Something I learned recently is that for those of us who have been discouraged from making dried beans because of the ‘sort/rinse/rinse/rinse again and again and again and then cover with water overnight and boil up and drain and replace the water’ stuff, lentils are the one exception to that rule.

How to make lentils:
Open package and measure out what you want.
Rinse.
Put into a pot with water or some sort of broth to cover.
Bring to a boil and boil for about 15-30 minutes (big window I realize but it all depends on how ‘al dente’ you like your lentils. If you let them boil a long time, they turn basically into lentil mush, which is great for lentil soup or lentil stew but not for other things that you want to deal with. Also, lentils come in various colors – red, orange, green and brown. The red and orange ones you can usually find in Indian groceries or in the ethnic foods section of your grocery store.

Now, for our last foray into ‘dinner for one(or two)”, I thought I’d put us all into the position where again, we have something to eat tonight, plus things to work with this coming week. So, this morning, I took a bit of time to rinse a cup of lentils, throw them into a pan with a can of low salt beef broth (veggie and chicken broth works too – even water will work), brought the whole mess to a boil, covered it and let them cook for 20 minutes. Then I took them off the light and let them sit while frankly the DH, our son and I went apple picking.

When I got home, that cup of lentils was now 3 cups of cooked lentils which I put into a container and put into the fridge.

Now, I don’t know about you, but I really need something good and nutritious at lunch at work or by 3 p.m., I’m ready to start eating the carpeting or anything that is laying around at the office (which is usually something that given my druthers, I’d rather not eat..). I also want a salad at lunch because then I can make sure I get my veggies too, but I hate paying $7 for a salad. It just galls me no end. But making salads in the morning before I go to work is sort of a pain, so here is my Rx for me (and for you) which will get the fridge stocked with stuff that will enable me to throw together a good salad literally when I’m going out the door. Additionally, with these particular items in the fridge, you can throw together dinner as soon as you get home without a second (or even a third) thought.

So, to get ready for the week, you will need:
1-2 big onions
1-2 big sweet peppers
The aforementioned 1 cup of lentils, already cooked
A cucumber
A head of broccoli that’s about 6 inches across (if you want to go with a bag of frozen broccoli, that will work also).
A small box of whatever sort of pasta you like. It doesn’t matter if it is low-or no-gluten, what shape it is or whatever.

You’ll also need a big frying pan and a sauce pan, and some olive oil and 3-4 plastic containers with lids.

Step one:
Slice up the onions. Put a couple of tablespoons of olive oil into the frying pan and put on low. Put the onions into it and start cooking them, stirring and tossing.

Step two: While the onions are cooking, rinse the head of broccoli, trim off the bottom and chop it up. Put into a saucepan with about an inch of water and bring to a boil. Let boil for 5 minutes and then drain and put into a container and put into the fridge.

Step three: While the onions and broccoli are cooking, wash, core and slice up the sweet peppers, and peel and slice up the cucumber. Put the sliced up sweet peppers into a container and put the cucumbers into a container. Put those in to the fridge. By this time, the onions will be finished as well. Take the pan off the light, allow to cool and put the cooked onions into a container and put into the fridge.

Step four: Make up half the box of pasta according to the directions on the box. Drain, cool and put the pasta in a container in the fridge. As an added precaution against it all sticking together in the container, toss with a tablespoon of olive oil.

OK, so let’s review: In the fridge now, you have the following in containers:
Cooked lentils
Sliced up cucumbers
Sliced up sweet peppers
Cooked, chopped up broccoli
Cooked sliced onions
Cooked pasta

So, here are a couple of ways to combine these (and sometimes add a bit of other ingredients too) to make other meals this week. I’d advise the you use up the sliced up cucumbers and peppers asap.

Dish Number One: Lentil Salad
Combine in your lunch container the following:
½ cup of cooked lentils
Some sliced up cucumbers, sliced up sweet peppers, some of the cooked broccoli, some of the cooked onions and a ½ cup of the cooked pasta. Add whatever is your favorite salad dressing, put on the lid, shake it up, and you are ready to go. Grab an apple and lunch is ready (and by the way, you don’t need to refrigerate this..).

Dish Number Two: Lentil Soup
You will need a can of some sort of broth – chicken, beef, or vegetarian will do.
Other ingredients: a carrot, diced finely.
Put a tablespoon of olive oil into a sauce pan and on low heat, cook up the carrot.
Add cooked onions, the lentils, and the can of broth and heat until boiling.
Add some of the cooked pasta and heat through.
Serve.

Dish Number Three: Veggie Taco
You will need a couple of tortillas for this and some grated cheddar cheese.
Take out of the fridge:
Cooked lentils
Cooked onions
Sliced cucumbers and sweet peppers

Combine these items on a tortilla, and add some grated cheddar cheese.
Yum.

As you can see, if you have some prepared items in the fridge, then you can combine them in different ways to make nutritious and fast meals.

But people have never been able to let well enough alone with apples. The grandfather of all apples is Malus domestica, from Western Asia. And people have been messing around with crosses and selections literally for thousands of years. The US FDA is growing that wild apple at its experimental stations to find disease resistance benefits to help beef up today’s cultivars. There are literally 7,500 different varieties of apples and they all have advantages over other apples. We don’t see most of them in stores for the obvious reasons that growers stick with what they can sell a lot of, some of which are really rather blah apples (I’m talking to you, Washington State Delicious which to my mind tastes and has the texture of papertowels). And some of which I don’t find useful at Chez Siberia at all.

