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.

Pumpkin and Rio Zape Bean Soup

This Sunday at the Fairmount Neighborhood Farmers Market you can expect the following produce from SLO Farm, Sweetwater Farm, and Songbird Farm:

• apples: Liberty, Gala, Jonagold, and apples for processing available in bulk
• pears and Asian pears
• pie pumpkins and ornamental pumpkins
• tomatoes: heirlooms and cherries
• cucumbers, zucchini, eggplants, string beans
• peppers including bell peppers, poblano, and hot peppers 
• root vegetables including beets, turnips, and kohlrabi
• multiple varieties of potatoes
• kale, chard, lettuce, Italian parsley, cilantro 
• onions, leeks, garlic
• eggs, honey

As soon as we saw these lovely little pie pumpkins from SLO Farm at the market last Sunday, my kids started lobbying for pumpkin pie. All in due time, I thought (here's an excellent pecan praline version I like to make for Thanksgiving), but what I really wanted for a chilly October day was some soup. And what I really wanted in a pumpkin soup was something that had no resemblance to a pumpkin pie.

Also I still had some dried heirloom beans from last year's CSA from Lonesome Whistle Farm to use up before our next season starts. Inspired by a black bean and pumpkin soup from Smitten Kitchen, I combined these pretty purple rio zapes with a riot of autumn colors: our orange pumpkin, and red peppers and purple onions from Sweetwater Farm.

I started the soup with sauteed onion, peppers, and garlic, to which I added a rich spice palette of cumin, chipotle chili powder, and smoked paprika, and a chopped tomato.

While this base cooked down, my son and I attacked the pumpkin, me with a chef's knife and he with an ice cream scoop.

If you're deconstructing a pumpkin, you may as well use the goopy insides to make a quick stock, which can simmer while you carve off the skin and toast the seeds.

Then I quickly pureed the soup base into a paste in the bottom of my slow cooker, added in cubed pumpkin and beans, and left it to simmer on low for 6 hours. Once both pumpkin and beans were nice and soft, I fished out a few of the beans for texture, and pureed the rest. The final soup was rich and hearty with the natural sweetness of the pumpkin tempered by the toasted spices and beans, and it was enjoyed by even the most ardent pie proponents.

Pumpkin and Rio Zape Bean Soup

1 small pie pumpkin
2 cups (1 lb) rio zape beans (or substitute black turtle beans), sorted and rinsed
1 medium onion, chopped
1 small red pepper, diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 tomato diced (or substitute 2 Tbsp tomato paste)
2 Tbsp neutral oil such as grapeseed
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
2 tsp ground cumin
3/4 tsp smoked paprika
1/4 tsp chipotle chili powder
8 cups water
salt to taste
splash of dry sherry
sour cream for serving


1. With a large chef's knife, slice the pumpkin in half and use an ice cream scoop to remove the insides. Reserve the seeds for roasting and use the remaining pumpkin pulp to make a quick pumpkin stock. Combine the pulp with about a quarter of the chopped onion, 8 cups water, the red pepper flakes, and a generous amount of salt. Simmer for about half an hour. Then pass through a strainer to collect all of the solids. You should have about 7 cups of stock. Taste and adjust seasonings.


2. While the stock simmers, cut of the skin of the pumpkin and cut the flesh into 1 1/2 inch cubes. If you like, toss the pumpkin seeds in olive oil, some coarse sea salt, and (if there are no objections from the peanut gallery) some smoked paprika, and roast in a 350 oven or a toaster oven for about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally (watch that they don't burn).


3. Heat a skillet or the base of a slow cooker if yours can go on the stove top. Add the oil and saute the remaining chopped onions until glassy. Add the diced pepper and saute for another couple of minutes. Add the garlic and saute for a minute. Then add the spices and allow to toast in the oil for a couple of minutes. Add the tomato, reduce to a simmer, and cook for about ten minutes, stirring occasionally, until you have a fragrant, thick sauce. 


4. At this point, your stock should be ready. Add a cup of stock to the spice base and transfer this mixture to the base of a slow cooker. If you want to ensure a smooth soup later on, you can use an immersion blender at this point to puree the mixture into a smooth paste. Now add the pumpkin cubes, the dried beans, and the remaining stock. Cook on low for about 6 hours until the pumpkin and beans are both soft. Alternatively you could cook this from the start in a Dutch oven on the stovetop over very low heat, which will require less time but more supervision and a little more liquid.


