TUF Grill Worship

there has been much hubbub around the Totally Urban Farm as the lazy summer transitions into school time again.  a big part of the TUFsperiment is learning to consume compassionately on the budget and time schedule of a 'normal' sort of person, whatever that means, so here we go!  back to 'normal!' (i certainly use that term loosely.)

i am excited to start a new gig teaching science at a nearby middle school.  the people i've met and the vibe of the school already tell me that this is exactly what i'm supposed to be doing--i am sure that this new career beginning will support and enhance the TUFness i am trying to develop.

TUF cookery has seen the oven off for months now. (with one exception: one saturday recently had a balmy high temperature of less than 100 degrees, so that evening i went crazy and baked carrot cupcakes, as described at the end of this previous blither.) anyway, this means that the grill is seeing more and more action, and we are getting wilder with our grillsperiments.  it helps to have a partner-in-food who has a preternatural sense of grillism.

i had a fantasy of flat slices of broccoli delicately grilled alongside sweet al-dente carrots. dan made a fantastic attempt, but broccoli anatomy makes flat slices a bit difficult.  however, he did manage to make a delightfully colorful grill surface cover!  it got even better when he slapped on the tasty (wild, line-caught=eco friendly) trout.


the broccoli and carrots went on first for about 25 minutes (covered), and then got shoved over to make room for the trout, which took about 5 minutes a side--skin side up first, of course!  the vegetables could have stayed on a tiny bit longer, but were absolutely delicious as-was.  in fact, the flavor and texture of grilled broccoli represents everything i like about broccoli tempura, but without the guilt-inducing fried-ness and occasionally undercooked intra-broccoli batter!  and cooked carrots are dear in any form, if you ask me.  the trout itself was spectacular.  and those are amy's kitchen organic shells n' cheez.

i've discussed grilled pork before, which, with good (free-range! local!) pork and a light seasoning touch, is one of the best things a carnivore can put in his or her mouth.  i've also discussed grilled purple cabbage and fingerling potatoes.  this time we tried quarters of green cabbage, sprinkled with salt and tarragon, gently doused with apple cider vinegar and olive oil and wrapped up in a foil package.  we also grilled the potatoes in a foil-covered round pan this time, studded with whole garlic cloves and graced with olive oil.

the grill-master also soaked the potatoes for about 30 minutes before grilling, which resulted in a deliciously tender potato texture.  the cabbage went on first, for about 40 minutes, then the potatoes, then the pork.  total prep/cook time? 1.5 hours, including preheating the grill.  total deliciousness? TOTAL.

finally, i am proud to say that the TUFlock has been ramping up egg production of late, even in this relentless heat.  after a slightly extended period of settling in, sammo has begun laying beautiful light green easter eggs, as is typical of her araucana breed.  bolo started laying a week after their arrival on the Totally Urban Farm, and amused us by laying disproportionately diminutive eggs to her rather substantial size.  they are darker brown than the silkie eggs, so we begin to have a lovely variety of shell colors!

twitter and tumblr, the littles, are starting to look like true chickens.  they have quite a bit more to grow, and should be laying by december.  and pearl and ninja remain faithfully adorable and eggtastic.

that's the latest from the TUF...fall gardening is still on our radar, eggs are about to be plentiful enough to give away, and many more adventures await.  thank you for reading, Gentle Reader, and stay tuned! 

Current Culinariousness...

 even though we don't have a garden yet, we have the great fortune of living next to someone who does.  someone who recently went out of town, and who left me in charge of watering her about-to-totally-domino tomato plants.  JACKPOT!

seriously, one of the best things about summer is a texas tomato.  i can't wait to grow my own.  a summer tomato sums up why vegetables, gardening, and life in general is awesome: this plant sucks up water and sunlight and carbon dioxide and turns it into sugar and oxygen.  to reproduce, it makes a flower, and behind the flower begins to swell a green bead. sun and water create more sugar, and the bead fills with seeds and juice and tender flesh and grows red and sweet.  and then...you pick it!  and eat it! and the plant just makes more and more. tomatoes are a summer eruption in my mouth.  I LOVE THEM.


my kitchen candy jar.



anyway, so we started to get a whole bunch of these awesome tomatoes, big and cherry, red and yellow.  i was determined to use them to their greatest potential, as well as the delicious organic meats and vegetables i had acquired from a recent grocery store adventure.  also, i had some ethical fish to deal with.  so let the foodblithers begin!

i have never been the biggest chili fan, but in recent years i have acquired a taste for it--especially now that i've learned how to use a slowcooker thing.  d. loves chili and devotes a lot of time and attention when he makes it, and his techniques inform my own chilimaking.  it seems more like a winter food, in some ways; however, chili made with a slew of fresh tomatoes and onion is a revelation. we don't do chili with beans--just diced tomatoes, onion, browned ground buffalo, chili powder, cayenne, cumin, salt, garlic.  slow-cookered on low for 6 hours.  i used about 5 smallish whole tomatoes this time, coarsely chopped. the skins slipped off during cooking and i just fished them out, but that was super lazy...next time i'll actually peel them.  right.