Like the Macintosh apple. Now, this Canadian cultivar has a bunch of things going for it – hardiness, nice tart-sweet flavor, lots of juice. All of these make it a great sauce-making apple. But I don’t make sauce. We eat apples fresh and we bake them into stuff. When you bake Macs, they dissolve into apple flavored mush, which is great if what you want is sauce but blechy in pies or apple crisp. With all the sugar and juice, you also can’t dry them very well and they also do not keep well under household refrigeration. I also find the texture mealy. I want an apple with snap, crispy flesh, and that I can put to multiple uses.

Snap, crispy flesh and keeps super well? In terms of what I can get in Upstate New York, nothing can beat Northern Spys. This is a great baking apple, hard as a rock, crispy flesh, big (which if you are making pies is great because you aren’t faced with peeling and cutting up huge numbers of apples – Aunt Toby hates the cutting up part). Spys are all of these. But…. for out of hand eating? Eh. Nope. They need heat to bring out the sugars. So, a great baking apple but that’s it. So, I’m looking for an apple with better fresh eating qualities, but good for baking and drying and keeping.

The New York State Experimental Station in Geneva, NY, soon after its establishment in the 1880s, started work on improving Macintosh apples. They were looking to keep the taste and appearance qualities but to gain some improvement in terms of staying on the tree, and off the tree storage. The benefits they were looking for came with a cross between the Mac and an apple called the Ben Davis (which has since gone out of widespread commercial production and can only be found in a couple of places in California, I think). This particular cross gained them better keeping qualities, better texture and mouth feel, better integrity under heat, while maintaining the Mac’s attractive appearance and flavor ranges. This is the Cortland apple, which frankly is the apple we depend on here at Chez Siberia. Today, we went apple picking at an orchard near us and we had the opportunity to get Macs, Cortlands, Galas, and Honey Crisps. My son went off to pick his fill of Macs; the DH and I ran up the hill and picked what was probably a bushel of Cortland apples in less than 30 minutes.

Now, Honey Crisp apples are a really fine apple for eating out of the hand – they are also extremely juicy so for juice and cider production, they are great. But all that juice makes them poor keepers and would make drying them a high-energy investment. So, no honey crisps. Galas are a great fresh eating apple also and are supposed to be good for pies and sauces also, but I was not interested in picking those today. And of course at this point, readers will note my less-than-enthusiastic feelings about Macs.

So, what are we doing with all these apples today? Well, we first scrubbed and rinsed them well, and then my son and I set to work cutting them up and soaking them in a little lemon juice and water while the DH loaded up the dehydrator with them. The next bunch, we peeled, again soaked a little bit in juice and water and froze on cookie sheets to package up for baking this winter. My daughter actually goes one step further and turns hers into pre-made apple pie filling. I’d rather have more flexibility than this so we just freeze them. The rest will get eaten out of hand or I might even make some crisp tonight.

For an extensive chart of apple varieties and their best uses: Apple and Use Chart

photo: State Library of New South Wales via Flickr

At Chez Siberia, we LIVE ‘belt and suspenders’ because I hate it when I’m right – but I’m really upset when I’ve not taken the precautions. So, here’s Aunt Toby’s take on the nuclear situation in Japan right now.
Being a food person (and if you were standing behind me, you’d see evidence of it all the time — I not only stand on my nutrition principals, I sit on ‘em too), the first thing I thought about when I heard that the Japanese would be doing a release to lessen the pressure was – oh, shit – America’s fruit and veggie supply is based on the West Coast. At the moment, what they are talking about in the atmosphere is Cesium (if you live in the western half of the US, you might want to call up your physician or local health department (if the Republicans haven’t budgeted them out of existence) to discuss Potassium Iodide to block your thyroid from taking up the radioactive iodine, especially if you have infants, children, lactating moms or pregnancies in your midst.

But back to food. Make no mistake about this – radiation can be taken in not only through breathing it in but also ingesting it. Whatever is out in the fields when the winds in the atmosphere hit the West Coast will be contaminated and I think we should all take the position that given the state budgets and the people in power, no one out there is going to stand over the farmers and orchardists with firearms and cans of gasoline to make sure everything in the fields is destroyed so that none of it gets into the food chain.(You’re especially screwed if you like broccoli)

Sort of tough for people who buy their fresh fruits and veggies at the grocery store:”California produces more than half the nation’s fresh fruits and is the leading producer of fresh vegetables…California plants more than 80% of the nation’s broccoli acreage. California also produces 75% of the nation’s spinach, 75% of the nation’s fresh tomatoes, and 95% of tomatoes used for processing….Apples, strawberries, grapes, oranges and peaches made up 69 percent of the value of US fresh market production. California is the leading producer of all these fruits except apples; Washington State accounts for half the nation’s supply.”
West Coast Green

Many people are making comparisons between what has happened already (and what might possibly happen) in Japan with the explosion and fire at Chermobyl. Hundreds of technicians and firefighters died within a couple of months of that event due to radiation sickness and massive increases in thyroid cancers has been one result; the health of people in the region is still monitored, 25 years later. What happened at Chernobyl

