The Barefoot Kitchen Witch

A Few Recent Meals, Courtesy of Our Garden, Farmers Markets, and Other Local Sources

Baby Bella Mushrooms stuffed with Ricotta, Fresh Herbs, and More Mushrooms.

I love being able to throw together dishes like these.  I have no real recipes for any of them; no measurements, quantities or times.  I just had a garden, a recent trip to the Farmers market, some homemade cheeses, and a few other ingredients – mostly local.  And a hungry family.

Strawberry Rhubarb Pie

 I think this may be one of my husband's and my son's favorite desserts.  That was part of the reason I bought so many strawberries and so much rhubarb at the farmers' market last Friday - some for the jam, and definately some for pie. 

I have any number of books with recipes for Strawberry Rhubarb Pie, and this time I thought "I'll use that one - it's got to have good pie recipes in it."  And I pulled Christopher Kimball's The Yellow Farmhouse Cookbook off a shelf.  Looked up the recipe, turned to the page - and guess what.  I've already used his recipe and liked it enough to put a star next to it.  Well okay, then! 

(Even better, when I was looking up the recipe, I noticed that there are quite a number of recipes for jams and the like, including a rhubarb-ginger jam that sounds pretty interesting.  I might have to make a batch of that next weekend.)

Anyway, while I was cutting up fruit for the jam, I also cut up the quantities I needed for the pie.  3 cups of strawberries and 3 cups of rhubarb.  Simple enough, right?

Would you look at the color of those berries?  SO red.  The slices make me think of Valentine's Day hearts...only prettier, sweeter, and much better for you.

But I digress.

The rest of the filling consists of 1 teaspoon of orange or lemon zest (I used lemon), 2 teaspoons of lemon juice, 3/4-1 cup of sugar (I went with the smaller amount), 3-5 tablespoons Minute tapioca (did I even have Minute tapioca?  Apparently I did.  Probably from whenever I first made this pie) (oh, and I used 4 1/2 tablespoons of the tapioca), and 2 tablespoons butter (optional) (I used it).

You mix all that together and let it sit for fifteen minutes - I'm assuming that's to let the tapioca absorb some of the liquid.  The more tapioca you add, by the way, the firmer the cooked fruit will be, so if you like a very oozy pie, go with less tapioca, and if you like a nice, picture-worthy slice of pie, go with more. 

Oh, and at this point I also started preheating the oven - 400 degrees F.

I had already made the pie crust, so it was already rolled out and in my pie pan at this point.  I used the crust recipe from the same book - it's 2 1/2 cups AP flour, 3/4 tsp salt, 2 T* sugar, 12 T unsalted butter, chilled in the freezer for at least 30 minutes, 8 T all-purpose vegetable shortening, chilled in the freezer for 30 minutes, and 7-8 T of ice water.

* "T" = tablespoons

I combined the flour, salt and sugar in a food processor, added in the butter and shortening (which I'd cut into small pieces), pulsed that til the mixture looked kind of sandy with a smattering of little pea-sized lumps of fat mixed in, then drizzled the ice water in, a little at a time, until the dough started to come together.

Then I dumped it out on the counter and kneaded it ever so briefly until it formed a ball.  I cut the ball in half, rolled one half out and lined my pie pan with it.  Rolled the other ball out and formed a rough circle, which I wrapped in plastic and folded in quarters to chill.  I put the pan and the folded disk of dough back in the fridge to chill.  (I skipped the "chill the dough first" step - I was kind of pressed for time.  I figured it could chill just fine already in the pan.)

After the fruit sat for about fifteen minutes,

Next I carefully unwrapped and unfolded my disk of dough and gently placed it on top of the fruit.

Nighty-night, little fruit filling!

Then I trimmed the excess dough and tried to decide what to do with the edges.  Sometimes I'm in a fancy mood, other times I'm more interested in quick and easy.

I went with quick and easy - I just pressed-and-sealed the edges with the tines of a fork.  Then I cut a little vent in the center and folded the corners back - turns out I have to get a little fancy after all - and cut a few slits in the rest of the top crust, and there - pie crust is born.

Then I whisked an egg and a bit of water together, and took out my Sparkling White Sugar.  More fancyness.  I painted the crust with the egg, sprinkled on the sugar, and at last, into the oven went the pie.

