Zucchini Bisque & Chicken Panne

After trips to local markets we have just made a couple of our favorite dishes: zucchini bisque and chicken panne. Both of these are adaptations of James Beard recipes. The soup from a Cuisinart cookbook written by James Beard in the early 1970's and the chicken from a course my mother took at Buffalo's Albright-Knox Art Gallery in the late 1950's.

Zucchini Bisque my way:
1 medium onion, chopped
1.5 pounds zucchini, shredded
1 quart chicken broth
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
8 leaves fresh basil, about 1 Tablespoon chopped
1 teaspoon salt
a few grinds of pepper

Saute the onion in about a tablespoon of butter and/or olive oil until limp, but not brown.
Add the shredded zucchini and chicken stock, enough just to cover the zucchini.
Simmer for 15 minutes.
Puree in a blender or food processor with nutmeg, basil, salt and pepper.

This can be served hot or cold. If serving cold, garnish with a dollop of sour cream.

Make this in July, August and September when the zucchini at the farmers' markets is fresh. Choose firm, medium sized zucchini. Don't use the older ones. They are pithy and have very little flavor. Make extra and freeze it for a taste of summer next winter. I freeze it in a pyrex bowl. Once it is frozen, I dunk the bottom of the bowl in hot water to release the frozen chuck of soup and then put it in a freezer bag and back into the freezer after labeling the bag with contents and date.


Another favorite is Chicken Panne.
This serves 4 people.

2 large boneless, skinless chicken breast halves trimmed and pounded very flat.
Dip into beaten egg and then into bread crumbs seasoned with salt and pepper.
(I make my bread crumbs by grinding old bread in my food processor.)
Place chicken pieces between layers of waxed paper and refrigerate until ready to cook. Melt butter to cover the bottom of a heavy iron pan over high heat. Heat until the butter is bubbling. Brown the chicken quickly on both sides. The pieces will be cooked through, as they are very thin. Add 3 tablespoons of warmed brandy and light it while pouring it over the chicken. If you have had the fan on, turn it off for this part to prevent a fire in the duct. Also back away from the stove. I have heard of some people who have burned off the hair on their arms at this stage of the process. Remove the chicken to a platter and keep warm in an oven set to 200 degrees. Remove the pan from the stove.


Blend 2 egg yolks with 1 cup of cream, half & half or milk (depending upon your caloric desires). Add it to the pan just used to cook the chicken. Stir constantly over low heat until the sauce has thickened. Make sure it doesn't boil or scrambled eggs will result. Add salt and pepper to taste. Pour it over the chicken. Serve with green and/or yellow beans, maybe some beets and some little potatoes.

Eggs, lamb and why we think cheese should be yellow

One day last week our daughter took the day off and joined Walter and me as we shared with her the local sources we had discovered on the Canadian side of the border and as we searched for more.
We started at the Port Colborne Farmers’ Market where the skies opened and drenched all. Holly and I huddled under a melon seller’s tent while the hooded Walter ran back to the car for an umbrella. While chatting with the melon purveyor we tried and bought some amazing melons: sweet cantaloupe, pink and yellow watermelon, which tasted quite different from one another. They were not your normal grocery store melons. It was quite a pleasant surprise.
We bought heirloom tomatoes, probably the last of this year’s cherries, corn to eat and cut off and freeze, raspberries to eat and some blueberries to eat and freeze. We also got some yellow zucchini, although I think I prefer the green variety.
The rain had subsided and we lugged all of our goods back to the car. We traveled north on the Niagara Peninsula. Walter wanted to take a different route. We usually try new routes whenever possible. That is the way we make new discoveries. We drove along the south side of the Welland River, which was a good thing as we came upon a field of sheep and a sign:



We knocked on the door and met Rosemarie Meier of Zeta Farms. She, her husband Hans and their three children moved here from Germany 8 years ago. They raise organic vegetables, sheep, goats and chickens. We bought a dozen eggs and put a down payment on a lamb that would be sent to Hommer’s Meats on the Point Abino Road in Ridgeway for slaughter and butchering in a few days. That was quite a commitment and a wonderful, unexpected find. We were making some headway with new discoveries.
It was time for lunch and we were off to Zest in Font Hill (http://www.zestfonthill.com), a favorite lunch and dinner spot for us. We dried out while eating their wonderful vegetable soup with crisp vegetables in it. This was welcome warmth on this damp, chilly day. While at lunch the sun actually came out! This made our next stop much more enjoyable than it might have been.

