Spring Salad with Creamy Lemon Fennel Dressing

Visit the Fairmount Neighborhood Farmers Market this Sunday from 10 am - 2 pm at the corner of Agate and 19th Ave for a wide selection of fresh produce from Camas Swale Farm and pastured meat and poultry from Fair Valley Farm and Fog Hollow Farm. 

Camas Swale has a eye popping selection of crunchy spring vegetables -- cucumbers, snap peas, fennel bulb, and turnips -- to layer on a bed of their purple tipped butterhead lettuce. For salad dressing, I usually make a miso vinaigrette, sometimes with tahini for more creaminess. But for an extra decadent treat I decided to whip up a creamy lemon and fennel frond dressing based on this recipe.

This creamy salad was the perfect accompaniment to Turkish stuffed flatbreads called pide, made with Fair Valley Farm ground lamb. And once people started drizzling the dressing on their plates, they found it also went well with roasted cauliflower, garlic scapes, and chickpeas, or just eaten with a spoon.

Creamy Lemon Fennel Dressing

adapted from CreamTea's food52 recipe

1 lemon
2 tablespoons crème fraîche or sour cream
Fine sea salt to taste
1/2 teaspoon mild honey
1-2 tablespoons minced fennel fronds
5 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

Grate the lemon with a zester and set zest aside. Halve lemon and juice one of the halves.

Whisk crème fraîche or sour cream, lemon juice, zest, salt, and honey together until smooth.

While whisking, add olive oil in a thin stream until blended.

Add fennel fronds and whisk again to incorporate. Taste and adjust seasoning (salt, lemon juice, honey) as needed.

Serve the dressing over a salad of crunchy spring vegetables and butterhead lettuce.

Springtime Spaghetti Carbonara

This Sunday at the Fairmount Neighborhood Farmers Market you can look forward to fresh produce from Sweetwater Farm and pasture-raised poultry from Fair Valley Farm including:

kohlrabi (delicious in salads)

fava beans and sugar snap peas (make carbonara)

pattypan squash and zucchini (try tsukemono pickles)

spring onions, fresh spring garlic, and garlic scapes (make some scallion pancakes)

kale, chard, collards, braising greens mix, lettuce, and salad mix (try this sauteed kale)

broccoli, Italian green cauliflower, and beets (make some bright pink beet pasta)
strawberries (try tapioca flamingos)

dried beans and grains from Camus Country Mill (pick up fixings for hot oatmeal)

jams, salsa, and pickles from Sweet Creek Foods

pastured chickens, as well as chicken hearts and livers (try this chicken liver pate)

Spaghetti carbonara was one of the dietary staples of my mother (before she was my mother) and her roommate (my future aunt) when living as impoverished students in a Paris garret. The recipe persisted in the family and it was one of the first dishes that both my cousins and my sister and I learned to make. It is appealingly simple: toss hot cooked spaghetti into raw eggs and grated cheese and the pasta strands become coated with a lovely creamy sauce. Then add bacon and possibly some alliums and vegetables. This dish is elevated from subsistence fare if you use top quality bacon (such as my parents sent my husband for his birthday) and increase the vegetables; during my childhood we often had it with onions, bell peppers, and zucchini. Last week I discovered that if you use the freshest spring snap peas and garlic scapes, the dish is transformed into something truly sublime and worthy of the finest dining establishment in Paris. 

Springtime Spaghetti Carbonara

1/2 lb bacon
3/4 lb snap peas
4 garlic scapes
2 eggs
1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese
plenty of freshly ground black pepper
1 lb spaghetti

1. Set a large pot of salted water to boil.

2. In a large serving bowl, combine the eggs, grated cheese and plenty of black pepper, and mix well.

3. Rinse the snap peas, snap off the stem ends and remove the threads from the top of the pods. Cut the pods along the diagonal into 1/2 inch pieces. Rinse the garlic scapes, trim off the flower ends and slice the stems into 1/4 inch pieces.

