From THE ORGANIC CENTER
Adapted

I started (slowly at first) eating a gluten-free diet about five years ago.  I noticed that I was having trouble digesting wheat and would get a rash along my jaw line each time I ate it, particularly if it was a white flour roll straight from the bread basket of some Italian restaurant.  You know the type!

In the meantime I have tried countless gluten free crackers, pastas and baking/flour blends.  Some are great.  Some, frankly, aren’t.

The Gluten-Free Bistro is in that “great” category.  And it’s because the three ladies eat the foods themselves.  In an interview recently published in Boulder’s The Daily Camera, co-founder Julie McGinnis said of other gluten free products, “Texture was lacking, taste was lacking, nutrition was lacking and I really got sick of buying products and throwing them in the garbage.”  Julie started GF Bistro with friends Kelly McCallister and Barb Verson who since have found great success selling their products (pizza crust in particular) to a growing list of restaurants.

Well, I too hate seeing food go to waste which is why this week’s recipe, pairing overly ripe bananas with the Gluten Free Bistro flour blend, is perfect… more

From JEFF COX

When summer corn is at its freshest and sweetest best, thrill people with this tasty corn dish to serve on the side. The flavors in this dish have a synergy that will surprise you—it’s greater than the sum of its parts. The medley of colors makes for a pretty presentation, too, served at the table.

5 ears very fresh organic corn, husked and desilked
2 medium organic leeks, white and light green parts only
3 slices bacon, cut into ½-inch squares
1 tablespoon unsalted organic butter
½ jalapeño pepper, seeded and minced
Freshly ground black pepper to taste
4 cups organic chicken broth
1 large organic potato, peeled and cut into ½-inch dice
1½ teaspoons chopped fresh thyme
4 tablespoons heavy organic cream
Salt to taste
3 spears chives, finely chopped

1. Cut the kernels from the corn and transfer to a large bowl. Slice the leeks into very thin rounds.

2. Place a Dutch oven or large saucepan over medium heat and add bacon. Fry until crisp, then transfer to paper towels to drain. Pour off all but 1 tablespoon of the bacon fat from the pan.

3. Place the pan back over medium heat and add the butter. When melted, add the leeks, jalapeño, and several grinds of black pepper. Cook, stirring often, for about 5 minutes, or until the leeks are soft.

4. Add the chicken broth, corn, potato, and thyme and increase the heat to high. When the mixture reaches a boil, reduce to a simmer and stir, simmering about 15 minutes, or until potatoes are soft.

5. Transfer 1 cup of the stew to a blender and puree until smooth. Return the puree to the pan. Add the cream and stir to mix well. Add salt. Sprinkle the chives and bacon over the surface of the stew. Remove from heat and serve while hot.

Makes 4 to 6 servings
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Image Credit: © Fei Yang | Dreamstime.com
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From JESSE COOL

Indian Summer

At summer’s end, when the memory of vacation fades, the routines of school and work urge me back to my kitchen. The days of casual summer dining subside, and the meaningfulness of being surrounded by family and friends for a leisurely meal returns.

Indian summer is a time of large platters overloaded with the bounty of just-picked goodness. It is a time to celebrate the harvest with family and friends and speak of fond memories of summer. It is also time to honor and cherish the last summer crops, such as tomatoes and raspberries. I also give open-arm welcomes to baby acorn squash, broccoli, kale, chard, and other early fall crop arrivals All earn prominent places on my dining room table.

Aware of the juxtaposition of seasons that Indian summer represents, conserving for the cold months ahead becomes a priority for me both at home and at my restaurants. My two food dryers are working nearly every night, the racks filled with tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, figs, and even berries. At the same time, herbs hang in bunches above my kitchen cabinets. Green tomatoes, cucumbers, beans, baby onions, and even Brussels sprouts are saved in jars filled with herbal or chile-infused vinegar.

