This past Saturday morning we stopped at t’afia restaurant to sit in on one of Chef Monica Pope’s Green Plum Cooking School classes. She is a vocal advocate of preparing simple, tasty meals using local produce and products from our city’s farmers markets.

For these free lessons, Chef Monica uses Alice Walters’ cookbook as inspiration, adapting them to our local offerings. Saturday’s dish was Brussel Sprouts gratin, accompanied by a simple, delicious poached egg with salad.

The three of us enjoyed the demonstration and highly recommend it for anyone wanting to learn how to use local, seasonal ingredients in everyday cooking.

Spring is finally here – a season that our family has been waiting with such anticipation. Not just because we love the change in temperature, or because we are delighted to see all the flowers blooming or the trees changing leaves, but because this season will bring us full circle with our 100 Mile Harvest journey.

We started this adventure in May of last year and in less than 6 weeks we will be faced with a new beginning, one that we will embark on with the same passion, discipline and devotion as we did with 100 Mile Harvest. This new phase of our lives will carry some of the same principles and philosophies from this past year, but we’ll adapt them to accommodate the different needs of our family. It will be a transition from the strict locavore diet to a more expansive way of eating, one that will allow us to supplement some of the basic needs and wants that were not met by 100 mile Harvest (such as cooking oil, spices, teas and the much-longed-for chocolate). This journey has provided us with the opportunity to make a difference in our personal lives and allowed us to live both more consciously and responsibly. We feel like we have improved our lives while also learning to live a more eco-friendly existence. I can not wait to start this new challenge.

In the meantime, I will enjoy what is still left from the winter harvest. The sweet potatoes have long departed from our menus and we deeply miss having those scrumptious chips in our meals. Even though I loved and enjoyed everything I have been eating, they were always a treat. We still have a couple of weeks left before the Brussels sprouts, broccoli, and cauliflower disappear from the stands.

A year ago I would wander through the vegetable aisles of the supermarket, seeing the cauliflower, but never caring to pick one up. Under the glow of fluorescent store lights they looked unappealing and uneventful. It wasn’t until I discovered all the different cauliflower varieties and colors (from bright orange, purple, green to the traditional white), that I started to have a better appreciation for this vegetable. And now that I’ve come to love it, I will have to wait until the winter to enjoy it again.

But along with the fresh breeze, spring will bring a new array of fruits and vegetables. We are lucky to have been among the first to enjoy the first local harvesting of asparagus, and we can’t wait to see what else awaits us in the months to come.

Today, Michelle Obama and twenty-three Washington, D.C. 5th graders broke ground on the “White House Kitchen Garden.” The garden will cover 1,100 sq. ft. on the White House’s South Lawn, a few steps from the Obama girls’ swing set. 55 varieties of fruits and vegetables will be grown organically, to be used in the kitchen’s preparation of food for the first family and guests.

This weekend we, too, will break ground on our own garden, with the full expectation that it will bring an abundance of delicious flavors into our meals. We’ve been preparing for this moment since starting 100 Mile Harvest, and the last few weeks we’ve actually been buying seeds and transplants, and sketching out a plan. It’s time to get our hands dirty!

I encourage everyone to get outside and make the most of these beautiful days. And don’t forget to give thanks that Spring is here.

Upon starting 100 Mile Harvest we made a commitment to eat only local, seasonal foods. We knew that we would have to give up many of the fruits and vegetables that we had come to love and expect year-round, among them asparagus.

Finally, after more than 10 month of waiting, we saw the first spears in the market. A sign that the spring is near. In Texas, the first asparagus crop can be picked as early as March, even though their season generally runs from April through May.

Gita VanWoerden said she was thinking of us as she harvested this delicacy and decided to share the first picking with us. We were so grateful – after 2 months on a broccoli and cauliflower diet – we were ready to introduce a new vegetable into our menu. The asparagus was not only a delightful offering, but it served to remind us yet again of the appreciation our family has for the change in seasons.

Did you know that the asparagus is a member of the lily family just like onions and leek? It’s spears grow from a crown, planted about a foot deep in the soil. It is best to wait up to 3 years before the first harvest, to allow the plant to develop deep, strong roots. But all the waiting will be worth it, for the asparagus will produce for 15 to 20 years without being replanted.

I love asparagus not only for its delicate creamy flavor, but also because it is low in calories and dense in nutrients. Asparagus is known to be a folic acid power house, as well as a good source of potassium, fiber, vitamin B6, vitamins A and C, and thiamin.

You can find it in three colors, green, purple and white. It is versatile enough to be grilled, saute, baked, fried, cooked, steamed and even microwaved. It can be eaten cold or hot, as an appetizer, as a salad with a balsamic vinaigrette, as a soup, or as an entree.

