The sunshine of my life

I asked around about that sunshine winter squash I got in the CSA share a couple weeks ago, and the overwhelming recommendation was to roast it. Even in the recipes I was given, roasting the squash first was part of the directions. I decided to simply roast it this first go around, figuring it would give me the opportunity to get to know the flavor.


I cut it in half, then put in the oven at 400 degrees for an hour, in a shallow pan of water. Looking back, that seems like an obscenely high temperature. That's because I didn't read the directions completely. I had about five things going on in the kitchen, preserving some fruits and veggies (more on that later), and I just wasn't paying close enough attention to the recipe. Turns out, the 400 degrees instruction was for a roasted soup. I ended up with a side of roasted sunshine squash mash (I only added a bit of water, no Earth Balance, butter, etc.) - which was actually really tasty.

AC came in the house after a long day at school and several hours skateboarding, famished, and immediately pointed to the bowl on the counter, asking what it was. I told him to taste it and, in spite of me it seems (after what I said), he grabbed a fork, took a bite and announced that it was, "really good."

Another bite.

"This is better than really good, it's excellent!"

Another bite.

"It tastes like sweet potatoes!"

Ah, the power of the sweet potato... I had to hold him back from devouring the entire bowl, and so I busied him with making a veggie burger for himself while I scooped some onto his plate as a side. While he was eating, I decided to savor-up the squash a bit for myself. I added salt, pepper and sauteed leeks.


To balance out the sweetness of this side dish, I made a quick spicy marinade. Using an immersion blender, I mixed tamari, garlic (turned into a paste using a microplane), Jason's homemade hot sauce, liquid smoke and pureed tomatoes, and poured it onto slices of wild rice tempeh.

A couple hours later when I was ready to eat, I warmed up the sunshine squash in the microwave. In a frying pan, I steamed chopped leeks for few minutes, then added the tempeh (including marinade from the container) and cooked it at a high heat for bit. A little side salad of cherry tomatoes and lettuce splashed with Bragg aminos rounded out the plate.


Everything is local, minus the tamari, salt, pepper, liquid smoke, aminos and tempeh. The tempeh easily could have been local (Cricklewood Soyfoods makes fantastic tempeh in Mertztown), but with that whole fruit and veggie preservation thing I mentioned before, I'm on a mission to get the freezer cleaned out. I found some errant tempeh packages from my co-op in the depths.

As a winter squash, the sunshine has tons of vitamin A, is good for B6, potassium and fiber, and is alkaline - it's totally a keeper in this house. Actually, it's a keeper because it tastes like sweet potato :) I'm particularly excited about that point because it positively reinforced the ten-year-old monster when tasting new veggies. As much as I love my greens, this squash has done more for me than kale ever has!

Next up is a Kabocha (aka Bon Bon) squash. Same advice you think? Just roast it?

> Cross-posted at www.farmtophilly.com

OLS dinner 2007 08

One Local Summer 2007, Dinner Menu 08

• Homemade whole wheat flour tortilla tower (McGeary Organics/Annville Flouring Mill - 94 miles). Nonlocal ingredients used: baking soda, salt, canola oil.
• First layer is lettuce (Blooming Glen Farm CSA crop share - 5 miles) and marinated and baked tempeh (Cricklewood Soyfoods - 28 miles). Nonlocal ingredients used: tamari, liquid smoke.
• Second layer is sauteed yellow squash brought home from Rhode Island (Fisherman's farmers market - o miles), red pepper (Blooming Glen) and onion (Lancaster - 83 miles). Nonlocal ingredients used: olive oil, salt, cumin.
• Third layer is sauteed corn, green bell peppers (both from Blooming Glen) and onion (Lancaster). Nonlocal ingredients used: olive oil, salt, cumin.
• Topped with raw tomatoes (Blooming Glen and our garden - 0 miles).
  
