On Saturday, we got up extra early and loaded both bread decks full of Local Loaf goodness. We filled our racks with cookies, scones, and local bran muffins, and drove with many helpers to enter the fray at the Northampton Winter Fare, put together by CISA. We had a 2010 grain share on display in glass jars, the electric stone mill and oat roller (which are usually on the counter at Wheatberry for customers to use), and bags of grains for folks to buy and mill (or take home to cook whole of course!). It was a great time, and we made lots of new friends. If we didn’t see you there, never fear – there’s a Winter Farmer’s Market in Greenfield on February 5th at the Greenfield High School, and we’ll be there, scones and Local Loaves hot from the ovens, and fresh grain ready to be milled!

Hello everyone, and happy weekend!  Welcome back to Whole Grain Weekends, a space to share and explore cooking with whole grains!  Whole Grain Weekends will be happening in this space the first and third weekends of the month.  I’m going to post a recipe and photos, and have a space below where I will link to all of your recipes, too!  The basic rule to play is: post a recipe on your blog using whole grains.  Soup with grains, sprouted grain bread, salad with whole grains added, etc . . . Whole grain flour recipes are welcome, but we prefer to explore using these beautiful grains in their whole form.  If you want to join us but don’t have a blog, you can leave it in the comments, or email me your recipe (wheatberryma (a) gmail.com), and I will post it for you at the end of the weekend.

This week, I’m posting (at last!) a recipe for homemade tortillas, all the way from dried corn to your plate!  For those of you who are not members of our grain CSA, you may be able to find dried corn at your local farmer’s markets or coops – just make sure it’s not popcorn or sweet corn, you want dried dent corn.  I want to thank Kyce, who started making her own tortillas last winter during a plastic fast, and who inspired me to gather the courage to try making my own.  After we committed to eating local foods a few years ago, I stopped buying tortillas (they come in plastic too – double whammy), and while I occasionally eat them out at a restaurant, for the most part our life has been very tortilla-deprived.   So when I saw Kyce’s, my mouth began to water and I was determined to try.

Simply using corn flour did not work well.  also, the wood ash or lime does great things for the corn – it makes the B vitamins available to our bodies, and helps with the calcium absorption as well.  My mother kindly sent me her dormant tortilla press, and with our new gorgeous Mandan Bride corn, I set to work.  After a bit of experimenting, here’s what works best for me.

Homemade Masa & Tortillas

3 cups dried corn

2 tsp wood ash  or food-grade lime (this is often available in Mexcian grocery stores, and may be called “Mex-Cal” or something similar)

6 cups water

Mix the above together in a cooking pot and let soak overnight.

The next day, bring the pot to a boil, then simmer for 20 minutes to an hour, until the skins of the corn kernels burst open and they are softened.  Pour into a colander, and run cold water over the corn, stirring and rubbing with your fingers to get off all the ash or lime (it takes five to ten minutes to do a thorough job – a great job for small helpers!).

Then, pour your corn kernels into a food processor.  I tried this at home with my blender this week, and it did not do a very good job – it came out too chunky (as you’ll see in the last photos), and didn’t really make a dough.  So, you really do need to use a food processor to make the wet dough.  (If you so desire, you could at this point spread out your kernels onto sheet pans to dry, then grind them into flour (masa harina) and make your tortilla dough from that flour.)  In the food processor, add just a wee bit of water to make it turn smoothly – add it a teaspoon at a time.  Grind until you have a smooth corn kernel paste – but not too wet!  Ella says it helps if you make a Very Fierce Face.

And now you have your masa dough!  Let it rest, covered, for at least 30 minutes.  Heat up a cast iron pan with just a bit of fat or oil.  Then, shape about 2 tablespoons into a small ball and press with either a tortilla press, or the back of a heavy pan.  Use a plastic bag cut in half or waxed paper to prevent it from sticking.

