Radish Greens Pesto

On a gorgeous January Sunday two weeks ago I spent the morning trailing Chef Norbert Moniz around the Hillcrest Farmers Market. Moniz runs the kitchens at Blind Lady Alehouse and Tiger! Tiger!.

I met him just before 8 a.m. at Tiger! Tiger! and we headed out in his fire engine red Ford Ranger pick up. On our drive over to the market Moniz told me that he's been in San Diego for about a year after spending six years working in Chicago. Originally from Santa Clarita, in L.A.'s San Fernando Valley, Moniz attended the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco and then ran a little restaurant in Santa Barbara. Concerned that he wasn't learning enough, he gave his notice and packed two bags--one with his clothes and other personal stuff, the other with hockey gear, and took off for Chicago. It was there he seems to have truly learned his trade, after working for what he calls "a lot of great chefs."

After six years, the SoCal native had had enough of Chicago winters and learned from a friend working at Blind Lady Ale House that there was an opening for a chef at Tiger! Tiger!. He got the job. That was a year ago. Now he oversees Tiger! Tiger! and Blind Lady.

Clearly, Moniz loves what he does--to the extent that on Sundays, his day off, he's up early to pick up orders and shop at the Hillcrest Farmers Market and then deliver his groceries to the chefs at the three restaurants.

"I do it because it gets me up and out of bed, I get to hang out with friends at the market, and I can see what's coming in," he says. "And I can geek out with my chefs over the produce when I deliver it."

While we were picking up orders from farmers at the market I came across the most gorgeous Easter Egg radishes at the Maciel Family Farm stand, where Moniz bought beets, mixed greens, butternut squash, fennel, kale, turnips, and other vegetables. Over the years I've bought from them, too, and was delighted to meet owner Paul and his daughter Sara, who is very involved in 4H. The family farm is up in Bonsall, where they also grow flowers.

Moniz was singing the praises of the Maciel's mixed greens so I bought a bag, but I couldn't take my eyes off the plump and colorful radishes so I bought a bunch of them, too. When I got them home I cut the stems off and, unlike your typical sad, wilted supermarket bunches, they were so fresh I couldn't bear to toss them. I'd sautéed radish greens with garlic before so I knew how wonderfully peppery they are. But what to do with them now?

I had to decide quickly. What you learn about radish greens is that they have a pretty short shelf life. I could make soup with them, make a stir fry, roast them, add them to pasta or an omelet, or make a salad with them.

Or, hmmm, make pesto. I had all the ingredients I needed, including a fresh bottle of herbaceous young olive oil from California Olive Ranch that would match the spicy radish leaves.

The first thing you need to do with radish leaves is wash them. Thoroughly. As root vegetables, the greens are close to the ground and seem to attract dirt like spinach. I did several rounds in a salad spinner before I got the grit off to my satisfaction. Once washed and dried I gave them a rough chopping for the blender.

With that, it's just a matter of grating your favorite hard cheese (I used Parmesan), toasting walnuts to bring out their flavor, and trimming some garlic cloves. You'll want to add a touch of butter to round out the flavor, and some salt--but not much because of the saltiness of the cheese.

After that you'll put everything but the oil in the bowl of a blender or food processor and gradually add in the oil until it reaches a smooth and creamy pourable consistency. Then you have the perfect sauce for pasta, salmon, roasted vegetables and all sorts of other dishes.

You can find the Maciel Family Farm at the Hillcrest, Coronado, Oceanside, Old Town Temecula, and Old Town Poway farmers markets. 

Radish Greens Pesto
(printable recipe)
Yield: 2 cups

6 ounces radish leaves, with tough stems removed (save and snack on them or add to a stir fry)
1 cup walnuts, toasted
5 cloves garlic, peeled and trimmed
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1 tablespoon butter, room temperature, cut into pieces
Pinch of salt
3/4 to 1 cup of good quality extra virgin olive oil

After removing the tough stems, wash and dry the leaves thoroughly and roughly chop.

In the bowl of a blender or food processor, add the leaves, walnuts, garlic, cheese, butter, and salt. Put the lid on but leave the opening available to add the oil. Turn on the machine and slowly add the oil. Puree the contents until the mixture reaches a loose, creamy consistency. Periodically, stop and scrape down the sides to incorporate all the ingredients. Taste and adjust seasonings.

You can keep the pesto refrigerated for up to a week, although it's best used right away. Be sure to pour some oil over the surface to keep it from oxidizing and turning brown. Or you can freeze it.

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Farmers Market Pasta with Pea Tendrils

I usually go to the farmers market to buy odds and ends of things--whatever strikes my fancy. Last Sunday, I went to the Hillcrest farmers market to see what I could gather to make an interesting dinner. The trick was to find that one item to build the meal around.

I found it at Sage Mountain Farms' stall: sugar snap pea tendrils. On a gloomy day that hinted of rain, there were those sweet pea flowers spoke to me of spring and I had to have them, especially since their season is short. Pea shoots and tendrils can be enjoyed raw, chopped in a salad or snacked on, or sauteed. The young stems are crispy, the leaves a bit tart with a hint of pea flavor.

