Pizza Season!

Summer means pizza around here.

There's no better way to carry all that goodness coming off the farm to your mouth than a good crust covered with cheese.

The latest creation took some of the arugula, now flowering, and thus, done for the season (sad face), and made it something to photograph.

Here is said flowering arugula. So pretty. But, again, so sad. (We are letting this bed flower, however, to hope to save the seed for next year. Jacob's been really into helping figure out how to create a more sustainable seed supply for both our farm and for our region.)

Aforementioned really something of a pizza.

This pizza was a bit of a mashup. I took this favorite salad recipe (the famous Prado Pressed Salad) as inspiration and combined it with an awesome pizza I had once at Missoula's Biga Pizza and just ran with it.

Here, again, is the dough recipe from Mark Bittman.

3 cups all-purpose or bread flour, plus more as needed (*Only, I use one cup all-purpose and two cups Prairie Heritage Farm whole Sonora wheat flour. Naturally.)
2 teaspoons instant yeast
2 teaspoons coarse kosher or sea salt, plus extra for sprinkling
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

I just put the dry ingredients in a food processor and pulse for a second or two. Then, add the olive oil and drizzle in about a cup (or a cup and a 1/2) of water until the mixture forms a ball. Take out the ball and knead it on a floured surface 10-15 times and then put it in an oiled bowl and cover and let it rise about 2 hours. Then, I divide it into two chunks, let it rise again for 10 minutes or so, roll it out, put it on a pizza peel (covered in cornmeal or, see note below about parchment) and top it.

Bake on a super hot pizza stone (preheated to 500 degrees) for 9-10 minutes.

On top of this pizza was:

-A drizzle of olive oil
-Sea salt
-Cracked pepper
-Rosemary (I prefer fresh, but went with dried this time)
-Sliced dried figs
-Sliced shallots
-A handful of walnuts
-Crumbled Cambozola cheese
-A sprinkling of Parmesan
-Fresh arugula piled on top after the baking

The second pizza was sausage, onion, our first picking of spinach and mozzarella.

Also quite lovely.

P.S. I recently started putting the rolled dough on parchment paper and then putting it on the pizza peel, rather than using cornmeal to get the pie to slide off into the oven. I haven't burned my arm since I started doing that and while I do miss the cornmeal crunch, my arms, and my nerves are much better for it. (One of the only times I slip and say the f word around the toddler is when I'm trying to get my perfectly created pizza to slide onto a pizza stone only to end up with a misshapen hunk of dough and cheese and spinach or something.)

P.P.S. These lovely things were grilled on the grill (so I did use cornmeal on the peel). We put our pizza stone (which is actually a few unglazed quarry tiles) on the grill and heated the sucker up. (Because as much as we love pizza in the summer, my body does not like the heat of a 500 degree oven in the middle of summer.)

The pizza took a little longer on the grill (like 10-12 minutes), but it gave it a super yummy crunch. And, I didn't pit out while making it either. Win, win.

And, I promise, this face isn't an indication of the goodness of the pizza. In fact, this pizza prompted a new phrase: "I like it!" which sounds a bit more like, "Awee LIE-EE-K! it." (Or, maybe that's "I don't like it." Hmmm.)

Of Canning and Combines

Dear Tomatoes, 


I know I waited for you all summer and I know I complained last season because you were so damn slow and I wanted you so badly and I know in January I do nothing but lament the fact that I have none of your T for my B and my L, but now, with chapped hands and the smell of simmering sauce still in my hair, I say to you: 

Good riddance.

-Courtney

This weekend, the forecast called for a hard freeze and that meant the pressure was on to finish up a few key tasks on the farm. Namely, tomatoes and tomatillos in the high tunnel and chickpeas in the field.

Let me tell you, Willa is a big fan of the tomatillos.

So, Saturday, Willa and I gleaned all we could from the already frozen-black vines in the tunnel and on Sunday, we spent the morning canning tomatoes and tomatillos.

After 8 hours (and a 4 a.m. wake up), this is what I had to show for my toiling and boiling.

As I've written about before, I'm more of a blanch-and-freeze kind of girl (although I've recently been turned on to dehydrating and I think I'm hooked). Every year, I vow not to can tomatoes. But, I somehow convince myself to try one more time. And again, I am reminded of why I'd rather not, thank you very much.

Tomatoes are why God created dehydrators. And the "canned vegetables" aisle at the grocery store.

After my morning, I needed sun and dirt and so I just barely made it to the farm in time for one last round with Jacob on the old Massey 510 -- the machine my grandmother bought in the 70s and the combine I rode around, and around, and around, in as a kid with my Dad.

Dad came out to help and waved at me, laughing, while I drove the combine into the yard. "Now, that's a sight," he said.

I really love the combine. There's something about the whir and the belts and threshing and the chaff and the motion. I just dig it.

So does this guy.

Isn't it funny, how a life you never imagined can turn out to be so perfect.

Quick and Dirty Update and Recipes Galore

Sorry folks. I've gone bloggy AWOL.

