Category Archives: Kitchen Fun

Ramps, Barley, & Beans

As the wheel of the year keeps turning us further into spring, it is already nearing time to say goodbye to ramps which are generally only around for harvesting for about 4-6 weeks each spring.
I think I made good use of them this year, but a recent recipe I came across seemed like a good one to squeeze in before the season officially ends.

Here are the ingredients from the original recipe:

  • 4 cups low-sodium chicken stock
  • 1/2 cup hulled barley, rinsed
  • 1/2 pound ramps, whites and greens separated and sliced
  • 1 stalk celery, thinly sliced
  • Coarse salt and ground black pepper

And here is what I used instead:

  • 2 cups vegetable broth and 2 cups whey (from my recent ricotta trial!)
  • 3/4 cups hulled barley, rinsed
  • 15 ramps, whites and greens separated and sliced
  • Salt & Black pepper
  • 15 Oz. kidney beans

I thought this recipe would be better with the addition of some protein (the beans), I excluded a vegetable that is not in season (the celery), and I was excited to try my whey as a stock in addition to some vegetable stock!  I also added some additional barley, but you might want to add even more if you give this recipe a go.

Directions:

  1. First add the broth, barley, and the ramp whites to a stock pot. Bring to a boil and simmer 45 minutes.
  2. After the simmering, add the greens and take half of the mixture and puree it in a blender to make it creamier.
  3. Return the mix back to the pot, add the beans, and cook until everything is warmed.
  4. Done!

Ramp, barley, and beans soup

I’m not sure why my version doesn’t seem nearly as green & creamy as the photo used by the magazine.  Maybe this is because I didn’t use my good blender (too much clean-up to make soup!), or because I didn’t use enough ramp greens (some were yellowing as the season ends…), or maybe they were cheaters and used food coloring!

Either way, the meal was tasty & (mostly) local, but would have been better if I had found time to bake bread to go with it!  Next time…

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Ravioli from Scratch!

I won’t keep you waiting any longer.

I’m sure that you’ve spent a lot of your time wondering how I used the ricotta that I posted about last. Well, the suspense is over.

It went into homemade ravioli!

I just added 2 Tbs. of Italian seasoning, 2 whisked eggs, and a dash of nutmeg to the gigantic amount of ricotta I made.  It definitely made more than was necessary for a night’s worth of ravioli, but I now have plenty of ravioli frozen and ready to use for many dinners to come (all in an afternoon’s work).  I’d say if you used half of the ricotta recipe mentioned in the previous post (to make about 3/4 – 1 lb of ricotta), you would make a reasonable amount of ravioli (but you’ll probably still have some leftovers). That’s ok, it tastes awesome and the feeling of accomplishment that comes from seeing your own from-scratch ravioli is totally worth it!

In addition to 1/2 of the ricotta recipe, you’ll also need to make pasta dough. The ingredients include:

  • 3 cups all-purpose organic, unbleached flour
  • 2 large eggs
  • 3 Tbs. water to start
  • 1 Tbs. olive oil
  • 1/4 Tsp. salt

Mix the dry ingredients and form a well in the center in which to add the wet ingredients.  Begin to knead everything together.  It starts out pretty crumbly, but it gets easier to work with as you go along.  Feel free to add additional Tbs. of water at a time to help with the process. I ended up using a lot more than 3 Tbs. of water, but I found it helpful to go slowly with this so that I didn’t get the dough too wet and sticky.

When the dough becomes smooth, it’s ready to roll out with a rolling pin or put through a pasta machine. We were using a CucinaPro(TM) pasta maker. The dough goes through 8 different times and the width of the rollers keeps getting smaller so you end up with a very smooth, thin sheet of pasta.  It’s perfect for ravioli.

Sheets of pasta for ravioli making

When the dough has been pressed, you can add about a Tbs. of ricotta mixture for each ravioli.  We used a mold (see the bottom part of the mold in the picture above), but there are also devices that function like cookie cutters to help with making ravioli.

Fill the wells with cheese…

Cover with another layer of dough and roll over with a rolling pin..

Fresh pasta cooks very quickly.  We added some of the ravioli to a pot of boiling water and cooked for about 5 minutes until they were done.

