Recipe: Cornbread Panzanella Salad

Few things hit the spot like a great salad on a hot August day. One of our favorite summer salads has already been perfected by not one, but two chefs in Great Barrington — Daire Rooney of the Mezze Restaurant Group and Steve Browning at Prairie Whale. They have different approaches to the dish, but our reaction is always the same; when we see a panzanella salad on either of their menus, we just have to order it.

But sometimes you just want to stay in and make your own, right? Luckily, with panzanella, you can’t go wrong. Just grab a few fresh ingredients, throw ‘em together and you’ve got a bright and satisfying classic summer side dish.


This salad is simple, but also highly adaptable. Don’t like cucumbers? Leave them out. Have some beautiful sweet peppers? Toss them in. Whether you’re picnicking at Tanglewood, dropping by a summer potluck, or just feeling lazy, this salad promises to deliver.

Cornbread Panzanella Salad

+ 4 generous cups of cornbread, cut into 1 inch cubes
+ 2 lbs. heirloom tomatoes, chopped into 1-2 inch pieces
+ 1 fresh tropea onion, minced or 1 shallot, peeled and minced
+ 1 or 2 cucumbers, sliced and chopped
+ 5 tablespoons olive oil
+ Sea salt (something flaky like Maldon is best)
+ Frreshly ground pepper
+ 3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
+ 4-5 oz. good mozzarella, chopped into ½-inch pieces
+ 1/2 cup basil, roughly chopped

1. Lay the cornbread cubes out on a baking sheet and drizzle about 3 tablespoons of olive oil on top. Toss until the pieces are generally covered, and season lightly with salt and pepper. Bake in a 400° oven for 10 minutes, gently stirring once or twice, until toasted.
2. In a large serving bowl, mix the tomatoes, onions or shallots, cucumbers, vinegar, remaining olive oil, and cheese. Add cornbread cubes and mozzarella, some salt and pepper, and toss.
3. Let sit for 20 minutes or so, then serve.

Note: This recipe originally appeared on RuralIntelligence.com on August 10, 2015. It's been back-dated here on our blog so that it falls, seasonally, in the right place. 

Recipe: Kimchi Pancakes

This winter we promised ourselves that we’d spend some time getting to know the various cuisines of Asia. (We thought we’d make a resolution we could actually keep this year!) We researched renowned books from all the leading traditional and up-and-coming chefs, and went to work exploring new techniques, flavor profiles and ingredients.

As we’ve moved through each country and region, we’ve slowly accumulated a pantry full of kitchen staples from cuisines around the continent - and we’ve been pleasantly surprised by how many locally produced options there are for us to experiment with. Now we always have at least one variety of South River Miso in our fridge - usually hearty brown rice - along with a couple of bottles of Kitchen Garden’s sriracha. We’ve also bulked up on Korean chili flakes and garlic powder from Yung Yuk of Et Cetera Farm in Hillsdale, NY and of course, we’re never without a few jars of Hosta Hill kimchi.

Hosta Hill kimchi has always been in our fridge, long before this continental cooking kick. Our Sunday morning breakfasts often consist of a fried egg, some left over rice or noodles and big, hearty scoop of kimchi right on top. But recently we’ve really been plowing through it; in kimchi and pork stew, along side miso glazed haddock, finishing off tatsoi stir fry, you get the idea.

These kimchi pancakes are one of our favorite new discoveries. Serve them as a side with marinated steak and sauteed greens, or pile them high and give them the spotlight.

Kimchi Pancakes

Makes 8 pancakes

+ 2 cups cabbage kimchi (or one full jar of Hosta Hill)

+ 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

+ 1/2 cups rice flour

+ 1 teaspoon kosher salt

+ 4 scallions, finely chopped

+ Vegetable oil - we used Safflower

1. Drain the kimchi, reserving the juice. Get in there with your hands and squeeze out the liquid. Measure the juice and top off with water if needed to make 1 cup. Coarsely chop the kimchi and set aside.

2. In a large bowl, mix together the flours, salt, and kimchi juice. Let the mixture stand for 10 minutes then stir in the chopped kimchi and scallions.

3. Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat with a tablespoon of oil. For each pancake, add about a third of a cup of the mixture to the skillet and spread it out with the back of a spoon. Cook until the bottom is crispy and golden, about 2 minutes. Flip over and cook until the other side is crispy and golden, about 2 more minutes. Remove from skillet and drain on towels. Continue in batches.

Serve the pancakes warm with a simple dipping sauce on the side. Here’s a recipe we really like, and it makes just enough sauce for one batch of pancakes.

Dipping Sauce

Combine in a small bowl:

+ 3 tablespoons soy sauce

+ 1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil

+ 1/2 teaspoon rice vinegar

+ 2 teaspoons toasted sesame seeds, crushed or whole

+ 1/2 teaspoon sugar or honey

+ 1 clove garlic, crushed

+ 1 scallion, chopped

Both recipes adapted from TheKitchn.com

Note: This recipe originally appeared on RuralIntelligence.com on April 13, 2015. It's been back-dated here on our blog so that it falls, seasonally, in the right place.  

Recipe: Perfecto Meatballs

The poor meatball. So often relegated to childrens’ menus and questionable smorgasbords at discount furniture chains, the meatball is rarely given a real chance to shine. But we know the truth – that with the right ingredients and a little respect, meatballs can be complex, delicate, immensely satisfying and borderline elegant. 

Clearly, we are a family of meatball enthusiasts, from Middle Eastern kofta, heavy with green herbs and deep spices to dreamy Swedish köttbullar, smothered in peppery cream sauce. And, of course, there’s the classic Italian-American; three meats, breadcrumbs, and some parmesan, all rolled into a covetable package. Jake has perfected his version which, when sauteed in just enough butter (a lot), and finished off in a pan of saucy tomatoes, manages to couple a toothsome crust and a melt-in-your-mouth center. Poured over a bowl of bucatini or creamy polenta, this classic peasant dish will make you feel like well-fed royalty.

Perfecto Meatballs

Make the meatballs:
+ ½ cup milk
+ ½ cup bread crumbs
+ 2 eggs
+ 2 tbsp parmesan
+ ½ lb veal
+ ½ lb beef
+ ½ lb hot Italian pork sausage
+ 2 tbsp olive oil
+ 2 tbsp butter

1. Combine milk and bread crumbs in a small bowl until the all of the milk is absorbed.
2. In a large bowl, use your hands to mix the three meats with the eggs, parmesan, and bread and milk mixture. Make sure it is well blended but don’t over mix, as the meatballs will lose their fluffiness.
3. Place a large saute pan on high heat with the oil and butter.
4. Form the meat mixture into 1.5 – 2 inch rounds, and brown in small batches. Do not overcrowd pan.
5. Brown meatballs until they have a deep brown crusty exterior, a couple minutes on each side. One whole batch should take about 5-7 minutes – the balls don’t need to be 100 percent cooked at this point. When done, put meatballs aside.

Make the sauce:
+ (2) 28 oz. cans of whole peeled tomatoes
+ 2 medium yellow onions, chopped
+ 6 cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped

1. Using the drippings from the meatballs, saute the onions and garlic in the same pan until translucent, about 5 minutes.
2. Add tomatoes, roughly crushing each tomato with your hand or a large wooden spoon.
3. Bring sauce to a boil and then turn the heat down to a simmer. Simmer for 45 minutes, stirring occasionally.
4. Add the meatballs back into the sauce and cook for another 15 minutes.
5. Pour over pasta or polenta and serve with some grated parmesan and pepper.

Note: This recipe originally appeared on RuralIntelligence.com on Dec 7, 2014. It's been back-dated here on our blog so that it falls, seasonally, in the right place.   

Recipe: Corn and Jalapeño Fritters

Nobody’s perfect all the time. We do our best to stick to a seasonal produce schedule, buying locally when we can and often amending recipes or changing culinary tacks when we can’t. But there’s one night, almost weekly, when we fill our grocery carts with abandon, and that’s taco night.

Sure, we do our best. We buy our steak from North Plain Farm and our radishes, cabbage, tomatoes, even jalapeños, from farms around the county. But we just can’t let go of our beloved guacamole, and the avocados and limes that it calls for. It’s a deliciously rebellious treat that we relish—so much so that we often over-buy for our table of two and happily gorge on leftovers for a few extra days.