When you put the pie in, you drop the oven temperature down to 350 degrees F.  The pie gets a nice shot of really hot from the original 400 degrees, but at 350, you won't be serving blackened crust.

Oh - and put the pie on a cookie sheet with a lip - you really don't want sugary fruit juices spilling onto the floor of your oven. 

 Because those juices will spill over.

Bake the pie until the top is golden brown and the filling is bubbly in the center.  (That's why I cut the little vent in the middle - so I can spy on the filling.)

I love the drippy syrup pictures. 

Below is a picture of an actual bubble taking place in the center of the pie.  It's right there on the bottom left part of the fruit portion in my little spy hole.  Try to contain your excitment.

After the pie came out of the oven we had to leave for the banquet, so no pie that night.  But the next morning Alex and Julia had some for breakfast.

Julia had whipped cream on hers.

And on her face.  She's so ladylike, isn't she?

Alex gave his official, professional pie eater opinion.  He loves pie.

And, of course, Julia gave her opinion.  It had to be the opposite of Alex's, regardless of her personal feelings.

Bill finally had a piece last night and said it was fabulous.  Sorry - no picture of him. 

And that's the story of this pie.  I might make one again next weekend.  I give it a thumbs-up, too.

Farmers' Market Friday

Here's the haul from today.

I got eggs, rhubarb and more goats' milk from the Honey Stick Man.

I got that pretty purple kohlrabi and some of the above strawberries from Ledge Ends Produce, and the rest of the strawberries from Schartner's Farm, which is in Exeter, RI. 

And the candy (no, it's not soap - look closer) is from Ocean State Chocolates. 

Julia and I sampled a bit of the candy when we got home.

First the one she picked out - the Key Lime Pie Fudge -

I know, it doesn't look like much, but it tasted an awful lot like key lime pie.  It's even got little bits of graham cracker throughout, so you get the total experience.  All that's missing is some whipped cream. 

Julia had two pieces.

Next up - the Chipotle Pecan Caramel Fusion Bar.  I picked that one.  (As soon as I saw the word "Chipotle" I knew I'd be getting a bar.)

I warned Julia that it might be a little spicy, and she bravely tried a small piece.  I had a little piece, too, and yes, it was hot - but not overpoweringly so.  And the heat seemed, to me, to come more from the cinnamon at the finish.  It started out with a kind of smokey element (from the chipotle pepper) and then gradually the cinnamon slid in and took over. 

Julia didn't like it, but I thought it was pretty interesting.  Oh, and the caramel part, and the chocolate covering - yum.

We're saving the rest of it so Bill and Alex can sample them, too. 

And as far as the rest of it goes, I was SO glad to see strawberries today.  I've got the jam-making bug now, and I've got a few recipes I want to try out over the next couple of weeks, while the berries are in season.  I had a feeling the rhubarb would be there - The Honey Stick Man had some last week, too. 

Now, we've got both strawberries and rhubarb growing in our garden, but not in enough quantity for me to make into much of anything.  And besides, the strawberries don't last long enough anyway - we just keep eating them as they ripen.

Also today, while I was at the grocery store, I got two gallons of whole milk - I hope to make either mozzarella or ricotta or both at some point over the next few days.  And I will need to make bread today as well, since the last of it went last night in a grilled cheese sandwich for Bill.

So jam(s), cheese(s), bread...maybe pizza dough, too.  All that and working on the bedrooms, too.

In fact, that's what I really need to get started on now.

More #$%^&*^%$$# sanding!

Impromptu Eggrolls

Sometimes I take photos of something I'm making, but then get busy with other posts and forget (or neglect) to post some of the older recipes and photos.  Like with these eggrolls.  I made them in...early June.  Okay, so that's only about 5 weeks ago.  Could be worse, I suppose.

Fireworks, Farmers' Market, and the Fourth

 

Wednesday night our family and another family (my son's best friend and his parents) went to watch the Pawtucket Red Sox play the Syracuse Chiefs (we lost 6-5) at McCoy Stadium. 

And there were fireworks after the game.  It's a four night event that runs, I think, the 2nd through the 5th.  It was sold out on Wednesday, and we had free tickets, as that night's fireworks display was sponsored by Dave's Marketplace, and each store had 300 tickets to give away.  Woo hoo! 