Delicious!

Ravioli from scratch!

I can’t believe we made these completely from scratch!

And it was also a fun day of inter-generational cooking.  Grandma was able to share stories of how her family made pasta when she was young, and we all worked together to feed the dough through the pasta maker.  It made me think about the fact that we’ve traded irreplaceable family moments that come from home cooked meals for the convenience of pre-packaged food. The sense of accomplishment and pride that comes from home cooked meals is well worth the effort — these feelings just do not come from opening a can to cook or microwaving a meal!

Making ravioli

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Homemade Ricotta – It’s Easy!

It’s official. I made my own cheese.

It’s been on my to-do list for quite some time now, but other projects have continued to get in the way. Also, I have a reliable source of cheese each week at the farmers’ market that has made it easy to neglect this to-do item. But…he doesn’t sell cheeses like ricotta.

I also think it’s inherently valuable to learn these skills on our own — it helps to save money and to bring us closer to where our food comes from.  It also helps in my quest to eliminate disposable food packaging from my life (what a waste and a huge hog of landfill space!).  If you make your own ricotta, you don’t have to buy a plastic container of it!

Isn’t it amazing that in just a generation or two skills like this have been lost by so many people? There are a great number of us that no longer have words like curds and whey in our vocabulary yet continue to consume a lot of cheese (often from questionable sources!).

I intend to keep the skills of self-reliance and food intelligence alive!

Plus, it’s really easy!

All you need is milk + heat + an acid (vinegar or lemon juice) to make ricotta.  To get into the harder cheeses, you need to start involving rennet in the equation (that will be next in my cheese-making endeavors).

To make 1.5 – 2 pounds of ricotta (which it turns out is a lot of ricotta and you might want to start with half of this recipe), you need:

  • 1 gallon organic (preferably local!) whole milk
  • 1/2 cup of an acid (I used white vinegar; can also use lemon juice)

Combine the ingredients and heat the milk slowly on the stove, stirring periodically, and work the milk’s temperature up toward 180*-190*.  This should happen slowly — it might take anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour.

While you’re stirring, you might want to say an incantation such as, “Let there be curds!” and they will begin to appear! (Ok, you might not have to use magic, but it feels very magical when they begin to appear!)  When the curds begin to form, remove the mixture from the heat source.

Let the mixture cool down for 30 minutes and then strain the curds from the whey by lining a colander with cheesecloth or a tea towel and placing a bowl underneath.  The longer you let the whey drain out, the drier your cheese will be.  I actually put mine in the fridge and let it drain out overnight.

The next morning, I realized that so much whey had drained out that the bottom of the cheese was getting wet in a puddle of whey. I got a bit creative to let a little more whey drain out.

Draining whey

But I was left with some delicious ricotta!

Fresh ricotta cheese

And I’ve also learned that there are numerous uses for the whey, so I saved that as well.  It’s useful as a stock, to cook pastas, to sprout grains, and more! It’s full of healthy enzymes.

Whey

Stay tuned to learn what became of this ricotta…

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Laura Williams' Musings

Local Cooking: Making Friends with Kale

When you make the decision to start incorporating more local and seasonal foods into your diet, it can initially be overwhelming because not many of us are used to working with the foods that are found in seasonal abundance.  It forces us to get a bit more creative with our cooking.

So for example, with ramps being abundant right now I’ve made them into pesto, chopped them into salads, sauteed them as toppings, and yesterday I tried what I’ve gathered to be the “authentic” West Virginian way to eat ramps — with beans (and cornbread). And I still have a few more tricks up my sleeve before the ramps disappear! (Stay tuned…)

Ramps and beans (and mushrooms)!

Another popular item at farmers’ markets in the Spring is kale.  I suppose I had started to learn about kale before trying to be quite as much of a locavore as I am today, but it’s definitely not something that I grew up eating. And when you’re not used to eating greens like kale and collards, they can be intimidating. But greens like kale are good to incorporate because they’re so darn healthy!

I think I first started to actually like kale because of kale chips.  I believe they’re relatively palatable even to the novice kale eater, and yet they start to break you in to kale’s bitter charms.

