The Whole Wheat

I’m posting a large photo of this “rösti” because I love how you can see the quinoa spirals shining through! You may have several questions as you begin to read this post. Let’s see if I can guess them all:

• What is a “rösti”? From my experience (& brief research) rösti is a grated, hashed-brown type potato dish that is very traditional in Switzerland. When I had it in Switzerland it changed my perception of hash browns forever! No longer relegated to the breakfast table, rösti opens the door to a new hash brown wonderland. Or at least it did for me. At its most basic, rösti is a formed patty of grated potatoes, typically cooked with butter or another fat and often topped with any variety of items: bacon, vegetables, cheeses, herbs – anything you can imagine. If you were curious – rösti is delicious!
• What is quinoa – and how do you say that word anyway? Quinoa is pronounced like “keen-wah”. That is *my* definition, feel free to validate with Mr. Webster. Quinoa is native to South America and it is a notable grain for a few reasons. First, it cooks very quickly! Secondly, it is very high in protein, contains a complete set of essential amino acids, is jam packed with fiber, phosphorus, magnesium, and iron! Plus – once again – its very tasty and actually has a mild nutty flavor once it is cooked. I often cook quinoa and mix it with a vegetable or bean to make a patty, but use the leftovers as a side to any dish. It is great on its own or with friends.
• And what I imagine is the other question looming about in your mind: Why parsnips AGAIN??? This is particularly easy to answer. Because I have had them in spades so far this month AND last if you remember that parsnips were featured as February’s vegetable of the month. Plus their flavor is sweet and easy going – it matches many other ingredients perfectly & cooks easily. What’s not to like?

Let’s get down to it then! This recipe (or rather my interpretation) is inspired by Mark Bittman’s most excellent cookbook: How to Cook Everything Vegetarian. It caught my eye as I thumbed thru last week and I knew we would be eating it soon! While I would not call the results of my preparation of this dish a classic rösti AT ALL, I kept the name Mr. Bittman gave the dish to honor the source of its inspiration.

Ingredients:

• 1 lb. parsnips
• 1 cup of cooked quinoa
• 4 T. of butter
• salt & pepper

1. Steam or boil the parsnips whole with the skin on until they are easily pierced with a knife but mushy. This will take about 15 minutes if you steam them. Remove the parsnips from the heat and allow them to cool.
2. Combine 2 T. of butter in a large bowl with the quinoa. Add a bit of salt & pepper while combining.
3. When parsnips are cool enough to handle, peel the skins off. If possible, grate the parsnips. Using a food processor for this step is a great idea. If you don’t have a food processor, can’t be bothered, or simply want something different, either cut up the parsnips and mash well or run them through a potato ricer. Regardless of the method you use, aim to get the parsnips either grated (for a more classic rösti style) or nicely smooshed for the style pictured above.
4. Add the parsnips to the quinoa and combine well.
5. Over medium-high heat, warm 1 T. of butter in a large saute pan. When the butter is hot, add the parsnip-quinoa mixture and spread out to fill the pan as one large circle. Lower the heat to medium-low to low and allow to cook undisturbed for about 10 minutes. You should be able to smell the toasty-ness of the rösti after about this long.
6. Check the bottom to verify it is nicely browned then turn off the gas stove and place a plate over the rösti in the saute pan. Carefully flip the pan & plate over so the plate is now on the bottom and has the rösti on it.
7. Return the pan to the stove and bring to medium heat. Carefully slide the rösti back into the saute pan so that the uncooked side will now cook.
8. Allow to cook on medium to medium-low for another 10 minutes. Again ensure the bottom is nicely browned then remove from the heat.
9. This dish is best enjoyed warmed but leftovers keep very well!

Wednesday is one of my favorite days of the week because it brings the arrival of my weekly CSA box! This week’s box contains:

• Erbette Chard
• Leeks
• Carrots
• 2 plump bulbs of fennel
• Spigariello greens – which are a relative of broccoli
• Agretti greens (not pictured above) – which apparently can be simply added to salad greens or cooked like broccoli
• Cute French radishes
• And delicious winter squash

I’m particularly anxious to try the agretti greens which are new to me.  Hopefully I’ll have some fun recipes to report soon!

Living in an urban environment means we don’t have a lot of extra square feet. Luckily, we do have a small balcony with a lovely view of downtown San Francisco. This year I knew I wanted to start a little garden, and a few weeks ago I finally got down to it!

There are a few limitation with the balcony:

• space – it is a balcony so space is limited
• sun – we do not get direct sunlight on the balcony, we get a nice amount of reflected light though
• wind – small baby plants may not be able to handle the sharp San Francisco wind
• temperature – let’s face it, San Francisco is not warm! While it will never hit freezing, plants living here need to like a bit of chill in the air
• fog – will fog affect the plants? I don’t know!

