A Sure Sign of Spring: The Local Hothouse Tomato

See this?  It is a Den Haan's hothouse tomato.  It is not from Mexico, has not traveled thousands of miles to get here and is not months old.  It looks like a tomato.  It smells like a tomato.  It even tastes like a tomato! Hallelujah!  More sure than even the sight of Roll-Up-the-Rim cups littering the highways, its presence at your local grocery store is a sure sign of spring in Nova Scotia.

I really do limit my tomato consumption in winter.  Den Haan's takes a break from growing during the darkest months, and tomatoes from Florida and Mexico are picked by people in seriously undesirable working conditions.  You can read the article Politics of the Plate:The Price of Tomatoes here.  Plus, they taste bad, not an insignificant factor for me.

Den Haan's tomatoes are as close as we can get right now to full garden flavour, and I'm grateful to them for providing this to us!  We have been enjoying them chopped up and folded into scrambled eggs in the last minute of cooking, in thick slices on toast with a sprinkle of salt and pepper, and diced into a simple and delicious fresh salsa. 

Union Street Salsa

At the Cafe, we make this in quantity with good quality canned tomatoes .  It's great.  But this, made minutes before consumption, is superb.  You substitute 1 can diced tomatoes, drained slightly, if all the tomatoes at your store are imports.

2 C. chopped Tomato
1/4 C. minced Red or Yellow Onion
1 small Green Pepper, diced
1/4 C. Banana Peppers, minced
1 t. Cumin, toasted and ground
1/4 C. chopped fresh Cilantro
1/4 t. Salt

Combine in a bowl and taste.  Add a little more salt if you like, maybe a dash of hot sauce, maybe a smidgen of garlic.  Welcome spring!

A Saint Patrick's Day Birthday Feast

Plate No. 1

Tomorrow is my son's birthday.  He was born on St. Patrick's Day, six years ago.  It was cloudy and grey, there was snow in the woods, and David Myles was playing at the Cafe.  We loved the fact that there will always be a great party on his birthday.  He has plenty of Irish heritage, so bring on the jigs and reels!  And the Irish food.

We're celebrating tonight with Boiled Dinner with Grammie's Mayonnaise.  Doesn't that sound delicious? How about Corned Beef with Winter Vegetables and Sweet Mustard Sauce...better?   The sauce, my great-grandmother's recipe, is rich and vintage-ly scrumptious, and the rest of the meal can be too.  You've got to start with a decent piece of beef, and cook it patiently.   We buy our corned beef from Meadowbrook Meat Market, where they cure it themselves.  A 2 lb. chunk will serve about 6 people.  I'm not usually tempted by boiled vegetables, let alone meat, but you will have to trust me on this!

Corned Beef with Winter Vegetables and Sweet Mustard Sauce

2 lb. Corned Beef
10 Peppercorns
1 Bay Leaf
1 very small head Green Cabbage, cut into 6 wedges (leave the core in so it stays together)
3 large Carrots, peeled and cut into 1" chunks
1 small Turnip, peeled and cut into 2" chunks
6 small Potatoes, cut in half

In a large pot, place the beef, peppercorns and bay leaf.  Add enough water to cover and bring to a simmer over high heat.  Reduce to low, cover, and simmer for 3 hours, or until a fork can easily penetrate to the center.  Remove the beef and let it rest while you cook the vegetables (leave the cooking water in the pot).  Throw the cabbage, carrots, turnip and potatoes in, top up with water to cover and bring to a boil.  Reduce the heat and cook for about 30 minutes, until the vegetables are tender.  Slice the beef thinly against the grain and serve with the vegetables and Sweet Mustard Sauce.

Grammie's Mayonnaise (Sweet Mustard Sauce)

Don't ask me why it's called Mayonnaise

3 Egg Yolks
1 T. Flour
2 T. Sugar
1 t. Salt
2 t. Dry Mustard
1 1/4 C. Milk
1T. Cider Vinegar
3 T. Butter

In a small heavy pot, whisk the yolks, flour, sugar, salt and dry mustard.  When they are smooth, add the milk and vinegar and set over low heat.  Whisk frequently as the sauce heats and thickens, about ten minutes .  Remove from the heat and whisk in the butter.