Now, slide the tortilla into the hot pan, and cook very lightly on both sides.  Sliding it off may be the trickiest part – I found that using a spatula was really helpful.  Keep the tortillas warm on a plate with a cloth towel, and use them however your tummy desires!  You could also make a big batch and freeze them.  Congratulations, you’ve made your own tortillas from scratch!  And they’ll look much better than these, since my dough this time was too chunky and fell apart.  Isn’t that exciting?

Can’t wait to read your recipes, everyone!  Have a great weekend, and don’t forget to join us at Winter Fare in Northampton – we’ll be taking names for a giveaway of 10 pounds of local flour, and selling 2011 grain shares (plus more!).

Between this weekend’s distribution and the previous one, we moved Ten Thousand Pounds of local, organically grown grains into the eager hands of our CSA members.  There were over 200 people in my living room and kitchen Saturday afternoon scooping their shares, there were five fantastic folks helping us make it all possible, and one sweet toddler happily demonstrating the new electric mill by her daddy’s side.  We’re a little tired, but very, very happy.

Some days, I do not get to start my morning on my mat.

Some days we seem to wake up attached to our difficulties.

Some days feel like walking up a steep hill, sliding on thousands of tiny pebbles.

Some days, thousands of pounds of grain appear and get loaded into your horse stall, ready to be distributed to CSA members tomorrow, and you walk outside to greet your farmers, then realize you have paint smeared all over your face.

Some days, you give in and give yourself and your child a nap.  Some days, your daughter, the one who has spent the morning wicked crabby, wakes up and says, Mommy, I really really like you.

Some days go on and on, but somehow dinner gets made, and the table gets set, and everyone does sit down together.  Candles are lit, a blessing is said, and we are, indeed, blessed.

Blessing on your weekend, friends.  For those of you who are members, we’ll see you tomorrow, and joyfully give you the first half of your shares!

With a broken camera (oh that fateful final “click!”), family visiting, and no internet at home, the time is ripe for a blog summer break!  Only for a week or so, and then we’ll be back.  In the meantime, pop over to www.localgrain.org to see a video of Ben and Seth cultivating the bean field with our horse Cole.  Also, sign-ups for the 2010 Pioneer Valley Heritage Grain CSA are now open, and you can print out the form!

We had a fabulous Field Day with Alan and got to see the spelt field just days before it will be harvested.  We’ll have photos and video up very soon from that Field Day.  Have I mentioned that we got a wonderful Sustainable Community Grant from New England Sustainable Agriculture Research & Education (NESARE)?  That’s part of what is making this whole year possible, especially this space here and our Field Days.   So thank you NESARE!

This week, Ella and I will be continuing a pilgrimage through Julia Child’s Art of French Cooking, a wonderfully spattered copy handed down from Ben’s mom.  I’m reading (and loving) Julia’s memoir My Life in France, so it’s only natural that I would cook from her.  Did you know she couldn’t cook a lick until she was in her thirties?

Why haven’t I used her recipes more before?  A mystery.  Last Sunday, with cherries from our Kitchen Garden CSA share, we made Cherry Clafoutis.  I’ve always wanted to like clafoutis, but it’s always seemed soggy and weird.  Not so when you make it at home!

Super easy – Clafoutis is basically a pancake batter without leavening, spread half in your buttered hot pan, dump on fruit (any fruit, not just cherries!), then top with remaining batter.  Put in oven.  Devour.

So until next week, folks.  We’ll be out in the fields, in the kitchen, in the lake, and knitting away as furiously as a squirrel gathering nuts.  (Seriously, I’ve got this shawl, this fall hat, this sweater, and more on the needles!  Apparently June tells my brain: prepare for the winter!)  Have a great week everyone!

This week, we’ve closed down Wheatberry, to train some awesome new staff, and to prep and plant beans for the CSA.  In case you were worried we were sitting around, here’s our morning in photos:

Meet Kara – new Wheatberry staff, and PVHG intern extraordinaire.  She can now add “rock picker” and “wheat trial manager” to her resume!

