her own "retractable fangs." That blogger is, of course, Regina Schrambling of the legendary food industry blog, Gastropoda. (She also writes on Epicurious and Tweets on Twitter.) Lo and behold, not only did Regina say yes, she wrote her guest post with gusto. So I am deeply humbled and honored and excited to announce her contribution. Take it away, Regina!] One of the first serious dinner parties my consort and I ever gave was a duck debacle -- I picked a ridiculously ambitious recipe from "Cooking With the New American Chefs" involving fried corn cakes and pinot noir sauce, and the two of us managed to put together what Bob said "looks like farmer food." Tears were involved. Not to mention mangled breasts to the then-crazy tune of 30 dollars....
Cranberry Beans
My first experience with cranberry beans was a failed attempt at a soup (see here) where dried cranberry beans were cooked for an inappropriate amount of time, leading to a texture so unpleasantly undercooked it was like eating unpopped popcorn kernels. The years have passed, but the scars took a while to heal: I wasn't too eager to cook cranberry beans again. Not even fresh ones. That is until I saw a beautiful mound of them at the farmer's market and, knowing I was cooking a dinner for Stella two weeks ago, I said: "What the 'ell!" (I had a British accent.) I bought the beautiful bag of beans you see above....
Two Summery Meals
Here are two meals you can make this weekend: one, a meal of farmer's market goodies that are seasonal and good for you and good for the planet and the farmers, and the second a crowd-pleaser from your local grocery store that isn't good for you or the planet but boy is it good and easy to make. Let's start with the angel on your shoulder meal: There on the plate you'll see vegetables--sugar snap peas, beets and radishes. You'll also see a Parker House roll (from the post below this). What I liked about this meal was that, even though it was a meal of just vegetables, it wasn't punishing in any way. After washing and peeling the snap peas, I took butter--a few tablespoons--and cooked it in a skillet until it turned a toasty brown (make sure it doesn't burn!) and then I added the peas and tossed them around until they were coated. I sprinkled them with salt and pepper and after a few minutes (and tasting one to see that it was just cooked enough) I put it on the plate. The beets were prepared with the knowledge that raw beets are better for you than cooked beets, so I peeled them and cut them thinly into strips and tossed with a simple vinaigrette of mustard, red wine vinegar and olive oil. And they were fantastic--I think I like beets better raw, now, than cooked! So that was a relatively healthy dinner, rounded out by the rolls which helped fill us up. On the flip side was this: This is a meal I hope all of you make at some point this summer. It's like an instant picnic, and even if you eat it at home after a long day of work (as Craig did having come home from a full day of teaching high schoolers how to make movies) it transports you instantly to a sunny bench in the park. The components are simple: fried chicken, biscuits, and watermelon feta salad. All of these are recipes I've posted on the blog before. For the fried chicken recipe click here; for the biscuits click here; for the watermelon/feta click here. It's guaranteed to please a crowd or just a grateful significant other. And you'll really impress if you serve the biscuits with your homemade red currant jam, as I did: We're eating well this summer, aren't we? Let me know if you give any of this a try.......
What To Do With Sugar Snap Peas
A mountain of sugar snap peas greeted visitors to the Union Square Farmer's Market on Friday. I was there because on Friday night I was hosting a screening of "Showgirls," a movie that Craig delights in as "sublimely disastrous." Browsing around the market, I was trying to piece together a meal concept and, aware that it was spring, I purchased two bunches of asparagus and then, at the pile of sugar snap peas, I went a little crazy and bought two pounds of them! And would you believe, all two pounds were gone and consumed by Friday night....
Food Tastes Better When It Has a Good Story
We ask many things of our food. We ask that our food is clearly identifiable (anything strange and murky immediately turns us off); we ask that our food is reasonably healthy--even if that means laying a redemptive tomato on a greasy, heart-crushing 5-pound burger. We ask that our food is prepared in a clean kitchen, we ask that our food is served hot, or at least reasonably warm. We ask that our food is tasty, that it is filling, that it has good value ($20 for two scallops does not a happy customer make). Mostly, we ask that our food fills that very primal need for gastronomical satisfaction. What we don't often ask is for our food to have a story. What did you have for lunch today? Where did you get it? Ok, you got it from the sandwich shop, or you made it yourself, but what went in it? And where did that come from? What's its story? The plate you see in the above photo has a fantastic story. If I told you it's just ribs and coleslaw, that might be enough for you--in fact, that'd be enough for most people. When I was growing up, a special treat was a trip to Bobby Rubino's (A Place for Ribs) where the ribs and coleslaw were plentiful (and relatively cheap) and anyone who asked, "Do these ribs have a story?" would be socked on the head. I'm sure the ribs at Bobby Rubino's have a story, it's just not a story you'd want to know. But the story of the plate above is a story that should make you happy. Let me tell it to you....
AGTV: Shop Like A Parisian
This week's episode of AGTV finds us at the Union Square Greenmarket where a very special guest teaches us how to shop like a Parisian. Actually, the episode sort of loses it's thread but you'll have fun spending time with us as we jaunt around the market. Thanks to our guest, our cameraman (who makes a surprise cameo), and our baby, adorable as always. Enjoy! Previous Episodes of AGTV: Episode One: Latte Art...
My Alice Waters Moment
After watching that Alice Waters video last week and reading the accompanying article, I was determined to recreate the meal she made for NYT author Kim Severson. I'm not sure I recreated it exactly--I added too much oil to my aioli so it broke a bit; and I used purple carrots just because they were fun. But this was a simple, delightful, and mostly healthy dinner. Although, come to think of it, I did fry the potatoes in oil: but c'mon, who prefers boiled potatoes to fried potatoes? And don't carrots and radishes cancel out fried potatoes? If you do the math, this did more good for me than bad....
