A Year (and then some) of Brooklyn Forager

As I have collected more of them, birthdays and anniversaries pass with less and less fuss. One thing, however, doesn't change. The best part about a birthday is cake for breakfast in the days that follow.

The actual first Blog-iversary was a couple of days ago, and though I didn't get the post out in time, I am still enjoying the cake that I made to mark this special day. I whipped up a very interesting and surprisingly special lime yogurt cake with raspberry sauce from smitten kitchen. (This will show up again on our table in many variations.)

The limes are certainly not local (although they may have been organic) and the yogurt was big organic. I like to think I kept it Brooklyn Forager-style by using hand-picked raspberries from Vermont (my in-laws' harvest has been very good to us) in the amazingly bright and tart and tasty sauce. And, of course, the mint garnish is from our own little urban terrace garden.

In the next year of Brooklyn Forager, I hope to take more advantage of our great farmers' markets in Brooklyn, forage in other Brooklyn hotspots, learn a lot more about urban gardening and farming and homesteading, and doing a lot more preserving at home.

Thanks for following along and I look forward to more adventures!

Whole Wheat Banana Muffins

 Another spur-of-the-moment baking experience that yielded great results.  After finishing up the Apple and Carrot Nut Bread, I needed another grab-and-go breakfast item and, as usual, wanted to go about it with little or no additional shopping.  

This recipe fits the bill, especially, because of its flexibility.  I used agave nectar, but that can easily be substituted with an equal amount of honey or maple syrup.  I almost always have a few bananas in the freezer, but you could also use roughly 1 - 1 1/2 cups of another mashed item like pumpkin or sweet potato.  Everything else is pretty much always in my house! 

I have now made these twice and am still enthusiastic about the results.  I've mixed in about 1/2 cup of chopped nuts (whatever you have on hand - for me, it was a mix of walnuts and almonds) on one occasion and then 1 cup of frozen blueberries handpicked in Vermont last season on the second.  Each worked nicely, so I've recommended a "grab bag" of 1/2-3/4 cup mix-ins of your choice.  Leave your variations in the comments if you play with this recipe!

Whole Wheat Banana Muffins

• 1/3 cup organic agave nectar
• 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 3 large ripe bananas (or 1 1/2 cups pumpkin or sweet potato puree)
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp ground cloves
• 3 tbsp plain whole milk (or lowfat) yogurt
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2-3/4 cup mix-ins (nuts, dried fruit, berries - fresh or frozen, grated carrot or zucchini, have fun!)

1. Preheat oven to 350F.
2. Combine all ingredients until well mixed.
3. For 6 large muffins, cook 20 minutes (for 12 regular, cook 10 minutes).  For loaf bread, cook 35-40 minutes.

A Scallion Grows in Brooklyn

I know.  I know.  The whole whatever you're growing grows in Brooklyn joke gets pretty overused.  But it's true! It's garden time in Brooklyn and though the actual planning and garden work is chiefly my husband's domain, I stick my nose in there when it comes to garden design and requests for ingredients for our kitchen.

After reading a recent Re-Nest post about how easy it is to start scallions for your garden reminded me of my friend B-Side's scallion experiment, I knew the universe was calling out to me to get my own scallions on.  I've got a lot of scallions in the kitchen right now, so it seems like a great time to get some bulbs in a jar.  We're not quite ready for planting yet, but these suckers will be ready soon.

The scallions you see above are the end of the last bunch I had.  I'll be adding some more stems after tonight's dinner.  I'll keep you posted!

Sausage and Leek Pasta, or New Experiences with Local Pork

The last couple of weeks have been intense in Forager land, with excitement happening as far away as Mexico and, of course, right here in Brooklyn.  I'm back on track on this spring day that feels like summer to tell you about a recipe that was born out of a winter day that suddenly turned into spring.  

I love spring! It offers up brief baths of sunshine in the coldest days of winter and, for a couple of weeks, plays hide and seek as well.  On one of the first beautiful spring days, I hit the Grand Army Plaza Farmers' Market to take advantage of the textile recycling and see what was on offer.

In poking around the booths, I found Bradley Farm , based in New Paltz, NY, with beautiful pork sausage on display.  I loaded up on onions for the Tigress Can Jam and got some late winter butternut squash and greens.  These seemed like the perfect ingredients for a last cold weather casserole, until spring came out from hiding in full force, screaming for something lighter - less squash, more leeks.

I went with a recipe from Lidia Bastianich using sausage, leeks and campanelle.  I've actually not made one of her recipes before and can't imagine why I never did.  The recipe was simple, flavorful and really beautiful.  I found tricolor vegetable radiatore at Trader Joe's that mimicked the campanelle just enough to catch the sauce and bits of sausage.  It also called for just a small amount of sausage which stretched a pricey and amazingly tasty product a long way. 

Sausage and Leek Pasta (adapted from Lidia Bastianich)

• 2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
• 2/3 lb sweet Italian sausage (casings removed), crumbled
• 2 large leeks, trimmed, light green and white parts cut into 1/2-inch pieces, washed well, and drained
• 1/2 small white onion, minced
• 2 tbsp unsalted butter
• 2 cups frozen young peas
• 1 cup homemade or low-salt chicken broth
• Freshly ground black pepper
• 1 lb. campanelle or other shaped, dried pasta
• 1/2 cup freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano or Pecorino Romano, plus more for serving if you like

1. Heat large pot of salted water for the pasta.
2. In a large skillet, heat the olive oil over medium-high heat. Cook the sausage, breaking up the lumps, until golden, about 5 minutes.
3. Add the leeks and cook, stirring, until soft, about 8 minutes. Stir in the onion and cook for 1 minute.
4.  Add 1 Tbs. of the butter, the peas, and the broth. Heat to a boil, reduce the heat to medium low, and simmer gently for 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper, cover the skillet, and set aside; keep warm.
5. Meanwhile, cook the pasta, stirring occasionally, until al dente. Drain the pasta and return it to the pot over low heat. Add the sausage and leek sauce to the pasta and toss well. Remove the pot from the heat, add the remaining 1 Tbs. butter and the grated cheese; toss well.
6. Transfer to a warmed serving platter or individual bowls. Serve immediately, with more grated cheese on the side, if you like.