Have a great week, friends.

Last week we made the Rye Grits recipe from Lorna Sass’s Whole Grains Every Day Every Way (yes, I mention this book all the time.  That’s because she’s amazing, and one of the only resources that really talks about how to cook with whole grains, not just whole grain flour).  Anyhow, we made a lot of changes, enough that I feel confident calling the recipe below our own, adapted from hers.  I especially like this recipe, because eating rye berries whole or cracked is pretty unusual, but really delicious.  Enjoy!

(whole, uncooked rye berries – aren’t they beautiful?)

Savory Rye Grits

1/4 lb sausage or 1/4 lb bacon or 1/4 lb mushrooms (crimini, button, portabello . . .)

1 cup cracked rye (if you’re a member of our CSA, just pulse your rye in a blender or cuisinart a few times.  If you’re not a member, you may be able to find cracked rye at your local coop or health food store)

1 large onion, sliced

2 cloves chopped garlic

1/2 lb potatoes, grated (no peeling necessary!  Yukon Gold is a great choice)

1/2 tsp salt

2 tbsp finely chopped fresh parsley (optional)

1/2 cup grated cheddar cheese

Put a kettle of 3 cups water on to boil.

In a heavy-bottomed pot, brown your meat or mushrooms over medium-high heat.  If you’re using bacon, you don’t need any additional fat in the pan.  If you’ve chosen the sausage or mushrooms, add 2 tbsp butter or olive oil.  Brown for about 5 minutes, until meat is browned, or the mushrooms have softened.  Move the meat/mushrooms aside to a plate.

In the same pan (with the meat/mushroom drippings still inside), cook the onions until golden brown (10-15 minutes).  Set the onions aside with your meat/mushrooms.  Add the cracked rye to the pan and toast over medium heat, stirring, for 1 minute (it will become aromatic).  Stir in the garlic and cook another thirty seconds.

Turn off the heat and protect your hand from any potential spattering.  Pour 2 cups of boiling water into the cracked rye while stirring, being sure to scrape up anything stuck to the bottom of the pan.  Stir in the potatoes and salt.  Bring to a boil, cover, and reduce the heat to a simmer.  Cook, stirring occasionally, until the potatoes and rye grits are tender, 10-15 minutes, and the water is absorbed.  (If the water is absorbed but they aren’t tender, add a few tbsp more water, but try not to stir too much – it will build gluten and make your grits gummy.)

Taste for seasoning, and add more salt or pepper if desired.  Turn off the heat, cover, and steam for 10 minutes.  Just before serving, stir in the onion, and meat/mushrooms.  Sprinkle with the fresh parsley (this really makes the flavor sparkle), and cheese if desired.  Delicious as a main course, or a side dish with eggs.

Bon Appetit!

]]> http://www.localgrain.org/fieldsandfire/2010/04/20/rye-grits-recipe/feed/ 2 http://www.localgrain.org/fieldsandfire/2010/02/09/pioneer-valley-heritage-grain-member-recipes/ http://www.localgrain.org/fieldsandfire/2010/02/09/pioneer-valley-heritage-grain-member-recipes/#comments Wed, 10 Feb 2010 01:22:58 +0000 adrie http://www.localgrain.org/fieldsandfire/?p=1239

Hello folks – wanted to share some links to some of our wonderful CSA members, many of whom have blogs where they’ll be posting recipes and photos of the delicious meals they make with their shares!

Leslie Cerier – local cookbook author and chef, holds cooking classes, and has many whole grain recipes in her book Going Wild in the Kitchen.  Check out her new blog at http://july22.wordpress.com/

Elspeth Hay – writer and radio show host on Cape Cod.  She interviewed me when she came to pick up her share, and you can listen to the interview here after Thursday.  Also, check out her blog Diary of a Locavore.

