Eat Local Milwaukee, Week 2

How did week one of the Eat Local Milwaukee Challenge go?  Did you find some new local food that you like?  Did you work one more local salad into your dinners?  Did you pick up some local tomatoes and realize they taste SO MUCH BETTER than those fake tomatoes you get at the grocery store?

Or did you visit a locally sourced restaurant and use the opportunity to let them do the cooking? Did you grab a local beverage?

I hope you were able to find something new.  I was excited to check out Lagniappe Brasserie and La Merenda, and enjoy some local food that I didn't have to cook.  As per usual, the food was far too good for me to have pictures.  I would, in fact, be the worst food writer ever, because the food is gone and then I'm like, "oh, crap, I should have taken a picture of that.  Boy it was good.  Wish I could show my readers how pretty it was..."

Are you ready for week two?

It's still summer, and it's still warm, but the air has that fall feel about it.  Today I even put on a sweatshirt because I was chilly.  Riding my scooter home from work on Thursday, I was even cold.

I love fall.  Fall, to me, is the food season.  Spring is great, because there's finally something fresh to eat, but your choices are limited.  Summer is full of food, but there's not that much to write about - throw some meat on the grill, slice up some raw veggies and you've got yourself a meal.  Winter... well winter is just about not starving to death.

But fall...

Fall has got plenty of food - It's harvest season after all - but it also allows real cooking.  Not that the grill isn't real, but it's not the same as a braise.  It's not the same as baking.  Fall is the season of tomatoes, and squash, and heavy greens like kale, and soup.  It's the time for meals that take hours of cooking, because you want your oven on for hours, and because you're not too warn down from the cold and dark of winter to even want to cook.

So, to usher in the unofficial first week of fall (I totally support the equinox here, it's extremely important to me.  Labor day does not = fall!), and the fact that I got to wear leg warmers yesterday, the second week of the Eat Local Milwaukee Challenge features some more fall-ish treats.

This week, my CSA box included:

• The most beautiful head of lettuce I've ever seen
• Leaf lettuce
• Spinach
• Beans
• Beets and their greens
• Leeks
• Eggs
• Peppers (hot and bell)
• Tomatoes
• Eggplant
• Kale
• Carrots
• Dill
• Parsley

Don't forget, we already figured out that this box cost me about $13.

I cooked up and froze the beets, beet greens, and their kale.  The carrots will be canned tomorrow, and I made a HUGE salad to go with my fritatta tonight.

The menu for the second week of the Eat Local Challenge, if you're playing along:

• Saturday: Steak Salad
• Pick up whatever stuff you want for a salad, and as fancy or cheap of a steak as you're feeling.  NY Strip is great on a salad.  So is a skirt steak.  Spend your money on what you think is important!  I personally will be using my #1 favorite steak: flat iron.
• Sunday: Spaghetti Squash Carbonara
• No, you didn't miss it.  There's no spaghetti squash in my CSA box this week.  But there is quite a good deal of it ready to be picked in my garden.  Along with about 6 giant blue pumpkins!
• Split the spaghetti squash in half and scoop out the seeds (you can absolutely wash and bake up the seeds just like pumpkin seeds.  Anyone who has carved pumpkins with me knows that I'm only in it for the seeds, so this is an exciting proposition for me.)  Drizzle generously in olive oil and season with salt and pepper, and bake in a 350 degree oven for about 30 minutes, or until it is soft but still a little crunchy (don't let it get soggy).  Once it is done, run a fork gently through the spaghetti squash to pull it into the strings from whence it gets it's name (whence!). 
• While the squash is cooking, cook about 1/2 lb of bacon over medium heat until it becomes a light brown but is not yet crispy. Pour off most of the fat and then add about 1 tbsp minced shallots and 2 tsp minced garlic. Saute for 1 minute until the garlic and shallots are fragrant. Add the 1/4 cup white wine and cook until the liquid has completely evaporated.
•  In a medium bowl, whisk together two egg yolks and one whole egg, eggs together with 1 cup Parmesan cheese and two tablespoons chopped parsley. Season with salt and pepper. Combine the eggs with the bacon mixture, warming the eggs in the pan. (Do not let the eggs cook through.) Add the spaghetti squash and toss to thoroughly combine and until squash is heated through. Adjust seasoning, if necessary and serve immediately.
• Monday:  Date night!  Head out for some local food!
• Tuesday: Slow Cooked Rotisserie Chicken
• Season it as you want, and have it waiting for you when you get home from work!  I do recommend the brine, because without it the chicken gets a little dry.  Throw some potatoes in the bottom of the slow cooker and have a full blown meal waiting for you.
• Wednesday: Stuffed Peppers
• Save a chicken breast from Tuesday.  Combine with some cooked local Orzo pasta (pick it up at Outpost), whatever veggies you've got in your fridge, and some local feta cheese from the Clock Shadow Creamery.  Mix together, and stuff into some bell peppers.  Throw the whole thing on the grill for about 10 minutes on each side, or until the inside is hot and the outside is nicely charred.  If you've got especially big peppers, you might want to heat up the stuffing before putting it in the peppers.
• Thursday: Turkey Soup
• I've got some frozen turkey in my freezer that I think is actually from way back last Christmas.  Time to get that used up already!  So I'm going to make a turkey noodle soup with that, the Orzo I bought for Wednesday, and some yellow squash that's already in my fridge.  But, since I can't count on your having stockpiled almost year old turkey in your freezer, why not try the Turkey Cherry Chili that didn't make it into the cherry contest!  Make it a little end-of-summerier and add some corn.
• Friday: Fish Boil
• What is more local, Wisconsin, Fall food than a good old traditional Door County Fish Boil.  You can make it in your kitchen no problem - just don't use the gasoline/boil over trick!  When you're at Outpost on Wednesday, pick up some Rushing Waters Rainbow Trout, and why not try the fish boil seasonings available at The Spice House.

As always, let me know if there's anything I can do!  Enjoy your local eating!

Slightly Less Than a Shit-Ton of Meat

Saturday was an exciting day in the Oscarson household.  Saturday was... wait for it...

FREEZER DELIVERY DAY!!!

Yay!  My shiny new chest freezer has arrived.  Better yet, I think it spent the night on the truck, so it was almost all the way cold when it got delivered.

Now, I didn't know it was going to be pre-cooled, but fortunately when you live in WI in December, your backyard is a freezer too.  (This is not fair.  It has been unseasonably warm.  I do love me some global warming just a little.  But there was a high of only 20 this past Saturday).  Which means that I could go to the farmer's market and buy meat, not knowing exactly when the freezer would be delivered (between 11 and 2) or how long it would take it to chill. 

And so buy meat I did.  What I would have called a shit-ton of meat.  I bought chicken, and a turkey, and pork, and beef, and lamb!  Yes, the lamb people were at the farmer's market, and I stocked up! 

And as I handed over all my money I thought "well, that is sure a shit-ton of meat."

And as I hauled the bags to my car I thought, "boy, a shit-ton of meat sure is heavy!"

And as I piled it on the kitchen table to take a picture and brag to my husband about what all I got, we both were convinced that we had a shit-ton of meat on our hands.

And then the freezer came.

Now, I do not have great spacial reasoning skills, as proven by the fact that the freezer did not really fit in the space I prepared for it.  And, sure, I know chest freezers are big, but I thought I bought a fairly small one.  7 cubic feet is, after all, not that much.  Heck, most of the Energy Star chest freezers I looked at were 15-25 cubic feet.

So, you can imagine my surprise when my supposed shit-ton of meat turned promptly into almost nothing when placed at the bottom of an empty chest freezer:

Where did all my shit-ton of meat go?  Did the meat gnomes steal it?