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

Down at the Cranberry Bog

Cranberry Acres (and Acres!)

Folded into lemony muffins, baked into stuffing, stirred into freshly toasted granola and garnishing a spinach salad: we have come up with many uses for the tasty little cranberry. It's all for good reason. Cranberries are beautiful, nutritious and, around here, plentiful. In fact, cranberries grow wild around Nova Scotian brooks and streams and have become an important crop in the Annapolis Valley since at least the 1940s, when the first commercial harvest was made near Aylesford. Cranberries have been produced commercially in Nova Scotia since the late 1800s!

I had a chance to visit my friend Louise's Cranberry Acres last Tuesday. I was amazed at the complex machinery, their acres of irrigated fields, and a complex system of irrigation ponds and ditches designed to flood the cranberry fields on demand (most cranberries are harvested underwater: they float to the surface and are collected). Theirs is one of the largest of several cranberry farms in Nova Scotia, with more than 30 fields under cultivation and five different varieties being grown including Stevens and Pilgrim. On the day I visited, frozen cranberries were being packed in forty pound boxes destined for Russia! Our cranberries are exported all over the world and are renowned for their gorgeous colour: Louise told me that Nova Scotian cranberries are by far the reddest. 

The Red, Red Nova Scotia Cranberry

We've been buying fresh and frozen SunValley cranberries for years. For a time, they also supplied us with dried cranberries, but have since discontinued that line. However, we were thrilled to discover an almost-local source of dried cranberries and cranberry juice at Terra Beata Farms in Lunenburg. They also dry and juice Nova Scotia cherries and blueberries!

The cranberry harvest will be over soon, but cranberries last for weeks in your refrigerator and longer when frozen. There's no need for fancy preparation, just throw the whole bag into your freezer and they will be separate and intact when you're ready to use them. Don't bother to defrost them either, just be prepared to add a few extra minutes' cooking time to your recipe.

Cranberry Chutney

This is our spicier, thicker version of cranberry sauce. At the Union Street Cafe, we serve this chutney alongside our North Mountain Free Rangin' Hot Chicken Sandwich and our version of Duck Confit. It's also great mixed with an equal part of mayo and slathered on a turkey sandwich. This chutney keeps at least a week in the refrigerator.

1 medium Onion, diced

1 ½ C. Sugar

1 C. Water

4 C. Cranberries, fresh or frozen

1 t. Chinese 5-Spice or Garam Masala

Combine all the ingredients in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil, stirring from time to time. Reduce the heat and simmer for 8-10 minutes, until berries have broken down somewhat.  Let cool, then refrigerate.

Roasted Cranberry Vinaigrette

Serve this beautiful dressing on emerald Spinach leaves or mixed greens with Roasted Pears, Dragon's Breath Blue Cheese and Toasted Pecans as a celebration of the colder months of the year!

The Cranberry in its Natural Habitat!

2 C. Fresh or Frozen Cranberries

1/3 C. Sugar

½ t. Salt

2/3 C. Olive Oil
1 T. Balsamic Vinegar

1 t. Dry Mustard

Freshly Ground Pepper

Red Wine Vinegar, optional

Preheat the oven to 350°. Toss the cranberries, sugar and salt together on a baking sheet and roast for about 15-20 minutes, until the cranberries begin to shrivel. Let cool, then scrape into a medium bowl and whisk in the olive oil, dry mustard and a few grinds of pepper. Taste and add a splash of balsamic vinegar if you like and thin with a spoonful of water if it's too thick. If you prefer, puree it in a blender for a smooth result.  This is very pretty spooned over greens.

Cranberry White Chocolate Cookies

This is a tweak on Michael Smith's Chef at Home Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe!