But from an agricultural and food aspect, what happened from Chernobyl?
“Twenty four years after the catastrophe, restriction orders remain in place in the production, transportation and consumption of food contaminated by Chernobyl fallout. In the UK, they remain in place on 369 farms covering 750 km² and 200,000 sheep. In parts of Sweden and Finland, restrictions are in place on stock animals, including reindeer, in natural and near-natural environments. “In certain regions of Germany, Austria, Italy, Sweden, Finland, Lithuania and Poland, wild game (including boar and deer), wild mushrooms, berries and carnivorous fish from lakes reach levels of several thousand Bq per kg of caesium-137″, while “in Germany, caesium-137 levels in wild boar muscle reached 40,000 Bq/kg. The average level is 6,800 Bq/kg, more than ten times the EU limit of 600 Bq/kg”, according to the TORCH 2006 report. The European Commission has stated that “The restrictions on certain foodstuffs from certain Member States must therefore continue to be maintained for many years to come”.[6]
As of 2009, sheep farmed in some areas of the UK are still subject to inspection which may lead to them being prohibited from entering the human food chain because of contamination arising from the accident:
“Some of this radioactivity, predominantly radiocaesium-137, was deposited on certain upland areas of the UK, where sheep-farming is the primary land-use. Due to the particular chemical and physical properties of the peaty soil types present in these upland areas, the radiocaesium is still able to pass easily from soil to grass and hence accumulate in sheep. A maximum limit of 1,000 becquerels per kilogramme (Bq/kg) of radiocaesium is applied to sheep meat affected by the accident to protect consumers. This limit was introduced in the UK in 1986, based on advice from the European Commission’s Article 31 group of experts. Under power provided under the Food and Environment Protection Act 1985 (FEPA), Emergency Orders have been used since 1986 to impose restrictions on the movement and sale of sheep exceeding the limit in certain parts of Cumbria, North Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland… When the Emergency Orders were introduced in 1986, the Restricted Areas were large, covering almost 9,000 farms, and over 4 million sheep. Since 1986, the areas covered by restrictions have dramatically decreased and now cover 369 farms, or part farms, and around 200,000 sheep. This represents a reduction of over 95% since 1986, with only limited areas of Cumbria, South Western Scotland and North Wales, covered by restrictions.[15] ”

Chernobyl: Plant and Animal Health

For several really detailed maps of radiation contamination around the world from Chernobyl, see Chernobyl radiation: where it went

One thing you will notice is that although the other sites cited here talk about contamination in the UK, this is NOT noted on these maps, which only goes to show you that you can have contamination which is not necessarily officially noted. So far, except for a highly suspect map coming out of a private firm in Australia, I have not seen any info on the potential radiation plume except at Accuweather.com where there is a very nice discussion about potential paths, standard high pressure domes in the Pacific and the amount of time it might take radioactive particles to cross the Pacific. Winds at Japan power plants

But again – back to food. At the moment, if I lived on the West Coast, I’d be buying up whatever canned goods I could and whatever fresh produce I could find and freezing it or home canning it as quickly as I could. What is on the shelves and out in the fields TODAY is fine. Two weeks from now will be another deal entirely. I have not seen any discussion yet about fruits and veggies grown in greenhouses or in high tunnels; keep your eyes out about that. Ditto on dairy produced in closed systems (which California is the king of, by the way – most cows in California do not see the light of day or green grass… ever). If you have infants at home on formulas, stock up now.

Remember: ingested radioactivity is actually more dangerous than the stuff on the skin that can be washed off. Here is some really good information from (doG help us) New Jersey for their farmers; it is very possible that your state agriculture and markets or emergency preparedness department will be sending out the same sort of information for your state’s farmers, so you might want to call or check out the government web sites in terms of what might or might not be available this spring and summer at your local farmers’ markets:

“How could radiation affect my crops?
Radioactive particles could cause external contamination of your plants. You may not be able to harvest some ripe fruits and vegetables. Fruit that doesn’t have to be picked right away can be saved. It can be picked after the contamination is gone. County agricultural agents will tell you if the crops are safe.

What growing vegetables would be safe to eat?
Vegetables that have leaves, pods, or fruit can be cleaned and eaten. Washing is the best way to clean them. The outer layers of green vegetables should be removed and thrown away.
Roots and tubers like potatoes and carrots don’t absorb much radiation. Underground crops can be eaten after normal cleaning or peeling.

Will the emergency affect my business?
A serious accident may affect your business for several weeks. As mentioned before, you may not be able to harvest ripe fruits or vegetables. If there are delays in milk pick-ups, you may have to throw away milk you can’t store. Another effect might be public reaction. People may not want to buy products from farms near the power plant. State officials will tell you how much contamination your farm experienced. They will also tell how to market your crops and dairy products.

How long could radiation affect my land?
Generally, several weeks. After that, most land could go back to its normal use. State and federal officials will check your land. They will tell you when it is safe.,..

Why is it so important to protect dairy animals?
One of the materials a nuclear accident could release is Iodine-131. If a person or animal eats food or drinks water with Iodine-131 it gets into the body. Cows with Iodine-131 produce contaminated milk. Humans can be harmed if they drink the milk or eat the dairy products. So, protecting your dairy animals is important. By protecting them, you keep the supply of dairy products pure. And you protect people from the harmful Iodine-131.

How can I protect my dairy animals? Products?
You should do these things to protect your dairy animals:
• Take the animals out of the pasture. Don’t let them graze.
• Keep them inside if possible.
• Feed them only stored food.
• Water them only from protected water supplies.
• Use protected self-feeders and automatic waterers if you have them.

What about other kinds of livestock?
Again, take care of your dairy animals first. Shelter them. Give them protected feed and water. Other livestock can be protected the same way. If you have extra shelter, feed and water, give it to them.