But we’re always striving to bring it back to the Berkshires. The last couple taco nights we’ve been enjoying these delicious and easy corn fritters. They’re a quick way to get a little more local produce on our plates, and a great off-the-cob vehicle for the corn which is so bountiful and sweet this year. Serve with lime, avo and creme fraiche as a starter, or skip the tortillas all together and pile your taco fillings on top, torta-style. However you do it, you’ll be doing your local farmer a favor while enjoying more global flavor.

Corn and Jalapeño Fritters

+ 2 beaten large eggs

+ 1/4 cup all-purpose flour

+ 2 tablespoons grated Parmesan

+ 1 teaspoon kosher salt

+ 2 cups fresh corn kernels

+ 1 thinly sliced scallion

+ 1 finely chopped seeded jalapeño

+ 2 tablespoons safflower oil (canola will work, too)

+ Flake salt

+ Creme fraiche, avocado and lime, for serving

1. Combine eggs, flour, grated Parmesan, and kosher salt in a food processor. Pulse a few times to mix well.

2. Add corn kernels, scallion, and jalapeño; pulse 2–3 times.

3. Heat oil in pan. When hot, cook heaping tablespoonfuls of batter until golden brown, about 4 minutes per side. Season patties with flake salt and serve with creme fraiche, avocado and lime.

Note: This recipe originally appeared on RuralIntelligence.com on August 17, 2014. It's been back-dated here on our blog so that it falls, seasonally, in the right place. 

Recipe: Candy Cane Ice Cream

If you're as obsessed with cooking, eating and entertaining as we are, the post-holiday weeks can be a bit of a food letdown. Some use this time to cleanse and purify, eating sprouts and celery sticks and carefully avoiding all the fatty, sweet and salty foods they've stuffed themselves with for the last two months. But not us! We say “pshaw!” to that. Carpe diem! Look around – we're deep into winter here in New England. It's dark, it's cold and the only way to stay in high spirits is to spend our short days in front of a hot oven and the long nights by the fire, nibbling on rich treats. Summer is the time for raw veggies and grilled fish - let's indulge while we can!

In the spirit of extending the festive food period, we present one of our favorite post holiday desserts: Peppermint Stick Ice Cream. Though ice cream may seem counter intuitive given the recent sub-zero temperatures, trust us: nothing beats this yummy dessert, covered with some home-made hot chocolate sauce or accompanied by a steaming cup of cocoa. If you need even more justification, this recipe is a great way to get rid of all the candy-canes you've accumulated from the holidays. And peppermint is one of those flavors, just like citrus, that cuts through fat. How could you resist?

Peppermint Stick Ice Cream

Adapted from The Joy Of Cooking

Note: We like to use a simple “Philadelphia” style vanilla base for our Peppermint-Stick Ice Cream. You should feel free to make a french, custard base instead, though we find the Philly style to be a bit brighter to match the flavor of the candy-canes.

Ingredients

+ 3/4 cup sugar

+ 1/8 teaspoon salt

+ 1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise in half

+ 3 cups heavy cream

+ 1 cup whole milk

+ 10-12 candy canes, crushed

Special Equipment

+ Ice Cream Maker

1. Combine 1 cup of the heavy cream, the sugar, and the salt into a medium saucepan. Scrape the seeds of the vanilla bean into the cream mixture, then drop the bean shell in as well.

2. Bring to a simmer over medium-low heat, stirring often to dissolve the sugar. 

3. Pour the cream mixture into a bowl and stir in the remaining 2 cups of heavy cream and milk. Refrigerate until cold, overnight if possible. 

4. Remove the vanilla bean and seeds and discard. Pour the mixture into your chilled ice cream maker then let'er rip. While it's working it's magic, crush your candy canes into small chunks. We like to put them into a plastic baggie wrapped up in a dishtowel. Then we go over it a couple times with a rolling pin.

5. Once your ice cream mixture is almost at the desired texture, throw the crushed candy into the mixture, letting the machine incorporate the chunks.

6. Serve immediately or put in the freezer for another hour or so. Philadelphia style ice cream – well, any homemade ice cream, really - is best when served within a few hours.

This recipe can also be found on Rural Intelligence.