I picked up two bunches and turned around to continue my shopping and saw my friends Tina and Eric of Close to Home pasta. Voila! I had my meal. Pasta with pea tendrils. Nothing fancy or exotic, but the idea felt perfect.

I picked up a couple of pastas: spinach and garlic penne and firecracker garlic fettucine. I can't resist spice or garlic. After consulting with Tina, we decided that the fettucine would pair best with the pea tendrils.

Oh, and then I saw some shelled sugar snap peas at Valdivia farms. I bought a bag of those. Then some butter from Spring Hill Jersey Cheese.

I was done. At home I had some pine nuts and goat cheese--and, garlic and olive oil. Oh, and a lemon. No need to buy those that day.

I'd love to say that it's all I bought, but I was lacking in will power. I picked up a loaf of whole wheat sourdough bread from Prager Brothers and spicy Bitchen' sauce as well. Farmers markets are filled with temptation!

Last night I pulled the meal together. It was simple, but think of the ingredients I was working with!

I don't have a recipe, but here's what I did:

1. Toasted a handful of pine nuts while a pot of water was heating up
2. Removed the flowers from the pea tendrils to keep as garnish
3. Chopped the pea tendrils into bite-size pieces
4. Zested the lemon and minced a few garlic cloves
5. Sauteed the pea tendrils and peas in a combination of butter, olive oil, and garlic, then added some lemon zest and sea salt

6. Removed the peas and tendrils and made the sauce--a bit more butter and olive oil, a bit more sea salt, juice from half the lemon, and the rest of the zest.
7. Added the pasta to the boiling water and let the sauce reduce. Sliced some goat cheese.

That's it. I added the pasta to the pan filled with the sauce and tossed it to coat before adding the mixture to the peas and pea tendrils. I tossed it all together and then added the pine nuts and goat cheese before topping the dish with the flowers. Dinner was on in perhaps 15 minutes. Local, seasonal, fresh. Delicious!

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Irresistible Grains and Legumes from Conscious Cookery

Over the years the growth of the Hillcrest Farmers Market has continued to astound me. And when you tend to have your favorite vendors you sometimes unconsciously pass by people who it turns out have been there practically forever. So, this is something of an old is new discovery. With the reformatting of the market layout I came across Michelle Sadler and her Conscious Cookery booth, filled to the hilt with beans, lentils, rices, and other grains and legumes--even though she pointed out she's been low on stock.

A former cereal chemist for General Mills, Sadler has run Conscious Cookery for 11 years at the Hillcrest Farmers Market. And she's got a story to tell about every variety of grain, bean, and rice she sells. Want to try something new but can't decide? She'll point you in a novel direction.

She did that with me. I'm not a huge bean lover. I like them, but it would never appeal to me to make a pot for dinner. She set out to change my mind and sent me home with a bag of Good Mother Stallard beans. I love hulled barley, so she upped the ante with vibrant Purple Prairie barley. Then my eye was caught by a bag of flat rice in a basket. I'd seen something like this at a couple of Indian markets, but those were huge bags. This one, at 12 ounces, was manageable enough for me to try out.

Sadler gave me cooking advice for each purchase, and also wanted me to know that she had a number of items coming to the market and online by the end of October, including assorted heirloom beans from California, Colorado, and Idaho family farmers,  a huge variety of certified organic lentils--from Black Beluga and du Puy to Spanish Pardina, and Persian Crimson--along with bean blends, a crazy quilt assortment of rices (short and medium grain brown nrice, Akitakomachi brown rice from Northern California, Bhutanese Red Rice, Mekong Flower Rice... well this list goes on and on. Craving Bolivian kaniwa or Colorado-grown millet? She'll have it. Same with Idaho-grown einkorn, Amish-grown popcorn, purple gem popcorn, certified organic teas, and a variety of herbs and spices.

But let's get down to my purchases because I was blown away by each.

First there were the Good Mother Stallard beans. Now I love a good bean soup. But never have I understood enjoying beans as a meal. Until I made these Good Mother Stallard beans.

To prepare them, I pulled out my VitaClay rice/slow cooker and rinsed a cup of the beans before putting them in the cooker's clay pot. Then I added half a chopped white onion, two diced carrots, a cut up purple potato, three smashed garlic cloves, a pinch of salt, a couple of tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil, and four cups of water. That's it. I set them to cook for four hours and when the timer went off, tentatively gave myself a spoonful to taste.

There was a lot of hype going into that pot along with the beans. But, the hype yielded to the real deal. Call me a convert, but when cooked these spectacularly colorful African beans expand in size and flavor. They become marble-sized meaty powerhouses robust earthy flavors. In fact, the bean liquor was so good I saved that, too. I had a small bowlful of beans for a late lunch and my plan with the rest is to find some good turkey or chicken sausage, slice it  up and sauté with kale, then add the beans and some of the bean liquor, and have myself an easy and delightful one-dish dinner.

