Beth Skwarecki

It's that time of year again, when the potato plants die off and you stop panicking over dead plants to remember, oh yeah, that's what potatoes do this time of year. (In zone 5, anyway.)

I served homegrown potatoes with dinner tonight and rather than boil and mash them with milk or roast them so the corners turn crispy, I wanted something that would keep the potatoes moist and let them retain as much as possible of their own flavor. So here's what I did:

Ingredients

• potatoes (mine were Yukon Gold)
• scallions, maybe 2 of them (green and white part) for a scant quart of potatoes
• olive oil, a few tbsp
• butter, a few tbsp
• a sprinkling of salt

The procedure is simple: after cutting up the potatoes (with or without skins), put them into a pot with an inch or so of water. When the water boils, keep the lid on, and you'll be steaming your potatoes! If you have a fancy steamer basket, go ahead and use that instead. This is the same procedure I use to steam green beans and other veggies, too.

When the potatoes are soft - 15 minutes if you cut them small, test with a fork to be sure - drain the water and add the butter, olive oil, chopped scallions, and salt. Crush coarsely with a wooden spoon - you don't need to mash the potatoes, just rough 'em up a little.

Serve with leftover scallion bits on top. Yum.

1. Archer Farms "Indian-inspired" meals from Target. I never thought I would stoop to buying groceries from Target, but look! For $4 you get rice, curry sauce, a side dish, and some over-sweet chutney. It feeds two people heartily. (We add our own meat or veggies to the curry sauce, and cook extra rice, but the total cost is no more than $8 for dinner for two.)

2. High-waisted skirts like this one. I don't know what suddenly made me stop hating this style and start loving it. Maybe the fact that it looks AWESOME on me. (I made my own with Vogue 8425.)

3. Text adventure games! I never liked these as a kid because I could never guess what to do next. Well, either my brain grew or they started writing 'em better, because I devoured three of these things recently and found them intriguing and intelligent and not impossible to play.

First I played Everybody Dies, which starts out all "go east"/"go west"/"it's boring here" but gets interesting after you die the first time. As far as I can tell there's only one ending, but the puzzles are fun and I found the story stuck in my head for hours afterwards, which I think means it's a good story.

Since Everybody Dies was the 3rd-place winner in the Interactive Fiction Awards, I then went and played the first-place entry, Violet. This is an awesome game for procrastination from your nanowrimo novel and/or paid writing projects. In it, the major puzzle is battling procrastination so you can write, because bad things will happen if you don't. (I played this game while waiting for a call back from someone I was interviewing for an article, which is the freelance writer equivalent of "my code is compiling").

4. You see where this is going. After playing about three games in two days I was flooded with ideas for text games I could write. Like one based on my nano novel! Or one where you don't move in space but you can travel through time! or one where you're asleep and have to destroy your alarm clock so you can get back to the quest in your dream where you need to get to the airport that is also a mcdonald's!

Want to play along with the Beth's Craziness game? (the metaphorical one, not the inevitable text adventure) Just apt-get install frotz inform inform-doc. Tell me how yours comes out.

[psst zcode linux ... just trying to help out the googlers]

Here's an interesting idea, from Michael Pollan's latest:

...we need to recognize the value of farmland to our national security and require real-estate developers to do “food-system impact statements” before development begins.

That's a very interesting idea. It would keep suburbs from sprawling over their food sources; it would keep farmland close to where people live. It would mean you can't go around whining that you can't buy local because no food is grown locally.

Or at least, it could be a start.

Read the rest: it's an open letter to the next president about how rejiggering our food system will fix many of the problems we're facing in energy, security, and public health. (Optimistic? Yeah, probably.)

Putting dinner in oddly-shaped containers is fun!

Left: pan-seared brussels sprouts and potatoes in olive oil, butter, and salt.

Center: salad with spinach, mozzarella, and roasted tomatoes

Right: whole-wheat pasta with roasted tomato sauce (from a jar) and grated cheddar.

Last night I sent Marty a recipe for peanut lime noodles, and he responded with this one for Mayan hot chocolate. Amazingly, I had all the ingredients on hand (except the whipped cream). I did run out of milk and have to substitute a little goat's milk.


2 cups boiling water
1 chile pepper, cut in half, seeds removed (with gloves)
5 cups light cream or whole or nonfat milk
1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise
1 to 2 cinnamon sticks
8 ounces bittersweet chocolate or
3 tablets Mexican chocolate, cut into 1/4-inch pieces
2 tablespoons sugar or honey, or to taste
l tablespoon almonds or hazelnuts, ground extra fine
Whipped cream

In a large saucepan over medium-high heat, add chile pepper to boiling water. Cook until liquid is reduced to 1 cup. Remove chile pepper; strain water and set aside.

In a medium saucepan over medium heat, combine cream or milk, vanilla bean and cinnamon stick until bubbles appear around the edge. Reduce heat to low; add chocolate and sugar or honey; whisk occasionally until chocolate is melted and sugar dissolves. Turn off heat; remove vanilla bean and cinnamon stick. Add chile-infused water, a little at a time, tasting to make sure the flavor isn't too strong. If chocolate is too thick, thin with a little more milk.

Serve in small cups and offer ground almonds or hazelnuts and whipped cream.

Irrelevant photo: "Tomato Justice" at the faire

Remember when I mentioned a new project I'm working on? The time has come to unveil it.

I'm now writing a blog about an actual topic (other than me) for an actual audience (other than me). Presenting ... the Sustainable Food Blog!

Don't worry, I'll still be blogging here. Now, go! Enjoy!

My garden still looks puny compared to the neighbors, but it's making food. I've still got a favorite lettuce plant making me salads, and now I've got beans!