I can't quite give you a full-blown update on all the happenings right now, but here's the quick and dirty:

Take the regular mid-September craziness -- with the farm party last Saturday (cooking for 60 people, with no childcare, am I nuts?) and more produce coming off one small plot than one kitchen can handle, and then add that to the scramble of trying to get ahead of, then dealing with the aftermath of, the first frost (two frosts actually, Friday, Sept. 2 and Saturday, Sept. 3).

Add into that a sick baby, some health issues of my own, the temporary closure of an endeavor that is near and dear to my heart, and then, mix in a major rise! and fall in the saga of trying to find a "home" for this family and this farm.

We've been a little keyed up around here, to say the least.

But, it's starting to settle now and into a quiet, sunny autumn no less. These cool mornings and hot sunny afternoons make up some of my favorite memories and my favorite moments.

So we have that to counter balance all the stress and sadness we've been feeling. Thank God this is all happening now and not in, say January.

Soon, I'll break all of this down, but for now, that's the quick and dirty from a Life, Cultivated and to sweeten the deal, here are some recipes from our farm party. Made, of course, with all (main) ingredients (if only we could grow olives for olive oil and lemons for lemon juice -- drat) coming from our own little farm.

Bronze barley with cucumber dill dressing (By Mark Bittman)
Prairie Farro (our brand of Emmer) salad with basil and tomatoes and zucchini (This was a slight variation on the Bluebird Grain Farm recipe the link goes to.)
Black chickpea salsa (Substituting black chickpeas for the black beans, of course and in the party dish, I used half tomatillos and half tomatoes.)
Lentil hummus (only I added about a 1/2 Tablespoon of cumin)
Cabbage crunch
And, the heritage turkey

Tabouleh, Tabbuli, Tabbouli, Perfect When the Weather's Cool-y

Last night, Willa needed some snuggles in the middle of my pizza making, so Jacob stepped in to finish what I had started in the food processor.

"Can you take out the dough and knead it a little and then put it in a bowl with some olive oil -- a glass bowl?" I asked.

"How long do I knead it?" he asked.

"Oh, a few seconds."

"Give me literal," he said. "I need literal."

Exasperated. "OK, 10-15 times. Knead it 10 or 15 times."

Later, I looked it up (in Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything. Best pizza crust. Ever.) and what did the recipe say?  

A few seconds.

You can bet I rubbed that in.

Emmer. Jacob Cowgill photo.

How ridiculous it seems sometimes, taking two wholly different people, with drastically differing personalities, genders, upbringings, philosophies and cultures -- and asking them live in one house, raise children and generally move through life together -- and peacefully no less.

It's a particularly ludicrous notion in the kitchen.

I think it's safe to say it drives Jacob mad when I give him direction in the kitchen because no doubt, the direction is vague. Especially here, Jacob is a literalist. He follows directions, he measures, he counts, he watches. He's a researcher, a scientist, a man of precision.

I, on the other hand, am a little of this, a little of that, a try-it-then-taste-it kind of gal.

It's why Jacob is the baker and I am the cook. It's why he's known for his bread and I for my soups.

It's why I love to make soups and stews, gumbo, stir fries, dressings and salads -- start with a solid palette, then load up on whatever you have on hand, whatever strikes you, whatever the season is bringing into your house.

This method has its perks. Sometimes, it can mean total culinary genius. Other times though, it can mean a total flop. And since you don't really know what you quite did to create either, it's impossible to repeat the good stuff or avoid remaking the bad stuff.

I know I've made something really good if Jacob asks "Did you write it down?" and when I say "No," a wave of disappointment comes over him. He knows he'll never taste this goodness again.

Tabbuli -- a classic Middle Eastern wheat salad -- is one one of the dishes that lends itself to the genius/flop method and because of that, it's one of my favorites.

As mentioned in my last post, the garden is sort of light right now on production, the main reason being this:

But, the parsley and mint is doing quite well thank you very much (oh, and as you can see, so are the weeds), and that means it's Tabbuli season.

(Have I mentioned how amazing perennials can seem in a field of annual vegetables? When you clear away the snow in early April and find something green and sprouting, a person is liable to start to believe in miracles.)

Growing up, Tabbuli (or Tabouleh, or Tabbouli, depending on who your grandmother is) was on the table at just about every family gathering. You wouldn't know it by my transparent skin but my family is Lebanese (The rest of my family has gorgeous olive skin. The Irish genes were too strong in me, I guess.)

Each of my Aunties had a Lebanese dish they made for family gatherings, a dish that was theirs. Nancy's was Malfouf (stuffed cabbage leaves), Lucille's was Kibbeh and my grandma's is Tabbuli.

Virginia, a spicy dish herself, makes the best (and she pronounces it TAHbooli) and even now, I can see her long thin hands, always with the firey red fingernails, squeezing the burghul (cracked wheat) tight to make sure the salad doesn't get watery.

