Peachy Coffee Cake

The early peaches started coming in here in Tennessee at the end of June, and although there was a lull in varieties ripening last week, by mid-July (in just a few days) peaches should be in full-swing. Before I started canning, I only purchased a few peaches a year--beyond eating them fresh and baking with them, I didn't quite know what to do with them. I especially didn't know about the versatility of peaches--I never thought that they could be made into a salsa, or a barbeque sauce, or peach butter. I made all three (slightly different versions) last year, and kept being surprised by the ways in which peaches could be transformed by the different flavors and textures. So far (already this year), I've made a batch of barbeque sauce and taught a canning class on the peach salsa; both came out exceptionally well, and I've gotten a few incredibly enthusiastic reviews of the barbeque sauce (what can I say, I took it to a party where there was a hot grill and some corn, asparagus, and zucchini--of course they got slathered in the sauce and grilled!). But what I'm trying to say is--if it's just minutes away from being peach season again, the peaches that were canned last year need to be consumed as soon as possible.

Last year, I also canned peaches in light syrup, and we'd been enjoying them in our cereal and in fancy rum drinks; when I checked in the pantry, there was a lone jar of these very peaches still left, right next to a jar of peach butter. I took out the jars and carried them around with me for a little while before I remembered a fall-inspired coffee cake from Celine Steen's The Complete Guide to Vegan Food Substitutions. The original recipe uses ginger syrup, roasted apples, and apple sauce to add moisture and sweetness to the cake--and I have to say, the original recipe makes one of the most wonderful coffee cakes I've ever had. However, the peaches also work wonderfully well, and provided me with a good opportunity to use up those last few jars before I put up this year's harvest. 

Ingredients:

For the cake:                                                                            For the Streusel:
1 cup peach syrup (from canned peaches)                       1/2 cup pecan halves, coarsely chopped
1/2 cup peach butter                                                               1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup vegetable or canola oil                                            1 teaspoon cinnamon
3/4 cup whole wheat flour                                                    2 teaspoons vegetable oil
1 cup all purpose flour                                                                                
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
1 cup canned peach halves, diced

Process:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and grease a 9" round cake pan or an 8" square pan.

In a medium bowl, combine peach syrup, peach butter, and oil. In a large bowl, sift together flours, baking powder, salt, and spices. In a separate small bowl, combine the streusel ingredients and set aside.

Fold wet cake ingredients into dry, being careful not to overmix. Fold in the diced peaches.

Pour the batter into the greased pan and spread so the batter covers the pan evenly. Sprinkle streusel evenly on top.

Bake for 35-40 minutes, until the cake is golden brown and firm in the center. Transfer to a wire rack and cool before removing from the pan.
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The cake isn't overly sweet, and isn't overly peachy--it's everything I want in a coffee cake: slightly crumbly, moist, and flavorful. If you don't have the peachy ingredients available, now you have a good reason to put up peaches so you can make this coffee cake later in the year.

Using the CSA Basket: Borscht

As I've mentioned before, we've been subscribing to a CSA share from the same farm for two and a half years. We fell into the share almost by accident--I'd never heard of CSA, and actually thought that shopping at the farmers market was too expensive. Then, it came about that someone from the English department where I was studying wanted to pass off their CSA for the summer; we took it over, and by the end of the season made up our minds to not give up our share. That first year, it was a little challenging to make good use of everything in our weekly basket--we were figuring out what to do with the bounty of fresh vegetables, especially in early spring. Now, however, nothing goes to waste. As I mentioned earlier, I'm particularly happy with the contents of this week's basket, as I can almost see how I will use all the vegetables. Once I saw the beets, carrots, potatoes, and cabbage, I knew that they would be destined for borscht.

I grew up on borscht; it's the quintessential soup for people of Russian and Ukrainian heritage. The versions that I remember always contained meat, and were cooked for a good long while (to cook the meat), so the vegetables would be all dyed a vibrant magenta. I've only made the soup a few times on my own, and actually haven't made it since my mother criticized my preparation of it ("no meat? no sour cream? you put vinegar into it?!"). With this recipe, I decided to make a soup that had the spirit of borscht, but retained the integrity and distinctive flavors of the vegetables. I think it turned out quite well--a filling, but light soup that is translucently pink and very tasty. The vinegar (or kraut) is not absolutely necessary, but it provides a nice contrast to the root vegetables.

