Two-potato hash with ham: Fall comfort food

I try to plan meals. I really do. But I end up improvising dinner far more often than I'd like to admit. And some nights, I have a plan to try something new and perhaps a little healthier, but find myself craving something comforting. Especially on a cold night like tonight.

Hash is the perfect food for cold nights. It's the food equivalent of your oldest, most comfortable sweats; a soft blanket; and a good book. And I've almost always got something I can use to improvise a decent hash.

The key to a good hash is balance. It should have a bit of this and a bit of that. A little bitter or mild to play against something sweet. Some salt from bacon or ham. The vegetables should be cut pretty small, but not so small that they lose their individual characteristics altogether. And of course, a good hash is incomplete without a fried egg or two with runny yolks to break and bring all those nicely roasted vegetables together into the perfect bite. I've just had a bowl and am still craving more, but I have to leave some for my sweetheart (oh the agony!).

This particular version of hash includes sweet and regular potatoes and ham. However, hash can have lots of different things, and it's a great way to clean out any root vegetables that are slightly past their prime (at the end of the post, I have some suggestions for variations).

I like to start the hash off on the stove top while I dice the vegetables and then finish it in the oven, and my beloved cast iron skillet lets me do that. Make sure that whatever pan you use is safe to use in the oven.

Ingredients

• 2 Tbsps vegetable oil (whatever your preference, lately I've taken to using avocado oil)
• 1 onion, diced finely
• 2-3 medium potatoes (my preference is yellow, but any potato on hand will work fine), cut into 1/2 inch dice (peeled or not, your call)
• 1-2 small, medium sweet potato, cut into 1/2 inch dice (peeled, generally, sweet potato skins are very thick)
• 1/2 lb ham steak, cut into 1/2 inch dice
• smoked paprika
• thyme
• salt and pepper 

Instructions

The nice thing about making hash is that you can cut vegetables as you go, and that's usually what I do. (In other words, you don't need to dice everything before you get started.)

1. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees (F).
2. Heat the oil in the skillet over medium low heat. 
3. Chop the onions and add them to the pan. Stir a few times and let them cook slowly until they are slightly shiny, about 5-10 minutes. 
4. Meanwhile, cube the ham and add it to the skillet. 
5. Next, cube the potatoes and sweet potatoes and add them to the skillet. Start with the potatoes because they need just a little longer to cook. 
6. Let everything get a little brown around the edges, about 5 minutes. Then season with smoked paprika (about 1/2 tsp or to taste), a generous sprinkling of thyme, and some pepper.
7. Slide the pan in the oven and let the vegetables roast for 30-40 minutes. Stir at least once about halfway through the cook time. 
8. When the vegetables are cooked through and a little brown and crispy around the edges, the hash is ready. Season with salt and more pepper and serve with a sunny-side up egg (or two).

Variations

I almost always include a few potatoes, but feel free to switch up the rest of the vegetables (or add more). The quantities are whatever fits somewhat comfortably in the pan. I like having a distinctly sweet vegetable matched with a more bitter one, here are some examples:

• sweet potatoes
• golden beets (red ones will work, but they will make a red mess of your hash)
• brussels sprouts
• kale, chopped (add at the last minute before sliding into the oven)
• turnips
• carrots
• parsnips.

You can also mix up the protein. I love bacon in hash and let the fat melt into the onions before I add any vegetables. Other options are to add some leftover turkey (Thanksgiving is coming up soon) or chicken.

The quantities don't matter, and the hash isn't always perfect, but it's almost always deeply satisfying. I love the improvisational character of it, the add a bit of this, and some of that, and see how it turns out.   

Bacon and Cheese Quiche for #SundaySupper and #CookForJulia

Who doesn't love Julia Child? Her crazy high-pitched voice, her fondness for butter and wine, and above all her enthusiasm for life and food. She was a great light and a great inspiration, especially for people who love food and for late bloomers.

Because I am so fond of her, I knew I had to participate in this week's #SundaySupper event, despite a nasty flu-like bug that has left me aching and feverish. This week's #SundaySupper is all about honoring Julia Child, who would have turned 100 years on August 15, by cooking some of her recipes. The last words of her introduction to The Way to Cook express some of the ideals of the #SundaySupper group: "The pleasures of the table--that lovely old-fashioned phrase--depict food as an art form, as a delightful part of civilized life. In spite of food fads, fitness programs, and health concerns, we must never lose sight of a beautifully conceived meal."

