The Kingston Public Library and edible South Shore and South Coast
present Local Home Cooking February 20, 2014

Books in the Old Colony Library Network

Robin, Vicki. Blessing the hands that feed us: what eating closer to home can teach us about food, community and our place on earth, 2014.

Emmons, Didi. Wild flavors: one chef’s transformative year cooking from Eva’s farm, 2011.

Suszko, Marilou K. The locavore’s kitchen: the cook’s guide to seasonal eating and preserving, 2011.

Cotler, Amy. The Locavore Way, 2009.

Sass, Lorna. Whole grains for busy people, 2009.

Ryder, Tracey. Edible: a celebration of local food, 2009.

Kingsolver, Barbara. Animal, vegetable, miracle: a year in food life, 2007.

Smith, Alisa. Plenty: one man, one woman, and a raucous year of eating locally, 2011.

Lind, Mary Beth. Simply in season: a world community cookbook, 2005.

Carroll, Ricki. Home Cheese Making, 2002.

Websites

sustainabletable.org  Shop, cook, eat sustainably.

mass.gov/agr/massgrown Gateway to MassGrown products.

eatingfromthegroundup.com Alana Chernila’s website: Homemade Pantry tips.

semaponline.org Buy fresh, buy local in Southeastern Mass.

withlocals.com Connects travelers with locals through food and experience.

In The News

Bittman, Mark. “Sustainable resolutions for your diet.” New York Times, December 31, 2013, www.nytimes.com/2014/01/01/dining/sustainable-resolutions-for-your-diet.html?_r=0

Casey, Ross. “A Market Rally: construction of long delayed showcase for local products is set to start soon.” Boston Globe, January 24, 2014. tinyurl.com/mtfmxso

Watson, Molly. “Local Foods Pantry.” About.com/Local Foods.  localfoods.about.com/od/finduselocalfoods/a/Local-Foods-Pantry.htm

Gallerani, Kathryn. “Edible South Shore and South Coast extends magazine’s reach.” Kingston Reporter, February 14, 2014. kingston.wickedlocal.com/article/20140219/LIFESTYLE/302199992

 

Recipes tasted at the gathering: 

Winter Vegetable Bisque

This is a very versatile recipe. Substitutions are encouraged! You can make it vegetarian, or vegan, by omitting the dairy and meat stock, and thinning with vegetable stock or water.

2 medium-large parsnips
1 medium celeriac
About 5 local carrots (each ca. 4 inches long)
1 medium Carola potato (about the size of a regular baking potato)
10-12 oz. butternut squash
1 medium large turnip
2 ½ – 3 cups chicken or vegetable stock
1 medium onion
3-4 garlic cloves
1 tbs. olive oil or butter
1-2 tsp. fresh thyme
A large pinch of saffron
½ – 1 tsp. powdered fennel
2 tbs. freshly chopped parsley
About 1 cup light cream, or a mixture of cream, yogurt, crème fraiche and milk – whatever you have)
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
More chopped parsley for garnish

Peel and cut the parsnips, celeriac, carrots, potato, squash and turnip into pieces that will cook at about the same rate. You should have about 1 ¼ – 1 ½ cups of each vegetable. Put them in a large saucepan with 2 ½ cups of the stock, and simmer for 15-20 minutes or until tender.  (The stock should cover the vegetables, but they shouldn’t be swimming in it.)

In the meantime, chop the onion in medium fine dice, and finely chop the garlic. In a soup pan, slowly cook the onion in the olive oil, and midway through add the garlic and cook until the onion is translucent and just beginning to color, and the garlic has lost its rawness. Add the thyme, saffron and fennel, and stir for a couple of minutes. Now add the other root vegetables with their broth, and the parsley, and simmer for a few minutes. Here you will probably need to add the rest of the stock, or even a little more – the mixture shouldn’t be too dry, but shouldn’t be too soupy either.  When the flavors have had time to meld, purée the mixture with an immersion blender. Be careful that it is puréed; you don’t want chunky bits in this soup.  When it is puréed, taste for seasoning and add salt and pepper. Then add the cup of light cream, and stir.  The soup shouldn’t be too thick; add more cream if it needs it, or even a little more stock or plain milk.  It should be a palish yellowy orange with little green flecks of parsley. At this point the soup can be refrigerated over night, or heated just to the simmer and served.