i did squeeze out their seeds and keep the remaining 1/2 cup of juice, to which i added 1/2 cup lone star beer. and dumped that in there too, right at the beginning.  YUM!

then, just to be silly, i made cheese popovers from a recipe straight out of The Joy of Cooking (p. 637, 75th Anniversary Edition) to go with the chili.  now granted, i've had a lot of time and eggs lately for such silliness.  but it was a leisurely 45 minutes well spent.

so, we ended up having tasty chili and popovers for dinner, and there was way too much, so i stuck the leftovers in the out-of-town neighbor's freezer.  i figure, gotta pay up, you know?

rainbow trout is on the Super Green List from the Monterey Bay Seafood Watch, and it was also on sale the other day.  i have had great luck with trout whether i sautée or grill it, and this was going to be a sautée kind of day.  after rinsing it off and drying it thoroughly, i dunked each filet in a mixture of 1 (silkie-sized) egg and 1/4 cup milk, then in a flour/breadcrumb/dried spice combo (i know tarragon and basil and garlic powder were in there). 

after getting the fish happily sauteeing in some pre-heated, pretty hot butter and olive oil (skinside up first!  let it brown! then skinside down), i started steaming some spinach.  i had already been boiling some red potatoes.  i love when 3/4ths of the stovetop tops are occupied by deliciousness.

in the time it took the spinach to wilt to perfection, the fish was ready to go.  i love me some rainbow trout...the fillets are long and thin and get just a bit crispety!

if you eat meat, specifically pork: i suggest you get some good pork.  not just because it's more ethical if it's from happy pigs who are raised naturally and humanely and killed with respect; it is SO MUCH MORE DELICIOUS. it's like you can taste that the pig independently foraged for, and ate, flowers for breakfast. in this particular case, dan grilled these pork loin chops, seasoned with salt/garlic/olive oil/paprika, for around 6 minutes a side.  and we had it with rice and salad with tomatoes/fresh mozzerella.  i accidentally started eating it before i could take a picture of it.

so i have all these millions of cherry tomatoes now, may of them the golden pear kind, and i'm like, i can't eat all these.  not for lack of trying, either, but there are only so many sunbombs you can eat in one day!  there is only one thing to do.  make tomato soup.  not just any tomato soup, i thought...golden cherry tomato BISQUE, because that sounds fancier and more summery.  and i decided to have it with these colorado mountain lamb chops i had nabbed, with a side of simple parmesan noodles. yum. yum.

 so i chopped up ALL those cherry tomatoes and three big ones (i squeezed out the seeds but didn't peel anything....again), and the other half of the onion, and like 5 garlic cloves (we REALLY LIKE GARLIC) and i threw it all in a biggish pot with some butter/olive oil (per usual), and started cookin' it. i added a few glugs of chicken broth, and i threw the spice cabinet at it.  after letting it all melt and sizzle and stir together for about 20 minutes, i added about one glug (1/4 cup maybe?) of heavy cream.  after letting it simmer for one minute more (gently!), i blended it up and returned it to the pot.

now, it was time to grill up the lambchops. not much to that, i seasoned them with salt/garlic/paprika (my favorite combo!) and massaged them with a little olive oil.  as we are rare meat eaters, i did them on a pre-heated gas grill on med-high heat for 4 minutes a side.

the parmesan noodles were a simple matter of breaking up spaghetti noodles, boiling until al-dente and adding a bit of butter and parmesan. BAM.

lamb is one of my favorites, and this was delicious...however, i have to say, i like the lamb from the austin farmer's market a bit better than this colorado lamb.  something about texas grass maybe? the soup was definitely the best part of this meal, in my opinion...next time i make tomato soup, i will DEFINITELY peel the tomatoes though.  i PROMISE.  really!  again, we gave the leftover golden cherry tomato bisque as a tithing to our tomato-bearing neighbor, and i hope she enjoys it as much as i did.  tomatoes are so bleeping good.

i sure love cooking and food, and i feel deeply lucky that i get to eat dinners like these.  thank you for your attention, dear reader...more news from the 'farm', and further adventures in baking, are coming soon! stay tuned!