Our family prefers it saute, with a little bit of olive oil, garlic, green onions, basil, salt and pepper to taste.

First, bring saute pan to medium heat. Add 1Tbsp of olive oil, garlic and green onions.

Then add the asparagus, basil and seasonings. Saute 4 to 5 minutes or until crisp-tender.

Serve immediately and enjoy!

You can change the recipe slightly by adding diced red bell peppers or cherry tomatoes, oregano and thyme. Or you can be more adventurous by adding toasted almonds or pine nuts.

Who’s ready for March Madness? I’m not a real fan, but I know there are a lot of you out there, ready to sit for hours in front of the TV with bags of chips in your hands. Well, before you reach for those unhealthy junk food choices, here’s a simple and healthy alternative. Sweet potato chips are our family’s favorite crunchy snack. They’re easy to make and you just need two ingredients: sweet potatoes and salt.

We use an Oxo Good Grips mandoline slicer to cut paper-thin slices of sweet potato. However, if you don’t own a mandoline, you can use a sharp knife to slice your sweet potato as thinly as possible. Next, spray olive oil on a baking sheet and start placing each slice side-by-side, leaving a 1/4” gap in between. Add salt to taste. If you feel adventurous, you can add paprika to the mix.

Set your oven at 375°F and bake for 20 minutes on the top rack. Keep an eye on them! Do not leave them unattended, or they will burn. They will be golden and crispy when done.

You can expect the same results with potatoes and yams. You can even mix them up and create a colorful snack that kids of all ages will love.

They are best when eaten fresh, but they will store well for a couple of days in an air-tight container.

This Valentine’s Day, we found ourselves in San Antonio, celebrating our nephew Tristan’s 4th birthday. We left on Friday evening, but took just enough time to whip up a quick snack for the road. We started with some brown rice blueberry muffins, a recipe that’s only gotten better in the last few months. As a new twist, we hunted down a recipe for frosting. Almost magically, we converted one egg and 1/3 of a cup of turbinado sugar into a delicious whipped topping!

This weekend we were delighted with our finds in the market. Everything from red onion, green garlic, to all the Brassicaceae family like broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, kale and turnips. Finding sugar cane was a sweet surprise.

I am going crazy adding onion and garlic to everything I cook. It has been so nice to have this infusion of flavors to enjoy. But the best part is that Adrian and Katerina are loving the meals too. Above is a photo of one of our seasonal vegetable dishes. Brussels sprouts and purple cauliflower sauteed with green garlic, olive oil, salt and pepper. Delicious.

Could you trash your refrigerator?

The New York Times ran a story on environmentally-minded individuals who are deciding to unplug their refrigerators for good. Mostly, these are people who are hoping to cut down on the electrical usage of their household and are not satisfied with the energy savings delivered by even the most efficient Energy Star appliances.

So they pull the plug and adapt to living without the convenience of refrigeration. In some ways, their strategies sound familiar: no prepared foods means more cooking at home and a decreased reliance on processed food. Some of them keep a freezer for meats and vegetables, and for freezing water containers that can keep an ice chest cool.

Though the number of people nixing the fridge is undoubtedly small, one has to admire their resolve..and ask just how they’re getting by! We have a hard enough time keeping all of our greens fresh and crisp inside the refrigerator, so maintaining our diet of whole foods would require multiple market stops each week.

Any savings we’d see from shutting off the refrigerator would likely be offset by the increase in gasoline we’d consume going to multiple farmers’ markets. A discussion on other points has developed at thecrunchychicken.com, including cooking inefficiency, food waste, increased cost and packaging.

Are any of our readers deliberately living fridge-free? We’d love to hear about it…

According to an FDA report, Peanut Corporation of America has been aware of salmonella contamination of its products since 2007.

The company’s own internal testing program detected strains of the bacteria 12 times from 2007-2008 in peanut paste, peanut butter, peanut meal, peanut granules and oil-roasted, salted peanuts. Most troubling was the fact that “after the firm retested the product and received a negative status, the product was shipped.” Other findings at the plant include mildew growth and cockroach infestation.

According to the investigators, “no steps were taken in terms of cleaning or cross-contamination,” allowing the spread of an outbreak that has sickened 502 people and been linked to 8 deaths. According to the National Peanut Board, the average American consumes over 6 pounds of peanuts and peanut butter products per year.

The list of recalled products now exceeds 300, and consumers are urged to dispose of any items whose safety is in question.

“‘The outbreak highlights how food production has become more centralized,’ said Jaydee Hanson, a policy analyst for the Center for Food Safety. ‘The peanuts come from a variety of farms, then are processed at a central location into ingredients disbursed for use in many products,’ he said.”
Source: CNN

As a result of the investigation, the PCA plant shut down production on January 9, and this week laid off most all but three of its 46 workers.