Heirloom Recipes from Pleasant View Farm

Since I started eating closer to home, I've had a great time getting to know the farmers who grow my food. I've become more curious about the history and, I suppose, anthropology of local food. After finishing Everett Rau's memoir, Stand Tall, I still stop by to chat with him and his wife, Peg, in their hilltop farmhouse. During one of our visits, Peg brought out a treasure trove of  handwritten cookbooks from her mother, grandmother, and grandmother-in-law, along with her own box of recipe cards, which she began the year she married Ev. 

My hands trembled when I opened the old notebooks, carefully turning their food-stained pages, brittle with age. Determined to preserve them, I carefully scanned the notebooks and cards and sat with Peg as she regaled me with stories of Grange dinners and favorite family recipes. At 93, Peg doesn't cook anymore, but she is passionate about nutrition and can still recall the first time she tried many of the recipes in her collection.

Heirloom Recipes focuses on a handwritten cookbook begun by Everett's grandmother, Sarah Ogsbury, in 1891. We know the year because she used a complimentary journal from a thread company that is stamped with the date. Throughout the book is elegant ink penmanship from Sarah, who was a teacher, interspersed with clumsier pencil recipes from young women. The girls' writing is in several different hands, presumably her daughters, Margaret and Elizabeth. When Peg found the book in a drawer after she married Everett, she also found newspaper clippings, which she pasted, as if in a scrapbook. She says she never saw her mother-in-law, Margaret, use the cookbook, because Margaret had "all the recipes in her head." 

The second half of the book features  a selection of favorites from Peg's own recipe box, including many of her mother-in-law Margaret's that Peg wrote down while they cooked together. 

Bump's Apple Sauce Cake

"Bump's" was the daughter of a family friend who married Everett's cousin. She got her nickname because she was so clumsy. This recipe was saved in both Margaret's cookbook and Peg's recipe box, so I figured it was a real treasure!

One of the best parts of finishing the book is having time to try some of these vintage recipes. Most of the old recipes lack cooking instructions, so it's often useful to back them up by googling vintage recipe sites. This applesauce cake was pretty straightforward. To save a step, we purchased homemade applesauce from Indian Ladder Farms near Altamont. The lard came from the baking section at Hannaford supermarket. We made a half-size recipe to test and cooked the cake in an 8" square cake pan for about 25 minutes. The result was moist and spicy. When I took a couple pieces over to Ev and Peg they said it reminded them of their early married days. 

Fleeting Flavors

There are few foods I’ve encountered that are as polarizing as humble rhubarb. Its sharp puckery taste, like cranberries, requires mounds of sugar to tame. Though beautiful when freshly cut, the sleek red and green stems cook up into a pea-green mush that has all the eye appeal of split pea soup.

But after a winter of little but apples and pears, I was ready for fresh local fruit and decided to figure out ways to eat rhubarb. When the sign went up at the farm stand down the road, I stopped in to buy an early bunch. The fresh-cut bunch of rhubarb was $2.50. It’s an honor system but the cat is keeping an eye on things!

In one of my many farm share projects, I’m scanning and documenting Peg Rau’s treasure trove of handwritten cookbooks from the early 1900s. Everyone has a recipe for rhubarb pie. This one is from 1911.

Recipe from Peg Rau's grandmother's cookbook, written in 1911.

Early recipes don’t include cooking instructions, so I searched around on line to find cooking times for fruit pies, but stuck to the ingredients as written. Let’s just say the results were less than successful. The filling was a super-sweet gooey mess, but nevertheless I loved the tangy rhubarb flavor and decided to wait for strawberries.