Serves 4-6

For the SSL batch I used: parsnips and celeriac from Skinny Dip Farm; carrots, squash, garlic and potatoes from Plato’s Harvest; turnip from Colchester Neighborhood Farm; onion from A Summer Place; my own stock (chicken feet and necks from Denise Rachel; turkey carcass from Web of Life Farm; duck carcass from Plato’s Harvest); Hornstra Farms milk; Narragansett Creamery Yogurt; Vermont Butter and Cheese Creamery crème fraiche; High Lawn Farm Jersey Heavy Cream; Cape Cod Saltworks sea salt

Dorian Greenbaum for South Shore Locavores, 20 Feb 2014

 

Vanilla and Cacao Nib Madeleines

Adapted from La Tartine Gourmande

¾ cup (100 g) spelt flour
½ cup + 1 tbs. (60 g) toasted hazelnuts, ground to meal in a food processor
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ cup cacao nibs (you could do a combination of plain and chocolate covered)
3 eggs
1/3 cup (80 g) blond vanilla sugar (or regular blond cane sugar)
Pinch of sea salt
1 stick (4 oz.) unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract

1. In a medium bowl, combine the spelt flour, nut meal and baking powder; toss in the nibs; set aside.

2. With a hand mixer, beat the eggs with the sugar and a pinch of salt until light in texture.

3. Stir in the butter and vanilla, and then the flour, nut meal and nib mixture. Let the batter rest, covered, in the refrigerator, for at least an hour.

4. Brush the madeleine molds with melted butter, then lightly dust with flour.

5. Preheat the oven to 420° F.

6. Remove the batter from the refrigerator. Fill the madeleine molds ½ to 2/3 full. Do not overfill!

7. Bake the madeleines for 7 minutes; then reduce the oven temperature to 350 F. Bake 4 or 5 more minutes. Remove the madeleines from the oven and let cool for 5 minutes before unmolding; leave to cool on a rack.

For this recipe, I used: organic hazelnuts;  vanilla sugar made from organic blond cane sugar and Tahitian vanilla beans; non-GMO, non-aluminum baking powder; organic cultured unsalted butter. Local ingredients: organic spelt flour freshly milled from my Pioneer Valley Heritage Grain Share; Taza organic cacao nibs and chocolate covered cacao nibs; organic, pastured eggs from Plato’s Harvest; Cape Cod Saltworks sea salt; High Lawn Farm Jersey cream unsalted butter; my own vanilla extract made with Tahitian vanilla beans from Boston Vanilla Bean Company and Crop organic vodka.

Dorian Greenbaum for South Shore Locavores, 20 Feb 2014

 

Lavender Vanilla Bean Shortbread Cookies
1 Cup butter (yep, gulp! that’s 2 sticks)
¼ Cup confectioners’ sugar
½  Cup organic sugar that’s been infused with lavender flowers and vanilla bean*
1 egg
2 ¼ Cup flour
½ teaspoon sea salt, fine

Cream butter and sugars together until fluffy and super creamy.  Then, add egg and mix until incorporated (really easy if you have a stand mixer). Fold in the dry ingredients.

(If I didn’t have the sugar with the lavender flowers and vanilla bean, I would add about 2 Tablespoons of fresh, non-commercially grown lavender flowers to the dry ingredients and sort of whisk together before folding into the butter/sugar/egg mixture and I would add about 1 t of vanilla extract to the batter with the egg.  Use ¾ Cup confectioners’ sugar.)

Once the batter is mixed, roll onto a floured surface and roll into a long log, the circumference of which will be the width of your cookies. Wrap the log in plastic and freeze for 30 min. before slicing.

I sliced mine onto parchment-lined cookie sheets.

Bake for 30-35 minutes in a 300 degree oven.

*Last summer I had fresh organic lavender and a few vanilla beans that I just mixed into a 2 Cup jar of organic cane sugar; shake it up once in a while and open just to smell the delightful summer scent!

Katherine Rossmoore
www.betterlivingthroughfoods.com