3 C. Flour

2 t. Baking Powder

1/2 t. Salt

1 C. Butter

2 C. Brown Sugar

2 Eggs

2 t. Vanilla

1 C. Dried Cranberries

1 C. White Chocolate, chopped (I use 1 Just Us! white chocolate bar)

Preheat oven to 350.  Butter a large baking sheet or line with parchment.  Combine flour, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl.  Cream butter with brown sugar in a large bowl until fluffy, then beat in eggs and vanilla.  Add flour mixture, cranberries and white chocolate and stir until just combined.  Using a 1/4 C. measure, scoop dough onto baking sheet, spacing them out (cookies will spread).  Bake for about 15 minutes, until browning around the edges.

 A little piece of Cranberry field

I read this morning that at the end of "Strawberry Fields Forever", John Lennon repeats the words "cranberry sauce".  
According to the Pacific Coast Cranberry website, "he stated it was a kind of icing on the cake of the weirdness of song, where anything he might have imagined saying would have been appropriate." 

Rhubarb

On the drive down the North Mountain, I can see a whole field of rhubarb that lies untouched. Every year I watch the giant flower stalks emerge, turn brown, and wither away until the next spring. I have climbed over the barbed wire fence that rings the field and stealthily picked huge bunches. Shaded by a parasol of rhubarb leaves, I snuck back to my car, threw the whole thing into my trunk and zoomed off to my Cafe kitchen. Since then, I have found out who owns the field and can now pick, without looking over my shoulder, for just 20 cents a pound. Rhubarb can often be found in a neighbour's yard, on roadside tables and in stands, and at farmer's markets. Pick the slenderest, reddest stalks for the prettiest results and dirty looks from other customers. Rhubarb is inexpensive and versatile. It keeps for weeks wrapped in plastic in the fridge, and freezes very well just chopped up and thrown in a bag. It is also unbelievably sour! Fairly large amounts of sugar are required to soften its bite, but this can be reduced by mixing rhubarb with other sweeter fruits. Strawberry is the classic rhubarb partner, but I also love raspberries with it, or even apple.

For years we served Wild Salmon at the restaurant, pan seared and topped with this simple and delicious chutney. It lasts for months in the fridge, and is good wherever chutney is used: as a topping for Curries, in a little dish beside a platter of Cheese and Crackers, or on a Chicken Sandwich.

Rhubarb Chutney

1 ½ C. Diced Red Onion

1 T. Grated Ginger

1 T. Oil

1 C. Dried Cranberries

1 C. Sugar (we use Just Us!)

1 C. Cider Vinegar

½ C. Apple Cider

½ t. Cardamom

½ t. Ground Coriander

½ t. Salt

4 C. sliced Rhubarb

Saute the onion and ginger in the oil until onions are softened. Add the remaining ingredients except rhubarb and bring to a boil. Boil for 5 minutes, then add the rhubarb. Cook until rhubarb has softened and broken down and chutney has thickened somewhat. It will thicken more as it cool.

My sister Meagan is a master Crisp Baker. On Sunday, she brought this amazing Rhubarb Crisp to my potluck. The recipe is adapted from Mollie Katzen's Sunlight Cafe.

Rhubarb Pecan Crisp

6 C. sliced Rhubarb

1 C. Raspberries or sliced Strawberries (optional)

1 T. Unbleached all-purpose Flour

¼ C. Sugar

Toss the rhubarb with the flour and sugar until fairly evenly coated. Place in an ungreased 9 or 10 inch pie pan. Place the raspberries on top. Use the same bowl for the topping:

¾ C. Rolled Oats

¼ C. Oat Bran (or Wheat Germ)

1 T. unbleached all-purpose Flour

1/8 t. Salt

2 T. (packed) Brown Sugar

¼ t. Cinnamon

3 T. minced Pecans

3 T. melted Butter

Preheat oven to 350. Mix ingredients with a fork or your fingers until uniformly moistened. Crumble the topping mixture over the fruit and pat into place. Place the pan on a cookie sheet and bake in the centre of the oven for 20-25 minutes, until browned on top. Cool for 15 minutes before serving (with Ice Cream, if you're lucky!)