The purple theme continued into the evening. Once the beans were cooked, I cleaned the clay pot and turned to the Purple Prairie barley. This heirloom variety originates from the Himalayas and in flavor takes basic hulled barley a step further and totally aces out pearled barley. But let's back up a moment for a brief explanation. Like many grains barley has an outer hull considered indigestible, requiring processing for removal. Pearled barley is the grain with the hull removed and the remaining grain polished--or "pearled"--which also removes much of its nutrients. Hulled barley removes the hull, but with little processing so more of the nutrients are maintained. It's considered a true whole grain.

Purple Prairie barley is touted for its high quantities of protein--something like 15 percent--and its uber-rich flavor. Most recipes will call for overnight soaking, and certainly it takes longer to cook than pearled barley. With the VitaClay, I cooked half a cup of the barley with two cups of water and ran it once on the brown rice setting and once on the regular rice setting. I think it took just about an hour to  cook with an additional 10 minutes warming. By then all the liquid had been absorbed. And, yes, the flavor is as advertised. Hearty and nutty, it made for a great side dish. I envision adding some toasted pine nuts, chopped parsley, chopped tomatoes, and a little red onion to the rest to transform it into a great little salad.

Finally, there's the unusual rolled brown rice. These flakes are made by parboiling short grain brown rice, then rolling it flat. Then it's dried and rolled again to break up into flakes. At this point it can be used as cereal, a soup thickener, or even part of a recipe for granola. Sadler suggested soaking it in  water for about 20 minutes and then cooking for five to 10 minutes. For my experiment, I measured out a quarter cup of the rice into a cereal bowl. Then I added enough water to cover and let it sit for the 20 minutes. By then most of the water had been absorbed. I then put it in the microwave for a minute, added some milk and maple syrup and had a delicious bowl of hot cereal.

The rolled brown rice has a fairly neutral flavor. You might want to combine it with oats for a hot cereal if it doesn't wow you. Sadler recommends it as a good baby cereal, but I think adults will enjoy it, too.

You can find Sadler every week at the Hillcrest Farmers Market or order from her website.




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Boozy Caramel Sauces from Sea Salt Candy Company

What do you do when you're a candy maker and you also happen to like your drink? If you're Lisa and Gretchen Bender, aka the Salty Sisters, you do a little alchemy and, voila, come up with a line of boozy caramel sauces.

Saucy Sisters joined the Sea Salt Candy Company line up of sweet and salty toffees and caramels  months ago. Where was I? Avoiding sugary treats I'd get addicted to. But there I was at the Fishermen's Farmers Market last week. And there was Lisa Bender, who as the magician behind the confections, is usually in the kitchen but this week was taking care of sales. We got to talking. I got to tasting. And, well, I bought two of the five varieties of sauces they're selling.

Start your tasting journey with their Rum Away with Me. The duo gets their Marley on with a blend of rum, salt, and coconut immersed in a deeply rich caramel, creating a reggae spirit that sings over French vanilla ice cream, sautéed plantains, and apple pie.

Then go south of the border with Tequila!, a spicy concoction that will make you rethink the notion that caramel is meant to go down smooth and easy. The Benders don't just bring it on with the tequila, but get you punch drunk with the addition of habanero oil and chili flakes. This caramel doesn't have to be relegated to dessert. Lisa suggests using it as a glaze on pork ribs, chicken, or salmon.

My favorite, though, is the Frisky Whiskey Boozy Sauce. Caramel and whiskey were destined for one another. It's simplicity on steroids and a dreamy sauce that cries out for nothing more than a spoon and a dark closet to hide in while you take your licks. This is one of the two I bought.

Not all of the sauces are liquored up. There's a PG line of Dark Chocolate Salted Caramel sauce I also took home with me. Dark cocoa and a hint of salt make this sauce decadent without being cloyingly sweet. Dip slices of pears and apples into it. Drizzle it over pound cake. Pour over ice cream. Add some to your coffee.

Also in the PG line up is Virgin Vanilla Bean. So purely rich and buttery, this, too, deserves the spoon treatment. Or twirl it around with the chocolate over ice cream for a black and white sundae. Spread it over toast. Swizzle it over a brownie.

The nine-ounce jars can be found at the Little Italy Mercato, Hillcrest Farmers Market, and Fishermen's Farmers Market as well as online.

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Sage Mountain Farms Amps Up Sage Mountain Beef

Farmer Phil Noble is just a little busy these days. He's still working his Hemet farm, producing beautiful vegetables that you can find at various farmers markets around San Diego. But he's also ramped up the offerings of his beef production, which he officially launched a year ago June. Instead of customers just being able to buy a half, quarter, or eighth of a cow, we have some choices via his online store and at the Hillcrest Farmers Market.

First, you can join the Green-Fed™Beef CSA he launched. Green-Fed means that his cattle are eating what Noble refers to as a "salad-bar buffet," basically the organic watermelon and squash, alfalfa, wheatgrass, and other forages they come across in the pastures. In fact, Noble told me years ago that he'll let his cattle feed on the remnants of his farm harvests to clear the field and give the cattle a hearty meal. Now, I guess, he's started an actual program. And the beef is all the tastier for it.