After a fair amount of research I decided to plant a lot of herbs & several types of lettuce plants. Lettuce apparently does best when it is partially, or mostly shaded, so my hope was it would be very happy on my balcony. With a general game plan in place, I headed down to Flowercraft – a great garden center located right in San Francisco – it actually has parking too!

I spent most of a Saturday and some of a Sunday finishing up the planting. During the week I had to find additional hardware to mount the brackets for the flower boxes on the balcony railings. But in the end – I think I have a great start for a balcony garden!

Most of the plants transplanted, chaos on the balcony still – but nothing will deter Norway the Cat from checking it out:

One week later, the boxes are finally mounted and the balcony straightened up:

Catnip for Norway and the most amazing smelling chocolate mint:

Trio of herbs: tarragon, thyme, and oregano followed by rosemary, and a pot of chives that were started from seed:

The lettuce is starting to really take hold:

And arugula, basil (from seed) and parsley are starting to perk up a bit as well:

Hopefully I’ll have good news to share along the way in this balcony garden project! So far things are thriving and there have been a few tips of green breaking the soil in the chive container!

Spring has officially sprung! According to the calendar at least. I know that here in the San Francisco bay area it is still pretty chilly – by our standards! But at least we can start to look forward to the warmer weather that is sure to follow!

With the coming of spring, the beginning of a new CSA season also dawns! This year I decided to join a traditionally modeled Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program. The one I decided to try is Two Small Farms which is a joint venture between Mariquita Farms & High Ground Organics.

A CSA is a share in the produce of a local farm’s production for the year. You typically get a box full of seasonal produce each week: herbs, vegetables, fruit – anything they grow! Sometimes farms will partner together so the boxes will have more variety – as the CSA I’ve joined does. Other times the produce comes exclusively from one farm. Many CSA farms are more than happy to have you visit, check out the farm, and maybe even pitch it! It is a great opportunity to find out where your food comes from, thank the farmers that grow it, and understand the way it grown. The CSAs I’m aware of are all organic or use organic methods, but it is worth asking if you aren’t sure.

Luckily CSAs have sprouted up all over the country (& world actually!). Local Harvest is a great resource for finding CSAs in your region. Additionally – it is hard to beat a Google search to find other farms nearby.

• Local Harvest CSA page

So after all that talk – what did I get this week in my box!? Firs of all I got flowers! (see above) That is one thing I love about this CSA – the flower option! Each week I will get a fresh bouquet – just what my home needs!

The first CSA box of the year contained:

• Spring garlic (the longer, green onion-y looking items)
• Celery
• Green cabbage
• 2 Butternut squash, small in size, each about the size of a (really big) softball
• Parsnips – remember February’s vegetable of the month?
  
• Carrots
• Escarole – two enormous heads of lettuce – one at least the size of a gallon of milk!
• Purple radishes

I will do my best to post my CSA box contents each week, and of course I’ll be sharing recipes I discover with my in-season produce too!

Thank the internet gods and the wonderful support staff at InMotion Web Hosting for saving my blog! 

I will have to learn more about backing up WordPress blogs to ensure nothing else like this occurs.

The good news is – I have great posts coming this week!  Coming up soon:

• my balcony garden
• the beginning of the CSA (community supported agriculture) season and what that entails!

This video demonstrates how to make black beans in the crock pot. A few notes:

• the cat is NOT allowed on the counters. She clearly wanted to be a part of the video.
• If you are looking for these beans, I purchased Rancho Gordo‘s Black Turtle beans. All of their beans are excellent so please enjoy!
• The black beans I cooked took just under 5 hours with no soaking. The great part about using the crockpot is that it warms up slowly and actually acts as a brief soak for the beans. The fresher your beans the closer to the 4-5 hour mark they will cook. They may take closer to 6 and that is fine!
• Cook the beans on the HIGH setting of your slow cooker for crockpot. Low would take a very long time!
• As I mention towards the end, beans freeze easily and happily. It is always a great idea to make extra to freeze.
• I store the beans with the stock they cooked in. Once I’ve eaten them I may save the stock for a soup or rice dish. It generally has a lot of flavor and is worth using.

Let me know how your beans in the crockpot experience goes!

Here is the recipe if you prefer to read rather than watch.

Ingredients:

• 1 lb. black turtle beans
• 1 onion
• 2 carrots
• 2 pieces of celery
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1 T. epazote (opt.)
• 6-8 c. of chicken or vegetable stock, or just water

1. Sort through the black beans to remove any stones. Rinse well.
2. Chop the onion into about 8 chunks. Chop the carrots & celery into ~1-inch pieces.
3. Smash & peel the garlic.
4. Add all the ingredients to the crock pot container. Ensure that there are at least 2″ of liquid covering the beans. If not simply add more.
5. Turn the crocpot to HIGH. Start to check the beans after about 4 hours, though most will cook in 5-6 hours.
6. Serve immediately or allow to cool then store in the refrigerator or freeze. Beans defrost easily and even handier than a can!