I threw on a pot of water to cook the lentils, and heated a skillet to sauté some vegetables as a base for the lentils. I ended up with a great quick braise of onion, garlic, carrot and rutabaga (from our CSA) with white wine and herbes de Provence, to which I added the cooked lentils and a little balsamic vinegar. Thrown on the re-heated cooked pasta and garnished with crumbled goat cheese, another episode of clean-out-your-fridge-dinner is complete!

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We live in Forest Hill, Queens. It’s pretty urban here — while not as industrial as Western Queens (like Long Island City), or as suburban as Eastern Queens (like Douglaston), we straddle the line between the city and the suburbs, and there’s nothing that resembles a farmer’s market nearby. So it has been pretty unbelievable to join up with the Forest Hills Tuv Ha’aretz CSA, and get delicious, fresh, organic vegetables 6-months out of the year straight from Golden Earthworm Organic Farm. This is our second year with the CSA, but last year, due to a couple of rain-outs, we never made it out to the farm. This year, we were determined and we made the trek out to Jamesport on an early June weekend to go Strawberry picking. How fortuitous when I found out that this month’s Can Jam ingredient was ____berries! It didn’t take long for me to fill in that blank. I mean, when does anyone in central queens have the opportunity to PICK then PRESERVE anything? Umm….never.

The farm is incredible. Located on a windy road just past Riverhead, on the North Fork of Long Island, it is picturesque. Hence the below pictures. In addition to the fields, and green houses, Golden Earthworm also keeps heritage breed sheep, pigs and goats. We actually ran into one of the farmers, Matthew, as we walked around the farm. What a privilege to have the opportunity to thank the farmer that grows one’s food!

With strawberries this good looking (and good tasting), I really didn’t want to do that much to them, so I decided to just can them in a simple syrup. The recipe was adapted (for batch size) from Ball’s Complete Book of Home Preserving.

Strawberries in Syrup

Recipe makes one 12 oz jelly jar with a few generous tablespoons left over to eat directly from the pot

• 4 cups hulled strawberries, large ones halved
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar

1. In a large pot, combine strawberries and sugar and toss to coat. Cover and set aside in a cool place for 5 – 6 hours.
2. Prepare canner, jars and lids. If you are new to canning, read THIS.
3. Transfer pot with strawberries to stove, and heat over medium low until berries are heated through.
4. Ladle hot strawberries into jar with 1/2 inch headspace. Wipe rim, center lid on jar, and twist screw band on.
5. Process in boiling water bath canner for 10 minutes.

My jar boiled over during processing (I guess I didn’t have the full 1/2 inch headspace), and didn’t have time to re-process. I ended up just wiping the lid, re-closing, cooling, and putting it in the fridge. Canning experts — is it still OK? Do I need to boil again before I eat, safety-wise?

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Ratatouille

• 2 small eggplants*
• 1 large zucchini*
• 1 large onion*
• 2 green peppers*
• 2 cloves garlic, chopped*
• 2/3 28oz can of chopped tomatoes (see note below)
• Herbes de provence, salt, pepper, olive oil and a high heat oil (safflower, grapeseed or sunflower)

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Peel and slice eggplant into 1/2 – 1-inch rounds; slice zucchini into slices the same size. Toss both with salt and place in collander to drain for up to 30 minutes. Dry with paper towel or clean kitchen towel when ready.
2. While zucchini/eggplant is draining, slice onion and green pepper; sauté onion and green pepper with salt and pepper in olive oil for about 8-10 minutes, until soft and golden. Add garlic and tomatoes, turn the heat to low and cook for another 5 minutes.
   
3. When eggplant/zucchini are drained and dried, in batches sauté in high heat oil until golden; transfer to plate when done.
4. In a casserole dish, spread 1/2 of the tomato mixture on the bottom, then sprinkle with herbes de provence. Continue by arranging the sautéed zucchini and eggplant. Finish by topping with the rest of the tomato mixture and more herbes de provence. Cover with tin foil and cook for 10 minutes.

* From CSA box; also note that although a tomato came in this week’s box, I decided to use canned tomatoes since I only had one tomato, which would hardly impart ratatouille-worthy-tomato-flavor. I look forward to enjoying the tomato later this week after it’s had a bit more time ripening on my counter.