Recipe:

• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1 onion, diced
• 3 cloves of garlic, minced
• 3 small/medium carrots, sliced
• 1 celery stalk, diced
• 3 small/medium beets, diced
• 3 small/medium potatoes, diced
• 2 sprigs of parsley
• 1/2 head of a small cabbage
• 1.5 teaspoons vegetable bouillon
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• 2 quarts of water
• freshly ground pepper, to taste
• 1.5 tablespoons red wine vinegar (or 1/3 cup sauerkraut with brine)
• 2-3 sprigs of dill, minced

Process:

1. Warm the olive oil over medium-high heat in a medium soup pot while preparing the onion and garlic. Once the oil is hot, turn the heat to medium and add onion.
2. Sauté the onion for a few minutes, until translucent, and add the garlic. While the onion and garlic are cooking, slice carrots and dice celery. Proceed to add the carrots and celery to the soup pot. Continue by dicing the beets and potatoes, and adding them to the pot, and so on with parsley and cabbage.
3. Once all the vegetables are in the pot, stir and sauté for 2-3 minutes, then add water, salt and bouillon. Place lid on pot and bring soup to a boil; once the soup comes to a boil, lower heat and simmer soup for 30 minutes.
4. After 30 minutes, the potatoes should be cooked; add pepper, vinegar, dill, and stir to combine. Taste and adjust spices. Serve with extra dill and a dollop of sour supreme.

Using the CSA Basket: Purple Slaw

Although I'm always excited to receive our CSA basket, there is something especially thrilling about the produce that starts to become available in mid-summer; once the garlic, onions, and potatoes start coming in, I know that we can make more and more of our meals from the vegetables in our weekly share. Yesterday, these were the contents of our basket: parsley, celery, red cabbage, green cone cabbage, garlic, chard, roma beans, onions, beets, basil, carrots, broccoli, zucchini, and potatoes. We bought two additional heads of garlic and the chicken of the woods mushrooms. We were so very excited about all the produce (not that we're not normally so excited, but this was after we'd missed a couple of weeks of the CSA, too), that we thought we should write about some of the things that we make throughout the week.

Because we got two heads of cabbage and had another two in the fridge from a previous basket, using them was a high priority. Matt and I don't really eat cabbage often, and we were discussing ways of using it, when suddenly it struck me: I should make cole slaw! It must have been a least a year since I've made cole slaw--it's one of those things that is simple, and good, but also something that I forget about. Maybe I forget about cole slaw because in my memory, it's something that is overly-dressed with mayonnaise, made with dry cabbage and carrots, and not very flavorful; no wonder that so often slaw is an unwanted side item. However, the spectacularly fresh cabbage and carrots, and fresh spices really make for a fine slaw. I like, too, that it's almost all raw and almost all local; it makes for a very nice side when the tender salad greens of early summer are fading away with the heat. I'm rather pleased with the way that this purple cole slaw came out, and I'm glad to share at least the recipe--if not the salad--with you.

Recipe:

-small head of cabbage, red or green, shredded
-3 medium or 2 large carrots, grated
-1 teaspoon caraway seeds
-1/2 teaspoon salt, or more--to taste
-2 tablespoons raw apple cider vinegar
-1.5 tablespoon Vegenaise 
-1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper or spicy chile powder
-freshly ground pepper, to taste
-1/2 cup sauerkraut, with brine (optional)

Mix all ingredients thoroughly in a large bowl; allow the slaw to sit for a few hours before consuming--the flavors will meld better this way. The kraut is absolutely optional; I've been looking for ways to use up the beautiful purple kraut that I made last winter, and I think it added an extra level of complexity to the slaw.

If you've recently gotten a cabbage and carrots--or have access to some--I say that coleslaw deserves another chance. It's tangy and spicy, and practically anchors a meal; if you have less than favorable memories of slaw, I definitely commend you to try this zesty version of it.