We went to Bow-Ridge Herb Farm (http://www.itcanada.com/~bowman) down a dirt road which is closed in the winter and we could see why. It seems that there is a road coming in from the other direction that the Bowmans use. I bought some Lady’s Bedstraw to plant in my garden. It was used to stuff mattresses, as you might guess from its name. It also has been used to coagulate milk for cheese and as an orange dye. When animal rennet was not available (when a suckling calf’s stomach was not available) to use to coagulate milk, lady’s bedstraw was used. It not only coagulated the milk, but dyed the cheese orange. This is why some of us think that cheese should be orange. These days the orange dye is often from carrots.

We went back to the Morningstar Mill (http://www.morningstarmill.ca/)and found that they will be milling wheat Saturday, August 18th, and will be milling corn Sunday, August 19th. We will go for some more flour and some corn for corn bread.

We needed to show Holly Upper Canada Cheese Company (http://www.uppercanadacheese.com/Welcome.html)in Jordan Station. Dave, the cheese maker was there and willing to chat. A return trip when he is making his cheese might be in the works. There cheeses are wonderful. We were at the Inn on the Twenty (http://www.innonthetwenty.com/ott_restaurant.htm) in Jordan recently and one of the salads had roasted Upper Canada Cheese Company's Ricotta on top of beets in a salad. It was delightful. There are many Niagara Peninsula restaurants, many associated with wineries, that specialize in serving local fare.

We also went looking for nuts at Grimo Nut Nursery in Niagara-on-the-Lake, but no one was there to help us. We will go back to buy some of their great looking nuts.

The eggs from Hans and Rosemarie Meier's Zeta Farm are wonderful. The yolks are much darker yellow/orange than our usual store-bought eggs.
Also, the yolks stood up rather than spreading out in the pan. The flavor was much fuller than we are used to. What a treat. I will continue to buy fresh free-range eggs and will buy Zeta Farm eggs when I can.



One of Zeta Farm's free range chickens in her roost with the eggs of many a chicken.

Hemp and blueberries

My husband and I spent last week with good friends in the northern Ontario woods near Muskoka. We listened to the loons' mournful cry and read and chatted lots. On our way up there we stopped at Hempola Hemp Farm near Barrie, Ontario. We bought some hemp oil, hemp germ, hemp seeds and a couple of shirts. Hemp provides products similar to those that flax provides: oil, seed and fiber. There are other uses of hemp that are known especially to the hippies of the 60's and 70's. These hemp products don't seem to have any of those qualities. I assume that there are different varieties. The oil has a wonderful nutty flavor and is great in salad dressing. I have been told that it is also great for sauteeing.
On our way back down from the north woods to the southern shore of Canada we were able to purchase baskets of wild blueberries which we froze for later use. We also bought corn for our dinner. I cooked 12 ears for the 2 of us. We each ate 2 and I cut the kernels off the other ears and froze them for the flavor of fresh corn next winter. I am sure I will use it to make chicken corn chowders, one of our favorites.







The Hempola Hemp Farm Shop
http://www.hempola.com/

Got flour! And cheese! And oil!

Libby from next door joined us yesterday morning at 8 o'clock and we were off to Gallagher’s Farm Market on Route 20 in Pelham to pick up the little pickles that I had ordered to make cornichons. Alas, the pickles were too big. It seems that the heat has made them grow too fast so some are just too big while others have exploded in the fields…maybe later in the season. I am also hoping that the wild mustard will ripen before I make my pickles so that I can use mustard seed harvested in our own woods. We did buy some corn at Gallaghers and Libby found the sour cherries that she had been seeking. We were off to the St Catharines farmers' market. On the way, Walter wanted to show Libby some of the local gems. We traveled a windy seasonal road to the Bow Ridge Herb Farm on Orchard Hill Road just south of Short Hills Provincial Park. We bought three French tarragon plants and the herbalist’s husband dug up some horseradish and some comfrey and gave it to me, reminding me that both plants would spread wildly. We learned that they would have various varieties of apples ripening by late September. We will keep that on our list of places to revisit. We drove by the power plants on the Niagara Escarpment at Power Glen, southwest of the city of St Catherines. I was surprised to find this power generation plant, as I had thought that the only power generation was from Niagara Falls. Water is sent down sluiceways from the top of the escarpment to the bottom to drive turbines and the resulting electricity is captured. We were on our way to see an early 19th century mill: Morningstar Mill Museum. We had been there before, but Libby had not. It is a beautiful spot. On past trips it had always been closed and locked. I was so surprised when I discovered that it was manned by volunteers and that they were running the mill. I was able to buy stone ground whole wheat flour ground by their own stones and made from flour grown in Ontario! We did go to the market and test some more local fare.
Later in the day Walter and I went out again on our quest for local foods. We made a huge find: Upper Canada Cheese Company in Jordan Station. They make 2 primary cheeses from milk of a local herd of Guernsey cows. Their cheeses are wonderful. We bought their Comfort Cream cheese which is similar to a perfectly ripe brie, their Niagara Gold which is a washed rind cheese, and their ricotta.