They were general seating/bleachers tickets, and we should have gotten there earlier than we did - we ended up walking all over the place looking for 7 seats together or 3 and 4 together...no luck.  So we ended up sitting on the bleachers out near right field.  And that was probably for the best, as the kids could get down and run around a bit and work off some of their excess energy.

 

Farmers' Market Friday

What a perfect day to go browsing for vegetables and more strawberries.  It's sunny and all that, but this morning it was only about 70 degrees - quite comfy.

We got started later than usual this morning - Alex is on a field trip with his class (nice way to spend the last day of school!) and didn't have to go in as early, and also isn't home as early (i.e. not yet). 

Anyway, after we dropped him off and took care of a few other little things, Julia and I were off on our market journey.

She kept asking if we were OH NOW I REMEMBER.  Sorry.  She kept asking me if we were going "to that farmers market where they had the black and white pony and the other horses and the chickens" and for the life of me I couldn't figure out what she was talking about.  Because I'm mentally deficient.  Just as I was writing that first sentence to this paragraph, I remembered.  It was a little farm stand we stopped at a few weeks ago.  Not the farmers' MARKET.  But anyway.

We arrived, like I said, later than usual, and there were a lot of cars there - nice to see.  First thing Julia did once we crossed the little road was to spot the "Honey Stick Man" and race across the grass to pick out honey sticks.  I got some eggs from him again and gave him back the original egg carton from my purchase two weeks ago.  And we got 10 honey sticks. 

Next...some more strawberries, garlic scallions, and some San Marzano tomato plants - oh and a few more eggs - from Ledge Ends Farm...a bagel (Julia chose a poppyseed bagel that looked black, it was so covered with the seeds.  We also got a lemon basil plant and two lobsters.  Yeah, two lobsters.  It's the last day of school for my son and for my husband the teacher, so I figured we could celebrate a little.

I also have cake to bake.  We're having my son's birthday party tomorrow, there's a bunch of kids coming, and I haven't even cracked an egg in the direction of making this cake.  I'm just not organized for some reason.  But I have everything I need, and will bake the cake this afternoon after I get Alex.  He wants (AGAIN) a primitive landscape sort of cake populated with little plastic dinosaurs.  So that's what I'll do.  At least, having done the same theme the past few years for him, I don't really have to figure out what to do.  I'll take pictures (really, Jayne?) and post them when I get a chance. 

And that's about all I've got time to write about today.  I've got to tidy up the house, do laundry, dishes, make cake, and who knows what else.  I'll probably think of some huge major important thing around three in the morning. 

Sorry I've been sort of slacking this week - it's not for lack of subject matter - it's just been the LAST WEEK OF SCHOOL and somehow it's been hard for me to make the time to SIT and TYPE.  But things should improve starting next week. 

I think.

Farmers' Market Friday - the Haul

Well, to begin with, it was a rainy, rainy early morning.  And cold.  Well, for June.  (Tomorrow it's supposed to be in the low 90s.  I prefer today's high 50s and rain, actually.) 

But Julia and I set out with our raincoats and umbrellas because that's the kind of hardy, fearless chicks we are.

We reached Goodard State Park Farmers' Market a little after they opened at nine.  There were maybe 7 vendors there, with the truck from Palmieri's Bakery pulling in just ahead of us.  I made sure we dawdled long enough for them to set up, so we could get some bread.

Julia picked out a plain bagel for herself (it was our last stop, and this was for the ride), and a raspberry danish for Alex.  I picked out a couple of plain long Italian loaves...

And a huge multigrain loaf (part of which was already gone when I shot the picture, sure don't know how that happened...heh heh heh)

But I should back up a bit.

We only said hi to the man who sells the lobsters - can't do that EVERY week - and told him we enjoyed the lobsters we'd bought last week. 

We did stop at the Ledge Ends Produce booth for two pints of strawberries,

a bag of baby spinach,

a dozen eggs,

and a "Pretty in Purple" hot pepper plant.

I figured it would be fun to see what these peppers are like.  We're already growning jalapenos, cayenne, a couple of varieties of habanero, and...oh, yeah, poblanos.  But nothing purple, that I'm aware of. 