What about poultry?
Poultry can be given the same care as other animals. If they are outside, move them indoors. Give them protected feed and water.
Taking care of poultry may be less of a problem. They are usually raised indoors and given stored feed. This means they are already well protected. Also, poultry have more resistance to radiation.

FISH AND MARINE LIFE
Fish and other marine life raised in ponds may continue to be harvested unless appropriate State or local government officials have determined through laboratory analysis of samples that they are contaminated. Samples of water, fish and marine life from open bodies of freshwater and saltwater should also be analyzed to ensure that they are safe.

HONEY
Honey should be stored unused until the State has a chance to inspect it.
farmers and radiation contamination

As illustrated in the little video, it’s actually a lot easier to choose a cantaloupe when you’re out in the field with them because you can actually push on the stem end itself and if it comes off, the ‘lope’ is ripe. If it’s really easy, then it’s ‘dead ripe’ and when you open it up, you’ll be positively knocked over by the perfume: sweet, slightly musky (which is why cantaloupes are many times called ‘musk melons’) and definitely ‘cantalope’. The flesh will be soft. Given the selections we are usually offered in the grocery store, all of this might be so different from what you are used to experiencing (really firm orange flesh, a little fragrance, sweet, but not candy sweet like watermelons) that you might think that what you have is past it’s best.

Not so, Grasshopper. This is what melons are supposed to be; we’ve just gotten used to what is commercially grown, taken out of the field early (they travel better that way) and set out for sale. When you open one of those, there will be orange flesh, some green between the orange and the outside rind. It’s edible for sure (and sometimes, surprisingly so), but not at its best.

So, if you are not out in the field, how can you choose an melon and be sure that you are getting something even close to a good cantaloupe experience?

Well, first, go to your local farmers market (and make sure the people you are dealing with actually grow their own stuff; it’s discouraging the number of places refer to themselves as ‘farmers’ markets’ and what is being sold has been brought in by a distributor. If the melons have been grown by the farm stand, then you are as close to heaven on a plate as you can. At Chez Siberia, because of our location, we have the choice of cantaloupes grown here or just over the border in Pennsylvania, which has the advantage of one USDA climate zone on us and can put cantaloupes in our farmers markets several weeks before we can. Second, choose your melon; it’s really quite easy.

First — look at it. The ‘netting’ on it should be tan. Second pick it up and sniff at the stem end. Don’t try to estimate how far you can push it in at that end – it should give a little but not a lot. Second — give that spot where the stem went in a really good sniff – it should smell like cantaloupe, not like acetone or alcohol (if so, it’s more than ‘dead ripe’). This summer, because it has been so hot, we’ve been able to eat local melons for weeks and we’ve just started to harvest our ‘oh, what the heck; we’ll throw the seeds in the garden and give it a shot’ melons this week. Yesterday, we had to harvest three of them (they were at the ‘full slip’ stage on the stem ends; it would not help the melons to leave them in the garden any longer).

So, what to do with three cantaloupes? Well, you can put them in the fridge and they will keep for several days that way, but they won’t get any better – just colder. So, I cut the orange flesh into chunks, put it out on cookie sheets, froze it and put it into ziplock™ bags so that we can have the taste of summer this winter. We still have several melons out in the garden, so I’ll get my melon on my plate yet.

Yum.

Unlike their plant cousins, the apple, pears have a very very short window of wonderfulness. Which makes them actually very special but it also makes them darned hard to keep and is the reason why, if you look at the ingredients on ‘juice drinks’ and ‘cocktails’ on the shelf in your “groceria”, the first ingredient is going to be…pear juice.

If you’ve got a whole lotta pears that are going to get past their best before you can get them to the fresh eating market, you have to do something with them and turning them into juice is actually a terrific idea because when pears are at this point, they are SWEET and make a great juice base.

But I digress. Pears are coming into the markets right now. Do not pick on color. Pick up those babies and give them a big long ‘I’m drinking in all your phernomes right here’ sniff. If they smell like pears, even if they are still green, get them now. The flesh will be firm; they won’t be slimy, and you’ll be able to not only eat them out of hand but also do nifty stuff like bake with them. Our Elder Daughter bought a bushel of pears this week and brought us over half. The DH and I cut up a bunch and put them into the dehydrator, and another 1/3 went got sliced, put onto cookie sheets, into the freezer and then into plastic bags. The other 1/3 has been sitting in the fridge for people to eat, and I noticed this morning that..well, people were not eating them as quickly as they needed to be eaten. They were definitely starting to look like they were going to go into the ‘yellow’ stage over the weekend, when our son suggested “Pear Crisp”.

Pear Crisp? Well, anything you can make with apples, you can make with pears. And we’ve been known to throw the odd lonely pear into an apple crisp before. Even with this many pears, it would not fill out big baking pan (anything with ‘crisp’ at the end of it is fair game for breakfast in our house so making the BIG baking pan of it insures that everyone gets their fill of this.

So, here is our Crisp, With Pears:

Greased baking pan

Peel and chunk, slice, etc. pears (even if they are a little bit hard, this will work) into the pan

Dust with ½ tsp of powdered ginger

If the pan is not at least half full of fruit, peel and cut up whatever apples you have to fill it out. Good choices are Northern Spys, Empires, other firm, crunchy, cooking apples (Macs are not really good with this; they get mushy)

If you put apples in, sprinkle about 1 tsp of cinnamon on it. If the fruit is not particularly sweet (like if you use Spys), then add ¼ – 1/3 cup of sugar (depending on how sweet you like this sort of thing)

Set your oven to 375 degrees F

Crisp topping: Mix up in a separate bowl–
1 c. of flour (if you want to give it some oomph, add ¼ c. of wheat germ if you’ve got it)
1 c. of brown sugar
1 T. cinnamon
Cut up one stick of butter or margarine and using a pastry blender, combine until you get small crumbs.
Add 1 C of oatmeal (we like thick cut, but whatever you’ve got)
Sprinkle over the fruit and shake the pan a little bit to settle
Bake for 45 min until bubbly.