Recipe: Whole Grilled Fish

With Jake's new job as Produce Manager at the Berkshire Co-op Market we have been eating a lot less meat. Instead of bringing home thick pork chops, or a beautifully marbled London Broil every night, Jake is now carting home green and white striped zucchini and deep purple tomatoes. His working at the Co-op has also given us access to something else we've never really ate a lot of: fresh fish!

The main reason we weren't eating a lot of fish is that we never felt sure we were getting the full story - was it fresh? sustainably caught? how far did it travel? do we even know enough to ask the right questions? It's hard to feel like there's full transparency around seafood - sometimes even at the green market.

But now we have Austin Banach and Wes Mazlone! Around the time Jake was hired at the Co-op, so was our friend and fellow Monument High School grad, Austin. Austin is a fish and cheese monger who is just as passionate about his craft, and issues of sustainability and the local food economy, as we are. Lucky for us, he fills his case every week with bounty from Wes. 

Wes grew up in Scituate, Massachusetts, a prominent fishing community, and now lives in North Hampton, MA running BerkShore. Twice a week he drives to Scituate and picks up fish from the dock just caught by guys he grew up with. He then drives the fish back to the Berkshires and delivers it to the Co-op and other local restaurants and markets. On the days that Wes drops his fish off at the Co-op, we almost always take advantage. And now that it is full-on summer, we have become obsessed with grilling his beautiful product whole.

This week Austin had some gorgeous black sea bass in his case. We took the fish, a lemon, some local corn, a few heirloom tomatoes and zucchini, and headed home. After getting the grill going we went out to the herb garden and got some tarragon and parsley out from under the serious weeds that have settled there. Next, easy as one, two, three, we stuffed the cavity of the fish with the herbs and lemon, sprinkled some salt on both sides of the fish, drizzled a little olive oil on top and tossed it on the grill. After four minutes on each side, we were sitting on the porch eatting a stunning, fresh, flavorful meal.

Grilled Whole Fish

+ 1 whole fish (scaled and gutted). Right now we like Black Sea Bass and Porgy. 

+ A handful of fresh herbs (tarragon, parley, cilantro, chervil, and dill are all good)

+ 1 lemon, slice one half, leave the other half intact
+ olive oil
+ salt

1. Stuff the cavity of the fish with the herbs and the lemon slices.
2. Coat it with salt and drizzle a little olive oil on it
3. Put it on the grill and cook for 4 minutes, than flip and cook for another four minutes.
4. Take off the grill and let rest for a few minutes. Before serving squeeze some lemon on it.

Recipe: Sinful Bread Pudding

In case you haven’t noticed, we love dessert. Whether it’s a simple scoop of Maple Valley Ice Cream or a decadent chocolate molten soufflé cake, we want a bite and then some. And while we are equal-opportunity dessert eaters, one our favorite forms of post-dinner sweetness is pudding. Rice, Indian, tapioca, banana - you name it, we’ll eat it.

Did you get the Saveur magazine in which Gabriella Gershenson, a Berkshire food devotee, wrote about Berkshire Mountain Bakery? In addition to waxing poetic about owner Richard Bourdon’s unique baking process, she asserts that their chocolate ciabatta is perfectly fit for bread pudding. Well, we had to try it – and right away. We jumped in the car and headed to the Co-Op, only to discover that they were sold out! Not to be deterred, we grabbed a discounted day-old BMB peasant loaf, some chocolate chips and headed home to improvise.

Looking through our cookbooks, we flipped across so many delicious sounding variations on the classic recipe. Chocolate bread pudding, brown-butter bread pudding, bourbon bread pudding... being the gluttons that we are, we decided that there was no harm in having it all once in a while. So after a few preparatory shots of Berkshire Mountain Distillers rum, Silka got down to the business of making the most sinful bread pudding possible.

Sinful Bread Pudding
Adapted from How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman

+ 6 cups baguette or ciabatta, cut or torn into 1-inch chunks
+ 4 tablespoons butter, plus more for greasing
+ 2 cups half-and-half
+ 3/4 cup maple syrup
+ 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
+ a pinch of salt
+ 3 tablespoons rum or whiskey
+ 4 eggs
+ 1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Over low heat in a small saucepan butter, half and half, maple syrup, cinnamon, salt and liquor until the butter just melts. In the meantime, butter an 8x8 baking dish or a casserole that fits 1.5 quarts.
2. Put bread pieces into casserole and pour the slightly cooled milk mixture on top. Let sit for a few minutes, submerging any pieces of bread that rise to the top.
3. Beat the eggs lightly, and pour over the bread mixture along with the chocolate chips. Stir gently, being careful not to tear up too many of the bread pieces.
4. Bake for 45 minutes. The center will be a little wobbly still, but it will set as it cools. Serve warm.