We also found local grapeseed oil and local wine vinegars, including maple vinegar. It was a home run! Jen Gammon, the buyer was more than helpful. We will continue to be customers and will be interested to see how this fledgling business grows. Their phone number is 905.562.9730.

Pesto

My garden was prolific with arugula and basil. I have harvested the arugula, to be reseeded today for another crop. I have also harvested much of the basil, leaving the leading twin leaves so that the crop will continue to grow. I made pesto using basil from our garden and garlic from the Welland farmer’s market. The pine nuts were not local, nor was the olive oil, the parmesan cheese, the salt or the pepper, although I had it all on hand. I froze many little half-cup jam jars of pesto and kept one in the refrigerator for our use. I also froze some 1-cup jars before I found more of the little jars in the cellar. I will have to look for substitutes for the non-local ingredients. The recipe I used is in my cookbook: Ancestral Cooking.

PESTO:
To fill 3 or 4 4-ounce jam jars:
2 cups firmly packed fresh basil leaves, rinsed and dried
½ cup olive oil
3 cloves garlic, peeled
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup shredded parmesan cheese
¼ cup pine nuts or walnuts
Gently puree basil, oil, garlic, salt, cheese and nuts.
Store in the refrigerator or freezer.

This is not all local, it seems. I will work on finding local options for the oil, cheese and nuts. We do have walnut trees, so we can supply our own nuts. This could be made with walnut oil, I presume, if I can find any without pressing my own. I might consider a local aged cheese as a substitute for Parmesan.

Pickles, eggs and fish

We bought some dill and ½ bushel of pickling cucumbers last Saturday at the market in Welland. I washed them and put them in a cooler to which I added pickling salt, water and ice, and held the cucs under the water with a weighted cookie sheet. I left the cooler closed overnight and started my pickling in the morning. The cucs were crisp and salty. I must admit that I ate a few in the process. Or how else would I have known that they were crisp and salty?

Dill Pickles
20-30 small cucumbers, about 3 inches each
powdered alum
fresh dill
garlic cloves

Make a brine with:
1 cup of coarse medium salt (pickling salt)
3 quarts water
1 quart cider vinegar
grape leaves from the vines in the woods

Wash cucumbers and let them stand in cold, salted water with ice overnight.
Pack them into clean hot jars. adding to each jar:
2 heads of dill, at leasat 1 clove of garlic and 1/8 teaspoon alum.
Combine salt, water, vinegar and boil.
Fill the jars with the boiling liquid, add the leaf and seal.
Hot pack for 5-10 minutes.

We can buy local free-range chicken and eggs on both sides of the border. We are also buying local honey with the thought of curtailing our use of sugar, which is not exactly or not at all, local. We have ordered part of a cow and part of a pig for the fall. It is hard to know how much we will need. The Welland farmers’ market on Saturday morning has lots of meat booths. It seems to have more than other markets. There is a chicken and quail farmer from Dunnville, Ontario, not far west from us. He sells chicken eggs from small to huge sizes that I didn’t realize exist. He also has quail eggs in packages of 18. I hard-boil them, shell them and serve them on tooth picks with a mustard/sour cream for dipping. I hear from my daughter Holly that the markings on each egg is specific to the bird from which it came and the all eggs from any one bird have the exact same markings. Amazing!

I am feeling really good about putting food away for the non-growing times. I am not happy, however, that I need to rely upon electricity for my freezer. I can’t can everything and really don’t want to, actually. Canning chicken is a little scary to me. I prefer to freeze it. At least I can trust my freezing ability.

There is great fish at Minor Fisheries at 176 West Street (905.834.9232) on the Welland Canal in Port Colborne, Ontario. They have their own fishing boats that fish the north side of Lake Erie. The lake perch is tender and melts in your mouth after a simple pan sauté. They also have a smoker out back. I really like the smoked whitefish; but mind the bones; and the smoked pickerel.