Culinarious Explorations

lately, Totally Urban Farming has cruised on a comfortable plateau as we adjust to the new summer schedule. pearl and ninja, the dear silkies, have been providing eggs on a daily basis, and only just as of today have we been able to collect 7 in row without using them in something scrumptious!

the neighbor's compact, TUF front-yard garden has begun the bumper yield of golden cherry tomatoes, and this is one of the first handfuls. when she gives them to us, she always tells me they are for col. snuggles (our tomato-gobbling guinea pig). he gets some of them, but i skim a few off the top. they are delicious--just picked and warm, they taste like sundrops!

what follows is a chronicle of some cooking adventures lately.  i love cooking, but i am far from an advanced cook.  i find that rarely anything i make comes out the same way twice.  i guess you could say my cooking style is.....approximate?

I. sauteed tilapia.  i love fish!  all fish!  and some fish are more ethical than others...i intend to assemble a list of ethical edible fish soon.  i have read that freshwater fish like tilapia tend to be a good choice, as they are farmed here in north america and the farming techniques aren't too hard on the environment.  but i should do more research...

we often buy fresh fish at the big box and freeze it, letting it thaw in the fridge or submerging it in cold running water in the sink if we're in a hurry.  tilapia generally holds up to both these treatments well, as long as they are fairly hefty fillets.  i make sure to dry them off very well before sauteeing.

this fish was dipped in one well-beaten egg, then a mixture of unbleached all-purpose flour, breadcrumbs, paprika, garlic powder, salt, and dried basil.  then it got sauteed in a mixture of butter/olive oil heated up past the foamy stage.  for crispy flaky goodness, i think it was maybe 2-3 minutes a side? yum.

II. rotisserie chicken.  we got the toaster oven that has a rotisserie function as a wedding gift, and it is one of the most useful appliances i've ever had the pleasure of knowing.  we use the rotisserie aspect of it more than the toaster!

it is great for cooking smallish chickens around 3 lbs, cornish game hens, and the occasional pork/beef/lamb roast.  we have even done ducks up 5 lbs, and it works like a champ.  it's awesome in the summer too, because it doesn't heat up the house like the oven does. 

this was a farmer's market bird, about 3.7lbs.  i rubbed it with olive oil/seasalt/garlic powder/paprika/rosemary/basil, stuffed it with a carrot and garlic cloves, trussed it, and let it roast-isserie for about an hour and 20.  i started the cabbage when the chicken had about 10 minutes left to go, and let it sit while i finished everything.

III. purple cabbage.  one of my favorite vegetables for its flavor, color, cheapness, and ability to last forever. i start by melting 1-2 tablespoons of butter in my biggest pan, waiting until after it foams, and then toss the cabbage in there.  i kind of semi-stir fry it for a little bit, until everything looks buttery, and then i add chopped up garlic or green garlic. then comes a substantial glug of white wine (or red, depending on what i'm drinking!), and i let it simmer for about 10-15 minutes, with the occasional stir.  the color turns really lovely and translucent, and it becomes sweet and tender.



IV. jalapeno-cilantro soup **SEMI-FAIL**.  it looks good, and it had really good stuff in it (cream, avocado, farmers market onion, jalapeno, cilantro, garlic, tomatoes). but the recipe called for...i kid you not...EIGHT cups of heavy cream. (8).  which is a stunning amount of heavy cream.  determined to give the delicious-sounding soup a shot, i bravely executed the steps of the recipe.  but i freaked out after adding 3.5 cups of heavy cream, so i improvised with some on-hand half-and-half. i abandoned dairy addition after another cup of that, however.  i physically couldn't deal with that much cream!

but we tried the soup anyway, and it was extremely rich, even after my cream-reducing freak out.  much more like a sauce or fancy dip rather than soup.  frankly, we didn't like it much.  and i hate when i go out of the way to make something that sounds so delicious, and then we don't like it!  what a waste!

but fear not: we gave the leftovers to the neighbor, and she said she loved it. THANKS BONNIE!  it is so good to have neighbors!

V. chocolate mousse.  after the creamy soup fiasco, i had some heavy cream left over.  it was burning a hole in my sweet tooth pocket. (i'm not sure that actually makes sense, but you get my meaning.) i had the thought that chocolate mousse could be pretty easily made out of heavy whipping cream.

I WAS TOTALLY RIGHT.  i whisked it vigorously (a great workout!) until soft peaks stuck around.  then i melted some chocolate chips and folded them in.  THEN i poured it in coffee cups and covered it with saran wrap, and stuck it in the fridge.

one hour later: BAM. chocolate mousse as good as i've ever had in a restaurant.  so worth the curse of the creamsoup!

at any rate, i've been pleased with my cooking adventures lately.  for the record, i've also been "training" for a "5k" that i'm "going to be doing" here at the end of next week.  (it's true, i've been really jogging and stuff.  i'm kind of proud of that, but i'm not bragging, because i'm not sure how long it's going to last! but i'm glad i'm doing the race!) also, exercising regularly makes me feel very entitled to delve into as much culinary experimentation as i like.  so there!  stay tuned!