Recipe: Cauliflower Soup

We just love Brassica oleracea, there is no way around it. For some reason though, this fall we have been really, really into cauliflower. The intensity of our new-ish obsession is fed by the vegetable's consistent presence on the counter at The Meat Market; each week a cornucopia of white, orange, lavender and romanesco cauliflowers come in from Indian Line Farm and The Berry Patch, begging us to take them home.

Unfortunately for our camera, when Jake decided to bring a few heads home from the shop, all that were left were the white ones. On a standard night we'd roast them alone or with a collection of fall veggies - there's nothing better than a nutty, crisp-on-the-edges bite of roasted cauliflower. But, this time we thought we should branch out a little. Looking around on Food52, one of our go-to food blogs, we came across this recipe a favorite cookbooks - Cooking By Hand by Paul Bertolli.

As Paul so often does, he took amazing ingredients in their purest form, graced them with an incredibly simple preparation and created a perfect seasonal dish. Eating this soup is like eating a cloud - it is mind-blowingly light and fluffy. The delicate sweetness of the cauliflower stands out, highlighted by the earthiness of an extra virgin olive oil drizzle. And while managing to be extremely light, it still satisfied our cold weather craving for hot and hearty food. We would definitely recommend this dish with equal enthusiasm for an easy weeknight meal and a formal dinner party - it will definitely make it's way into our cauliflower rotation.

Cauliflower Soup 

From Cooking By Hand by Paul Bertolli

+ 3 tablespoons olive oil
+ 1 medium onion, sliced thin
+ 1 head very fresh cauliflower (any color), broken into florets
+ 5 1/2 cups water
+ Salt, to taste
+ Good extra virgin olive oil, to taste
+ Freshly ground black pepper, to taste

1. On a medium heat warm the olive oil in a heavy-bottomed pan. Put in the onion letting it brown, about 15 minutes.
2. Add the cauliflower, salt, and 1/2 cup water. Raise the heat slightly, cover the pot tightly and stew the cauliflower until tender, about 15 min. Then add another 4 1/2 cups hot water, bring to a low simmer and cook an additional 20 minutes uncovered.
3. Purée the soup with an immersion blender to a very smooth, creamy consistency. Let the soup stand for 20 minutes. In this time it will thicken slightly.
4. Thin the soup with 1/2 cup hot water. Reheat the soup. Serve hot, drizzled with a thin stream of extra-virgin olive oil and freshly ground black pepper.

Recipe: Chicken in 40 Cloves

As much as we love a good BBQ and summer produce, we’re excited to watch the leaves turn yellow and red and feel the days shorten because that means our meals are starting to change as well. Fall is really our favorite season for cooking. Braises, roasts, Brussels sprouts and squashes... we just can’t get enough. The thing is, most of those autumnal foods require a fair amount of time to prepare. And while there is nothing better than slowly braising a lam neck for 8 hours as you read by the fire, right now we just don't have the time for that.



Luckily, we have access to plenty of chicken! With just a few simple ingredients, chicken lends itself to a quick braise - all that deep, warming flavor we crave within a reasonable weeknight's cook time. For one of our first fall stews Jake brought home a chicken, a quart of stock and 4 heads of garlic while Silka picked up a bottle of dry white wine and some cookies. (Obviously, the cookies were not used in the preparation of the chicken.) In under an hour we were sitting down to a gorgeous meal, in front of a roaring fire and in a warm house filled with the scent of slowly roasted, caramelized garlic.