The CSA has six- and 12-month subscription options and even then you can choose a price point for shares that range from five to 20 pounds.

You can also buy one-off packages from the online store, which meat lovers outside of San Diego should consider. You can get ground beef or London Broil. Or you can get a sampler of cuts totaling about 22 pounds of meat. Or, you can go with the eighth, quarter, half, or whole "pledge." That is, you're not actually ordering the full amount then and there, but pre-ordering that portion for purchase and pick up when it's available.

Of course, as a single person, I'm actually focused in on what Noble brings to the Hillcrest Farmers Market, which is the market where he sells his beef, along with his vegetables. Until recently, all you could get were one-pound packages of ground beef, which is very good. I've made very juicy burgers with it, as well as meatloaf and chile.

But now Noble also carries about 32 cuts at the market, ranging from filet mignon and Porterhouse steaks to rib-eyes, skirt, short ribs, soup bones, and breakfast sirloin. Many of the packages are in the one-pound range.

You can find Sage Mountain Beef at the Hillcrest Farmers Market on Sundays from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. alongside the DMV parking lot.


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Lemongrass and Coconut Seafood Chowder

It looks like Mark Lane, owner of Poppa's Fish, has found his calling. Sure, he's been selling seafood at an ever-expanding number of farmers markets in San Diego, but little by little he's also been expanding his culinary repertoire. Starting first with ceviche, sea urchin, and freshly shucked oysters topped with homemade pico de gallo, he's since brought out the grill and is now making dishes like scallop and ginger tacos, shrimp chile rellenos, jalapeño shrimp poppers, and lemon pepper grilled mussels.

 
Everything is simple but beautifully cooked. And now, he's partnered with the Ryan Smith of Bitchin' Sauce, having him in his stall at the Hillcrest Farmers Market to sell their delicious almond-based sauces and using the sauces to make "Bitchin' Tacos."

It was there I tasted his tacos and the mussels and was so inspired on that chilly first day of spring that I decided to buy a yellowtail fillet and a rock crab to make a seafood chowder.

 
One of the benefits of getting to know your vendors is that you can ask plenty of questions. While I'd shown lobsters the end of life, for some reason I hadn't done the same with crabs. Lane stepped away from the grill to give me a brief crab anatomy lesson (crabs with a wide chest plate are females and mine was definitely female), explain how to hold it to avoid the painful pinch of claws, and how to clean it once it was cooked.

The flavors of chowder recipe were inspired by my experience the day before with Su-Mei Yu of Saffron, who taught a marvelous hands-on cooking class in the outdoor space above Saffron. I already had lemongrass, ginger, and coconut milk at home. I picked a lime from my tree and cut it the way she demonstrated to get the most juicy yield. I don't know that Su-Mei would approve of exactly what I did, but I hope she wouldn't argue with the results. The flavors are fresh and tangy and the chowder was infused with a tender heat that complemented the creamy coconut milk and sweet seafood. It was a perfect dinner for a stormy night.

Lemongrass and Coconut Seafood Chowder
Serves 4

There are a lot of ingredients here, but they all serve to build flavor. Instead of using plain water when cooking the vegetables, use the water the crabs are boiled in to create a flavorful base for the chowder.

Ingredients
4 cups cold water
12 ounces Yukon Gold potatoes, cut into bite-size chunks
1 medium onion, diced
2 red bell peppers, seeded and diced
2 fennel bulbs, trimmed and cut into chunks
2 jalapeño peppers, diced (for more heat, add 1 or 2 Thai peppers)
4 cloves garlic, minced
1, 4-inch stalk of lemongrass (the soft part), thinly sliced
½ inch of a knob of ginger to equal 1 tablespoon, peeled and minced
Salt and pepper to taste
Zest of 1 lime (reserve the lime for juice)
1, 14-ounce can coconut milk (I use “light.”)
2 tablespoons fish sauce
2 teaspoons sugar
Juice from 1 lime
2 live rock crabs
1/2 pound skinless firm-flesh raw fish (such as cod, sea bass, halibut, yellowtail), cut into bite-size pieces
1 pound raw mussels, shrimp or calamari – or combination of them, cleaned
1 cup Asian greens, chopped (optional)
½ cup cilantro, roughly chopped

Pour water into a medium-size soup pot and bring to a boil, then carefully add the crab. Cover and cook the crab for 10 to 15 minutes. Pull the crab out and let cool, saving the water for cooking the rest of the ingredients. When the crab is cool enough to handle, pull out the meat from the body and claws, also saving the legs.

Add all the rest of the ingredients (except the seafood, greens, lime juice and cilantro) to the pot with the hot crab water. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer, covered, until the potatoes are just tender (about 15 minutes).

Transfer 2/3 of the mixture to a food processor or blender and puree.

Return the puree to the pot with the rest of the mixture. Add the seafood (including the crabmeat and legs) and greens to the saucepan. Cover and simmer until the seafood is cooked (the fish should be opaque, the mussels open, the shrimp pink).