• And drizzled with Jason's homemade hot sauce (peppers from Blooming Glen and our garden). Nonlocal ingredients used: vinegar, cumin.
• A chilled salad of raw lettuce, blanched string beans, raw onion (all from Blooming Glen) and raw tomatoes (from Blooming Glen and our garden).
• Watermelon (Blooming Glen).
• Whirlwind Witbier (Victory Brewing Company - 45 miles).
  

This was by far the most time-consuming, though absolutely the most delicious, OLS meal I've done. From the time I started mixing the batter for the tortillas until we sat down to eat, over four hours passed. Because we've been away, I had lots of random veggies both from RI and from the crop share to use up. It felt good to be in the kitchen after a couple weeks away from home, though I can't say I was thrilled to be spending such a large part of my Saturday cooking one meal.

I was trying to come up with a clever way to utilize the variety of produce when I started making the tortillas. This time, I borrowed my dad's pasta maker to roll them out. It worked beautifully, creating rectangular, uniform pieces of dough that I quickly realized would lend themselves wonderfully to a tortilla tower theme - perfect for incorporating my many vegetables!

While I diced and chopped and stir fried and rolled, Jase decided to try his hand at homemade hot sauce. I must say, it was super-nice hanging out and creating this week's meal together.


My next OLS meal will for sure be much lower maintenance. Cereal is sounding very good right about now :)

OLS dinner 2007 05

Barbecue!




















One Local Summer 2007, Dinner Menu 05

• Grilled Summer squash, zucchini and onion (all from our Blooming Glen FarmCSA crop share - 5 miles) marinated in dressing and chopped purple and green basil (Blooming Glen) with grilled tempeh (Cricklewood Soyfoods - 28 miles) smothered in barbecue sauce (DelVal College - 12 miles), on a bed of steamed-then-sauteed beet greens, Swiss chard (Blooming Glen) and garlic (bought at the Skippack Farmers' Market from Jack's Farm - 24 miles). Nonlocal ingredients used: olive oil, and Italian dressing*.
  
• Chilled salad of blanched string beans and orange and red tomatoes (Blooming Glen).
• Sliced peaches (bought at Plumsteadville Natural Foods from a farm in Solebury - 23 miles) and strawberries (Blooming Glen).
• Butt Monkey Chiller Chimp Ale (Lion Brewery - 84 miles)

*I'm one of those people that always ends up with the leftovers. You know how at the end of a party or a picnic, when things are getting put away, packed up and tossed, and there are always those two or three things that could stay or go? The, "If you don't want it, I'll just throw it away" things? Yeah. That's how I got an industrial-sized bottle of Italian dressing. What can I say? My maternal instincts kick into high gear when I see food being thrown away :)

Barbecue was a One Local Summer dinner that I had stashed away in the back of my mind since I signed up for the challenge. It's something that I knew I would do eventually, but wanted to save for a busy week. Coming down from the Fallingwater trip has pretty much depleted all of my energy this week, so barbecue it was.

Earlier in the week, I went to Plumsteadville Natural Foods to stock up on local tofu, and at the last minute asked if they carried seitan; specifically, my local Ray's Seitan. I was happy to learn that they did, and when I went to pull it out of the freezer, I saw a row of an unfamiliar tempeh. Knowing that the owners of the store have a special interest in small, regional manufacturers, my heart skipped a beat as I picked up the package. Could it be local? Hell yeah - it was!




















And this is a perfect example of the frustration I have been experiencing in finding local vegan protein sources. Since last year, I've been scouring the internet looking for "tofu in Pennsylvania," "quinoa in Pennsylvania," "Tempeh in Pennsylvania," "amaranth in Pennsylvania," etc., etc., etc., and coming up with nothing. I've spent the last 12 months thinking that southeatern PA is just a dead zone in the way of local vegetable-based protein. It turns out, I'm all wrong. They're out there, but why are they so hard to find? Why aren't these companies listed on the buylocalpa.org website? Better yet, besides Fresh Tofu, why don't Ray's and Crinklewood Soyfoods have a website?

I mean, really. I gotta get on this. I'm going to go write some letters :)