There are many types of kale chips to make, but I think it’s best to smother kale in a delicious tahini sauce.

TAHINI KALE CHIPS

Kale Chips

Kale Chips

  • ~2 Bunches kale
  • 1/4 cup tahini,
  • 1/8 cup soy sauce (or Bragg’s liquid aminos)
  • 1/8 cup apple cider vinegar
  • some sprigs of parsley and oregano (and I added some purple dead nettle that was also growing nearby my parsley and oregano…why not?)
  • 2 cloves of garlic
  • 1-2 Tbs. nutritional yeast
  • dash of salt
  • enough water to mix well…probably 1/8 cup

Break the kale into bite-sized pieces and place into a large bowl (take out any of the thick stems).  Mix all of the other ingredients in a blender, and then pour the sauce over the chips and mix it in well.  Lay the coated chips out on dehydrator sheets or oven sheets.

Dehydrate at 115* for about 4 hours or until really crispy (some recipes call for up to 8 hours — I did this last batch for 6).  You can also use an oven at 200* for about an hour, but check it often.  I’m sure that some people have mastered the oven version of kale chips, but I haven’t had luck with that.

I realize that not all of these ingredients are local, but I think this is a good place to start experimenting with kale.  And you can try to get as many of these ingredients as locally sourced as possible.

However, I was also able to devise a more locally-sourced kale recipe this week…

FARRO WITH KALE, SHITAKE MUSHROOMS, AND CHEVRE

I found some star ingredients at the farmers’ market that I was inspired to combine into this dish.

  • 2 cups warm, cooked farro (but I made a lot more than this — freeze some for later!) To cook farro: boil the grain in a 2:1 ratio of water (lightly salted) to farro. Simmer covered for 25 to 35 minutes. Drain any unabsorbed liquid.
  • 1/2 cup carrots
  • 1/2 cup onions
  • 4 cloves garlic
  • enough butter to saute
  • 4-5 cups of kale
  • 2-3 cups of shitake mushrooms
  • 2 oz. chevre
  • salt/pepper to taste

Start by sauteing the carrots, onions, and garlic in the butter until they’re soft and the onions are translucent.  Add the mushrooms and cook for about 2 minutes.  Add the kale and watch for it to wilt a bit and turn a darker color of green — this means it’s getting close to ready, and you can add the 2 cups of warm, cooked farro.

Stir it up

Mix all of this together and then add the chevre.  Keep stirring this while the heat is low until the cheese is melted in and creamy.  Local and delicious!

Farro with shitake mushrooms, kale, and chevre.

Linked up on the Homestead Barn Hop.

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Ramp + Oregano Pesto. Mmm.

Wow. My brain’s pleasure neurons are still lighting up after discovering this one. Ramp + Oregano pesto, you have won over my heart and my mouth.

Ramp + Oregano Pesto Goodness

This week at the Tremont farmers’ market, one of my favorite farmers (from Por-Bar Farms) had a deal on ramps and oregano with the suggestion of making a pesto.  I hesitated for a moment as I’ve been collecting so many of my own ramps, but I haven’t gathered any for a few days so I went ahead and got the deal. I am happy that I did as this makes a fantastic pesto!!

I looked around at quite a few recipes today, but didn’t find anything quite perfect enough for me, so I took what I learned and developed my own.

To make something similar, you will need:

  • 15 ramps
  • a bunch of oregano (mine was about 1 packed cup)
  • 1/3 cup olive oil (and I added about a Tbs extra when blending)
  • 1/4 cup toasted nuts (I thought I had some local nuts in the cupboard, but I ended up using pine nuts)
  • 1/4 cup hard cheese (something like parmesan)

First, you’ll need to chop the ramps.

Chopped ramps

Then you’ll need to pull off the oregano leaves and tightly fill a cup.

Bunch of oregano.

1 Packed cup of Oregano.

Measure out a heaping 1/4 cup of nuts and toast them.  Pine nuts need to be toasted for about 5 minutes.

Heaping 1/4 cup of pine nuts.

Toasting pine nuts.