4. Cut the bacon strips into 1/2 inch pieces. When the water is close to a boil, start cooking the bacon pieces in a large skillet over medium heat until the fat is rendered and the bacon is crispy. Remove the bacon from the pan with a slotted spoon. Drain off all but 1 or 2 Tbsp of bacon fat, return the pan to the heat source, and toss in the garlic scapes. Cook, stirring for about about one minute, then add the snap peas. Cook for about two minutes, and then add back the bacon pieces to the pan. Cook the mixture for about one more minute until the peas have turned a more brilliant green but still have plenty of crunch. Remove from heat.

5. While the bacon is cooking, throw your spaghetti into the boiling water and cook according to the instructions. Position your colander in the sink and your serving bowl with the egg mixture close by. As soon as the spaghetti is ready, drain it and then quickly toss it into the serving bowl. Use tongs or large serving utensils to toss the hot spaghetti in the egg mixture until the eggs are completely cooked and coat the spaghetti strands. Now toss in the bacon and snap pea topping and toss again. Serve immediately with more grated parmesan cheese and fresh black pepper.

Market Start 2012

Today was the first day of the Fairmount Neighborhood Farmers Market, which will be held every Sunday through October on the corner of 19th and Agate from 10 to 2:30.

Here is a selection of our haul, fresh from SLO Farm and Sweetwater Farm. 

We enjoyed a delicious summer dinner of tomatillo pork tacos (with calypso beans from Lonesome Whistle Farm) and deconstructed salsa. And to top off a lovely day: ice cream sundaes with a cherry on the top.

Crunchy Rice Noodle Salad

Next Sunday, July 17, SLO Farm will have the following offerings at the Fairmount Neighborhood Farmers Market:


Cherries
Green Cabbage
Snap Peas
Bietola
Lettuce
Flat Leaf Parsley
Potatoes
Zucchini
Cucumbers
Fresh garlic
Eggs
Honey

Crunchy snap peas and cucumber are the perfect accompaniment to an Asian rice noodle salad. We had barbecued a flank steak over the weekend and the leftovers made a delicious second appearance seared in a sweet chile paste and layered on dressed rice noodles, in a loose adaptation of a recipe from Cooking Light magazine. Then we passed around vegetables, herbs, and peanuts, and everyone composed their salad as desired. I recommend a 1:1 ratio of greens to noodles.

Rice Noodle Salad with Seared Beef, Snap Peas, Cucumbers, and Herbs

Dressed noodles
8 ounces dried rice stick noodles
1/2 cup water 

3 Tbsp granulated sugar 

3 Tbsp rice vinegar 

2 Tbsps fresh lime juice 

1 1/2 Tbsp fish sauce 


3/4 tsp Sriracha hot chile sauce

3 garlic cloves, minced
1 inch fresh ginger, peeled and minced

Beef and toppings
3/4 lb flank steak
1 Tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp Sriracha hot chile sauce

1 tsp fish sauce
1 cucumber, peeled and cut into 1 1/2 inch match sticks
1/2 lb snap peas, stemmed

1 large handful basil leaves
1 bunch cilantro leaves
peanuts

1. Put the rice noodles in bowl and cover with boiling water. Let soften for about 20 minutes, drain, and set aside.

2. Prepare the dressing by combining all of the remaining ingredients in a small sauce pan. Heat until the sugar is dissolved. Pour over the softened rice noodles.

3. Prepare the flank steak. Sprinkle both sides with a pinch of salt. Mix the brown sugar, chile sauce, and fish sauce into a paste and reserve. Heat a skillet, such as cast iron over medium high heat. Sear the steak on one side for about 6 minutes, then flip and sear on the second side for about 4 minutes, until cooked to about medium. Remove to a cutting board, coat with the chile paste on both sides, let rest for 10 minutes. Slice thinly against the grain, top the dressed rice noodles with beef slices and drizzle over juices from the carving. You can also use left over flank steak. In this case, slice the cooked flank steak, coat the slices with the brown sugar and chile paste, and sear them quickly in a hot skillet.

4. Serve the noodles and seared beef. Garnish with heaps of cucumber sticks, snap peas, and fresh herbs, and sprinkle with peanuts. Serves three to four.

A Couple of Salads with Bietola Greens

The last couple of Sundays, SLO Farm  has offered these lovely greens called Bietola a Costa Fine. A delicacy of Tuscany, they are called a chard, although the plant actually belongs to the beet family. You could cook them like chard, for example in a tart, but they are also delicious raw. In fact, they are my new favorite salad green. They have the brightness and heartiness of spinach, but with a milder aftertaste. 