Purple Basil and Blackberry Ice Cream

Last year, I found a recipe for Thai basil ice cream somewhere on the Conscious Kitchen blog (which has since closed down)--we were getting a lot of Thai basil in our CSA basket, and I could never use enough of it, until I found the ice cream recipe. I made Thai basil ice cream a good few times last summer; I liked its subtle floral and spicy flavor, and it was incredibly refreshing during the hot Tennessee summer. Because I was foolish enough not to copy the recipe, I've had to try to re-create it on my own; I'm happy to say that this latest ice cream attempt has been a great success--the addition of the blackberries gives the ice cream a little textural interest and complements the basil quite well. Without any more ado:

Ingredients:

-2/3 cup blackberries

-2 tablespoons orange liqueur

-1 tablespoon sugar

-1 1/2 cups coconut creamer (or soy/almond creamer)

-1 1/2 cups soy milk (or other non-dairy milk)

-2/3 cup basil, packed (purple is best; I used a mix of purple and Genovese)

-2/3 cup sugar

-2 tablespoons tapioca flour

-pinch of salt

Process:

1. Combine blackberries, orange liqueur, and the tablespoon of sugar in a bowl and set aside to macerate.

2. Combine the creamer and soy milk in a medium saucepan, and bring to just near a boil over medium heat; once the mixture is hot and lightly steaming, take off heat and stir in the basil. Allow the mixture to infuse for at least an hour; if you would like a more intense flavor, let it sit overnight (refrigerated). (If you choose to infuse for longer than a few hours, also refrigerate the blackberry mixture.)

3. Once the ice cream base is infused to your liking, strain out the basil, squeezing the leaves to extract flavor.

4. Combine the ice cream base, sugar, and salt in the medium saucepan, and bring to a near-boil over medium-high heat, whisking regularly. When the mixture is hot, sprinkle in the tapioca flour, whisking steadily; continue to whisk for 5-7 minutes, or until the mix thickens noticeably.

5. Pour the ice cream base into a wide bowl and allow to come to room temperature before refrigerating. When the base has cooled sufficiently, mash the blackberries with a fork until no whole berries remain. Fold the blackberries into the ice cream base.

6. Follow the ice cream maker's instructions, and wait patiently while the ice cream freezes.

The ice cream in my pictures looks a little icy because our ice cream maker decided to die on us right in the middle of making this; nonetheless, the ice cream is wonderful. If you doubt the combination of basil and blackberries, I wish that I could let you taste some of this (I happen to be eating some right now), as the flavor would make you rescind any doubt. The basil makes the wild blackberry flavor more intense, and itself tastes almost a little like mint. If you had to guess the flavor of the ice cream, I bet it would take you a few tries to get to basil. I love this ice cream because it is both a little unusual, but yet somehow familiar; and I also like to be reminded that basil is more than just a savory herb--that it shines, but differently, when combined with sweetness.

I'm so glad that blackberries are starting to come in again, and I'm particularly lucky to have a large bramble within walking distance. Most of the berries are out of reach (and shielded by thorns), but last year, I picked at least a couple of quarts (and used some in a cake!). I think this year I'll freeze them as I pick them and try to make a jam with whatever is left over after making the ice cream.

A Spring Tonic: Ode to Greens and Root Vegetables

There were three things that I was eager to do immediately upon our return to town: pick up Lucy from the kennel, go to the farmer's market to get our CSA basket, and visit our community garden plot. Although Louisville has great vegan food, I missed the fresh vegetables from the market and our garden. There's nothing quite like planning meals around what's in season--it's this very thing that's made us so attached to the CSA (we're in our third year with A Place of the Heart Farm). When I visited our community garden plot, there were over half a dozen cosmic purple carrots ready to pick; I was surprised by how big they were--some as long as eight inches. It was my first time to try to grow carrots, and I only put in a couple short rows of them, but I have really been enjoying the results: the carrots are spicier and tastier than even the organic ones from the store. And they're just so beautiful, not only on the outside, too--I always look forward to seeing the contrasts of orange flesh, greenish-yellow core, and the purple skin when I slice them.

The soup I'm about to introduce isn't just about the carrots, although they are an integral part of it; the soup is more of a convergence of a few different greens and vegetables that have flourished in our garden. In fact, the only ingredients that are not local are the onion, olive oil, and the salt/pepper--everything else came either from our CSA (garlic, parsley, mustard greens) or was grown by us (beet, turnip, carrot, arugula, sorrel, thyme). It is a wonderfully quick soup that has a good depth of flavor without relying on stock; it also allowed me to use up a good amount of the greens that have proliferated in the week of our absence.

