From Lisa Barnes

I have a difficulty talking about animals with my children when I am cooking. My son now asks questions when he sees meat. Things like, when looking at a steak “did this come from a cow?”, or when looking at a whole chicken “where would the head be?” or when looking at a whole fish at the market “is he looking at me?” Yes, I enjoy being a carnivore, as does my son, when we’re enjoying a meal at the table. However it is difficult before the animal part becomes a “meal”.

He knows not to play games about pretending to shoot or kill things (like some of his school mates). But when I start to explain a chicken’s feathers are plucked after it’s killed, he yells “you shouldn’t say kill Mom!” So I find it hard to explain. Then he asks “does the plucking hurt?” Plain and simple the chickens are killed for us to eat them. They simply don’t fall over dead from exhaustion or old age. But then he wants to know how they die. I certainly don’t want to go into details of animal killings with a 4 year old. Plus to be honest I don’t like to think about it myself. I try to tell him that organically raised animals have better lives, eat better foods and are happy - but the punchline is, they still are killed.

Not to mention my 1 year old daughter likes to make animal noises. So when I’m trying to avoid the subject with my son, she’s in the backround saying “mmmmmmooooo” or smacking her lips like a fish.

I’d love to hear any suggestions from other’s dealing with such curiosity. In the meantime here’s an easy roasted chicken recipe for the whole family. Is the correct sound “bock, bock,bock” or “cluck, cluck, cluck”?
~

Roasted Organic Herb Chicken
This is an easy weeknight meal, with lots of weeknight leftover possibilities. Cooking an entire chicken provides something for everyone – dark meat, white meat, sliced, or enjoyed right on the bone. You can even puree breast meat for baby.

1 organic broiler chicken, (3 to 3 ½ pounds)
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons fresh organic lemon juice
1 teaspoon fresh thyme, minced

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Rinse chicken and pat dry. Be sure giblets and innards are removed. Place chicken breast-side-up on oiled rack in a shallow roasting pan. In a small bowl, whisk together oil, juice and thyme. Brush over chicken. Roast chicken, uncovered in oven for 1 ¼ - 1 ½ hours, basting halfway through cooking. Cook until flesh is no longer pink and juices run clear.
~~
Lisa Barnes is author of The Petit Appetit Cookbook and lives in Sausalito, California.
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From Jeff Cox

My local organic market carries common white or brown button mushrooms, and because of their reasonable cost and mild earthy flavor, I use them in my everyday cooking. But I can also choose from an array of gourmet “wild” mushrooms — called wild, but sometimes grown by mycologists who have learned how to produce them commercially and organically — for special occasions.Depending on the season, I can find fresh morels, chanterelles, black trumpet mushrooms, shiitakes, matsutakes, criminis, oyster mushrooms, enokis, and the big, dark-gilled caps of portabellas.

A word about portabellas. When common brown button mushrooms are left too long in the mushroom houses and grow to their mature size, they become worthless. And so a marketing genius gave them the name portabellas and sold them as gourmet mushrooms. Not that they’re bad for you or bad tasting, but they are simply the common button mushroom all grown up.

Mushrooms are grown in caves or insulated dark sheds on wood, shredded paper, sawdust, or composted straw and manure, depending on the type of mushroom grown. To prevent other fungi and molds from contaminating the beds, commercial growers often sterilize the compost and use sterilizing chemicals on the shed walls and floors. Organic growers know that well-made compost can reach 160 F. from the heat of decomposition, which literally pasteurizes the compost naturally, without chemicals.

Wild harvested mushrooms, often found at farmers markets and organic food stores, grow naturally on the forest floor and are difficult to grow commercially because they need that natural forest environment to thrive. These include boletes, chanterelles, morels, and black trumpet mushrooms.

You can also find dried mushrooms in organic supermarkets, but the provenance of dried mushrooms can be uncertain. According to LocalHarvest, an online site devoted to putting buyers together with local sellers of mostly organic products, wild-harvested American mushrooms are sometimes “shipped to Canada for processing, and then to Europe for packaging, and can finally be sold in the U.S. as European wild mushrooms. In fact, some dried morels sold as French morels are harvested in northern India and smoked over dung fires to preserve them. Better to buy wildcrafted mushrooms found locally.”

Wildcrafted mushrooms are easily and widely available from on-line purveyors and include species from morels to Oregon white truffles — a native American species of truffle with superb flavor.

Mushrooms impart an essential earthiness to dishes, and a luscious, meaty texture, too. A strong word of caution: don’t pick mushrooms from the wild yourself unless you have been educated by an expert. My personal rule is I won’t eat any wild mushroom unless I know for dead certain they’re edible — that is, I’d feed them to my kids.
~

Beef Stew With Porcini Over Noodles

This fine stew is a fall favorite at our house, but since the mushrooms are dried, it can be made any time of the year. It’s definitely comfort food.

1 oz. dried porcini mushrooms
2 lb. lean, organic beef cut into two-inch squares
2 large Italian plum tomatoes, peeled, seeded, and coarsely chopped
2 medium carrots, peeled and diced
1 medium onion, peeled and diced
2 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
2 cups dry red wine
1 stalk celery, diced
1 bay leaf
1 sprig Italian parsley
1 sprig thyme
1 Tbl. butter
1 Tbl. extra virgin olive oil
1 Tbl. flour
Salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste

Reconstitute the mushrooms by placing them in a bowl and pouring boiling water over them to cover. Set the bowl aside. Place the cubed beef in a bowl and sprinkle with just a little kosher salt.