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So while our kitchen has been a bit quiet, I thought I’d provide you with some inspiration from the amazing chef of Le Bernardin,  Eric Ripert.  Chef Ripert has created a seasonal menu designed for the home chef to prepare with friends.  There is a prize for the best photograph of the meal, and the winner gets an Olympus camera, so if you execute this menu, be sure to submit your photos before November 17th.   We love lamb, pumpkin, and all the other Fall flavors he’s incorporated into the menu so you can bet we’ll be making it soon.  View his menu, as well as planning tips and wine pairing suggestions on his blog, here: aveceric.com

Thank you for your patience while we take some time away from the kitchen.  This weekend we’ll do a grocery shop and get ourselves back in there, making more sustainable delectables, and saving more $$$. Until then, have a look at some of our favorite food blogs on the side bar.

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Stone Barns Center for Agriculture is a working farm and educational center on an 80 acre estate near Tarrytown.   The dining room for Blue Hill is in the old dairy barn.

The menu is simply a listing of the ingredients in season, organized by the distance they had to travel to get to the table.

The only choice to make is if you want the five course tasting menu, or the seven course ‘Farmer’s Feast’.  Then, they ask you if you have any particular likes/dislikes, and how adventurous of an eater you are.  We decided to treat ourselves with the Farmer’s Feast.  From there, we expressed a love of lamb, and an adventurous spirit, but not so adventurous as to want kidney or thymus (sweet breads) meat.

They took care of us.  Each course showcased a different ingredient in such clever, simple and elegant ways.

We would have loved to have photographed each course so we could share it with you, but we didn’t want to be those people (even though, clearly, we’re those people at heart).  A notepad sufficed though.  Here’s what we ate:

• baby carrots, jade cucumber, and cauliflower, lightly pickled and salted, served on spikes, with Blue Hill ‘V8′
• tomato sliders with potato chips woven with sage
• forona beets with farm honey and yogurt foam
• marinated local blue fish with jerusalem artichoke, fleur de sel and a drizzle of herb oil
• poached local hake on a corn/lobster chowder
• today’s egg, poached, on a shelling bean stew
• hudson valley duck & liver with banana squash and matsutake mushrooms
• braised lamb neck with cracked wheat and quinoa pilaf and a kohlrabi puree
• concord grape soup with elderflower and fennel seed
• chocolate bread pudding with caramelized strawberries
• roasted figs with walnut ice cream

Wow.  Talk about delicious.  Everything.  Its hard to single out any courses but standouts were the blue fish, the lamb, the egg (mmm, poached like smooth heaven), the tomato sliders, and the walnut ice cream.  As an added bonus, we were lucky to catch Chef Barber making an appearance in the dining room.  He was super friendly, and when we complimented the lamb neck, he commented that we must have been tagged ‘adventurous’ by the waiter.

The following day we returned to get a glimpse of where the food came from, a rare opportunity in today’s world where we are so far removed from the source of our food.  Stone Barns practices sustainable agriculture: they have minimal input of fertilizer or feed from outside.  This is in contrast with factory farms, which rely heavily on feed and chemical fertilizers, which are ultimately derived from petroleum (more dependence on OIL!).  In Sustainable agriculture, the idea is to create a healthy ecosystem, in this case based on grass, and allow the right players (animals) to do their part.  The farmer’s role then becomes just making sure the right animal is at the right plot of grass at the right time.  Michael Pollan writes about a farm in Virgina called Polyface Farms. The farmer at Polyface, Joel Salatin calls himself a grass farmer (He was a consultant for Stone Barns).  Its very interesting stuff, I encourage everyone to visit Stone Barns and see if for yourself.  For those not ready to spring for Blue Hill ($$$$), there is a cafe for lunch at the farm that features sandwiches and salads made from local ingredients.

Oh, and kids would LOVE Stone Barns.  We stumbled upon a wonderful kids play about Clucky the factory chicken who escapes to pursue her dream of one day laying an egg.  (the role of Clucky was played brilliantly by our friend Gregg Mozgala — total coincidence!).

Again, Stone Barns is a wonderful place that embodies so much of what we value in regards to food, it would be a great day trip for any New Yorker.  Thanks Ginny, Tim, Ayla and David, great gift!

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