Chicken in 40 Cloves

+ 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
+ 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
+ 1 chicken, cut into 8 pieces, at room temperature
+ Salt
+ about 40 large garlic cloves, or heads or garlic, peeled
+ 1/2 cup dry white wine
+ 1/2 cup chicken stock

1. Pat the chicken pieces dry and season liberally with salt.
2. Add oil and butter to a dutch oven over a high flame.
3. When the fats are hot but not smoking add chicken pieces, skin side down, and cook until skin turns an even, golden brown - about 3 minutes. Turn over to brown other side and when done, set pieces aside. Work in batches to cook all the meat.
4. Reduce heat to medium. Place the garlic cloves at the bottom of the skillet and sauté until garlic is lightly browned on all sides - about 10 minutes.
5. Add the chicken on top of the garlic then pour in the wine and stock.
6. Cover and continue cooking until juices run clear when a thigh is pricked - 10 to 15 minutes more.
7. Take cover off and place under the broiler for 5 minutes to re-crisp skin of the chicken. Serve over rice or potatoes.

Recipe: Raspberry Sour Cream Tart

We are loving our first September together in New Marlborough – perfect weather, the best produce and the late afternoon light?! Amazing! In fact, we fell so in love with September in the Berkshires that we’ve been inspired to get married here, in our backyard, next fall!! 

Not surprisingly, many of our preliminary wedding-planning conversations revolve around food. Jake works with the most amazing team of caterers at Fire Roasted Catering, The Meat Market’s sister company, so that decision was easy to make. But there’s still the cake. We definitely want to incorporate fruit and since we’re drowning in raspberries right now (in the best way!) we knew they’d be a great, seasonal fruit to celebrate.

 

So why do we have so many raspberries? Decades ago Jake’s grandmother planted two raspberry patches - a summer patch and an autumn patch. As the weather starts to cool and the days get shorter, we feel so lucky to have this incredibly bountiful second harvest! On any given day there is at least a quart of newly ripe, sweet rubies to be plucked.

Ok, back to the wedding! We’ve started to play around with some raspberry dessert ideas, preferably ones that are red and white to match our décor (more on that later!). Through a fruitful Google session, Silka found this beautiful and bright recipe - and while it may not be suitable for our wedding cake, we are so happy to have stumbled upon it! 

Raspberry Sour Cream Tart
Bon Appetit via Epicurious.com

For crust
+ 8 whole graham crackers, coarsely broken
+ 1/4 cup (packed) golden brown sugar
+ 1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, melted

For filling and topping
+ 6 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
+ 1/3 cup sugar
+ 1/2 cup sour cream
+ 2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
+ 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
+ 2 1/2-pint baskets raspberries
+ 1/4 cup seedless raspberry jam

To make crust:

Preheat oven to 375°F. Grind crackers and sugar in processor until coarse crumbs form. Add butter and process until crumbs are evenly moistened. Press crumb mixture firmly onto bottom and up sides of 9-inch-diameter tart pan with removable bottom. Bake until crust is firm to touch, about 8 minutes. Cool crust on rack.

Make filling and topping:
Using electric mixer, beat cream cheese and sugar in medium bowl until smooth. Beat in sour cream, lemon juice and vanilla. Spread filling in cooled crust. Chill until firm, at least 4 hours. (Can be made 1 day ahead. Cover; keep chilled.)

Arrange berries over filling. Whisk jam in small bowl to loose consistency. Drizzle over berries. Serve immediately or chill up to 3 hours.

Recipe: Fettuccine with Green Tomato Sauce

In many ways the summer can feel like one long build-up to that first bright-red, juicy tomato from the garden. For months we spend warm evenings strolling through the garden, checking on the state of our staked fruit, patiently waiting for mid-August. And then! We gorge - tomato sandwiches, caprese salad, salsa, fresh tomato sauce, grilled tomatoes, tomato and cucumber salad, canned tomatoes, tomato jam, you name it! 

 

But this summer we planted our seedlings a little late. So here we are, in late-August with nothing but a few light-green orbs. Luckily - while nothing compares to that sweetly satisfying first bite of a big red - the truth is that there are plenty of delicious things to do with a green tomato.

With a green tomato’s tart and firm flesh, there is a world beyond the classic fried side (not that there’s anything wrong with fried green tomatoes!). One popular option, seen often in kosher-style delis, is to go the pickle route. But in our house we like to do something else: green tomato sauce over pasta. Sauteed with onions, some cream, and bits of bacon (duh!), green tomatoes are the perfectly acidic base for a mid-summer-going-on-fall sauce.