After flipping through my copy of The Way to Cook, I decided to make a bacon and cheese quiche with a scratch-made crust, which may have been a little ambitious given the fever I've had all day, but hey, it's Julia, you know? How could I possibly just go and buy a crust?

This is the first pastry crust I have ever made, and I am happy to have finally tried it. I feel capable of making more pies, tarts, and quiches now (honestly, if I didn't have a bunch of book chapters to clean up for a client, I'd do it again tomorrow). Let me be clear, this wasn't easy. Making a good pie or tart crust is a difficult, fiddly business. But it's remarkably satisfying. And it tastes good and buttery, and it's nice, crisp, and flaky. The base recipe is also easy to repurpose for savory or sweet uses, so if you learn to make this one crust, you can make a lot of different tasty treats.  

For the quiche shells, I deviated only in one respect from Julia's recipe. In place of the vegetable shortening required in the recipe (which I don't feel comfortable using because it's a mystery ingredient to me), I used lard. (I was so excited to find a source for local, grass-fed pork lard at the farmers market this morning; I know, call me a food nerd, it'll make me happy.) Let me explain a little about lard. Before the invention of hydrogenation, "shortening" was equivalent to "lard," which is white pork fat. Lard doesn't taste porky at all, it is a clean fat that is solid at room temperature (and very easy to make yourself). It prevents the formation of long strings of gluten, which means that your dough will be tender, not chewy like bread. If you don't want to use lard, just swap it out with vegetable shortening.

OK, so let's get to work. (And don't forget to skip to the end of this post and check out all the other tasty recipes and blog posts that are part of today's #SundaySupper #CookForJulia event!)

Ingredients for the Quiche Shells (Butter Dough)

• 1 1/2 cups (7.5 ounces) all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup (2.5 ounces) cake flour
• 1 tsp salt (for savory tarts) OR 1/4 tsp salt and 2 Tbsps sugar (for sweet tarts)
• 6 ounces chilled, unsalted butter, diced
• 2 ounces chilled lard (or vegetable shortening, if you must)
• 1/2 cup ice water (plus a few extra drops as needed)

You will also need two 9-inch tart pans (or you can use two 9-inch pie pans), plastic wrap, tin foil, pie weights (or dried beans), and extra butter.

Instructions for the Quiche Shells

I recommend making the shells at least a day before you plan to make the quiche. You can also shape the crust in the tart pan and freeze it for another day.

First, mix together the dry ingredients: the flours and the salt (or the flours, the salt, and the sugar).

Then, add the flour mixture and the diced cold butter to a food processor. Pulse the flour and the butter about 5 to 6 times (don't overwork this). Next, with the food processor running, add the lard (or shortening). Then add the ice water and pulse again about 5 to 6 times. The mass in the bowl should be loose and clumpy.

If you pick up a fist-sized clump of the dough, it should just come together. If it's too dry, add a few more drops of water. 

Turn the loose, clumpy mass out onto a baking board (if you have a marble board, now's the time to use it). Just barely mash it all together and make two flat discs. (Keep in mind that you want to work this dough as little as possible.) Wrap the disks in plastic wrap and refrigerate them for at least two hours and up to two days to let the gluten relax.

After you've let the dough chill, roll it out on a floured board. (Keep the dough cold. If it gets too soft to work with, just chill the dough again for 20-30 minutes and start over.) Roll it out to a diameter of about 12 inches (about an inch larger than the tart pan). Then roll the dough onto the rolling pin. Butter the tart pan.  

  

Gently roll the dough on top of the buttered tart pan. 

Push down the extra dough to thicken the side walls of the tarts. Cut off any excess dough by rolling the rolling pin over the top of the tart pan. Use any extra dough to fill holes as needed. Prick the dough all over and refrigerate for 30 minutes. (Here's where you can freeze the dough to bake it another time.)

When it's time to bake the shells, preheat the oven to 475 degrees Fahrenheit. Butter a sheet of tinfoil and place it butter side down on top of the raw dough. Place either dried beans or pie weights on top of the foil, filling the pan. Slide the pan into the oven. 

After 15 minutes, take the pan out of the oven (be very careful if you have a pan with a bottom that separates from the ring). Remove the pie weights or beans and the tinfoil. Prick the dough again and slide back into the oven for another 4 to 5 minutes to get some nice color. 