If you want to add some protein to this (besides drinking a glass of milk with it), you can add to the topping when you mix it:
½ cup of dried milk
1/3 cup of hemp protein powder
¼ cup of soy flour

Enjoy.

I was not the only winner. The lovely Jennifer (I’m not sure of her permission on names, so for the moment, she’s just Jenn) of New York City also won and to be truthful, this class was really for someone like her (kitchen filled with equipment she didn’t know how to use; fridge filled with take out containers) rather than me (though one of these days I will get a class on soups and pie crusts, two things that Aunt Toby avoids like the Plague because I am truly not very good with either one), but I’ll take any day trip down to New York that involves good food.

Jennifer and I converged on Jyl’s new digs (she just moved from her large loft apartment to a much smaller place). The kitchen area was pretty typical ‘New York City Apartment’ sized, which means that it was, in total, about 8 feet wide by about 4 feet deep, just enough room for an L of kitchen counter with cabinets, a fridge, sink and a four-burner stove. More than once during the afternoon, we had to do the ‘kitchen cha-cha’ with Jenn and I rhumba-ing between the stove and the sink, with Jyl giving running instructions and commentary from just outside in the open livingroom/dining area. But all in all, we left with our heads full of ideas, new-found confidence on Jennifer’s part in terms of working with knives, ground meat, and entertaining (both of us – for all Aunt Toby loves to cook – I am also the person who immediately embraced taking my kids and their friends to bowling for birthday parties. Having people in my house gives me ‘entertainment performance anxiety’).

I will get into more details in future posts, but here is what we learned and came away with:
Flavored Simple Syrups – which we used in what I’d call ‘personal soft drinks’ – we used already made coffee and a raspberry tea concentrate as the ‘water’ in the simple syrup. But, you can also use the flavored syrups as part of personal cocktails with vodka as well. I have to tell you that the coffee one, even with just seltzer, was absolutely fabulous – sophisticated, refreshing.

Hummus – which we have discussed before here. Jyl reminded us (and it’s a fabulous idea to remember), that hummus can be made out of any processed dried bean, so if you want to use black, navy, pinto, kidney, etc. instead of chick peas, then go for it!)

Pesto – which we substituted hulled sunflower seeds for the pine nuts since Jyl’s neighborhood store did not have them that day.

Bruschetta – Given what time of the year this is, I think this is something – because it is so easy – that anyone can whip up as a ‘before dinner appetizer’.

In the oven toasts – using day old Italian or French bread, sprinkles of extra virgin olive oil and freshly grated Romano cheese. These can be eaten by themselves, or used for the pesto or the Brusschetta or the hummus. Certainly a better tasting and healthier choice than a ‘bag-o-chips’.

From Scratch Meatballs and Spaghetti with Sauce. This is heaven on a plate and Jyl showed us a very nifty trick in terms of serving it so that you do not get that icky ‘ooo, look, the sauce is getting all watery and separating’ thing on the plate.

Strawberry ‘shortcakes’ with sweetened whipped cream. This is a definite ‘fast and easy/support your local bakery’ sort of dessert where all you do is wash and slice up the strawberries and ‘marinate’ them a little bit in lemon juice and a little sugar, whip up some heavy cream with a little bit of vanilla and sugar and serve over slices of the best pound cake you can find.

In addition, and this was definitely great for the anxious (ahem, ME) entertainer, we also did a very fast run through on table settings (yes, I WILL treat myself to some ‘charger plates’ – they really did seem to upgrade everything terrifically), more colorful napkins (or perhaps I’ll get some fabric and make my own – this has to be the easiest sewing project..but sewing up hems on 8, 10 or 12 squares might get into the ‘mindless’ at some point. Probably better to have this as a ‘want to sew but don’t want to do anything hard’ project). And we did some ‘deconstruction/recycling/re-imagining’ of a flower arrangement that had, as we say here at Chez Siberia, gotten a little ‘tired’.

Lessons learned:
Planning is everything. It really is worth taking the time a couple of days ahead if you are entertaining, to think through what you want to make, the order you need to have things (the simple syrups actually needed to be made first since it starts with boiling liquid and sugar and needs to be thoroughly chilled when you want to make the drinks just before dinner). Even planning down to the what plates or utensils you will need and digging them out (always one of my anxiety points since I tend to keep things that we don’t use often in boxes in the basement).

Simpler is better. I haven’t thought of serving spaghetti and meatballs as an entertainment option ever. But Jyl is right – it’s one of those dishes that a) everyone likes, no matter what their age and b) even if you can get it in a restaurant, everything has been made way in advance and has to be reheated. It usually never even hits the tick on ‘good’ range. Making the sauce and meatballs from scratch and getting fresh pasta raises this combo to the almost ambrosia stage. Better a dish people already come to the table liking and present them a version that they will close their eyes while chewing than a fancy dish you’ve never made before that they will poke around on the plate.

Put your time and best efforts with stuff you can and like to do. If you are not a baker, find a bakery that does a really really good job.