Fettuccine with Green Tomato Sauce

+ 1 lb bacon, cut into small chunks
+ 3 lbs green tomatoes, cut into small chunks
+ 1 large onion, sliced
+ ½ cup cream
+ 1 lb fettuccine

1. Fry the bacon in a large saute pan. When done, remove bacon and set aside, reserving the bacon fat.
2. Saute the onions over medium-high heat until translucent. Add the tomatoes and cook for about one hour, or until the the tomatoes are soft. Meanwhile boil water for pasta.
3. Cook the pasta and drain. Around this time, add the cream to the sauce and remove from heat.
4. In a serving bowl, pour the sauce over the pasta and sprinkle with bacon.

Recipe: Tomato Pie

We’ve been spread pretty thin lately, slowly settling into our new lives here in New Marlborough, so you may have noticed that we’ve been neglecting the blog a little bit. Though our next post is always in the back of our minds it has been a struggle - between a new kitchen and new schedules - to get into a good cooking, picture taking and writing routine. 

But that doesn’t mean we haven’t been busy working on The Butcher and The Baker. On his days off from The Meat Market, Jake has been scouting out new farms to profile (look out for our next Field Trip to Whippoorwill Farm!) and organizing our overflowing kitchen. All the while Silka has been busy in the garden, meeting with lots of people in the local food community and getting us published! It’s been so fun and really exciting... but now here we are, running in circles and getting a little tired of pasta for breakfast, lunch and dinner. 

Now don’t get us wrong, a great pasta with some cheese and seasonal veggies is the best. But we have started to search for, if not new veg, (because really, how can you get sick of summer produce) a new carb-based canvas. Inspired by the one thing we’re never too busy to make - PIE! - Silka decided to skip the spaghetti and make a simple and savory tart with our CSA harvest and veggies from Jake’s father’s garden. 

While we, along with most of the country, have been experiencing a terrible crop-testing drought, Jake’s father's garden is somehow bursting with bright veggies. Everywhere you look there are tons of juicy, golden orbs hanging just waiting to be plucked. Warm off the vine, they are bursting with a bright, sweet flavor. After shoveling a few freshly-picked handfuls into our mouths, we dumped as many as we could into a basket and brought them home where Silka had a roughly rolled-out crust waiting. Piled high with the tomatoes, some onion and thyme, we folded over the edges and threw it into the oven. 

Classic Pie Dough
(The recipe below is for one 8” pie crust. In the case of a rustic tart, we like to make 1.5 times this recipe so there is plenty of dough create a sturdy edge.)

1 cup flour
1 pinch salt
1 stick cold butter, cut into pieces
½ bar of cold cream cheese, cut into pieces (4 oz)

1. Combine dry ingredients into a food processor and pulse until mixed.
2. Add butter and cream cheese and pulse until mixture starts to form a ball, usually 8 - 10 pulses.
3. Turn out onto a floured surface and pat into a 2 inch-thick disc. Wrap in saran wrap and chill for at least 1 hour.

Tomato Pie

1.5 pints of cherry tomatoes, large ones cut in half
½ onion, roughly chopped
½ stick of butter (4 tbsp)1 tbsp fresh thyme
½ tsp sugar
salt and pepper to taste
 
Optional: 

3/4 cup grated cheese - Gruyere or goat would work perfectly!

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. On a floured surface, roll out dough to ⅛ in thick and about 12 inches around. Don’t worry about a perfect circle here, rustic shapes work just fine. Place back into the refrigerator.
3. Place onions, with 2 tablespoons of butter, in a large pan on medium heat. Let caramelize, stirring occasionally for 15 minutes.
4. Add a salt and pepper to taste, sugar and thyme, cooking for another 5 minutes.
5. Add remaining 2 tablespoons of butter into the pan and let melt. Add tomatoes and fold into butter to coat. Let cook for an additional 3 minutes, salt and pepper some more, and remove from heat.
6. After the tomato and onion mixture has cooled (10 minutes or so), remove dough from fridge and place on a baking sheet with edges. Pour filling into the center of the dough and gently fold over edges to hold vegetables in.
7. Bake for 40 minutes or until crust is golden and tomatoes start to burst. Sprinkle cheese on top and broil until melted and bubbling. Remove from oven and let sit 10 minutes before serving.