We also meandered across the mud to the Cedar Edge Farm (yes, I know, we were "livin' on the edge" this morning.  hahaha.  sorry.) booth and got two huge bunches of greens - mibuna and mizuna. 

Mibuna (the one on the left) is a Japanese green that tastes like a mild arugula - it has a faint mustardy flavor, but isn't as strong as arugula or the even sharper flavored mustard greens.

Mizuna (the one on the right), is also Japanese and categorized as a mustard green, although its flavor is mild and sweet, more like a lettuce than a mustard green in flavor.

I couldn't decide which I wanted, so I got both.  And no, I don't know what I'm going to do with them - yet - but when I've sorted that out, I'll let you know.  I figure at the very least I can make a great salad with the baby spinach, mibuna, mizuna, the remaining few garlic scallions I got last Friday, some green and red lettuces from our garden (not that we have a lot yet) and some fresh herbs...some kind of cheese...maybe leftover grilled halibut (if there is any) after tomorrow night...oh, the possibilities.

And as for the rest - well, the eggs will be eaten right up by all of us in relatively short order - most likely for breakfasts this weekend - over easy.

And the strawberries?  If my kids don't get to them first, then I plan to make my Tuesdays With Dorie assignment with them for dessert tomorrow night.  My sister's kids are staying over, and I figure that's as good an occasion as any!

Even though there weren't as many booths this morning, the season is still moving forward, and so there was a greater variety of produce to choose from.  I look forward to next week.  And the week after that.

As far as Julia was concerned, though, I don't think it was such a success.  Only one dog in attendance.  And for some reason Julia didn't even want to pet him.  She kept saying she did, but then she'd shy away. 

She cheered up once she'd picked out a bagel, though....

Farmers' Market Friday

It's Friday (really?) and after we drop Alex off at school, Princess Julia and I are off to the Farmers' Market.

Should be interesting today - it's POURING rain right now and that's supposed to continue through the rest of the morning, as far as I know.

But go we shall, because it's fun, it's our routine, and because I need eggs and I'm hoping Bill the honey stick guy will have eggs again.  What else will we get?  Who knows - depends on what's there.  We're going to look for a couple more vegetables to fill in the remaining gaps (as announced by my husband, the gardner) and apart from that, it's just going to be a see what we can see kind of adventure.  No lobsters this week.  Can't do that all the time - it would cease to be a treat.

So, because I don't have enough time to get into anything else at the moment, I leave you with a few pictures of Princess Julia, Twirling While Wearing One of Her Birthday Tiaras and A Spotted Dog Ring:

   

Ta-Da!

  

She's so stylish.  And twirly.

Okay - we'll be back later.

Farmers' Market with Julia, 5.22.08

For the second week in a row, Julia and I have gone to the Farmers' Market at Goddard State Park.  It's still relatively early in the season - the first day we went there were only a few booths on hand - most of the farms were selling plants - flowers, vegetables, herbs - rather than produce.  There were a few other booths, including Buttonwoods Bathworks, which sells soaps and lotions and scrubs (oh my) made of local ingredients.  Julia picked out a peppermint soap and I bought a foot scrub.  And I bought a black columbine - I love black or dark, dark flowers. 

This time around (Friday, the 22nd) there were more booths open and more people shopping.  And - to Julia's great delight - more dogs to pet.

I bought a bunch of garlic scallions to use in a salad I planned to make over the weekend...

and I bought a parsley plant, a plum tomato plant, and an Italian eggplant plant to fill in the gaps in our own garden.  (The parsley and eggplant seeds were past their prime and didn't germinate, and some furry varmint ate one of our San Marzano tomato plants.) 

All along the way, Julia made friends with the farmers and customers, chatting away, inviting them to her birthday party (which had already taken place), telling them all how old she was and that in another year she'd be five and would go to the same school as her brother.  And it was such a wonderful experience because no one was impatient with her.  Every single person gave her all their attention, asked questions, and basically became her new best friend.

We also bought honey sticks from one of the two apiary stands.  Julia was attracted by the colors...

Licorice, strawberry, orange, cherry, root beer, blueberry, lemon, coconut, apple, and raspberry.

I bought some honey, and some grade B maple syrup, and then we were on our way.

The Farmers' Market was Julia's favorite part of our busy morning, and I have to say it was mine, too.