Everyone’s raving about strawberries this year and I’m lucky to know a farmer who grows them organically. We’ve been going through a couple of quarts a week on yogurt, in oatmeal, fresh out of the box, and yes, painting them. As we’re getting toward the end of the early berries I decided to try some tarts. I don’t eat a lot of sweets so I figured that strawberry rhubarb “pop tarts” would be just the thing. After merging a couple of recipes from the web, here’s where I ended up:

Strawberry Rhubarb "Dumplings"

Ingredients

• Makes 16 tarts
• 1 cup strawberries, cleaned and washed. Larger berries cut in half.
• 1 cup rhubarb, outer strings removed with a potato peeler. Stalks sliced lengthwise and then chopped into ¼” dice.
• ¾ cup sugar
• 1 2-crust store-bought pie crust
• 1 whipped egg

Instructions

• Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees
• Take pie crust out of the refrigerator and let it rest for 10 minutes
• Cook the strawberries and rhubarb with sugar on low heat for 10 minutes.
• While cooking, roll out the pie crust on parchment and cut into 3 1/2” rounds.
• Strain the sauce and put a dollop of strawberry-rhubarb mixture in the center of each round, leaving a half inch or so.
• Brush the un-filled area with egg, fold the disc in half and press down the edges with your fingers, followed by the tines of a fork. Brush the tops with egg and poke them with a fork to allow steam to escape.
• Smitten Kitchen recommends that you place on a cookie sheet and refrigerate for 30 minutes before baking. Not sure why, but I did this.
• Cook for 25 minutes and cool on a rack when done

Though they would have tasted better with buttery homemade pie crust, these were pretty tasty. A little burst of sweet-tart flavor, leaving you wanting another.

A dollop of strawberries and rhubarb on 3.5" rounds. I should have strained the juice better!

Crimped and poked. Ready for the fridge.

Cooling on a rack. Yum!

Happy Strawberry Season from Farm Share Studio!

Mysterious winter vegetables

Last week everything but meat and mushrooms seemed to disappear from the farmers market. It's been too cold for the high tunnel greens, and even the apples and pears are dwindling.

But there are two vegetables that endure: kohlrabi and celeriac. This winter we tried both. Let's just say that cerleriac had some unfortunate intestinal consequences and we probably won't go back. Kohlrabi, on the other hand was a wonderful surprise.

Though it looks like a root from an alien planet, kohlrabi is really an enlarged stem that tastes like a cross between cabbage and broccoli. Thin skinned, easy to slice, the flavor is nice and subtle and the texture is crisp and fresh. Such a surprise this time of year. 

We tried it boiled with butter and parmesan cheese but it seemed too mushy and a waste of such a light and airy food. Better to chop it into matchsticks for munching or slice thinly for salad. 

Joy of cooking then and now and then again

The internet has changed how I cook. Sort of. When I get an unfamiliar vegetable or heritage chicken from the farmers market I google it. Up pops some fabulous recipe from a food blogger. Then begins the search for the most authentic version of the recipe. An hour later, I surface. . . . and consult The Joy of Cooking.

Joy of Cooking was my first cookbook. Today the paperback pages are brittle, the cover is creased, and there are water and food stains throughout. I remember rushing out to buy the New Joy of Cooking in 1997 – in hardcover. As I explore the world of local food, I like to see how different the two books are – and how newly relevant the old Joy of Cooking has become.

Last week I got a stewing hen from Cooper's Ark Farm at the Schenectady Greenmarket. When my mom lamented the fact 20 years ago that she couldn’t find stewing chickens in the grocery store any more, I had no idea what she was talking about. Now I do. My little stewing hen is one tough bird – and full of flavor.

Chicken Fricassee

The OLD Joy of Cooking recommends throwing the hen in a pot with a carrot, a celery stick, an onion and water to cover. Boil it, skim off the froth, and then simmer for hours. Once you have a broth, make a “pan gravy” with butter and flour and broth. Throw in the chicken meat, cook some noodles and you’re done.

The NEW Joy of Cooking assumes that your chicken is tasteless and finds flavor in other ways. You sautee onions, carrots, garlic, and celery; cut the chicken up into pieces and brown. Toss in some herbs and add broth from an aseptic container. Heat through and serve over noodles.

