What I Made For Dinner, Cont.

HUMBOLDT STREET, Brooklyn: This is a pretty good “local” meal for the this time of the year. Mushrooms and squash are being sold in all area farmers’ markets, the spinach is locally grown in greenhouses and even cold frames right now, also at farmers’ markets.

Brad and I got turned on to oyster mushrooms at Roberta’s. I am pretty sure their recipe is very simple, the following is my best attempt at recreating the delicacy, makes one large serving, could be an appetizer for two:

Oyster Mushrooms, remember they cook down a lot, see photos.

Earth Balance Light (or other vegan butter)

Salt & Pepper

Heat a large fry pan to medium heat with butter. Add shrooms, pepper generously, salt to taste. After about 6 minutes, turn heat up to high and use a spatula to spread out the mushrooms and shuffle them about a bit to get the edges crispy. That’s about it.

Here is the awesome part. Anyone, even city dwellers, can grow mushrooms. In your house. It seems really intense. I haven’t done it, to be honest, it kinda weirded me out when I first discovered the process. I figured everyone should be trying NOT to have fungus growing in their apartments. But now that I am getting deeper and deeper into growing food, I have been considering it as a viable experiment. Maybe someday soon I will invest.

In the test tubes right now, however, pomegranate and mango plants from seed. Stay tuned for either ground breaking success or heartbreaking failure! At this point, only the soil knows…

What I Made For Dinner

HUMBOLDT ST, Brooklyn: One of my favorite cook books is Williams-Sonoma’s VEGETABLE. I made the roasted squash the other night and it was divine. The following is a variation on the recipe, here is what you will need:

1 baking pumpkin, or other orange fleshed winter squash

4 cloves garlic, chopped

1 teaspoon cooking wine, or balsamic vinegar

2 tablespoons olive oil

1/2 teaspoon sugar

1/4 teaspoon chile powder

1/4 teaspoon dried thyme

salt

salt & pepper

Preheat oven to 350. Cut the squash into wedges, scooping out seeds and fibers.

Mix together garlic chunks, oil, wine, chile powder, and thyme. Brush onto the squash arranged in baking pan, and salt and pepper to taste.

Cover tightly with aluminum foil and bake about 40 minutes or until tender (depends on thickness of squash.) Uncover and raise temp to 400, flip the quarters face down.

Roast 10 – 15 minutes until browned in places, and very tender. Serve immediately.

Baking Away the Winter

HUMBOLDT STREET, Brooklyn: I’m sorry locavores. This recipe is not for you. Not here, not now. But I was craving the tropics, and my apartment was cold, so I turned the oven on and made this coconut cake with mango sauce. It was delicious. It was vegan. It didn’t last long. Here is an epic photograph of what you will need:

COCONUT CAKE:

2-1/2 tablespoons egg replacer

3/4 cup soy milk

1/4 cup brown sugar

1 banana

1/2 cup smart balance light (vegan butter)

1 cup white flour (or light spelt if you are feeling like a hippie)

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 cup coconut milk

SAUCE:

1 ripe mango, cut into cubes

1 cup coconut milk

1/4 cup brown sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 cup dried coconut flakes (unsweetened)

1. Grease 9″ pan (I do not own a cake pan, yikes!) preheat oven to 350.

2. Mix dry egg replacer & soy milk and beat until frothy, set aside for later.

3. In another bowl mash the banana, beat in the sugar, butter, coconut milk. Mix well.

4. Add flour and baking powder.

5. Fold in the egg replacer and soy milk mixture, don’t over mix, could be executed with a spoon. Sprinkle with coconut flakes before you put into oven.

6. Bake at 350, 30 minutes, or until knife comes out clean. So easy!

The Sauce on the other hand, I had a bit of trouble with. I don’t think my mango was ripe enough. And butchering one of those s-o-bs is annoying. If you don’t know what to do with a mango, go here: http://www.mango.org/en/about-mangos/how-to-cut-a-mango

Place all sauce ingredients in a food processor and work it until it’s smooth. Add sugar according to your taste. Heat the mixture in a sauce pan, add a pinch of cornstarch if it is coming out watery. To serve, cut cake and pour the warm mango sauce over top and sprinkle with coconut. Just like heaven. See what I mean about my mango, though? Looks a little chunk vs. liquid, or something.

Probably could have used more cornstarch to make it a bit more saucy.

The Visitor

HUMBOLDT STREET, Brooklyn: A very brave and very chubby creature showed up in our lot to bury some treasures when the ground was still soft. He (she?) was scavenging the green tomatoes we never picked.
The dogs were released when the little dude’s digging started getting out of control, but he held his position on the fence post until Ellie Mae left, and then went back to his business of storing food.