Local Cooking

We are trying to eat as locally as we can. In the week and a half since reading “Plenty” at my daughter Holly’s suggestion I have been searching for local produce, meats, dairy, even salt. Walter and I have been frequenting farmers’ markets on the Niagara Peninsula in Ontario where we spend our summers, and our ancestors have for generations. We live on a wooded sand dine on the south shore of Lake Erie in Ontario during the summer and in Western New York on the east side of the Niagara River during the winter with forays to warmer climes. This gives us access to wonderful vegetables and fruits grown on the Niagara Frontier. We can also pick up some special items indigenous to the places we visit.

We are quickly finding more and more sources for local foods. I have every hope that we will find virtually everything we really need within 150 miles. I did not think that was the case a week ago. We will also have to agree to give up some foods or to compromise a bit. Coffee and tea are two foods that are not grown on the Niagara Peninsula or in Western New York. Nutmeg and cinnamon and some other spices are also not exactly local. I have yet to decide how I want to handle these issues. I might cut myself some slack on some items as long as I buy things that are ecologically grown and traded freely like spices and coffee.

I know we can buy milk in glass bottles (a good thing) at the Lexington Co-op in Buffalo. It comes from the Byrne dairy near Syracuse, NY, about 150 miles away. It is the most local we have found so far and it is worth getting it in glass rather than plastic or waxed cartons. I have discovered that the Byrne Dairy also makes butter, so we are set for that. We are also making yogurt.

Salt might be an issue, however. We do have salt mines in New York State and I know that there are salt mines in Warsaw, NY. I emailed the Morton Salt Company asking about the salt mines in Warsaw and explained that we are trying to eat locally. The response that I got said that all table salt products are processed in Ohio. It did not suggest that I might take my hammer into the salt mine to knock a chunk of salt off the wall for our use. I will still work on that one.

We have been blanching and freezing peas, at least those that were not eaten during the shelling process, yellow and green beans, small roasted beets. We have also spread strawberries and raspberries from the farmers’ market and from the Fehrhaven Farm in Port Colborne, Ontario on cookie sheets and freezing them; then putting them into freezer bags. The local cherries are being eaten and none have made it into the freezer yet. I also might dry some.

The arugula has grown well and will be reseeded this week. The tomatoes in my garden are little and bright green the promise of greater size and a shift to bright red. The basil plants are prolific and will allow me to make lots more pesto and lots of zucchini bisque. Once again I have the issue of some ingredients not being local. My zucchini bisque, and indeed any zucchini that I sauté, ‘requires’ nutmeg. That is also not indigenous to the Niagara Frontier or environs. I have some and will use it sparingly.

I have begun to harvest my own herbs. I am drying rosemary and lovage by the heat from the oven light. That should be enough to keep them dry and a little warm without cooking them. There will be plenty more as the summer goes by. I have a great crop of vulgar thyme and lemon thyme, both of which I use lots in cooking. I will continue to harvest throughout the season. Lovage is not in everyone’s larder, I realize. It is not always easy to come by, but grows very well and is a perennial. I strongly recommend watching for it at nurseries in the spring or splitting some off from a friend who has a plant. Holly took a shovel to my big lovage plant in Elma and cut off enough to transplant in her city garden. It is thriving and mine filled out right away. My best description of lovage is that it is more like celery than celery is. I use it in stocks and soups.

Another thing that we are looking for is locally-grown stone-ground flour. I know I can get it in Savannah, NY near Syracuse from Community Mill and Bean. I would like to find it closer, but can rationalize making a trip for enough to take us and others in the family through the winter. I will continue to look on the Canadian side of the border, as well.

We can buy local free-range chicken and eggs on both sides of the border. We are also buying local honey with the thought of curtailing our use of sugar, which is not exactly or not at all, local. We have ordered part of a cow and part of a pig for the fall. It is hard to know how much we will need.

I am feeling really good about putting food away for the non-growing times. I am not happy, however, that I need to rely upon electricity for my freezer. I can’t can everything and really don’t want to, actually. Canning chicken is a little scary to me. I prefer to freeze it. At least I can trust my freezing ability.

I will keep chronicling my discoveries and my disappointments as time goes by.

Cookbook- sold out

My cookbook has sold out! They are all gone. I need feedback on whether I should print it again or let it be. If I print it, it will be with a bit of editing, of course. There were a couple of typos, I know. I might also start adding more recipes and stories to my blog. What are your thoughts?