I don't know how they got this big without me noticing. The purple beans above are a variety called "Royal Burgundy". In a nearby bed, and harder to see, are the similar-shaped green beans of "Provider". Back in the corner I have "Light Red Kidney", which has much bigger, lumpier pods.

Meanwhile, the tomato plants still have tiny green tomatoes, getting bigger every day. The late-planted zucchinis are getting big for being so young; with luck I'll have fall crops of all the usual summer veggies. I also planted a second and final round of beans (provider and LRK) and Ashworth corn. Both are supposed to mature early, so I expect I can harvest those in September or October.



The garden's not working out super well as a substitute for trips to the grocery store (I'd hoped we could get most of our veggies from our own garden) but Chris and I are learning a lot about how to grow a garden for next year. And since most of our crops are heirloom varieties that breed true, we'll be able to save the seeds from our hardiest plants to use in next year's garden.

Here's to next year, and to late crops of early vegetables!

kt writes:

Tell me three favorite desserts: one you make, one you buy at the store and one you'd order when out to eat, please.

Ooh, what a tough question, but so much fun to answer!

A dessert I make: The runner-up in this category is wine-poached pears. It's easy to make and there are a million variations.

But my favorite homemade dessert to eat is pumpkin pie. I make it a few times each fall - usually once to celebrate the first pumpkins of the season, and then again as a Thanksgiving treat. I might also make one for a special occasion or for Christmas.

Homemade pumpkin pie takes a while to make but is worth every minute. Whipped egg whites make it fluffy and light, but the pie is still chewy and substantial because the pumpkin is mashed roughly (not puréed).

Here is my recipe, featuring a photo tutorial on gutting the pumpkin. If you know how to make a great pie crust, your pie will be that much better; but if not, just buy a crust from the store and nobody will notice. (Crust? What crust?)

A dessert I buy:

Cupcakes. Oh, I am such a sucker for cupcakes, with their fluffy cake and their sugary buttery icing and their sprinkles and especially when they've got the little molded flowers made of sugar.....

A dessert I order:

There was a short-lived dessert at the Olive Garden that was one of the best restaurant desserts I've ever had (with apologies to Aladdin's carrot cake. Sorry, but you are just not the best.)

This was a tall cup of amaretto custard with layers of amaretto-soaked strawberries. Anything featuring fruit and dairy is a win in my book, and there is no better flavor in this world than amaretto.

So, what are your favorite desserts?

I've posted before about local food (summary: I think it's a good idea). Here's a local food project probably anyone can do: One Local Summer. Each week (or however often you like), make and eat one meal whose ingredients are local. To quote the original post, "Don’t fret over salt, spices or condiments. Focus your efforts on produce, dairy, eggs, meat and grains."

July is an excellent time to do this in the northern hemisphere - and I feel especially lucky to be doing it here in Ithaca. In just this past week I've bought local corn, green beans, snow peas, tomatoes, zucchini, summer squash, cherries, blueberries, and chicken. Meanwhile, I'm happy to report that my garden has produced its first bean pod! (I haven't seen it yet. Chris brought me the good news. "It's purple!" he exclaimed. That's a royal burgundy bean. These plants have purple pods and, as I already know, purple shells around their white flowers.)

So, try a local meal this week. Or if that sounds too daunting, make a trip to a local farmstand or market and find one local food item you'd like to eat. Too easy? make it two. You get the idea.

There's nothing like a good salad, eaten outside, for a summer lunch. But I don't mean a bowl full of lettuce - that's not a good salad.

A meal needs to have calories. It needs to have protein, carbs, and good fats. When you start adding beans, whole grains, fruits, non-lettuce veggies, cheese, nuts, the salad becomes a meal.

By the way, I don't buy the idea that a low-calorie meal is "healthy". Protein is healthy; fiber is healthy; vitamins are healthy. Food that leaves you feeling hungry is just a waste of time.



I provide this photo as inspiration. It's just a bowl of cold veggies, but it's making you drool all over your keyboard as you read this (right?) because it's made of mouthwatering actual food. I won't tell you that all the veggies are locally grown, fresh summer produce. (That would just make you drool even more.) Or that the beige glop on some of the veggies is perhaps the best salad dressing I've ever tasted (Annie's "Goddess" dressing).

Instead, I'll just give you the inspiration list for making your own killer salad. The items in bold are also in the salad above; the rest are just food for thought.

• dark green/colored lettuce (Iceberg doesn't count.)
  
• fresh leafy herbs, like basil
  
• chickpeas
  
• beans
  
• green beans
  
• tomatoes
  
• rice (ooh, try leftover fried rice)
  
• carrots
  
• potatoes (cubed and cooked)
  
• apples
  
• lentils
  
• cheese
  
• dried fruit, like craisins
  
• oats or other cooked grains
  
• quinoa
  
• pasta
  
• oranges
  
• berries
  
• avocado
  
• onions, scallions
  
• zucchini, summer squash
  
• winter squash (cooked)
  
• snap peas
  
• corn
  
• nuts
  
• seeds (sunflower, poppy, sesame...)
  
• dead animals (y'know, chicken, tuna, ...)
  
• dressing - If the Goddess isn't your style, make an easy dressing by mixing olive oil with a little vinegar. Season with salt, pepper, and optionally some dry herbs like oregano.
  

Have a scavenger hunt in your kitchen: how many of these items do you already have? Already-cooked leftovers count - in fact, with their spices and sauces they often make the most flavorful additions.

For more ideas on hearty salads and other veggie-loaded foods, check out this article on Stumptuous and scroll down to "garbage salad". Note that the garbage strategy works beautifully for soups, too.