Collard Greens with Emmer and Parsley Pesto

This Sunday at the Fairmount Neighborhood Farmers Market you will find fresh eggs and pastured chicken, beef, pork, and lamb from Fair Valley Farm and Fog Hollow Farm, baked goods made with local whole grains from WildFlour Oven, fresh cut flower bouquets from Tiger Lily Art Company, and plenty of fresh produce from Camas Swale Farm, including collard greens and cabbage. 

For a fresh but hearty salad, I combined a tangle of sauted collard greens with cooked emmer dressed up with a lemony parsley pesto. This made a nice side for an end of September barbecue. 

  

Collard Greens with Emmer and Parsley Pesto

1 bunch collard greens
1 shallot, chopped
2 Tbsp olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
Rinse the collard greens and cut out the thick stem from each leaf. Cut the leaves into 1 inch wide strips. Heat a large skillet over medium heat, add the olive oil, and when hot, add the shallots. Saute until soft. Add the collard greens and a generous amount of salt and pepper, stir to coat in oil, and cook over medium low heat, stirring occasionally, for about 15 minutes until the leaves have soften.

1 bunch parsley
1/3 cup almonds
zest from one lemon
2 Tbsp olive oil
salt to taste
Lightly toast the almonds in a dry skillet on the stove top or in a oven or toaster oven. Combine all the ingredients in a food processor and blend into a coarse pesto. Taste and adjust seasonings.

1/2 cup emmer or other sturdy grain
Cook with 2 cups of water and a pinch of salt for about 25 minutes until al dente, tasting frequently. Drain through a fine mesh strainer.

Mix the pesto into the emmer to coat. Then in a pretty serving bowl, gently mix the emmer with the collard greens and serve.

Chili Topped Spaghetti Squash

This Sunday at the Fairmount Neighborhood Farmers Market you will find fresh eggs and pastured chicken, beef, pork, and lamb from Fair Valley Farm and Fog Hollow Farm, baked goods made with local whole grains from WildFlour Oven, and fresh cut flower bouquets from Tiger Lily Art Company.  Camas Swale Farm will have plenty of fresh fall produce including lots of sweet peppers and winter squash.

Spaghetti squash is a always fun member of the winter pantheon. It can be cooked in the oven or steamed in a pressure cooker, and then brushed with a fork to release its spaghetti like strands. 

With the arrival of the chilly fall weather, I had a hankering for chili, which turned out to be delicious dolloped onto a bed of squash strands with a dusting of cheddar cheese and a side of seared padron peppers.

Chili Topped Spaghetti Squash

1 spaghetti squash (baked in the oven or in an Instant Pot)
Cut off the stem, halve the squash and scoop out the seeds. Bake cut side up until soft for about an hour minutes in a 325 degree oven along with the chili, or steam in an Instant Pot pressure cooker for 6 minutes, followed by a quick release of pressure. Use a fork to release the squash spaghetti strands.

Chili (slow cooked in the oven or in an Instant Pot)
2 cups dried red beans, sorted, rinsed, and soaked for 8-10 hours
1 Tbsp bacon drippings or canola oil
1 onion, diced
1 sweet pepper, diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 pound ground beef
1 Tbsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp ground chipotle chilli
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp unsweetened chocolate
1 28 ounce can diced tomatoes
salt to taste

In a Dutch oven or the container of an Instant Pot set to saute on high, heat the bacon drippings or oil and then saute the onions until translucent. Add the diced peppers and keep cooking until they are soft and the onions have started to caramelize. Add the garlic and saute another minute. Add the beef and saute until cooked through. Add the spices and cook for a couple of minutes. Add the tomatoes and the soaked beans plus two cups of water, beer, or reserved bean broth from a pervious batch of cooked beans. Mix and cook in a 325 degree oven for about four hours, stirring occasionally, until the beans are soft, or cook in an Instant Pot on high pressure for 25 minutes, allowing the pressure to release naturally. Taste and add salt as needed. If the chili is too liquid, you can thicken it in the stovetop or by using the saute function of the Instant Pot.

To serve, make a bed of warm spaghetti squash and top with chili and a sprinkling of shredded cheddar cheese.

Wildflour Oven Bread at the Market

This Sunday at the Fairmount Neighborhood Farmers Market you will find fresh eggs and pastured chicken, beef, pork, and lamb from Fair Valley Farm and Fog Hollow Farm, fresh cut flower bouquets from Tiger Lily Art Company, and plenty of fresh produce from Camas Swale Farm including lots of sweet peppers and collard greens (both so delicious roasted on toast or in tacos).

Also this Sunday we're happy to have a new addition to the Market of WildFlour Oven offering wild fermented breads with local whole grains.

If you are a bread enthusiast and were sad to see our local Eugene City Bakery close a couple years ago, now your Sunday market shopping can be completed with some home made loaves from Wildflour Oven. Last week we enjoyed a Sunday dinner of lamb burgers with Fair Valley Farm ground lamb on Wildfour Oven's challah topped with harissa, accompanied by Camas Swale Farm grilled eggplants and sweet peppers and fresh cucumbers and cherry tomatoes topped with lemon crème fraîche sauce. For the week we had delicious sandwiches of grilled vegetables and feta cheese on Wildflour Oven's whole wheat loaf bread. A source of fresh baked bread is a welcome addition to the neighborhood.