5. Once the beans and pumpkin are soft, you can finish the soup. If you would like to preserve some whole beans, fish out about 1/2 cup of them with a slotted spoon. Then puree the pumpkin and beans with an immersion blender. Taste and adjust the seasoning, add back the reserved beans and add a little water if the soup seems too thick. To brighten the flavor, add a splash of dry sherry as you rewarm the soup after pureeing it. Serve the soup with a dollop of sour cream, and, if they haven't already been nibbled away, a garnish of roasted pumpkin seeds.




Other recipes for heirloom beans

Coffee Braised Lamb Shanks and Arikara beans

Green Flageolet Bean and Tuna Salad

Creamy green flageolet beans

Dutch bullet bean soup with Indian spices

Arikara beans with tomatillo pork

Ireland Creek Annie Baked Beans

Flageolet bean salad with fennel, orange, and tapenade

Arikara beans with roasted fennel and peppers

Jacob's Cattle bean and ham stew

Calypso beans with ginger and black mustard seeds

Ireland Creek Annie bean bruschetta

Lemon and herb Dutch bullet beans

Minty green flageolet beans

Dutch bullet beans and roasted squash soup

Rio Zape beans with toasted chile sauce

Arikara bean gratin

Calypso bean and leek soup

Calypso Beans with Ginger and Black Mustard Seeds

These black and white calypso beans from Lonesome Whistle Farm are so striking that they inspired me to create an entire black and white meal, like the Ascott opening race scene from My Fair Lady. 

I've been reading more recipes for Indian bean dishes and noticed that many of them, rather than starting with aromatics sauteed in oil to create a broth for the beans, instead simmer the beans first and then finish them off with a tarka, or sizzling topping of oil, spices, and aromatics. For the calypso beans, I decided to simmer them in coconut milk, similar to these red lentils, and then finish them with a tarka of ginger and black mustard seeds.

In a slow cooker I combined the beans, some chopped white onion, minced garlic and ginger, ground cumin and coriander, coconut milk, and water. A traditional Indian dal would cook the beans until they are very soft, but for these calypsos I cooked them just until tender, which I noticed was just at the point when their black coloring lightened to brown.

Then I prepared a rich tarka of diced ginger and black mustard seeds sauteed in butter, and stirred this into the beans. To accompany them, I prepared some black and white rice (wild rice stirred into jasmine). And for a vegetable side, roasted cauliflower. The final meal wasn't as starkly black and white as George Cukor's sets, but the contrasting flavors and textures were delicious. The fragrant coconut milk and punch of ginger nicely complimented the potato flavor of the calypso beans without overpowering them, and these went well with the nutty rice and roasted cauliflower with caramelized onions.

Calypso Beans in Coconut Milk with Ginger and Black Mustard Seed Tarka

2 cups (1 lb) calypso beans, rinsed

1 white onion, chopped

1 inch ginger root, peeled and minced

5 cloves garlic, peeled and minced

2 tsp ground cumin

2 tsp ground coriander

1 14 oz. can coconut milk

2 1/2 cups water

salt to taste

for the tarka

1 Tbsp butter or vegetable oil

1 inch ginger root, peeled and finely diced

1 tsp black mustard seeds

1. In a slow cooker or stovetop pot, combine the beans, onion, ginger, garlic, spices, coconut milk and water and cook with low heat, stirring occasionally (if using a slow cooker, swish the pot around rather than open the lid) until the beans are soft and have just turned from black to brown. In my slow cooker, the beans were done after 3 hours on the low setting.

2. To prepare the tarka, heat the butter or oil and saute the ginger and mustard seeds over medium-low heat for at least five minutes until the mixture is fragrant. Stir into the beans and serve.

Other heirloom bean recipes:

Ireland Creek Annie Bean Bruschetta

Lemon and herb Dutch bullet beans

Minty green flageolet beans

Dutch bullet beans and roasted squash soup

Rio Zape beans with toasted chile sauce

Arikara bean gratin

Calypso bean and leek soup

Ireland Creek Annie Bean Bruschetta

These lovely light golden and beige Ireland Creek Annie beans from Lonesome Whistle Farm are an English heirloom variety grown since the 1930's on Ireland Creek Farm in British Columbia. Like the Dutch bullets, these make their own creamy sauce when cooked. I wanted to try making a bean spread for bruschetta, and these seemed like a good choice for a mellow, earthy flavor. 