Lately though, I've been making Tabbuli with Emmer instead of the burghul (also called bulgar). Emmer is one of the ancient wheats we grow and offer as part of our Grain and Seed CSA (shameless plug: we're taking signups now and deliver across the state) and is by far, my favorite. I might be because I first discovered it (Jacob knew of it long before) in Italy on our honeymoon and one particular variety Jacob has worked on he calls "Honeymoon Emmer," or maybe it's because it was the first wheat we grew, the grain that seduced me back into grain farming to begin with. In any case, it's a long, hearty, fat grain and when boiled gets soft and chewy and makes for a great textured Tabbuli.

The best recipe I've found for the salad is from Madelain Farah's Lebanese Cuisine (the family cookbook), although as mentioned above, the recipe is really more of a guide than anything else. Tabbuli is like a great soup or a great dressing or a great wine. It can change so dramatically depending on the conditions: how much mint you want, how much parsley you have, if you add garlic, when you add garlic, what kind of olive oil you have, how fresh the lemons are, how long you cook the emmer, how tightly you squeeze the burghul ... or how the wind is blowing that particular day.

But, here's the basic Tabbuli recipe anyway:

Madelain calls this “Arabic Salad Supreme” and spells it Tabbuli.

¾ c burghul (crushed wheat #2)
2 large bunches parsley
1 cup chopped fresh mint
½ bunch green onions, finely chopped
1/8 t. cinnamon
2-3 t. salt
pepper to taste
1 small onion, finely chopped
1-2 large tomatoes, chopped
½ – 2/3 cup lemon juice (fresh preferably)
½ cup olive oil

Rinse the burghul, drain. Then squeeze the excess water out. Place the burghul in a large mixing bowl. Place the parsley, mint and green onions in layers on top of the burghul in the order given. Add the seasonings to the onions and mix thoroughly. Put onions on half of the top layer and tomatoes on the other half. Add lemon juice and toss the salad with a spoon and fork. Just before serving, add the oil and toss thoroughly. Serve with grape leaves or lettuce on the side. (Or Prairie Heritage Farm spinach!)

Note: This is typically eaten by hand. Use the grape leaves or lettuce to pick up the tabbuli in bite-sized serving.

If using Emmer or another whole grain, simmer for 45 minutes or so, drain and substitute in for the burghul. (A general rule for boiling is two cups of water per one cup of grain. Add more water if necessary while simmering.)

A Rustic Little Tart

Yes, I'm referring to an actual tart, like one with fruit in it and whatnot.

(Although, I admit, I wouldn't mind being referred to as a rustic little tart. I'd like to think I'm a little rustic and a little tarty. What a wonderful combination.)

My good friend just popped out an adorable baby girl this week and I know from personal experience that in this take-out-free town, a good meal from a friend is priceless. So, I took dinner over to the new family and for dessert was this lovely tart of a thing.

The new mama, who is a fantastic cook, is the one who first introduced me the rustic tart to begin with. This summer, she brought one to dinner at our place, all peaches and crispy, crunchy and hearty. I was in love.

Since then I've tried a few recipes (this one from Food & Wine and this one from America's Test Kitchen) and I've combined them to create the following recipe which, if I do say so myself, is pretty delicious, and impossibly simple.

Thistles and Shamrocks, Sesame and Kale

There are few things I enjoy more in this world than the combination of the following:

1. The Thistle and Shamrock on NPR
2. Cheap, but decent, wine
3. Time alone in the kitchen
4. Thai food
5. The sounds of my husband and daughter playing in the other room while I partake in all of the above.

The kitchen has become somewhat of a haven for me, something I never thought would happen.

And, while I often complain that the kitchen in our little house is too small (it really is a one-butt kitchen and when we have company, I get isolated back there), the truth is I like the solitude it creates.

It's just me, NPR, a glass of wine, a sharp knife and a pile of good ingredients at my finger tips. It's my one bit of space during the day for creativity, quiet thought, my own music and a tangible sense of accomplishment and purpose.

Last night was just a regular Saturday night in our house, but for me, it was perfect.

And the food didn't turn out half bad either. Here are the recipes. (But keep in mind, they are only guaranteed if cooked with cheap wine and Irish music.)

Doing Ourselves a Solid

The day of Willa's first meal started like this:

The book says winter squash at 6 months. She's five and a half. Maybe we should start with sweet potatoes.

But we can't grow sweet potatoes. We have our own winter squash and wouldn't it be better to start her on something we grew?

How do we make sure the spoon is fully sanitized?

What's that spot on the sweet potato, is it rotten?

What if I got the wrong kind of water? Did the book say spring water or purified water?

How long do I have to boil the water?

Why does she have to have water again?

And, really? I need to watch her water intake because too much could make her *what* fail?

Are you sure the cup is BPA free?

Are we sure this is the right time? One study says 4 months, another says 6 months. What if she develops allergies because of this?

All these questions I hadn't thought of before started popping up and just like that, just when I thought I had things figured out, I didn't.

But, after a minor panic attack, Jacob assured me that for centuries, mothers and fathers had figured out how to feed their children and we could too.

So, I mixed stirred and breathed and then fed my baby. Smooth as sweet potato puree.

A few days and we had the food thing down pat.

With sweet potatoes at least.