Squeeze in lime juice from the reserved lime and stir in cilantro, saving some for garnish.


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Homegrown Winter Salad

I am so grateful to have a garden. Yes, it's small but I've managed to fit in a pomegranate tree, a couple of dwarf Meyer lemon trees, a dwarf mandarin orange, a variety of herbs, and plenty of succulents. This winter I picked up a treasure trove of hard-necked garlic varieties that grow well in moderate climates, like mine in San Diego. Each clove has put out shoots but summer is a long time coming. So I also planted some greens. Tatsoi, escarole, broccoli spigarello, Swiss chard, endive, and others are going gangbusters now, especially since the rains have ceased and the sun has been out.

Now, these aren't planted in the ground. They're in a large pot on my patio where I get more sun this time of year. It's also a little insurance that my cat won't dig them up. So, in fact, this is something apartment or condo dwellers with a sunny balcony can easily do. I picked up these as seedlings from Whole Earth Acre Nursery's stand at the Hillcrest Farmers Market. They're a favorite vendor of mine because they sell healthy and hard-to-find plants. I've bought epazote and mojito mint from them, as well as French tarragon and a variety of unusual basils. 

Today was warm enough that I was in the mood for a salad and that all I had to do was just step outside my kitchen with a pair of scissors and cut some greens for lunch. I kept it simple, just adding a few sliced heirloom cherry tomatoes, pepperoncini, and feta.

 
The dressing? An easy vinaigrette using olio nuovo I buy every fall from  California Olive Ranch and sherry vinegar. Olio nuovo is the first press of the season. The olives are young and so you get a very spicy, fruity, and enjoyably bitter flavor compared to more mellow flavors from olives harvested later in the season.

Truly, there's no reason to buy bottled dressing when it take so little effort to make something delicious yourself. For a traditional vinaigrette all you need to remember is the ratio of oil (3) to vinegar (1). Add a minced clove of garlic, a bit of mustard to help emulsify the components, and a little salt and pepper to taste, and you're good to go. In fact, most of the time, I put all the ingredients in a small glass jar, screw on the lid and shake it until it comes together. You don't need any fancy kitchen tools, although I also make it using a mortar and pestle to completely grind the garlic and salt into a paste before adding the other ingredients. The result is a very smooth garlicky sauce.

Of course, there are many variations on vinaigrettes that can help change up the flavors to match your mood or meal. I've added minced preserved lemon, various herbs--basil, dill, tarragon, and oregano come to mind--chopped and powdered peppers to add punch and flavor, and fruit juices to add sweetness.

Another favorite dressing is from a recipe my dad gave me. It's odd but delicious, using anchovies and both Parmesan and feta for a creamy, salty experience. If a salad dressing or dip can be hearty, this would be it.

Hearts of Romaine Salad

1 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons crumbled feta cheese
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard or to taste
2 cloves garlic, minced
4 to 8 anchovy fillets, minced
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
Fresh lemon or lime to taste
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Combine all the ingredients in a food processor fitted with a metal blade or in a blender. Process until the mixture comes together. Taste and adjust the seasonings.

Use as a salad dressing or dip for Romaine leaves.

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Tajin: This is Not a Candy

Every once in awhile a product that's been around for who knows how long basically smacks me upside the head to pay attention to it.

Most recently, that product is Tajin "classico seasoning." I first noticed it a summer or two ago at the Hillcrest Farmers Market. Once tomatoes are in season, Valdivia Farms, which sells marvelous heirloom tomatoes, chops a bunch up, mixes the pieces with olive oil and a little seasoning and puts the mixture on platters with toothpicks to sample. Customers gobble them up and wonder why they taste so delicious. Well, sure, the tomatoes are great but they're also using the Tajin -- and they sell 5 oz. plastic shaker bottles of it along with the tomatoes. Did I buy one? No, because I suspected their  price was quite a bit more than I'd have to pay at the market. Sure enough, a visit to Northgate Gonzalez turned up the Tajin for less than two bucks. I'm in bliss.

So, what is Tajin seasoning? Very simple. A powder blend of chiles, salt, and dehydrated lime juice. It's the lime juice you really taste when it hits your tongue. It's all about the salty tang. And, as they carefully print on the cap, this is not a candy.

Tajin seasoning can be used for all sorts of dishes. Here's a little salad of chopped tomatoes and garlic scapes. Like Valdivia Farms, I tossed them with olive oil and Tajin. It was delicious on a slice of sour dough bread and I used the bread, of course, to sop up the Tajin-flavored tomato juices.

 

I've also used it as part of a marinade for roasting and grilling chicken. At the recent Collaboration Kitchen at Catalina Offshore Products, chef Melissa Mayer offered a delicious recipe of Hamachi Crudo with Watermelon Carpaccio, Tangerine, and Hazelnut Oil Emulsion with Cilantro Flowers. Tucked into the recipe to season the yellowtail was about a teaspoon of Tajin.

And, at the 4th of July party I attended, chef Andrew Spurgin whipped up the most delicious Michelada beer cocktail. The mixture of Tecate beer, lime juice, and clamato juice was perfection, but what sent it truly over the top was the rimming along the top of the cup with Tajin seasoning.