Tomato Braised Celery

This Sunday at the Fairmount Neighborhood Farmers Market you will find fresh eggs and pastured chicken, beef, pork, and lamb from Fair Valley Farm and Fog Hollow Farm, fresh cut flower bouquets from Tiger Lily Art Company, and plenty of fresh produce from Camas Swale Farm including sweet corn, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, delicata squash, potatoes, leeks, and celery.

Celery is typically relegated to a supporting role in soups and stews, but apparently for Victorians it was a luxury ingredient displayed ostentatiously in special celery vases. For my beautiful Camas Swale celery bunch, I took inspiration from this tribute to long-cooked vegetables by Samit Nosrat in the New York Times, which reminded me of a Marcella Hazan recipe, deemed genius by food52. Hazan's recipe calls for pancetta to add some umami to the tomatoey braising liquid, but I opted for a few anchovy fillets because I love the flavors of celery and seafood.

If you, like me, happen to have momentarily succumb to the illusion that a kitchen appliance will solve all of your problems associated with anxieties about the impending school year, noxious smoke-filled air, and natural disasters related to climate change, and you recently invested in an Instant Pot, you could use it for this recipe. You could also cook this on the stove top. Either way, it is delicious and very soothing. 

Tomato Braised Celery

adapted from Marcella Hazan

1 bunch celery
2 large shallots, peeled and diced
1/4 cup olive oil
4 anchovy fillets in oil
15 ounce can of peeled and diced plum tomatoes, with their juice
red pepper flakes to taste
salt to tatse

1. Cut off the celery's leafy tops, saving the leaves for another use, and detach all the stalks from their base. Use a peeler to pare away most of the strings, and cut the stalks into pieces about 3 inches long (cutting on a diagonal looks nice). Alternately, if you plan on cooking long past tender (an hour or more), you can skip peeling the strings. 

2. Heat a saute pan over medium heat. Put in the oil and the anchovies and cook, breaking up the anchovies, until they dissolve into the oil. Add the red pepper flakes and stir, and then add the diced shallots. Cook until the shallots are cooked through and golden. 

3. Add the tomatoes with their juice, the celery, and salt, and toss thoroughly to coat well. Adjust heat to cook at a steady simmer, and put a cover on the pan. After 15 minutes check the celery, cooking it until it feels tender when prodded with a fork. The longer you cook them, the softer and sweeter they will become. If while the celery is cooking, the pan juices become insufficient, replenish with 2 to 3 tablespoons of water as needed. If on the contrary, when the celery is done, the pan juices are watery, uncover, raise the heat to high, and boil the juices away rapidly.

To make in an Instant Pot:
Perform step 2 using the Saute function. Press cancel, add the remaining ingredients for step 3, then cook with the pressure cooker function on low pressure for 15 minutes and allow the pressure to release naturally.

Seared Corn and Pepper Salad with Ahi Tuna

This Sunday at the Fairmount Neighborhood Farmers Market you will find fresh eggs and pastured chicken, beef, pork, and lamb from Fair Valley Farm and Fog Hollow Farm, as well as fresh cut flower bouquets from Tiger Lily Art Company. 

Camas Swale Farm will have plenty of summer produce including:
peppers and sweet corn (sear in a warm salad, below) 
celery (for these celery beef lettuce wraps)
leeks and tomatoes (try this leek and cherry tomato clafouti) 
delicata squash (make what my son calls "squash candy")

My husband and I got to celebrated our anniversary this year viewing the spectacular corona of the total solar eclipse. I even made some eclipse cookies for the event. A week later the stars aligned and we found ourselves kid-free with the chance to whip up a belated anniversary dinner. We seared ahi tuna, corn, and peppers, and served these with sauteed zucchini, cherry tomatoes, black lentils, and a lemon crème fraîche sauce. It was a lovely dinner and then the kids came rushing back into the house to remind us of a couple of the major accomplishments of our marriage. 

Seared Corn and Pepper Salad with Ahi Tuna

serves two

corn and pepper salad
1 ear corn
1 mildly hot pepper
salt to taste

Heat a griddle or large skillet over medium high heat until very hot. Shuck the corn. Place the corn and whole pepper on the skillet and sear. Rotate and sear on all sides until the corn and pepper are partially charred but still a bit crisp. Remove from heat and when cool enough to handle, seed the pepper and cut it into small pieces and cut the corn kernels from the cob. Combine and season with salt to taste. Serve warm.

ahi tuna
1/2 pound ahi tuna steak, cut into in inch wide strips
1 Tbsp olive oil
salt and pepper

Heat a skillet over medium high heat until very hot. Season the tuna with salt and pepper. Add the oil to the pan and when hot, add the ahi strips. Let sear for about 30 seconds per side, turning with tongs. Remove from heat when the interior looks more raw than you like because it will continue to cook. Serve with lemon crème fraîche sauce.

lemon creme fraiche sauce
2 Tbsp crème fraîche
zest of 1 small lemon
juice of 1 small lemon
1/2 tsp honey
2 Tbsp olive oil
salt to taste

Whisk together the crème fraîche, lemon, and honey. While continuing to whisk, add the olive oil slowly to emulsify. Taste and add salt, and more lemon or honey as needed.