Indian summer represents a season of preparation for the colder months to come. As the sweetness of summer disappears, I feel satisfied in knowing that I have created a kitchen ready for winter.
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The toasty flavor of the buckwheat stands up beautifully to the rustic combination of the pork and pumpkin. more

From ORGANIC CENTER WEBLOG

Like most parents, I welcome the return to the school year with its predictable routines. I also love the excitement that bubbles up from my children when they tell me about their new teacher and classes. One thing that I used to dread about back-to-school was making my girls’ school lunches. Last year we started having them make their own lunches as a way to help us out, as well as have them really learn about creating a balanced and healthy meal for themselves. A stand-by favorite is, of course, the peanut butter and jelly (or honey) sandwich. My only requirement is that the peanut butter is organic. Why?

From GENE LOGSDON

I’ve written before about my attempts to build a haystack that looks like one in a Claude Monet painting (see links at end of this post). This year I came close, as you can see by the two pictures. The distracting blue plastic at the base of my Monet will eventually be put over the haystack although I think the stack will shed water without a cover as well as Monet’s did. I’m not taking the chance of a sudden 6-inch Midwest downpour ruining it— something I don’t think Monet’s farmers had to put up with. They didn’t build their haystacks inside a ring of woven wire fence either, so I’m cheating a little.

Online, you can find haystacks still being erected all over the world. (Reader Ian Graham has sent me photos of his— he does a good Monet, too.) And as for paintings, good heavens! It appears that almost all artists, right up to the present, feel that they must paint a haystack or a haymaking scene just like so many of them feel compelled to paint nudes at some time in their careers. I typed “hay in art” into Google, and up popped hundreds of hay paintings. Not to be undone by the absence of stacks in modern agriculture, today’s artists are filling their canvases with hay bales including those big round ones wrapped in plastic.

I like to think there is more going on here than just an arty thing. The essence of farming comes down to feeding plants and animals so that they can feed us. Grazing pastures is the most sustainable way for animals to eat and plants to keep growing, as the Great Plains buffalo proved. But in northern climates, that means some of the surplus summer pasture needs to be cut for hay for over winter. This was the most practical way to insure a steady food supply back before farmers went crazy and decided to feed the world with corn and soybeans. People in Monet’s day saw much more than just the beauty of a haystack when they looked at one. They saw survival. As long as haystacks dotted the horizon every fall, society knew that it would survive until the next growing season. I wonder if even today, people look at those hay bales dotting a field and instinctively realize the same thing.

For those of you interested in making your own Monet haystacks, (it’s a very low cost way to make and store hay on a small scale) here’s what I’ve learned since I wrote about this subject last year. I quit mowing with the cutter bar (actually my cutter bar mower quit on me) and now cut hay with a rotary mower. The hay is mostly red clover or improved varieties of white clover like Alice. The rotary chops the hay up finer than I would like, or so I thought at first, but it dries faster, preserving the nutrient quality better. I can put it in the stack towards evening of the day after cutting and windrowing it. It dries faster also because I maintain only light stands of clover rather than heavy rank ones. The resulting high quality hay is, oddly enough, also easier to sculpt into a stack than long-stemmed cutter bar hay, especially hay with a lot of long, over-mature grass in it. Long grasses are too slippery to stack well. I actually would not have to use the woven wire base anymore. I can rank up this hay into a vertical wall, at least around the bottom of the stack. The trick is to always stack up the outside first and fill in behind it as you go up. Since medieval farmers did not have mechanical mowers, but harvested hay by the sickle or scythe handful and the rake-full, would that not be why they could form up such beautiful symmetrical stacks?

That suggests an even more awesome philosophical idea: what if hay that is more easily sculpted into a work of art indicates hay that is of higher quality in nutrients too? Could that be more than just an accident of happenstance? Perhaps in the most profound sense, art imitates nature and form forever follows function.
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Images: Monet Haystacks Midday; Logsdon Haystack Midday
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See also Gene’s…

Cheapskate Haystacks For Contrary Garden Farmers

An Offbeat Way To Make Good Hay
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