   

After you take the shells out of the oven, let them cool in the pan for 15 minutes. Then remove the pan and let them cool completely. 

Ingredients for the Bacon and Cheese Quiche Filling

(This is enough for one shell. Feel free to use the second shell for another filling, or wrap it carefully and freeze it.)

• 6 slices bacon, sliced into pieces (of course, I used the Haskins' incomparable bacon) 
• 1/2 cup grated Swiss cheese (cheddar would be good too)
• salt, pepper, grated nutmeg
• 3 large eggs plus enough heavy cream, half and half, or milk to get 1 1/2 cups

Instructions for Assembling and Baking the Bacon and Cheese Quiche

Place the shell back into the tart ring or pan for stability. 

Cook the bacon until it's crispy and let it drain a bit on paper towels. Line the bottom of the quiche shell with the pieces of bacon. 

Sprinkle all but a tablespoon of the cheese on top of the bacon. 

Mix the eggs with the cream, half and half, or milk (just enough to break up the yolks and disperse them evenly throughout the custard). Season with salt, pepper, and nutmeg to taste. I also added some fresh thyme from the garden. Pour the eggs into the shell and sprinkle the reserved cheese on top. Slide into the oven for 30-35 minutes until the eggs have puffed and browned.  

Let the cooked quiche cool on a rack for a little while, slice, and enjoy.

You can find other quiche fillings and lots of other great Julia Child recipes at these #SundaySupper blogs:

#CookForJulia Breakfast

Râpée Morvandelle by Cindy’s Recipes and Writings 

Croissants by Cookistry 

#CookForJulia Lunch

Tuna Salad Nicoise by Magnolia Days 

Blood Orange, Walnut, and Rocket Salad by Granny’s Down Home Southern Cooking 

Croque Monsieur by Webicurean

Spinach and Cream Cheese Pancakes by Happy Baking Days 

Julia’s Chicken Salad by My Trials in the Kitchen 

Pissaladière Niçoise (Onion Tart with Anchovies and Black Olives) by The Wimpy Vegetarian

Provencal Tomato Quiche by Are you hungry?

Quiche Lorraine  Spoon and Saucer 

#CookForJulia Dinner

Bouillabaisse by The Girl in the Little Red Kitchen 

Boeuf Bourguignon by Chelsea’s Culinary Indulgence

Orecchiette Con Broccoli Di Rape and Sausages by Doggie at the Dinner Table 

Boeuf Bourguignon by Hezzi D’s Books and Cooks

Veal Stew with Onions and Mushrooms with Baked Cucumbers and Boiled Potatoes (Blanquette de veau a l’ancienne with concombres au buerre) by Kimchi Mom

Salmon en Papillote by Girlichef

Poached salmon with cucumber sauce by Katherine Martinelli

Lobster Souffle and Deviled Chicken by Crispy Bits & Burnt Ends 

Roasted Chicken with Julia’s Mustard Marinade by The Meltaways

Wild Mushroom and Herb Stuffed Chicken by Mama Mommy Mom

Puree of White Beans with Garlic and Herbs (Brandade á la Soissonaise) by Avocado Pesto

Poulet au Porto by Family Foodie 

#CookForJulia Sides

Hollondaise over Blanched Asparagus by The Little Ferraro Kitchen

Scalloped Potatoes with Milk, Cheese, and Garlic (Gratin Dauphinois) by Home Cooking Memories 

Ratatouille by Basic N Delicious 

French-style country pate by There and Back Again

White Bean Dip with Homemade Tortilla Chips by Momma’s Meals

Oeufs à la Diable by What Smells So Good?