Jennifer Hartley – who recently made some amazingly looking local flour Tagliatelle, at her blog Scintillating Speck.

Amy Cotler – local cookbook author of The Locavore Way, and founder of Berkshire Grown, can be found at her Recipe Blog.

Darry and Kristi, the good folks at Boston Locavores.

If you’re a member with a blog where you’re sharing your local grain meals, and I left you off this list by accident – send me an email and let me know.  I’ll be creating a sidebar category for CSA member-blogs, so we can all keep an eye on all the delicious goodness!  And of course, we’ll continue to post lots of recipes right here.

Bon Appetit everyone!

In the nuttiness of this past week, I didn’t get a chance yet to post about my February pledge for the One Small Change Project.  (By the way, if you haven’t checked out the site, there is a lot of really amazing inspiration to be found by the over 200 participants!)

In January, I wanted to get cracking on some insulated curtains and draft snakes – and I did it!  I made two curtains (starting with the draftiest, north-facing windows in our most used rooms, kitchen and living room), and two draft snakes for the other living room windows, plus two almost-finished snakes for our bedroom.  I made the curtains with the outer layer of a thick, upholstery-weight fabric, wool quilt batting inside, and a pretty quilting-weight fabric for the inside (the side that faces the room). I have more to sew, for sure, but a good start.

(yeah, we really do need more insulation – this lazy Susan in our kitchen doubles as a root cellar!)

And now . . . February!  Goodbye to the grocery store. I actually hope to keep this going the whole year (and beyond!), but let’s start with a month.  I haven’t been to the store since we came home from Montreal in January.

First, why avoid the grocery store? There’s always the driving, which we obsessively try to avoid, other than our drive to work and back home (and that kills us – if you know of an affordable 30 acre farm biking distance to Wheatberry let me know!)  There’s the industrial food chain, which is our life’s work to avoid, and while our local coops do carry some local veggies, 90% of what’s inside comes from the factory system.

Also, lately, I had noticed a disturbing behavior developing with Ella in the store.  She was becoming obssessed with buying stuff.  Ack!  You may recall that we are not too keen on stuff. Walking through the grocery store with Ella, she was suddenly aware that everything there could, in theory, be purchased by us.  And she wanted it.  I was finding myself buying things I really didn’t want to buy (say, a juice box with a plastic straw wrapped in another plastic liner), because it was better than the candy bar she really wanted.  Ugh.  I was also finding myself buying things I didn’t really want or need.  Stores are, after all, set up to inspire these behaviors in us, and they do a good job.

Plus, now that we have locally grown grains, we actually don’t need anything from the store!

How are we doing it?  We have a winter (root vegetable) CSA share, we have a pantry bursting with our grain & bean CSA share, our local meat CSA, a pantry still heartily stocked with food we preserved from the summer (yay!  I am still humbled and amazed that we were able to do this), and we get milk and eggs from local farms.  What am I missing here?  We bring home supplies like baking soda, baking powder, vinegar, and recycled toilet paper from our bakery (although now I’m really contemplating the family cloth, thanks to Suzy).  We try to make our own vinegar, make or buy locally made soap, and we don’t really drink wine or beer except on very rare occasions.

I have certainly been tempted a few times already to go to the coop, to get some item that would be tasty (ice cream),  just to get out of the house, or to get something that seems like it would make dinner “easier.”  So far, I’ve resisted temptation, and each time, I’ve been relieved that I did.  Here’s wishing you luck with your own small changes in your lives!

Added on Feb 8:

I just wanted to say that I in no way mean this to seem as an attack on coops.  We love our local coop – we are, actually, dues-paying members.  If I didn’t have the option of ordering various goods bulk through the bakery, I would go the route of some of the families we know, who place bulk orders through the coop (a wonderful service they provide) every month or so.  It is the addictive nature of buying from stores that I am trying to break away from, and the purchasing of goods from the industrial system.