Try it out and let me know what you do with it.


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Sage Mountain Farm Goes Out to Pasture with Beef

For months and months Phil Noble has been telling me about his cows and the beef he was planning to sell at the farmers markets. His farm near Hemet is a farmers market favorite and right now I'm all over the garlic scapes and young garlic he's selling. But last Sunday at the Hillcrest farmers market I took home something else from his stand: a one-pound sample package of ground beef.

Yes, Sage Mountain Farm is now also Sage Mountain Pastures. Phil has partnered with Sam and Rose Benedict (Sam is a local business consultant who researches climate change). Together they own a small herd of Guernsey, Angus, and Holstein cattle. The animals are fed on a movable feast of grass and post-harvest crops, and finished on organic grains--what Noble calls a "polyphase approach."

So, no, they're not strictly grass fed. For the partners, there's no avoiding the grains, at least for the time being. "The reason we're adding grains is that we're trying to get restaurants involved and the chefs tell us they want more fat on the beef because that's what the customer wants," said Sam Benedict.

Benedict also said that they're working on getting the beef certified as organic.

Customers can purchase the beef by portion, not by cut. Sage Mountain Pastures is selling whole beef (400 pounds), half, one-quarter, and one-eighth -- all at $8.50 a pound, which includes cutting, wrapping, and freezing. The portions include a variety of cuts. A $75 non-refundable deposit is required for each eighth of beef ordered. Or, you can buy one-pound packages of ground beef.

 
I used half of my ground beef last night to make a burger. Because I was concerned that the leanness of the meat would make it dry I added a little chopped onion, along with minced young garlic (from Sage Mountain Farm), some red pepper sauce, and salt and pepper. Then I grilled it on top of the stove. I needn't have worried; the flavors and texture were terrific.

Visit Sage Mountain Pastures at the Hillcrest and Adams Ave. farmers markets and Little Italy Mercato or contact Noble  for an order at SageMtnPastures@gmail.com.

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Winter's Charms at Hillcrest Farmers Market

It's not unusual for farmers markets across the country to close for the winter. But not only are San Diego's markets open, they're packed with gorgeous produce. Looking at the bounty at last Sunday's Hillcrest farmers market, it's hard to believe we just endured a week of heavy, chilly storms.

Clearly, it's not strawberry or tomato season yet. Or is it? There were a couple of farmers from Carlsbad with flats of bright red juicy strawberries. And there were several stands with tomatoes, including gorgeous heirlooms of vibrant shades of green, red, yellow, and orange at Valdivia Farms. Are they grown in greenhouses? I asked and was told they're growing outside under the sun. Now, I don't think they have the depth of flavor that long hot summer days provide, but it's kind of nice to have fresh local tomatoes in the dead of winter.

I bought several after tasting samples chopped in a delicious spicy chile mix they're selling. But instead of buying the chile mix, I more or less replicated it, first making a simple little chopped salad of the tomatoes, tiny Mexicola avocados from Koral's Tropical Fruit Farm (more about them below), green garlic, and stemmed red onions-also from Valdivia. These were tossed in a dressing of locally produced avocado oil from vendor Bella Vado,green Hatch chile powder from Richies Roasted Products (whose stall is near the Joe's on the Nose orange coffee truck), fresh lime juice from limes in my garden, and salt and pepper. You could also marinate shrimp in this dressing, grill, and add to the salad, served with homemade corn tortillas. Or serve the salad as a salsa-like condiment with fish, chicken, beef, or pork. It's a wonderfully bright flavor surprise in the middle of winter.

Leafy greens are abundant this time of year. I saw a lot of Swiss chard on Sunday. At Sage Mountain Farm, I picked up some beautiful rapini (also known as broccoli rabe) and a bunch of broccoli. Now, while rapini has those little yellow buds that look they they're going to explode into little broccolis, they're actually not even in the broccoli family, but related to turnips.

These greens are slightly bitter, but it works for them when you counterbalance it with other flavors. After you trim the ends of the stalks, use everything else on the plant, including the yellow buds. Cut the stems into one-inch pieces and blanch in boiling water for about a minute. Then drain and sauté in olive oil and garlic. I like to add about a teaspoon of chopped preserved lemon to it as well, along with toasted pine nuts, dried pepper flakes, and salt and pepper. You could also add pancetta or bacon. Rapini makes a nice side dish, of course, but try tossing them with pasta and add some feta cheese.

As you're walking down the main aisle of the Hillcrest market, rising over the sounds of live music will be the energetic voice of Barry Koral.

 
Playing the part of the carnival-style barker, the 68-year-old Koral, who owns Koral's Tropical Fruit Farm in Vista, is hawking the flavors and nutritional value of his produce, which this time of year is mostly citrus. I saw oranges and tangerines, limes, sweet lemons, Meyer lemons, and conventional lemons. But he also had some interesting fruits like guavas and Mexicola avocados.