March Daring Cooks Challenge: Sage and Lemon Risotto with Spicy Sausage

The 2010 March Daring Cooks challenge was hosted by Eleanor of MelbournefoodGeek and Jess of Jessthebaker. They chose to challenge Daring Cooks to make risotto. The various components of their challenge recipe are based on input from the Australian Masterchef cookbook and the cookbook Moorish by Greg Malouf.

This challenge excited me greatly as I absolutely love risotto and would like to make my own stock more often.  Check and check! I do tend to stick to my regular Red Wine Risotto with slight variations and so I took this as a sign from the universe to try something new.  I certainly couldn't post twice on the same recipe, not for a challenge!

But I am getting ahead of myself.  First, risotto requires stock.  And I've seen and heard many a time that the better the stock, the better the risotto.  Essentially, I hadn't seen anything yet! I made two attempts to collect a chicken for my stock.  The first stop was an NYC-based gourmet grocery shop that was on my way home from a yoga class.  I was shocked and astounded to see that a 3 lb. organic whole chicken cost well over 16 dollars.  Since organic, all-natural, well-treated chicken is the main way I'll eat it these days, I headed over to my local Trader Joe's.  There, I found a 4 lb. organic all-natural whole chicken for just over 11 dollars.  Much better.

I used the challenge recipe for the stock because I haven't yet settled on a way that I like to do it and I was intrigued by the use of lemon in the seasoning.  I was short on lemon peel at the time, but I did have some dried lemon zest and so that was the one substitution I made.  In went the rest of the seasoning (see recipe below) and off it bubbled for what seemed like forever.  The smells were very enticing. I removed the chicken which pretty much fell apart and used the meat in another dish coming later this week. 

Next came the risotto.  The use of lemon in the stock got my recipe improv mojo going since I've seen several lemon risottos over time that I wanted to try.  I do have the preserved lemons from the last Daring Cooks challenge, but I also wanted to use the brave little sage leaves that have lasted on our window sill winter.  By this time, I'd managed to procure actual lemons and so, sage and lemon risotto!

I used the recipe base recommended for the challenge, and tweaked it based on another that I found online. We didn't have quite as much happy sage on our plant as I'd hoped, so I think you could do with a lot more.  This is also a very subtle soothing risotto.  I knew I'd need to add a little pop to make it a hit in my house, so I sauteed some local hot italian sausage from Bradley's Farm that I picked up at the Grand Army Plaza Farmers' Market and sprinkled it on top of the risotto.  This gave the dish some extra spice that didn't overwhelm the sage and lemon favors.  I don't recommend adding it any earlier as it may have competed with the risotto. 

Chicken Stock

• 1 large chicken 3-4 pounds
• chicken bones 2-3 pounds (I didn't use, but this will make the flavor richer)
• 2 onions, roughly diced
• 1 medium leek - white part only, roughly diced
• 2 sticks celery, roughly diced
• 2 cloves garlic, smashed
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 1 tsp. peppercorns
• 2 bay leaves (fresh or dried, it doesn't matter.)
• peel of 1/2 lemon or good dash of dried lemon zest
• 1/4 tsp. allspice

1. Wash the chicken and bones and places in a large stock pot.  Cover completely with water and bring to a boil.  Skim away any scum as it comes to the surface.
2. Add the vegetables and bring back to a boil.
3. Add the rest remaining ingredients and simmer very gently, uncovered for 1 1/2 hours.
4. Carefully lift out the chicken, set aside. The chicken meat can be removed from the chicken, shredded off and used for other things like soup or enchiladas!
5. Simmer the stock gently for another hour. At the end you should have around 2 Liters.
6. Carefully ladle the liquid into a fine sieve, the less the bones and vegetables are disturbed in this process the clearer the stock will be. 
The stock is now ready for use. Freeze what you don't need for later use.

Sage and Lemon Risotto with Spicy Sausage

• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 small onion, chopped
• 1 bunch sage, roughly chopped
• peel of 1/2 lemon
• 12 oz Arborio rice (about two cups)
• 1/4 cup white wine
• 5 cups chicken or vegetable stock
• juice of 1/2 lemon
• 1/4 cup freshly grated Pecorino Romano
• 1/3 pound fresh hot italian sausage, casings removed

1. Heat oil in a pan and add onion. Fry for a few minutes until soft and fragrant.  Add sage and lemon peel. 
2. Add the rice and stir for a few minutes to coat each grain of rice with oil and toast slightly.
3. Add the wine and let it bubble away until evaporated.
4. Add enough stock to cover the rice by about an inch.
5. Cook on medium heat, stirring with a wooden spoon from time to time, until most of the stock has been absorbed.
6. Repeat Step 5 until rice is slightly al dente and cooked through.  In the meantime, saute the sausage in a small pan, breaking into small crumbles.  Set aside.
7. Add lemon juice and pecorino to finished risotto.  Mix well.  Top with sausage.  (Remove lemon peel in the event there will be confusion. I left it in because it was pretty and continued to impart lemon flavor to the dish).