Shooting Stars of Thought

It’s OLS catch-up day!  (I apologize for the brevity of this post, but I’ve got a batch of homebrew going and I keep leaping up from the computer to tend to it).

Week 4:

Week 4 found me with a dozen friends over for a backyard barbeque, and the pleasure of realizing I could feed them locally. The meal was nothing fancy–it was more practical than anything–but special in that I was actually able to feed that many people locally. The meal consisted of 5 pounds of Brandt Beef tri tip, two pans of roasted Peruvian blue potatoes, zucchini and baby onion skewers, and a grilled corn, onion, and tomato salad. (The only non-local addition was a can of black beans to the corn salad, because there was a vegan in the mix and I didn’t want her to go hungry).  Plenty of local beer was supplied–both from Ballast Point and from our own collection of homebrew. I dare say it was a hit (although I didn’t take the photos to prove it).

Week 5:

Week 5 brought a meal I’ve been meaning to make for some time: a fritatta. I love the simplicity of the one-dish meal, and with so many local vegetables at the markets these days, it’s always a pleasure to find a dish that can accommodate a wide variety in combination. Plus I love any dish I can make entirely using my trusty cast iron. I used Hillikers Ranch eggs, along with a combination of spinach, zucchini, shitake mushrooms, roma tomatoes and fingerling potatoes.  The entire meal took less than 30 minutes to prep and cook, and was deliciously flavorful.

Vegetable Fritatta

• 1 Tbsp. + 1 tsp. olive oil
• 6 fingerling potatoes, sliced
• 1-2 baby onions, diced
• 1 clove garlic, diced
• 2 baby zucchini, sliced
• 1 cup shitake mushrooms, stems removed and sliced
• 1 roma tomato, diced
• 2 cups spinach, diced
• 2-3 sprigs basil, sliced
• 1 tbsp. butter
• 5 eggs, lightly beaten

Preheat oven to 350. Heat a cast iron skillet over medium heat. Meanwhile toss potatoes with 1 tsp. olive oil, place in microwave safe bowl, cover with saran wrap, and microwave 4-6 minutes, until cooked. Set aside. Add oil to skillet and reduce to medium-low heat.  Add onions and saute for 1-2 minutes, until translucent. Add garlic, saute 30 seconds until fragrant. Add zucchini, and saute 2 minutes. Add mushrooms and tomatoes and saute 3 minutes, until mushrooms are cooked through. Add spinach and saute until wilted, 1-2 minutes. Add basil and butter and stir to coat bottom of pan. Add eggs and let sit 30 seconds undisturbed. Working slowly, push eggs around pan, tilting pan to let uncooked portions touch bottom. Push slowly for 2 minutes, until eggs begin to set. Transfer pan to oven and cook, 3-4 minutes, until top is slightly browned and eggs are cooked throughout. Slice and serve.

Ok, I took some liberties with “local” this week, when I decided to explore the depths of my freezer and came across two elk ribeye steaks that a friend had given me last summer. The meat comes from his family’s ranch in Minot, North Dakota, and was part of an enormous dry-ice packed cooler that is sent to San Diego each season. I eagerly accepted the steaks when he offered them, but had let them hide in the back of the freezer for some time because, well, I wasn’t sure if I could do the steaks justice.

But this week, the time just seemed right, and out of the freezer and into a skillet they went. While they are from halfway across the country, somehow eating game hunted by a friend’s family seems just as much in the spirit of local as eating produce grown by a farmer you know. In fact, even though the meat was from hundreds of miles away, I still felt very close to my meal. I’m excited to have had the chance to cook them and proud to include them in this week’s “local” meal.

Here’s went into this week’s meal:

Pan-Seared Elk Ribeye Steaks

Braised Collard Greens

Saute of Carrots, Summer Squash and Sage

Smashed Peruvian Blue Potatoes

Santo Tomas Red Table Wine

The recipe for the steaks came from a recipe for beef ribeyes on Epicurious, which allowed me to use a bottle of red table wine from Santo Tomas winery that I picked up on a recent trip to La Bufadora, in Baja, Mexico. The recipe proved easily adaptable to Elk, although the thick steaks I had did require a bit longer searing time. The key to elk, apparently, is to cook it no more than medium rare (130 degrees), lest the meat become too tough–I did just that and the steaks came out perfectly tender. For the pan sauce, I simply omitted the non-local soy sauce and had a local sauce that was rich and luscious.

I’ve always thought of collard greens as something that required a long simmer with a ham hock, but I stumbled across a vegetarian version that adds flavor through an onion and spices. Coincidentally, it comes from a local vegetarian restaurant, the Che Cafe on the UCSD campus.

Inspired by the balsamic vinegar I picked up from Temecula Olive Oil Company, I whipped together a honey balsamic drizzle for the carrot and summer squash mixture. The honey I have, from Chrystal’s Pure Honey, is a sage blossom honey, so I couldn’t help but throw some fresh sage into the mix.

And then there’s my favorite new potato recipe, smashed potatoes. I simply roasted the whole potatoes for 40 minutes at 425, then smashed them with a mallet to break the skins before serving. They’re delicious drizzled with olive oil and garlic, or can even stand alone.

I also had fun this week pouring over the vivid and engaging Local Flavors, the new cookbook from Deborah Madison. I encourage anyone participating in OLS (or anyone just wanting to cook straight from the farmers’ market) to pick up a copy!