I've had Deborah Madison's Vegetable Soups for at least four years, and have only used recipes from it a couple times because when I first bought the book, I had a very primitive understanding of soup, and a good few of her recipes call for stock, or patience, or both. Lately, though--and especially with this soup adaptation, my interest has been piqued--it's such a simple soup, and yet so good that I can only imagine how wonderful some of the more complex recipes will be. Also, now that we have a garden, some of these more elusive ingredients are readily available.

I picked the soup recipe specifically for the greens that have been missing from my diet in the last week and a half--it's called "A Spring Tonic," and although we're almost out of spring and into summer, it was definitely nourishing and restorative. The original recipe calls for nettles and watercress, but I didn't have any on hand; it also calls for two small potatoes--but alas, we finished off the rest of our potatoes before leaving town, so I substituted a good-sized turnip. I think that the soup I made yesterday was every bit as good as the original recipe, as I stayed true to the concept: lots of greens with some starch for consistency.

Ingredients:
-2 T olive oil
-1 medium turnip, cubed
-1 medium onion, diced
-2 carrots, diced
-5 garlic cloves, chopped
-sprig of fresh thyme
-handful of parsley
-2 cups sorrel, chopped
-1 cup arugula, chopped
-2 cups beet greens, chopped
-1 cup mustard greens, chopped
(feel free to include radish tops, carrot tops, or other odd greens
-sea salt and freshly ground pepper

Process:
1. Warm olive oil in a wide soup pot. Add onion and garlic and cook until onion starts becoming translucent; add turnip, carrots, parsley, and thyme. Give a good stir and cook over medium heat for several minutes, and then add the greens. Season with 1 1/2 teaspoon salt. Cook over medium heat until the greens have collapsed, about 5 minutes, turning them every so often.

2. Once the greens have wilted, add 2 quarts of water. Bring to a boil, then lower heat and simmer until the root vegetables are soft, 20 minutes or so. Puree the soup and adjust the spices; serve with a swirl of olive oil or chive blossoms.

As you can see, I chose to not puree the soup (at first), and just had it as is; the soup is just as Madison describes, "the sum of the flavor [of the ingredients] is always larger than the parts." I pureed the leftovers, and am looking forward to eating it again. I can see continuing to make this as "A Summer Tonic" on those days when I need rejuvenation or an extra dose of iron. I'm so glad that I've returned to this book of soups, and I'm sure I'll be using it soon to make cool soups for the hot heart of summer.

Small Batch Sour Cherry Jam

Earlier this month, when we were picking strawberries, I noticed that the pick-your-own place also had a few cherry trees. It's been over twenty years since I've picked cherries, but I have very distinct memories of my mother buying a bucket of cherries from the market in Dushanbe, and gathering the family in the kitchen to prepare and process them for jams and compotes. I was pitting cherries by the time I was four or five years old--sour cherries, mostly, as their sweet counterparts weren't valued for preserves, but for eating out of hand. I remember being quite fond of eating the sour cherries fresh then too, despite finding them a bit too tart for my present tastes. Sprinkled with even a little bit of sugar--which actually helps draw out the fullness of the sour cherry flavor--they are exquisite.

So when I spotted the cherry trees, I knew that I would be back to pick the cherries; and once I tasted them while picking, I knew that I wanted to make something simple, with just a touch of sugar. By the time I finished making boozy cherries, I had just over two pounds of un-pitted cherries left for this beautiful, low-sugar jam.

Sour cherry jam in the front, boozy cherries in the back

Sour Cherry Jam

Ingredients:

• 4.5 cups pitted and mashed sour cherries
• 1.5 cups sugar, divided
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 1.5 teaspoons Pomona's pectin*
• 1.5 teaspoons calcium water (mix included in pectin box)

Process:

1. Prepare jars, canner (or a medium pot, as this is a small batch of jam), and cherries. I started out with just over two pounds of fruit, and by the time they were pitted and mashed in the preserving pan, I had about 4.5 cups.

2. Add half a cup of sugar, lemon juice, and calcium water to the cherries in the preserving pan, stir to combine, and bring to a boil over medium-high heat.

3. Meanwhile, mix up the remaining sugar with the pectin in a medium bowl; set aside.

4. Cook the cherries on medium heat for 15 minutes; you want the cherries to fully release their juices, but you don't want to overcook the fruit. While cooking, skim off any foam that may form.