I cooked 2 cups of beans in 4 cups of water for 3 hours on low in a slow cooker (no pre-soaking necessary, but I gave the pot some vigorous swirls during the cooking process to stir the beans without opening the lid) until they were soft and saucy. Then I salted them generously.

To flavor the bean spread, I roasted garlic cloves in a dry skillet until their skins were blackened in spots and the insides were soft and fragrant. In a food processor, I combined the peeled garlic with two cups of the cooked beans (reserving the rest for other uses) and a generous drizzle of olive oil and blended this into a smooth paste. As a contrast to this rich and pungent spread, I also made a romesco sauce to layer onto the bruschetta.

I roasted a red pepper over the burner until the skin was charred, and then let it steam in a covered bowl before scraping off the skin.

Meanwhile, I toasted almond slivers in a dry skillet until fragrant.

I combined these with smoked paprika and a drizzle of red wine vinegar in the food processor and blended until the almonds had just been pulverized but the sauce still had some texture.

The two spreads were perfectly contrasting: the beans smooth, earthy, rich and mellow, and the romesco brightly colored, with the crunch of the almonds, the sharpness of the vinegar, and the kick of the paprika.

I layered the bean spread, followed by a stripe of romesco, onto slices of baguette from Eugene City Bakery, let them heat for a minute in a hot skillet with a film of olive oil on the bottom, and then stuck this under the broiler for 5 minutes until the bread was crisp around the edges.


These were the perfect accompaniment for pumpkin soup with gruyere cheese. 

Ireland Creek Annie Bean Bruschetta with Romesco Sauce

Bean spread
2 cups cooked Ireland Creek Annie Beans (or substitute white kidney beans)
5-6 garlic cloves
~1/4 cup olive oil
salt to taste.


Romesco Sauce
1 red pepper
1/3 cup slivered almonds
1/2 tsp smoked paprika
1 Tbsp red wine vinegar
salt to taste


For the bruschetta
1 baguette, sliced on the diagonal
olive oil


1. To make the bean spread, roast the garlic cloves in a dry skillet until the skin is blackened in spots and the garlic is soft. Combine all of the ingredient in a food processor and blend until very smooth. Add salt to taste.


2. To make the romesco sauce, char the red pepper over an open flame or in the oven until the skin is blackened. Place in a bowl covered with a plate to steam off the skin. Toast the almond slivers and place in a food processor. Scrape off the charred skin from the pepper, remove stem and seeds and add to food processor. Add remaining ingredients and process into a course paste.


3. To make the bruschetta, preheat the broiler. Spread a thick layer of the bean spread on each baguette slice, followed by a strip of romesco sauce. Heat an oven-safe skillet and coat lightly with olive oil. Add the bruschetta to the pan and let sizzle for a minute, then put the pan under the broiler for about 5 minutes, until the edges of the baguette slices are toasted.


The bean spread, with a layer of romesco sauce on top if you wish, also makes nice dip for raw vegetables or toasted pita triangles.

Other heirloom bean recipes:

Lemon and herb Dutch bullet beans
Minty green flageolet beans
Dutch bullet beans and roasted squash soup
Rio Zape beans with toasted chile sauce
Arikara bean gratin
Calypso bean and leek soup

Lemon and Herb Dutch Bullet Beans

The Lonesome Whistle Farm's description of their Dutch bullet beans says they make their own cream sauce when cooked. In my previous preparation, I'd diluted them into soup, but I wondered if this sauciness could be used to make a bean version of a risotto. One of my favorite risotto recipes is a lemony and herb infused version from Patricia Well's Trattoria. I used this as the inspiration for these beans.

First I sauteed some chopped leeks in olive oil for a mild onion flavor.  

In my slow cooker I combined the leeks, 2 cups of Dutch bullet beans, 4 cups of chicken broth, red pepper flakes, the peel of a lemon, and several springs of rosemary and thyme. I let these cook for about 2 hours, until soft and creamy. To finish them off, I added the juice of the lemon. The beans had an assertive lemony, herb flavor and were delicious served with garlicy sauteed Italian kale and chicken sausages.

