Locavoracious Brunch

Jack's family came by this morning, and we put them to work making a stick-to-your-ribs brunch. It's surprising to me how much of the food we just have on hand --even in the winter, even when just using leftovers and cupboard staples, even when not cooking vegetarian -- happens to have local roots. That's a radical change in my eating habits over the last year or so.

The pancakes are what we call "Suzanna pancakes," for a former housemate who taught us to make Maine-style, multigrain, everything-in-them pancakes. (Mark Bittman also knows about whole-grain pancakes, but I prefer our adaptation of a traditional pancake recipe, which just substitutes more interesting flours one-for-one with the white/cake flour). Today's dry mixture included white flour, cake flour, whole wheat flour, flaxseed meal, and barley flour (from Four Star Farms via our Enterprise farm share). The add-ins were mixed frozen fruit (including some we picked at Smolak Farms last summer), grated carrot (via Red Fire Farm), walnuts and sunflower seeds, and cardamom and cinnamon.

The frittata features Phoenix Hill Farm bacon and eggs (the farmer is a friend of Sara's, and let me just say, they could sell bacon to a vegetarian co-op). As well, it includes a selection of cheeses (including our Red Fire Farm share Fiore di Nonno mozzarella), green onions, and braising greens (also from Red Fire). The topping is the leftovers of a genius smoked tomato cream sauce from Dave's Fresh Pasta, which is dangerously close to the new house.

Mix-and-Match a Minestrone

Minestrone fulfills two of my major cooking needs: 1) you can make it entirely from ingredients you already have and 2) it doesn't require a recipe.

As long as there are some kind of tomatoes in the house, I will attempt to make minestrone. (And I haven't tried it yet, but I am not 100 percent sure that ketchup does not count as tomatoes.)

1. Cook your aromatics (any combination of onions, shallots, leeks, celery, and carrots) in oil in a large pot.

2. Add long-cooking vegetables (potatoes, sweet potatoes, squash, turnips, parsnips).

3. Add some kind of tomatoes (fresh, canned, paste, jarred pasta sauce) and some kind of broth (from a can, box, cubes, or even just water).

4. Add quick-cooking vegetables (zucchini, corn, green beans, broccoli, cabbage, kale, collards).

5. Add starches (cooked beans, cooked barley, uncooked rice, uncooked pasta).

The trick is really just to add the ingredients in approximate order of how much cooking time they need, so everything gets done at the same time.

Add whatever seasonings you like (I totally phoned it in this time with a jar of "Italian seasoning") and salt and pepper. Serve with grated cheese (traditionally Parmesan) on top.

This particular incarnation was leeks + celery + carrots + purple potatoes + butternut squash + canned chopped tomatoes + vegetable broth + cabbage + white beans + barley, and it made a serious dent in accumulated CSA vegetables.

(If fast and loose is not for you, here is a very serious approach to minestrone making, with beautiful photos.)

Thursday Veggietrivia

Crows in the Kitchen recently made the lemon-barley pilaf that was our second choice for an Epicurious barley recipe.

The Globe’s most-emailed article yesterday was a pretty good looking recipe for a butternut squash crumble.

As we like to think of ourselves as exemplary farm share members, I am a bit shamefaced to admit that we missed picking up our share two weeks ago. On the bright side: a week of eating supermarket vegetables really got us on the ball about sending in the deposit for our winter share.

Cooker? I Barley Know Her!

Why I love Mark Bittman can be summed up in his recipe for cooking barley (also works for all kinds of rice, quinoa, wheat berries, and those jars of unidentified grains left by co-op residents past):

Cooking Grains, the Easy Way
Put the grains in a pot with water and cook them until they're done the way you like them.

If you’re more into precision than I am, you have to start by knowing whether you have hulled barley or pearl barley. (See photos here.) I’m guessing we’re working with hulled barley here, but (as long-time readers know) I’ve been wrong before.

The Joy of Cooking says:

Cook 1 cup pearl barley with 3 cups water for a firm, chewy texture, or use 4 cups water for a softer texture, adding 1/2 to 3/4 teaspoon salt to the water.

Both hulled and Scotch barley should be soaked for 8 hours or overnight, then simmered until tender, 1 to 1 1/2 hours, in a ratio of 1 cup barley to 4 to 5 cups liquid.

We made a barley pilaf inspired by this recipe (with beans instead of bacon and chicken and with lots of CSA carrots and turnips and potatoes.) We didn’t soak our barley, and it was toothsome, but tasty.