I did clean out my regular freezer - which was so full it didn't want to stay closed - and I got the chest freezer to a more respectable level of fullness:

Still, though.  A lot of empty space in there.  Might be time to get some bulk beef.  I'm thinking a 1/4 beef should do...

And what's for dinner?  Meat, of course!  Boring, I know, but nothing makes me happier than a baked chicken.  I cheated just a little and got a lemon, and I blended together olive oil, garlic, oregano (the indoor oregano is doing GREAT!  You can't kill that stuff even if you let a cat sleep in the middle of the pot!), and lemon zest, and then rubbed that all over the outside of a butterflied chicken.  I served this with cheddar ranch broccoli and cauliflower. 

The broccoli was definitely an exercise in frustration.  It was something I knew should exist.  We had a large amount of ranch dressing in the refrigerator which was going to go bad before we could eat it.  Parents make their kids eat broccoli, and parents use ranch dressing to make kids eat vegetables, so cheddar ranch broccoli should be a thing.  But it's not.  Why?  I don't know.  I scoured the internet for something that wasn't a gross sounding egg bake casserole (there's a lot of this recipe floating around out there) and finally found a cheddar broccoli that used a roue base.  I figure, add some ranch into the roue, and there you go!

No.  Too much flour, the cheese melted and turned into an oily mess.  It was awful.  I'm not sure what I did wrong.  So I ended up just taking the broccoli and cooking it on its own, tossing it in some ranch dressing, and letting some cheddar cheese melt on top.

And do you know what?  It was delicious.  Fatty, unhealthy, not even good for you anymore vegetable delicious.

Exactly what my little heart wants sometimes.

And Sunday for dinner, I baked up a spaghetti squash.  Spaghetti is by far my favorite squash.  Like many of your winter squashes, it keeps well in a cool dark place, so I bought a lot at the last outdoor farmer's market of the season, and have them sitting in my basement waiting for me to eat all winter!  I have seen microwave directions for making spaghetti squash, but I prefer the traditional method.  Cut the squash in half the long way and scoop out the seeds (which I saved, and have soaking in salt water as we speak, ready to bake up.)  Drizzle some olive oil over the squash, and season with salt and pepper.  Bake, cut side down, in a 350 degree oven, until the outside of the squash can be pierced easily with a fork.

Once the squash is done, allow it to cool, and then scrape out the inside with a fork, going with the grain of the squash (side to side).  It will flake out in strings, like spaghetti.

You can then treat this exactly like you would pasta for a low carb equivalent... because... if you know anything about me... I try to be low carb...

Wait... that's not right...

Anyway, I tossed mine with some pesto, and some of the leftover chicken from Saturday night.  It was good!!

Winter Squash

Almost a full week gone.  What a shame.  No, I have not starved to death.  However, I have been working like a crazy fool, which seriously cuts into my blogging time.  Not that I would ever blog from work... because that would be wrong.  Also,  I need my job to afford my food.  No job = No food.  No food = No blog.  So, I work very hard at work!

We've been having quite an Indian Summer for the past week in WI.  It's making me pretty happy, because I had plants and plants full of green tomatoes, and now they're finally ripening.  It also means that there has been lots of produce still coming into the farmers market, which means lots of canning - which means lots of time spent on canning and not spent on blogging.  I am right now behind on telling you about:

• Corn Salsa
• Apple Pie Filling (this was my worst canning experience ever, and almost resulted in me swearing off canning forever)
• Tomatillos
• Apple/Onion Curry
• Applesauce

As you can see, lots of apples.  Jeff and I went to Brightonwoods Apple Orchard last Sunday (not like yesterday, but like a week ago yesterday), which was great fall fun.  It wasn't a pick your own, which is fine because we don't have kids and personally picking apples seems like work to me.  I did pick my own apples... out of a bin full of apples!  But, better than picking apples, they also had a winery.  Or, I guess it would better be called a cidery.  We got to do a free tasting of 5 different kinds of apple cider, plus a shot of apple liquor (I had brandy, he had whiskey.)  The full tasting experience - which was a lot of booze and I'm sure would get you completely wrecked - was only $10.  Unfortunately, we were on our way to a family gathering, so fall over drunk was out of the question.