Mexicola's are a tiny avocado variety with a thin purplish, almost black edible skin. They have a nutty, almost almond taste to them. Don't use them to make guacamole. Slice them in half and serve with a tray of crudités or chop them and add to the tomato salad I described above. Look for fruit with smooth shiny skin and that are firm but give a little when you touch them. You don't see these beauties  regularly in the markets, so grab these as a special seasonal treat.

Weird and Wonderful: Three Spring Treats

I always like a good surprise and this past weekend I found three in the form of produce. Two of them you may have heard of or even tried. I'm pretty sure that the third is something completely new to anyone but the growers and sellers and a few chefs in the area.

First up is a rare treat if you're a garlic lover: garlic scapes. These thick, curly cues of deliciousness are hard to find in San Diego. Last year I found them at First Korean Market on Convoy near Jasmine in Kearny Mesa. They were there just a brief time in the spring and that was it. On Sunday I found them at the Hillcrest farmers market at Sage Mountain Farm's stand and immediately snatched up a bunch, along with some first-of-the-season heirloom tomatoes, elephant garlic and a bunch of lovely multi-colored carrots.

Garlic scapes are the flower stalks that grow out of the garlic bulb. As they grow they begin to curl, and ultimately develop a little bud. They have just a brief season so get them while you can.


Some say they are milder than garlic bulbs, but they can be pretty potent while raw. Once cooked, however -- at least in my experience -- they lose a lot of that garlic flavor. So, my favorite way to use them is to make pesto. Simply chop them into smallish pieces and drop in the food processor. Add grated parmesan cheese, toasted pine or walnuts, salt and pepper and slowly drizzle in really good extra virgin olive oil until the mixture becomes creamy. In this batch above, I also added fresh thyme from my garden and about a tablespoon of fresh lemon zest.

The pesto is terrific on baked chicken, fish, grilled beef and pork. Add it to an omelet or roasted vegetables -- especially roasted potatoes, eggplant, tomatoes or summer squash. And, of course, it's a no brainer with pasta. I chopped some heirloom tomatoes and sea beans (see below for the big surprise), and roasted a couple of Japanese eggplants I bought at the City Heights farmers market.


The result was a wonderful vegetarian pasta dish that made two meals. And it was just as good cold as warm.


Okay, I mentioned the sea beans here and on Twitter. They're definitely a curiosity. I learned about them at Specialty Produce with L.A. food writer Erika Kerekes, who was visiting for the day. Specialty's Kelly Orange was showing us around and we walked by a large plastic bag of these greens on a shelf. They look like little twigs, but have a crispy texture and very salty, really briny, flavor straight out of the sea. Sea beans, also known as glasswort, grow wild on beaches and marshes, including estuaries in San Diego.


Part of the charm of these vegetables is their crispiness so I would use them fresh or maybe pickle them. But, certainly, you can saute or steam them or use them however you would any other vegetable. Make a salty pesto with them. Or just use them as a very interesting garnish. I added them to my pasta and looking forward to experimenting with them further.

While I was at Specialty Produce, I noticed they had pink lemons -- something I'd never seen. So I took home several to try. They're a variety unique to the average Eureka lemon. They start out with a very pretty yellow-and-green variegated skin but the flesh inside is pink and so they're often used to make pink lemonade. As the fruit matures, the skin starts to flush, as you can just see in the photo below. This is the result of lycopene, which also colors pink grapefruit.


Use these lemons just as you would a regular Eureka lemon. I thought they were too pretty to just squeeze and toss, so I made another jar of preserved lemons. If you haven't done this yet, give it a try. All you need are lemons, sea salt and a wide-mouth sterile jar.

First, cut the lemons vertically half-way down on one side, then flip the lemon over, do a half turn and make another cut. Then, stuff the inside of the lemon with the salt on each side.


Fill the jar as you stuff each lemon with the salt and press down to release the juice and make room for the next lemons. By the time you fill the jar, you should have no room for more lemons and they should be sitting in juice. If they don't release enough juice, squeeze more lemons and fill the jar with the juice to the top. Then, all you do is secure the lid and let the jar sit on your kitchen counter for a month to six weeks. Periodically turn the jar over and back upright to remix any salt that's settled at the bottom. If the lemons begin to collapse, you can add more split and salted lemons so the jar remains full.



At the end of a month to six weeks, you'll have a wonderful condiment to include in pastas, sauces, salads and sautes. Keep the jar refrigerated and pull out what you need. Trim away the flesh, rinse the peel and chop it. It adds a wonderful salty, sour flavor. But, remember, a little goes a long way for the best effect.

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Behind the Scenes with Jsix's Christian Graves

For those of us who love food, there are often secretly harbored dreams of running a restaurant. Well, the reality of it is that running a restaurant is truly only for the bravest, but if you want to have some fun behind the scenes and really understand what it takes to put together a lovely restaurant meal, Jsix restaurant is offering "Chef's Kitchen Experience" with chef Christian Graves.

The program is being held on the second Sunday of every month, starting August 2 (with the exception of December since that's Graves's birthday this year). You'll truly get the farm-to-table experience, from shopping for the meal at the Hillcrest farmers market, to helping Graves prepare hors d'oeuvres for the group and then sitting back and enjoying a chefs table feast.