We made everything that day with the following tools. No other gadgets or little fiddly stuff necessary:
Cutting board and good sharp knives
One stock pot for the sauce
One large frying pan to brown the meatballs
Smaller pot for the simple syrup
Small electric hand mixer for the whipped cream
Food processor
Cookie sheet to make the toast
Bowls

That is it – all you need.

Take it away, Jyl Ferris!!

On the face of it, that sounds like something out of a ‘say wha?” sort of experience. Doesn’t every place have a farmers market? Someplace?

No. Actually, not. And it’s not like one of those Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland pictures from the 30s where all the kids get together and gosh-darn, come up with the idea of putting on a show to raise money (for, choose one, the school, the town hall, some poor kid who needs to go to the hospital). It’s one thing for a single producer to pull a truck off the side of the road, put up signs in both directions and set up a display of tomatoes and melons. It’s an entirely different thing to develop a farmers market. And even if all the ‘i’s” are dotted, the paperwork is all filed correctly, etc. etc., the farmer’s market might still not succeed.

Here are a few items that are really and truly necessary to have a farmers market (success is another deal):

– A group of producers who are already growing what the local customers would buy AND who are not already over-drawn on other farmers markets in the reasonably close area. If your community doesn’t have one and the neighboring counties DO, there’s a reason for that. It might be that no producers in your county have the time to commit to a farmers market. Or, they might not be in the ‘direct to the consumer’ part of agriculture. Or, they might all be growing commodity items like soybeans, wheat, feedstocks. Or, they might already be going to the other farmers markets and do not have a family member or friendly person who will come out to the farm, pick up the freshly picked produce or the eggs or the dressed chickens or whatever it is, first thing on market day. Nor go to the market location, set up the canopy and the tables and the ice chests or whatever. Nor stay there for the whole market, promote the products, sell, make change, take customer names and emails, and the thousand other things that the individual vendor must do in order to make sure the customers come back next week. Participating in a farmers market takes a lot of person hours. Hours that are taken away from ..oh yes, the farm. For many producers, having a farm stand right at the end of their drive looks like a far better deal. So, question one is: Are there actual farmers (not folks who will go to the wholesalers and buy up yesterday’s green peppers and try to pawn them off as home grown) who are not already committed to a farmers market AND are interested?

– What does the ‘area need’ look like now? How close is the closest farmers market and how often does it operate? Once a week? Twice a week? Is it reachable by public transport? Who is the customer base? If you feel your community needs a farmers market or another farmers market, you have to look at that. We already had several farmers markets in our county at various times of the week, including one that operates downtown two days a week. However, the biggest market at that time operated all the way out at the western end of the county and due to location, had basically no parking and a vendor waiting list that was several years long. So we had access issues and we had vendors who were being shut out. The local cooperative extension was able to make the case that the area could use another farmers market, in an area more accessible, with more parking, and with public transport, one day a week, in a county park. This is now the largest farmers market in the county.

– Do you have an agency or organization that is willing to sponsor a market? This is mostly for organizational and physical location issues. Our local city economic development agency sponsors the downtown markets – they made arrangements to get the street shut to traffic; the park one is sponsored by the county parks department, the county cooperative extension, with an assist from the county public transport, which schedules bus runs into the park, right by the market, on market day. The agency or organization will also need to help the vendors organize themselves into a market group, write bylaws, set fees, define roles and so on. If vendors want to sell processed foods, such as baked goods, jams, jellies, salsa, etc. etc., depending on your state’s Health Department or Agriculture Department rules, the sponsors need to work with those state and local departments in order to get vendors certified, inspected if need be and so on. Again, this is not a Mickey and Judy “Let’s put on a show”.

– Is there a location with visibility and access? Our downtown farmers market has been moved several times over the years and every time it changed location, they lost vendors and customers. They finally moved it in a permanent sort of way several years ago and did lot of promotion and activities on market day to attract people from the 6 square block area. They put the market right next to the court house, on a non-busy little street, which basically was within a two block walk of all the major downtown employers. So, they concentrated the customer base. The county park market has a number of benefits: It’s in an open parking lot that is seen directly from the interstate. There is an exit and entrance right off the interstate right there. There is signage outside the park and inside the park advertising the market and the market developers do a fair amount of ‘activities-based’ promotion to get families to come to the market (bike helmet checks and giveaways, car seat checks, free cookbooks, and so on). The vendors at the park market love that location.

– Is there someone who is willing to put in all the work, usually as a volunteer (unless the sponsoring organization makes it part of that person’s job), to organize the market, collect fees, pay bills, police the situation, act as the face of the market, be the interface between the market, the vendors and state and local agencies and organize and put into play promotional activities, PR and so on? This is a huge issue for markets because vendors want their money to go into activities which put money into their pockets. They really would rather not have to pay for a market manager. Only in large cities or where the market is a ‘destination’ situation where vendors can charge premium prices for their goods and produce, do you find paid market managers. Being a volunteer market manager is a labor of love and burn out is a huge issue. If the market is on weekends, the manager not only has to do work during the week on the market but also has to be there for the market as well. There is a lot of turnover in market managers.

So, let’s say you feel your community could use a farmers market? My best suggestion at that point is to approach your county cooperative extension and ask to speak to the agricultural economic development specialist to talk about it.