Lemon and Herb Dutch Bullet Bean "Risotto"

2 cups (1 lb) dutch bullet beans, or substitute small white kidney beans, rinsed

1 leek, white and light green part washed and shopped
2 Tbsp olive oil

1/4 tsp red pepper flakes

1 lemon

2 sprigs rosemary

4 springs thyme

4 cups chicken or vegetable broth

salt to taste


Sautee the chopped leeks and red pepper flakes in olive oil until soft. Add the stock, rinsed dried beans, herbs, and the peel of the lemon (in one strip if possible, for easier retrieval). Cook on high in a slow cooker until the beans are soft and have formed a cream sauce, about two hours. Add a little more liquid if it looks too dry, but you don't want the final dish to be too soupy. Finish by removing the lemon rind and herb stems, stirring in the juice from the lemon and salting to taste. Serve with grated parmesan cheese, if desired.


Other heirloom bean recipes:
Minty green flageolet beans
Dutch bullet beans and roasted squash soup

Rio Zape Beans with toasted chile sauce

Arikara bean gratin

Calypso bean and leek soup

New Year's Choucroute Garnie

The German side of my family adheres to the tradition of having sauerkraut on New Year's Day. Eating plenty of sauerkraut is supposed to bring wealth in the coming year, although another interpretation of this tradition holds that sauerkraut is a good antidote to over-drinking on New Year's Eve. In our household, in keeping with the Alsatian roots of the French side of my family, we make Choucroute Garnie, a version of sauerkraut prepared in Alsace-Lorraine with plenty of white wine and juniper berries and garnished with an assortment of meats. This year I tried making the choucroute in a slow cooker, which worked very well.

In Strasbourg one might start the dish with succulent duck fat, but I started it with some thick slices of smoked bacon, which I cooked in the stovetop compatible pan of my slow cooker (one could also use a large Dutch oven) until the fat was rendered and the pieces had started to brown. To this I added chopped onion and celery (the latter being somewhat heretical, but I thought it would add complexity), which I sauteed until glassy. Then I added four bags worth of sauerkraut, rinsed and drained, some dry white wine and chicken stock, and the spices: juniper berries, whole pepper corns, bay leaves, a scant pinch of caraway seeds, and a single clove.

On top of this I layered a bunch of parsley and fresh thyme sprigs, and left the pot to simmer on medium heat for about 5 hours.

About two hours before serving, I seared thick pork chops in butter, sprinkled with salt and pepper, and tucked these into the choucroute, along with some sliced carrots. I used another cup of white wine to deglaze the pan from the chops and added this to the pot as well. The addition of carrots is also somewhat heretical, but Julia Child's version includes them, and I think they add a nice note of sweetness, and some additional texture when not overcooked.

Finally, before serving the choucroute I cooked up some bratwurst, deglazed the pan with the last of the wine, and added these to the pot, along with some frankfurters. Choucroute garnie is the classic one pot meal and only needs some boiled potatoes as an accompaniment. This recipe makes plenty for a crowd, even one hungry for wealth.

Choucroute Garnie

serves 8-10

For the choucroute
4 lb sauerkraut (in bags)
6 thick slices of smoked bacon, chopped into 1 inch pieces
2 onions, chopped
4 stalks celery, trimmed and chopped (optional)
4 carrots, peeled and sliced (optional)
2 tsp juniper berries
4 bay leaves
1 tsp whole pepper corns
1/4 tsp caraway seeds
1 clove
several sprigs of parsley and thyme
1 bottle dry white wine, such as a pino gris
1 1/2 cups chicken stock


For the garnie
4 thick bone-in pork chops, seasoned with salt and pepper
4 bratwurst
4 frankfurters
1 Tbsp butter


1. Cook the bacon pieces until they start to brown and the fat is rendered. Add the onion and celery, if using, and saute these in the bacon fat until soft. Add the rinsed and drained sauerkraut, 2 1/2 cups of white wine, and 1 1/2 cups chicken stock. Mix in the spcies and layer on the bunch of parsley and thyme. Let simmer on medium heat in a slow cooker for about 5 hours, or cook in a low heat oven for about 2 hours.


2. About 2 hours before serving, discard the herb bundle and stir in the sliced carrots. Heat a skillet, add the butter and when it starts to brown, add the pork chops in batches. Cook a couple minutes per side until browned. Nestle the pork chops into the pot so that they are completely covered. Use a cup of wine to deglaze the pork chop pan and add this to the pot.


3. About 15 minutes before serving, heat the skillet and cook the bratwurst until browned and cooked through. Add these to the choucroute pot and use the last of the wine to deglaze the pan one more time. Tuck the frankfurters in the choucroute pot to warm them. Serve with boiled potatoes.