"We meet here at 10 and travel together to the market," explains Graves. "I'll set up guidelines for shopping that are based on what the plan is for the meal and what's in season. We'll talk to the farmers like Phil Noble of Sage Mountain Farm and learn what to look for in everything from fish to strawberries so we pick the best ingredients and we'll get some insight about how they live their life."

There's a back kitchen at Jsix where the group -- up to a dozen people -- will gather around a large prep table. "Typically the ladies want to get in and have fun cooking and the gentlemen want to kick back and have wine," says Graves, "but everyone's welcome to join in and help cook."

Graves will then assemble the hors d'oervres and bring them out to the dining room where the guests will enjoy the rest of the day with a full chef's table experience. Of course, if the group is into cooking, they can join Graves back in the kitchen.

"For me, it's fun because it brings together everything," says Graves. "I really love cooking. I love food. I love cooking off the cuff. Truly it's farm to table, which I want to promote the most."

So, here are the details:

• There's transportation to and from the Hillcrest farmers market from Jsix.
• You'll enjoy a three-course meal featuring ingredients you and Chef Graves select and he (and maybe you) prepare.
• Wine or cocktails will be paired with each course.
• The $120 per person cost includes gratuity and complimentary parking at Hotel Solamar, adjacent to Jsix.
  

For reservations, call the restaurant at 619-532-8744.

Jsix is located at 616 J St. in downtown San Diego.


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How Not to Shop for Food on an Empty Stomach or Great Little Dining Gems in the Markets

The experts say that you shouldn't go to the market when you're hungry and it's true. All sorts of caloric and financial havoc happens when your stomach is grumbling as you stroll down the aisles.

Fortunately, there are a number of markets in town that also have great little eateries attached to them. So, if you plan it right, you can grab a meal first, get that rumbling tummy sated and then grab a cart and pick up your groceries.

Here are some of my favorites:

• Balboa International Market at 5907 Balboa Ave. in Clairemont. I've raved about the lamb shank and rice with fava beans but they also have great stews and kabobs that come with a full helping of rice and salad. You can also pick up containers of tabouleh or other salads and a chunk of one of their many feta cheeses. And, of course, freshly made flat bread.

• Parsian International Market, another Middle Eastern market, in at 4020 Convoy in Kearny Mesa. They have delicious wraps and kabobs as well as Greek salads, soups and, well, just a tremendous selection of traditional Middle Eastern fare. Eat indoors or on their breezy patio on Convoy.
• Mitsuwa at 4240 Kearny Mesa Road in Kearny Mesa. I never know whether to indulge in their delicious steaming bowls of ramen (no, the real deal, not Top Ramen) or some udon. Or perhaps sushi, freshly made in the store. Mitsuwa's food court always seems packed with ravenous people.
  
• Northgate Gonzalez at 1410 S. 43rd St. in Southcrest. Hmmm. Butterflied roast chicken? Carnitas? Or perhaps a container of one of their amazing ceviches? The very long aisle of prepared foods invites happy confusion so bring some friends and order a bunch of dishes to try at one of the tables nearby.

• Foodland Mercado at 1099 E. Main St. in El Cajon. I love the sopes in their taqueria--it's a thick, tart-like tortilla filled with beans and carne asada or chicken, then topped with crema, cheese and salsa. They also have a wonderful grilled whole chicken, tacos, tortas and burritos.

• Mercado 2000 International at 1415 3rd Ave., in Chula Vista. This place was a happenstance discovery I made with my friend chef Deborah Schneider while we were hunting for someplace else. But we were rewarded by our curiosity. Around the corner of the store in the parking lot, they have a little taco shop. Truly, it's nothing to look at but the food is delicious: tacos, tortas, tamales. I had what's called a mulita, basically a thick tortilla sandwich with grilled chicken, cilantro, scallions, avocado and cheese. Plus a taco made with lingua (tongue).

• Lucky Seafood on 9326 Mira Mesa Blvd. in Mira Mesa. I had my first banh mi sandwich here and it set me off on a course of true love. It's a warm, crispy French baguette encasing a little pate, pork or other meat, jalapeno pepper slices, sprigs of cilantro and shredded carrots. It's a wonderful mouth experience. And that's just at the express counter. Attached to the shop is a little restaurant where you can get the most amazing pho. Large, steaming bowls of soup filled with different meats and accompanied by herbal condiments make for a hearty meal.

And what about the farmers markets? My choices for dining and then shopping are the Hillcrest, Little Italy and La Jolla markets. At the Hillcrest market, try the trio of tacos for $5. Or the empanadas.


And get a cup of coffee with coconut-flavored whipped cream from my friend David at the orange truck that is Joe's on the Nose (he's also at the Little Italy Mercato on Saturdays). At the La Jolla market are crepes and kabobs, waffles and a full complement of Mexican food. In Little Italy and Hillcrest, the terrific Rey Knight of Knight Salumi is now grilling sausages and making sandwiches.

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