My chicken fricassee merged the two worlds.

I put the 2 lb. chicken, carrot, onion and celery in a crockpot and turned the heat to high until just bubbling. I skimmed off the froth and turned the heat down to low and let it cook until I got home from work. Then I strained the broth, cleaned the chicken, discarded the vegetables and set the broth aside to cool on the back porch (it’s cold!).  Next day I skimmed off the fat and reduced the broth down by about a third to make it nice and concentrated.

I like texture in my food so at this point I switched to JOC2. I sautéed onion, and garlic in butter in a heavy saucepan. I added flour to take up the grease and whisked my simmering broth into the pan. I kept adding broth until I had a nice gravy. Once I had the gravy I added the carrot slices, the celery, and cooked chicken and simmered the pot while I cooked the egg noodles.

The chicken meat was a little dry but the flavor more than made up for it. We tossed the leftover fricassee into prepared pie crust and had chicken pot pies. The leftover broth went into kale soup. Three intensely flavorful meals: not bad for a $6 hen!

Super recipes for superfood

I don't think I ever knowingly at kale before I started going to farmers markets. In fact I'm suspicious of anything that goes from unknown to rock star overnight. (There must be a shadow kale PR campaign working overtime to get us to embrace this bitter green, right?) Then two years ago I planted some dwarf kale plants in my kitchen garden. I chose them because I liked the way the curly leaves looked and figured I could use the baby greens in salad. Crazy thing is, these plants are still alive. They're well into their second winter and still growing green leaves despite the relentlessly low temperatures we've been having all winter. This summer I scored week after week of kale from our farm share and augmented it with my superwoman strain of perennial kale. Here are some of our favorite recipes:

MASSAGED KALE SALAD: Take a big bunch kale leaves. Slice them thin and add salt and a bit of olive oil. Massage -- yes, massage -- for 3-4 minutes. They'll break down and become soft and kind of slippery. Then make a vinaigrette with olive oil, lemon juice, and honey. Toss with  mango chunks and pepitas. We would eat this every night if I had a kale massager! For pictures and detailed instructions, check out the original source on the Food Network website.

KALE, SAUSAGE AND BLACK BEAN SOUP: Google kale and sausage and you'll find dozens of recipes on line. I've adapted one I found from theKitchn: Sautee a kielbasa or spicy sausage like chorizo. Drain the sausage and cook several small diced potatoes, onions, and garlic until soft. Add chicken broth and a large bunch of curly kale (sliced thin with stems removed). Simmer and then add 4 c of broth, thyme, bay leaf. Cook until kale is completely wilted. Add a can of drained black beans and sausage. I often add chopped up chicken thighs when I'm sautéing the onions. Today I'm going to add some leftover ham. This is a really versatile soup. Definitely tastes better the second day when I toss some new kale in for texture!

Brussels Sprouts & Apple Salad with Candied Walnuts

It's a tough time of year for fresh vegetables at the farmers market. I saw this in the Sunday paper right before I left for the Schenectady Greenmarket. Perfect timing. I was able to pick up brussels sprouts from Barbers Farms and Wine Crisp apples from Maynard Farms.

This yummy salad was super-easy to make. The taste of bitter sprouts with the sweet, crisp apple was perfect. I don't know that I've ever caramelized nuts before but these tasted like the ones you buy on the street in NYC in those little paper cones. I'm glad I made extra! One word of caution: The recipe specifies cooking the brussels sprouts for 8 minutes. I figured this would work as a do-ahead while I finished cooking everything else. When I sampled the salad at 7 minutes it was PERFECT. Really incredibly good. After sitting for half an hour or so and being reheated, the brussels sprouts got more bitter and the salad, though tasty was not amazing. Next time I'll cook it right before I'm ready to serve it.

Salad ingredients: oil, brussels sprouts, tart apple, salt, and rosemary. Topping: chopped walnuts, butter & sugar. For the full recipe, go to Diethood.com.