Heat the butter and olive oil over medium-high heat in a large iron pot that has a cover. Brown the meat in small batches so they are evenly browned on all sides. Remove each batch to a dish before adding the next.

When all the meat is brown, lower the heat to medium-low and add the onions, carrots, tomatoes, celery, and garlic and stir it, scraping any browned bits off the bottom of the pot. Cook, stirring frequently so vegetables are coated with oil, for about five minutes. Return the meat to the pot. Tie the bay leaf, parsley, and thyme sprigs together with a bit of kitchen cord and add to the pot.

Mix the flour with some of the wine, mashing and stirring so there are no lumps. Add this along with the rest of the wine to the pot. Stir and cover, and simmer over low heat for two hours. At two hours, chop the mushrooms, saving the liquor in which they were reconstituted. Add the chopped mushrooms and liquor to the pot, cover, and simmer another hour. Remove the bundle of herbs, correct the seasoning, and serve immediately.

Serves 4-6.
~~
Jeff Cox is author of The Organic Cook’s Bible and lives in Sonoma County, California.
Photo: Porcini from Edinformatics
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From Jesse Cool

Most of us know that the inquiry at a grocery store “Paper or Plastic” has no right answer. And most of us have enough cloth bags to make a quilt.

Remembering to grab the bag, when I get out of my car is remarkably challenging. Even though I keep a handful of them in a milk crate in the back of my mini cooper, it doesn’t always work.

Admittedly too often in a hurry, it is only when I am waiting in line at the cash register, and finally get to the moment of paying for my food, that I realize the bags are still in the car. Of course, at this point, I don’t want to step out of line to run to the car and grab the bag.

I think I’m writing this to fess up publicly, in hope that it will make me more aware each time I go shopping…

Grab the Bag
Becoming aware of cutting down on the use of unnecessary packaging becomes more vivid once you pay attention. On a trip to the farmer’s market yesterday, I resisted the offer of one too many farmer, trying to get me to put a handful of peaches in a plastic bag. My cloth bag was filled with tomatoes, plums, nuts, a bottle of local olive oil, a loaf of bread, a wedge of local cheese. And as much as the past had trained me to think I needed the bags to separate, keep the food from melding or getting crushed, I began to break the habit of thinking I needed plastic for anything.

And, yes, a few weeks ago, at the annual Nordstrom sale, I opened my back hatch and actually considered cloth bags for my shopping spree. Not quite ready, I know that soon, I will be bold enough to walk past the piano player with my Farms Not Arms cloth satchel.

Oh, and what about the plastic bags they put on dry cleaning? Most of my clothing is hand washable, but I use a local organic dry cleaner for woolens and linen. It has been quite a struggle to get them to not cover my clothing with plastic. Finally, after gently, but firmly asking every time that they not use it on my clothing they are responding and about 50% of the time… my clothes are not wrapped in unnecessary plastic.

At home, I no longer use plastic for leftovers. One day, I replaced everything with glass containers (they do have plastic lids). Not only can I see my food in the refrigerator, but I actually believe the flavors stay cleaner, purer and fresher when stored in glass.

Even if we forget sometimes, remember to bag our food in the most sustainable way is one step in the right direction of being responsible for our long term ecological footprint on this planet.
~

Organic Herb Garden Angel Food Cake

This lovely cake sounds “girly,” but I have yet to meet a guy who doesn’t enjoy it. If you feel like splurging, serve it with warm vanilla custard. Be sure that the rose petals have been grown organically.

1 cup sifted organic cake flour
1/2 cup sifted confectioners’ sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups organic egg whites (about 12 large eggs), at room temperature
1 1/2 teaspoons cream to tartar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup granulated sugar
3 tablespoons chopped purple basil or regular basil
1 cup chopped organically grown rose petals

Preheat the oven to 350ºF.

In a medium bowl, combine the flour, confectioners’ sugar, and salt.

In a large bowl with an electric mixer on high speed, beat the egg whites and cream of tartar until frothy. Add the vanilla extract and beat untl soft peaks form and the sugar dissolves. (To be sure that the sugar has dissolved, rub the beaten whites between your fingers. They should not feel granular.)

Gently fold the flour mixture into the egg white mixture in 4 stages. When the last bit of flour mixture is to be folded in, add the basil and rose petals.

Gently pour the batter into an ungreased 10″ tube pan. Bake for 45 minutes, or until the top is golden brown and a wooden pick inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove from the oven and invert, allowing to cool completely in the pan. When the cake is cool, run a thin knife between the cake and the pan. Turn out onto a plate.

Makes 8 servings.

Kitchen Tip
For an extra-spectacular dessert, glaze the cake with a combination of 1 cup confectioner’s sugar, 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract, and 1 to 2 tablespoons milk. Add the milk gradually until it’s a spreading consistency. Glaze the cake and garnish with additional organic rose petals.
~~
Jesse Cool is author of Your Organic Kitchen and lives in Menlo Park, California.
Photo by Lisa Koenig
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