(photo of farmers market courtesy of Corey Templeton)

1) Through various policies and procedures that have come down from the USDA in the School Lunch Program, America’s schools have been put in the position of having to balance their budgets on the backs of the kids. They have cut staff, personnel, equipment, and the quality of the food. It takes people to cook real food. It actually takes people to just reheat or ‘nuke’ food – but it does take more people hours to prepare and cook real food from scratch. You might want to take a look at what the kids in your school district are actually eating at breakfast (if you have a breakfast program) and lunch. Don’t think that it’s only kids in places like West Virginia or Mississippi who are eating chicken nuggets and chocolate milk. Kids need good food to learn. The kids are worth it.

2) Families, whether through marketing or convenience or seeming lack of time, have been put in the same position in terms of serving up processed, pre-prepared foods to their families. Aunt Toby and the DH did this, too – though basically in what we considered a good cause: we used to serve the Little Siberians frozen fish patties to get them into the thing of eating fish. Later, we got them oriented to eating plain, fresh fish. But I do wish we had not resorted to the breaded fish patties. It really does not take any more time to cook fresh fish or shrimp or scallops than it does to bake a breaded fish patty. (end of self-beating up rant)

3) Kids learn from their parents – whatever you cook and eat, they will eat also. If you eat vegetables, they will eat vegetables; if you don’t eat veggies, then don’t try to make them eat them. They’ve already learned the lesson from you that vegetables are not something they should eat. If you teach them to cook those things, they will cook and teach their kids to cook. One of Jamie Oliver’s points in the series so far is that we now have people who are parenting, whose only cooking skills consist of warming things up in a toaster oven and using a microwave oven to zap something in a package. Even if you want to do some ‘from scratch’ cooking, if you don’t have any kitchen skills, there is this ‘I’m going to ruin this” fear – and that makes it difficult to change. Oliver established a cooking school in Huntington, WV to teach everyone – parents, adults, kids, teens – how to cook. So, do a good deed: If you have kids or grandkids, teach them to cook some basic dishes. If you don’t, offer to teach kids from your ‘house of worship’ or other community groups. Volunteer to do cooking with your local county 4-H (the Cooperative Extensions usually have a big kitchen in their building).

And here is a bit of Aunt Toby:
Every kid, even as young as probably 4 or 5 years old, can be brought into the kitchen and allowed to help. Not necessarily chop or fry or get into trouble with the stove, but do actual preparation, such as:

Little Folks:
Washing their hands before they start
Washing vegetables
Helping to knead dough for bread or pizza
Spreading cut up veggies on a pizza before it goes into the oven
Setting the table

8-11 Years – here is where you can have them do more because they are more in control of themselves, but still you must monitor them and be right there:
Learning about the oven and the controls
Cooking eggs
Easy prep things that don’t involve knives, such as grating cheese
Making pizza from scratch, including kneading the dough, raising it, spreading it out on a pan, putting on sauce and toppings and putting it in the oven.
Making a salad
Making meatloaf and hamburgers
How to cook vegetables properly

12 years and up – here is where you can now give them the opportunity, with help, monitoring and guidance, with doing things such as frying, boiling, baking, using appliances such as processors and mixers, and chopping and slicing foods.

My earliest cooking memories were with my father, teaching me to make scrambled eggs when I was five years old, with me standing on the kitchen stool with a big kitchen towel safety-pinned over my clothing. He taught me how to crack an egg into a bowl, how to mix them up with a fork and pour them into the pan. He also was a real stickler for the eggs not being too dry. He also taught me how to make what he thought of as a proper hamburger, in an old heavy aluminum skillet we had, the bottom of which he covered in a layer of salt. I loved cooking with my father and the DH and I have tried to instill a love of cooking and good food with all of the Little Siberians, who are all not very little any longer.

There are things that I could not pass onto my kids as skills. I don’t know anything about electronics, for example. Or computer programming. Or plumbing repair, or putting down cement. I know very little about carpentry or welding. But I taught my kids to cook so that they could feed themselves and their families later on.

Bring the kids back into the kitchen.

When I saw that ketchup, I knew that it was time to stock up. Passover is not for another month, but I can tell you that the more unique items (the baking mixes, the salad dressings, the breakfast cereals and the ketchup) tend to disappear quickly. So, if you don’t see any of those items on the display, find the department manager and ask if the store will be getting any more shipments in before Passover. You might even ask the manager whether or not you can order case lots of items for personal purchase.

Not that I am advocating running around to all the stores in your area and buying up all the Passover items, but stores will order more if they think they can sell more. If you don’t see a well stocked Passover display in your area, you might wish to contact your local Jewish community and ask whether they are doing co-op buying for Passover – but do it quickly. Passover is one of those holidays in the religious calendar that is very important and Jewish families will have been planning for this for several weeks at this point.

If nothing else, tuck this fact in the back of your head: There is one time of the year when, if your supermarket has a well-stocked display, you will be able to find products that do not contain grains, corn, or corn sweeteners. And that is the month before Passover.

Eat in good health.

The first Thanksgiving was NOT like that. The socalled Pilgrims had arrived in November the year before and at least half of them died of starvation and disease by the next November, when a ship arrived with more Pilgrims and, Halleluiah!, provisions. They had food. They might make it through the winter! Now THERE was something to celebrate. The local natives supposedly provided five deer, which meant that the traditional food for the holiday should have been venison, except for the probable lobbying efforts of the folks from Land o’ Lakes or something like that.

So, seeing as how we’ve been eating non-traditional foods for what actually was a celebration for NOT starving to death, I’m going to suggest the following for this Thanksgiving: Think small. Think dainty, even.