Rio Zape Beans with Toasted Chile Sauce

The different Lonesome Whistle Farm's heirloom beans we received in our CSA package are eye catching. My favorite is the rio zape: a beautiful purply red bean with black swirls. Apparently this variety was unearthed in the cliff dwellings of the Anasazi in the American Southwest. They are described as having a rich, chocolatey flavor. I decided to try preparing these with a mole sauce of toasted chiles and cumin. I was also inspired by a black bean recipe from Smitten Kitchen that claimed that using a slow cooker would allow you to prepare perfect beans without the bother of presoaking. I thought it was worth a try.

For the toasted chile sauce I used a combination (pictured from left to right above) of dark, mild anchos, reddish, slightly spicier guajillos, and dark, fruity negros. (A good source for dried chiles in Eugene is the Plaza Latina Supermarket.) For more flavors, I used cumin and fennel seeds, cocoa powder and cinnamon, and sun dried tomatoes and garlic.

To bring out the chiles' flavor, I toasted them in a dry cast iron skillet for a minute or so on each side until they puffed up and became fragrant. I also threw in some garlic cloves to let them develop a roasted flavor. Once the chiles were toasted, I removed their stems and seeds and immersed them in 2 cups of boiling water to soften them. I also added the sun dried tomatoes to this brew. Then I peeled the garlic cloves and put them in a blender. Next, I used the warm skillet to toast the cumin and fennel seeds until they started to brown and became fragrant. I added these to the blender, spooned in the soaked chiles and tomatoes, added the chocolate and cinnamon, and poured in 1 cup of the soaking liquid (using a tea strainer to remove stray seeds), and blended this into a rich, thick paste. 

The next step to developing a complex flavored sauce was to fry the paste in some neutral oil. I have a convenient slow cooker that you can use right on the stovetop and then transfer directly to the heating element. I cooked the chile paste for about five minutes, until the oil had incorporated into the paste, and the sauce developed an intense fragrance of cumin, chiles, cinnamon, and chocolate. Then I moved the pot to the slow cooker base. I used the remaining cup of chile soaking liquid to rinse out the last of the paste from the blender jar, stirred in one pound of rinsed rio zape beans and three more cups of water, and set the beans to cooking. 

After six hours (returning from a pleasant evening out), the beans were absolutely perfect: soft but intact, with a thick, rich sauce. They only needed a generous sprinkle of salt, which I'd left out during the cooking process to avoid toughening them. The rio zape beans tasted somewhat similar to pintos, which would be a reasonable substitute in this dish, but they had much more flavor and a wonderful plump, dense texture. They were delicious as a main dish with a dollop of sour cream and a sprinkle of chopped cilantro, and would also make a great side dish. 

Rio Zape Beans with Toasted Chile Sauce

1 pound rio zape beans (or substitute pinto or black beans)

5 dried chiles (for mild spiciness use 2 anchos and 3 negros, for a little more heat, substitute in some guajillos)

6 sun dried tomato halves

4-6 cloves garlic

1 tsp cumin seeds

1/2 tsp fennel seeds

1 tsp cocoa powder

1/2 tsp cinnamon

3 Tbsp neutral oil such as grape seed or canola

5 cups water, heated

salt to taste

1. Heat a skillet and toast the chiles about one minute on each side until they puff up and become fragrant. Also heat the garlic cloves until they start to blacken. Meanwhile remove the stems and seeds from the chiles and immerse them in 2 cups hot water, along with the sun dried tomatoes. When the garlic cloves are done, peel them and put them in a blender. Toast the cumin and fennel seeds in the skillet for about one minute and add these to the blender, along with the cinnamon and cocoa powder. Spoon in the softened chiles and tomatoes. Add one cup of the soaking liquid, strained. Blend until you have a smooth paste.

2. Heat oil in a stovetop slow cooker or other pan and add the paste. Cook, stirring for about 5 minutes until it has darkened in color and become very fragrant. Rinse the blender jar with the remaining soaking liquid and add to pan. If necessary, transfer to your slow cooker. Add the beans and 3 more cups of hot water. Cook on high for 4 to 6 hours (the cooking time will depend on the dryness of the beans and the slow cooker model). When the beans are soft, add salt to taste.


Here are some other recipes for heirloom beans: 
Arikara bean gratin 
Calypso bean and leek soup