I would like to say that we'll go back this year and get sloppy drunk on fermented apples, but knowing our schedule that seems unlikely.  Hopefully we can get back next year.

I also stocked up on local hard cider.  Local adult beverages have been a bit of a challenge, because I don't like beer - which I believe officially qualifies me for the Worst Milwaukee Locavore Award - and because I'm pretty snobbish about my wine.  WI does make a good deal of local wine, as sampled this year at the State Fair, however very little of it is made out of grapes, and none of it is what I would consider good.  Drinkable, maybe (if they're lucky), but certainly not good.

Because it's been so nice, I haven't broken down my garden yet.  Those of you who live in the Midwest know that this is pretty risky.  The forecast for tomorrow might be 70 degrees right now, but that doesn't mean it's not going to change it's mind and be a blizzard instead.  Seasons change pretty fast around here, and often with no warning.

It is really good for curing squash, though, or so I've read.  I've never grown winter squash before, but I would highly recommend it for someone with the room.  Or, for someone like me, who wants to pretend they have the room.  I actually trained my squash vines to go around the outside of my garden, sharing space with the strawberries - since those are done anyway.  This made for a bit of a problem with mowing the lawn when they got out of control, but mowing the lawn is my husbands job anyway, so my level of caring was at a minimum.

I'm growing butternut, buttercup, and honey nut squash, and I've got at least three or four of each.  Actually, considering the amount of vines I have hiding in places I really can't reach, I may have more than that.  I'm expecting to find quite a few when I finally do break the garden down.

I know that winter squash is something that I should be able to store for an extended period.  It's something that the farmers had at the winter farmer's market up through Christmas if I remember right.  It should last.  But how?

I've been researching curing squash.  The trick!

From what I've read so far, the best way to cure squash is to hold it at a consistent 70 degrees for 15 days.  Uh, yeah.  How am I supposed to do that?   Am I supposed to have a temperature controlled curing room?  I've got stories from people with blogs like mine that say they store them in their living room, or on their kitchen counter, or in a special box nestled up against their furnace... but all of those posts also have comments along the lines of "You idiot!  That's not how to cure a squash!  You're going to burn your house down!!" (For the record, I would love comments of any kind, so if you want to leave me a comment that you think I'm an idiot and that I'm going to burn my house down, feel free.  But you probably want to leave it on this post.)

The other option I found, though, was to let the squash sit on the vine as long as possible and hope for warm weather late in the season.  Then, only pick the squash and bring it in just prior to the first frost.  This technique is working out for me very well this year, although I don't know how I could guarantee success in future years...

Anyway, this squash was not mine.  I did not grow spaghetti squash - not sure why, as it's always been my favorite squash.  Spaghetti squash is very easy to prepare.  Just cut the squash in half the long way, drizzle the inside with olive oil, and sprinkle with salt and pepper.  Place the cut side down into a glass baking pan (this squash was big, so I had to use two baking pans) and bake at 350 degrees until the outside of the squash is soft to the touch.  Remove from the oven, allow to cool slightly, and then run a fork across the squash from side to side.  This will release the fibers in a way that causes them to look like strands of spaghetti.

At this point, you can do anything with the spaghetti squash that you would normally do with cooked pasta.  For this recipe, I melted about 2 tbsp of butter,  and sauteed 1 clove of minced garlic.  Once the garlic was just starting to turn golden, I added in the squash and stirred it around to break the pieces up further and mix in the butter.  I added about 1 tbsp of chopped basil, and seasoned again with salt and pepper.  I topped the squash with honey goat cheese, and some wilted Kale.  A delicious, easy, vegetarian meal! 100% local except for the salt and pepper.