Add these ingredients plus the olive oil and cheese in a blender or food processor, and mix it all together!  But don’t go for too long because it’s best to still have some texture in the pesto.

Pesto!

And then you can use this anywhere you desire an intensely awesome pesto! I tossed some of mine in a bit of tri-color pasta. Mmm. Depending on how much pesto you use at a time, I’d say this makes about 5 or 6 servings.  It’s about 1 cup of finished pesto product (I have a lot leftover and even was able to freeze some).

Pesto Pasta

My only warning is that it is a bit strong.  You can’t really give me too much onion/garlic, but if you’re sensitive to that taste, you may want to skip this recipe, or leave out some of the white bulbs of the ramps and focus on the green parts.

Also, I have to share that my salads are becoming increasingly exciting as the Spring picks up!  This 100% local side salad included lettuce, radish, mushroom, carrot, and cheese (not yet grated for this picture) all gathered from the farmers’ market.  Perfection!

Spring salad.

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Roasted baby beets in quinoa with feta cheese!

I don’t know that I had ever even tried beets before getting serious about eating locally.  The weird canned ones on some salad bars didn’t exactly cry out, “eat me!”.

But, alas, they are often at the farmer’s market when other produce is lacking, and  I’m happy to have developed a relationship with beets because they are high in fiber, anti-inflammatory, and antioxidant.   I’ve come to enjoy them the more that I’ve played around with them, but I’ve never thought, “Wow, this is so delicious!” while eating them.  I’m happy to announce that this is no longer the case and I have crafted a winning recipe.

Roasted beets in quinoa with feta cheese!

The farmer’s market that I frequent most has been held biweekly through the winter.  This has been wonderful because it at least ensures that I am always buying eggs and cheese from people that I trust and who recognize me as a regular.  (This is not true for eggs and cheese sold at the grocery store!)  There has also been a fairly steady supply of root vegetables and some greens grown in hoop houses.  This past Tuesday, one of my farmer’s had baby beets that I purchased.

I also picked up some feta cheese from a local creamery.

A lot of recipes for beets involve feta cheese so I decided to use this relationship.  I also had made extra quinoa the night before and decided it should all be mixed together.  It worked splendidly.

I cut the tops off of the beets but left some of the stems, washed them, placed them in an oven-safe pan, and then drizzled them with olive oil + a touch of salt.

I put them into a 400 degree oven for 30 minutes and made sure they were done after the allotted time by poking them with a fork.  They were ready!

Next, I peeled off the beet skins using a towel so that I didn’t burn my fingers.

I cut some of the beets in half, tossed them into a bowl holding the (warmed) quinoa, and also mixed in some bits of feta cheese. Yum! The combination made the beets taste very sweet and it contrasted well with the feta cheese.  I’m sure the fact that these beets were fresh and recently harvested helped a lot, too!

Hooray for local, seasonal food!!

100% Local Red Skin Potato Recipe

During the summer, I try to eat at least 90% local when I’m cooking for myself. There’s no excuse not to with so many wonderful farmer’s markets around (and what I can grow myself!)! With limited time, I often put things together randomly, but I thought this particular dish turned out well! It’s simple, but wholesome.

I used:

-red skin potatoes (I used the little ones that had probably been sold to me in a pint carton)

-2 green onions

-1/2 sweet pepper

-fresh picked rosemary

-tablespoon or so of butter

-farmer’s market veggie cheese to top!

Mixing together..

1. Slice the potatoes and carrots and steam for ~10 minutes.

2. Meanwhile, go out to your garden (or fridge) and gather 2 green onions. Dice that (including some of the green leafy top) and the sweet pepper. My pepper was green- and yellow-colored.

3. Take the big tablespoon of butter and heat with some rosemary (I guess maybe a heaping Tbs.? Whatever you fancy!).  I did this in the pot at left to make step 4 easier. Add the onion and pepper and saute for ~3 minutes.

4. At this point, you can add the the potatoes and carrots. Mix well.

5. I love my farmer’s market cheese, so I grated some of that on top, but it’s not necessary!

6. Yum it up.

This was all that I ate for dinner that night, so this served one for me, but it could easily be for two if you had another little something to go with it.

Yum!