Anyone else out there have any crazy critter encounters? We don’t see much in the way wildlife here in Brooklyn, but I have heard rumors of raccoons at the Bushwick.

dem apples

Greenpoint Farmers’ Market. Thanks for existing.

For My Girls… and yours…

ALL OF NYC & Beyond: Attention New York City area mommies, a few good women have come together to form an amazing super team for all your kid’s birthday or other special event  needs! I am very excited to announce Gypsy Craft Socials, an ingeniuos blending of craft, entertainment and documentation (yes, the full party package includes professional photography.)

See their website here:

http://gypsycraftsocials.blogspot.com

In an attempt to make this post relevant to my blog, I am imagining a Secret Garden birthday party with a how to make silk roses workshop and victorian decorations, along with english sandwiches and cakes. Maybe a potted plant for each little lady and copy of the famous publication to take home. Here is the garden in Kent England that supposedly inspired author Frances Hodgson Burnett:

I can’t get over what a creative combination of talents Gypsy Craft Socials presents. With these ladies on the job, the possibilites are endless. Make your daughter’s next birthday magically unforgettable! Check them out!

The Great Thaw

HUMBOLDT ST, Brooklyn: Have I mentioned it has been so warm this past week? Temperatures have ranged from 36 – 50. Tomorrow’s forecast says 48 and rainy. The ground isn’t frozen anymore, all my planters have thawed out.

In the Belly of the Beast

221 WEST 26TH, Manhattan: A change of pace for the winter weather, I took the morning off work a couple Thursdays ago to attend a taping of the Martha Stewart show, with Brad. The least likely person to ever have sat in on Martha, it was about this point standing in line outside headquarters, surrounded by middle aged housewives, we were wondering what we were even doing there. Well, we were there to see Martha.

Woah! The theme of the show was blogging, the crowd was dominated by tech savvy mommies typing all about parenting. I was surprised the only other garden related blogger in attendance was the author of these two: www.gardeningbythebook.com (a pretty awesome source for garden related reading I was happy to find, perfect for this hibernating time of year…) & www.ourlittleacre.blogspot.com. The complete list of the attendee’s blogs is not even worth posting here, there is a post on Martha’s site somewhere if anyone is dying to know.

I’m sorry I’m not even going to link the show, here is a still from the intro, our 1 second of fame, enhanced with arrows for recognition purposes:

Woo hoo! Hilarious. It took me a really long time to figure out exactly what to say about this experience, and I have finally decided, to keep things posi, some things are better left unsaid. The following is a photographic summary of our visit, sort of cataloguing all the plants on set. After all, a picture is worth a thousand words, if I may be so cliche.

It was hard to tell if the plants were real. I was hoping deep down in my heart they were, but couldn’t figure out how that would be possible in a windowless studio. The “greenhouse/garden shed” setup was pretty divine.

Even if it was all fake, it was nice to take in all the foliage on a cold winters day. And daydream about an alternate universe where I have a lush misty greenhouse off my penthouse over looking Manhattan. What if…

I enjoyed trying to identify the potted wonders decorating the set, and thinking about expanding my house plant collection. These can’t all be real, can they?

Orchids, this may have inspired me to buy one sometime soon to distract myself from the gray of winter.

Lemon tree, with fruits!

Pineapple, I have been reading up on how to grow one of these from the crown of a store bought fruit, will post soon.

Martha has a terrarium! You can buy one of these for yourself from Sprout Home on Grand Street in Brooklyn! Or make your own like I did, at their next “how to” class!

Sprout Home has these crazy looking plants for sale too! I don’t know what it is. I will find out and update soon. It kinda reminds me of a vegetarian version of those mounted buck heads often hung in log cabins.

Oranges!? No way.

Here she is, the queen mother of marketing genius. The best part of the show was when she decided to show off her amazing golden high heels by throwing her leg up on the counter. Who knew Martha was so flexible?

Oh, Martha. Full of surprises.

So Far, So Good

LORIMER STREET, Brooklyn: Potatoes, apples & squash from the Greenpoint farmer’s market. I am keeping good on my word to visit the market every Saturday through the winter, and purchase the majority of my produce there.

Find Brooklyn Farmer’s Market listings here:
www.nyfarmersmarket.com

I am excited to report that Boneshaker’s brunch menu now includes potatoes from the Greenpoint Farmer’s Market, deliciously and simply roasted with olive oil, salt and pepper. Oops, I just gave away the secret recipe.

There are a lot of good posts coming soon… I have so many links to share, and was in the studio audience for Martha Stewart’s “Blogging” show on Thursday – which was a completely surreal experience, that I am still collecting my thoughts on – so coverage of that is happening sometime this week. In the mean time, stay warm and happy growing!

More from Monsanto

From NPR.org:
GMO Ignites Big Seed War

Shit’s fucked up.