  

And they are much easier to deal with than a jumbled bunch of spinach. Simply wash them, shake them dry, and then stack the leaves and slices them into neat ribbons.

I first paired them with some of SLO Farm's delicious plump sugar snap peas

and tossed them in a lemony tahini dressing, as a vegan accompaniment to falafels. The next evening I swung the other direction with an carnivore-friendly salad of bietola leaves, apple slices, bacon bits, and scallions tamed in bacon drippings. Really you can't go wrong with these delicious greens.

Bietola Salad with Snap Peas and Lemony Tahini Dressing

1 bunch bietola

1 large handful sugar snap peas

A handful of chives or the green part of one scallion

1 lemon

1 tsp honey

1 Tbsp tahini paste

salt and pepper to taste

1. Rinse the bietola leaves. Lay flat and slice the leaves in ¼ inch strips perpendicular to the stem. Rinse and stem the sugar snap peas and chop into ½ inch pieces.

2. Prepare the dressing in a food processor or mini chopper. Combine zest and juice from the lemon with the remaining ingredients and process until smooth. Taste and adjust seasoning.

3. Toss the bietola leaves and snap peas in the dressing to coat. Serves 4 as a side salad or you could serve as 2 entrée salads topped with falafel balls.

Bietola Salad with Apples, Scallions, and Bacon

1 bunch bietola
1 crunchy apple
1 large or two normal sized scallions
2 slices of bacon
1 Tbsp sherry vinegar
1 Tbsp neutral oil such as grape seed
pepper


1. Rinse the bietola leaves. Lay flat and slice the leaves in ¼ inch strips perpendicular to the stem. Core and cut the apple into thin slices. Place in a salad bowl.


2. Whisk together the vinegar, oil, and pepper, pour over the bietola and apples and toss to coat. 


3. Cook the bacon until crisp and drain on a paper towel. Cut the white and pale green part of the scallions into thin disks and cook briefly in the bacon fat. Scoop the scallions onto the bietola and apples, along with a little of the bacon drippings (you made a very lean dressing). Crumble over the bacon. Toss and serve. Serves 4 as a side salad or you could serve as 2 entrée salads topped with a poached egg.

Wheatberries with Snap Peas and Magenta Spreen

Songbird Farm is a new addition to the Fairmount Neighborhood Farmers Market, selling fresh eggs, basil, salad greens, chard, plant starts, and propolis salve, made from beeswax.

This week they had these amazing colored salad greens, called magenta spreen, 

and SLO Farm had these plump, fresh snap peas.

I decided to combine these with wheatberries from Camas Country Mill. I'd never cooked wheatberries before, but they proved to be quite easy, if you just set them simmer about an hour and a half before you plan to eat. Because I love the combination of peas with ham and mint, I sauteed some cubed ham with sliced snap peas for a few minutes, then stirred in some sliced mint leaves and several scoops of cooked wheat berries, and finished it with a splash of sherry. For a vegetarian version, you could substitute shiitake mushrooms for the ham, or stir in some cubes of feta cheese at the end. The magenta spreen made a colorful garnish for this fresh and filling dish.

Wheatberries with Snap Peas and Ham

1 cup wheatberries
2 large handfuls of snap peas
1/3 cup ham cut into 1/4 inch cubes
1 Tbsp olive oil
8 mint leaves
splash of sherry
salt and pepper to taste
magenta spreen or other salad greens for garnish


1. To cook the wheatberries, combine one cup of grain with two cups of salted water and simmer, covered for one and a quarter hours. Taste for firmness and continue cooking until it reaches the desired consistency, maintaining a firm bite. If there's some water remaining, you can boil it off towards the end with the pot uncovered, or drain the cooked grains in a fine mesh colander.


2. Remove the stems from the snap peas and slice into thirds. Heat the olive oil in a pan, add the ham cubes and saute for a minute. Add the snap peas and saute for about 5 minutes until the snap peas turn more green but before they lose their crunch. Add one cup of cooked wheatberries, reserving the rest for another use. Stir to coat, then add a splash of sherry and let this boil off. Taste for seasoning and serve warm with a garnish of salad greens.