5. Once the jam has the desired consistency, add the pectin and sugar mixture, and bring the jam to a rolling boil for two minutes. If you want, check the set of the jam; my jam has a medium-firm set, but I think that this would be great even as a sauce, if you want to omit the pectin.

6. Pour jam into sterilized jars, leaving 1/4" headspace; wipe the rims and process for 10 minutes in a boiling water bath.

Yield:

Approximately 2 pints.

Is this jam worth the trouble for such a small batch? Absolutely. It's much more sophisticated than a simple strawberry jam, and unusual. This past weekend, in addition to the drunken cherries, I also made a sweet cherry-rhubarb jam, and I can safely say that the sour cherry jam is my favorite of all.

*Sour cherries have a higher pectin content than sweet cherries, so I kept the amount of pectin quite low.

Making Polenta

Vegetable stock and polenta

In the last month or so, we've been eating a lot of greens: the arugula and turnips have done incredibly well in our community garden plot, and once the CSA season began, we started getting spinach, chard, mustard greens, three different kinds of kale, and more arugula. This sudden abundance has challenged our creativity--we've made curries (both Indian and Thai), used greens in pasta, had wilted greens as a side, but still sometimes had more greens than we knew what to do with, and wanted to expand our repertoire. Every now and then, we'd buy pre-made polenta in the plastic sleeves, at about $2.50 per pack. Matt would

Garlic scapes and green onion

slice it up and fry it in a pan with garlic and olives, adding the greens at the end, and wilting them--and it makes for a very good light lunch or appetizer. And then one day, I had an epiphany: the "grits" (also known as coarse-ground cornmeal) sold in the bulk section of our coop is polenta! I don't know why it took me so long to realize this--maybe because I don't like grits (something about the mushy texture), and have never associated squishy grits with the crispy-on-the-outside and savory polenta. Whatever the reason for my previous oversight, I'm glad that I've made the (mental) leap because polenta is incredibly easy to make and so cheap!

Quick sautee in olive oil and salt

Adding stock

Not only is polenta cheap, but versatile, too. The spices and the liquid ingredient can be varied according to the occasion. What I had on hand were green onions, garlic scapes, and vegetable stock. (Remember when I said that I "wasn't thrilled about canning the stock?" I take it back. I've used up almost all of the seven quarts of stock--some has gone into soups, but my polenta discovery will have me using stock much more often, for sure.)

The basic thing to keep in mind about polenta is that the liquid to grain ratio is about 3 to 1; you could use water for the liquid, and as long as the polenta is organic and good quality, the final result would probably be wonderful. As I was making this particular polenta, I kept thinking of the flavor combinations that I could make in the future; sun-dried tomato and basil (or oregano); cilantro and jalapeno; pumpkin and thyme...

Polenta gets pretty thick; keep stirring!

Allowing the polenta to firm up

All this talk about polenta, and no recipe yet. What can I say, I got carried away contemplating it!

Recipe:

• 2 green onions, white and green parts, chopped
• 2 garlic scapes (or a clove or two of garlic), minced
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon dried basil (or other herbs)
• 4 cups vegetable stock
• 2/3 cup of water (as needed)
• 1.5 cups polenta/ corn grits/ coarse-ground cornmeal

Sauté the onions and garlic scapes in olive oil for a few minutes, just until they're starting to cook. Add the salt and herbs, stir to combine flavors; pour in the stock and bring to a steady simmer over medium-high heat. Once the stock is simmering, add the polenta in a slow and steady stream, and stir constantly with a wooden spoon or spatula for 25-30 minutes. As you're stirring, be sure to stir from the bottom of the pot, as the polenta will become quite thick quickly--and you want to both keep it from burning and keep it cooking for the full time, or else it will be too gritty. Add as little as 1/4 and as much as 2/3 cup of water during the cooking process--the polenta should be quite thick, but not too thick to stir effectively. At the end of the cooking time, taste and adjust spices; take the polenta off heat and transfer into a greased 8"x8" (or a 9"x9", depending on how thick you like it) baking pan, and allow to cool for a couple hours.

After the polenta cools, you can slice it and store in an airtight container for up to a week, refrigerated. As I mentioned earlier, to fix it, just fry some up with more garlic, onions, and greens. You can also decrease the recipe and use 1 cup of polenta for 3 cups of liquid, but (personally,) I like a thicker slice of polenta.

Polenta is also something that is often sold locally, and thus could be a delicious platform for an almost all-local meal.