Turkey: If you’ve just got to have ‘the bird’, get the guy behind the counter at your local store to put that baby through the bandsaw, right up the middle (leaving you with one leg, one wing, etc.) and wrap up each piece separately. Unless you are feeding the Mongolian hoards, half of one of those big birds is going to provide you with enough meat for 6-10 people, trust me. A couple of slices of turkey provides anyone (even a starving Pilgrim) with enough fats and protein to live another day or two. No one needs to go into tryptophan overload. What do you do with the other half? Ah…put that in the freezer. You will probably have left-overs for the weekend anyway. Now you have another half a turkey to cook for another time instead of 10 pounds of already cooked turkey that you will need to find things to do with..quickly.

Twist on the Turkey: Pre-heat the oven to 400 degrees F. While it is heating up, put the half a bird bone side up in the bottom of a large roasting pan. Put together your own favorite bbq sauce and paint the bone side and put in the oven. When the preheat “I’m done!” ding goes off, flip the bird skin side up, paint that with the bbq sauce and lower the heat to 350 degrees F and finish off the turkey until a meat thermometer stuck into the leg and breast reads 165 degrees. Baste with more bbq sauce as you go as well as the juices from the bird. Yum.

Veggies. What would we do for Thanksgiving without veggies? Actually, looking back on the First Thanksgiving, what they had probably was some version of squash, since that is what the natives grew in the area, plus soaked dried beans and soaked dried corn – succotash. Now, cooked up winter squashes and succotash would fill anyone up – I’d suggest choosing one or the other and serving whatever greens you can lay your hands on, whether it is a green salad, broccoli, chard, cabbage, kale, whatever. If you can still get locally grown greens, so much the better, but even in the Northeast, we can get cabbage family to eat at this point that is locally grown.
Twist on the Veggies: Please, please, please don’t put butter in the veggies. No one loves mashed potatoes more than I do but if you want to do something wild and crazy with mashed potatoes, sauté up a couple of cloves of garlic in olive oil, smash them up with the oil and then put all of that into the potatoes. For green veggies, just lightly steam – no “boiled up until they are grey”, please. Make the cooked green veggies the last item just before you put things on the table. If you want to dress them up a little, squeeze a little lemon or lime juice on ‘em.

Cranberry Sauce: I don’t care if you are a whole-berry fan or a Jellied fan but cranberry sauce is, in my opinion, one of the truly great inventions. However, canned is full of things like high fructose corn syrup, so here is what we do at Chez Siberia:

Twist on the Cranberries: One bag of whole cranberries, the same size bag of frozen blueberries, 1 cup of water. Put all three in a pan and simmer until the cranberries pop. Smoosh everything down. Taste. Put in ¼ cup of sugar, simmer and taste again. This should be sweet enough but if not, add another ¼ cup of sugar. This should be all you need and you’ve now saved a lot of sugar. The blueberries will gel up the sauce nicely; it’s a different color and has a nice perky taste. Oh, and did I say you saved at least half the sugar?

Dessert. I love dessert. There is not one dessert of any sort that Aunt Toby has not found her name written on it with an engraved invitation attached to it. But I ask you…how many times have you really gotten a dessert that people really went ga-ga for at Thanksgiving? Trying to figure out what people are going to like is why we end up with three different types of pie and one gets mostly eaten…one gets half eaten…and the mince gets one piece taken out of it and you’re stuck with the rest for the weekend. Do a plate of cookies. BUY mixed Italian cookies if you’re stuck for time. People LIKE cookies. Pie is like potato salad. People SAY they like potato salad but even if you used one big potato to make the salad with..you’d end up with left over potato salad. People will eat cookies. Even weird cookies that they have never seen before. As long as you say it’s a cookie, they will eat it.

Here’s a weird cookie that people will eat and you can secretly feel good about because the ricotta adds some protein.

Ricotta Cookies
Basic recipe:
2 ½ cups of all-purpose flour
1 tsp of baking powder
1 stick of unsalted butter
1 cup of sugar
2 large eggs
2 cups of whole milk ricotta

Liquid. If you want lemon cookies use this:
1/8 cup of lemon juice
2 tsps of dried lemon zest

If you want the cookies to taste like something else, you can use one of the following:
1/8 cup of strong coffee; or
1/8 cup of orange juice concentrate; or
1 tsp of almond extract plus 1/8 cup of milk

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Line a couple of baking sheets with parchment paper or waxed paper. Don’t grease the sheets and try to do the cookies that way. Does..not..work.

Combine flour and baking powder in a bowl.
In the mixer bowl, beat up the butter until softened; add the sugar and beat until fluffy.
Add the eggs, the ricotta, the lemon juice and the zest and beat up.
Add the flour/baking powder mixture. It should have the consistency of the sort of cookies that you spoon out onto the cookie sheet.

With a table spoon, spoon out onto the cookie sheet. These cookies are more like ‘cakies’ – they do not spread much at all. They sort of rise. If you want them flatter, use a moistened spoon and press them down a little bit.

Bake for 15 minutes and when they are brown at the edges, take off the sheets and cook on a rack until they are cold.

Mix up glaze.
Basic glaze:
1 ½ cups of powdered sugar
1/8-1/4 cup of liquid.

If you used lemon juice or orange juice in the cookies, then use the same thing as the liquid in the glaze. If you used coffee, then melt up ½ cup of chocolate chips in the microwave with a couple of tablespoons of water and add that the sugar to make chocolate glaze and put that on top of the cookies.

When the cookies are cold, spoon about ½ tsp onto each cookie and gently spread on the cookie; allow them to harden for about 2 hours before serving.

Buon Appetito!!