Soubise by The Weekend Gourmet

Ratatouille by Cupcakes and Kale Chips

#CookForJulia Desserts

Cream Cheese and Lemon Flan by Juanita’s Cocina

Strawberry Sherbert in Cooky Cups by Cravings of a Lunatic

Creme Brulee by Wine Everyday

Mousseline Au Chocolat by Small Wallet Big Appetite

Peach Tarte Tatin by That Skinny Chick Can Bake

Cinnamon Toast Flan by Vintage Kitchen Notes

Dark Chocolate Crepes by Family Spice

Crepes Fines Sucrees by Mangoes and Chutney

Pommes Rosemarie:Apples Rosie by The Daily Dish Recipes

Espresso Soufflé by Chocolate Moosey

Best Ever Brownies by In the Kitchen with Audrey

Orange-Almond Jelly Roll Cake by Mrs. Mama Hen

Orange Spongecake Cupcakes by Mama’s Blissful Bites

Orange Mousse with Greek Yogurt by Sue’s Nutrition Buzz

Wine Pairings: Relishing Food and Wine; Thanks to Julia Child! by ENOFYLZ

The fun starts every week at 3:00pm ET by showcasing fabulous recipes. At 7:00 pm ET, we will start our live chat. Join us on Twitter by using hashtag #Sundaysupper or using Tweetchat. See you there!

Local food is elitist? Part I

I am fan of Mark Bittman. I don't always agree with him, but I do more often than not. His recent post, "Local Food: No Elitist Plot," really pissed me off. Not because I disagree with Bittman, but because of this notion that eating local food in season is in some way elitist and snobby. Really? The method of sourcing food that we've used to get our food for about 250,000 years is elitist? Wow. The fundamental reason for the planet's many and distinctive food cultures is snobby? What a thoroughly ridiculous, absurd idea.

So what's perceived as elitist about it? For one thing, local food is nearly always placed in direct opposition to fast food, junk food, convenience foods of any kind--sort of the local, liberal, environmentally friendly yin to the industrial yang of cheap food. (Don't get me wrong: I know several local farmers, and their political leanings run the gamut.) Fast food is cheap and noncomplex and requires no work to prepare and eat; thus it appeals to many fundamental American values. By providing a lot of food for what seems like little money (here's another Bittman piece about the supposed cheapness of fast food), it wraps itself in a robe of thriftiness, of good old American hard-workingness. By dimming our senses with blasts of salt and sugar, it ensures we are incapable of experiencing the subtler pleasures of real food. And finally, by being so easy to get, it suggests respect for the value of our time. It seems to say, "I understand you don't have time for this fancy food nonsense; here's something that'll get the eating job done so that you can get on with the hard work of your day."

In contrast, local food does not seem cheap, especially if you are used to getting groceries from discount chains. If you typically buy a dozen eggs for 99 cents, $5 for a dozen will sting. However, you pay for that cheap-looking 99 cents in a lot of other ways both financial and, well, moral: taxes that pay for industrial farm subsidies, farmworker abuse, environmental costs, mass food poisoning events, other health costs, and so forth. (I would love to see a study that calculates the real cost of a dozen eggs. If anyone has ever seen one, please let me know.) When you  realize that the farmer at the farmer's market is demanding prices that cover his or her real costs and that you already paid extra for the cheap food at the grocery store, those high prices seem a lot less unreasonable and elitist(1). (Also, you start to ask yourself, who asked my permission to spend my money on appeasing on giant, industrial corn producers?)

Another problem with the seeming cheapness of industrial food is that when you make something seem cheap, people will start to treat it that way. In other words, it loses its value. This may not seem like that big a deal; why would it matter that people think food is cheap? Well, for one thing, cheapening food devalues the very hard labor that people put into growing it (and if you are a meat eater like me, minimizes the life of the animal). And that just kind of sticks in my craw a bit.

But devaluing food also has implications for human culture and health. Sharing food, eating together, teaching one another to cook--all these food-related activities and more comprise some of the most important ways that people create and transmit culture as well as form bonds with one another. When the food you eat loses value, you are less likely to engage in those kinds of behaviors. When you pick up that  super-extra-duper-value meal at the drive-through window and eat it in the car on the way home, you lose opportunities to communicate with other people, to learn something, to teach something, or even to just relax and enjoy your food--to enrich your life. So the food and the eating experience don't satisfy. You end up wanting more (whether food or human interaction is another question). Food loses it specialness; it becomes something to engage in any time, any place. So you eat more. And more. And then the portion sizes seem off if they aren't huge. And the taste seems bland if the food isn't drenched in salt or sugar. And suddenly you find yourself weighing more, struggling with hypertension and/or diabetes, wondering how the heck it happened.

Speaking of wondering what happened, I seem to have gotten off track of my original topic, which was the absurdity of the elitism charge on local food, so I will get back to that in a future blog post. (I've also got some nice recipes for cream of tomato soup and finally made some great red beans and rice.)

(1) Of course, not everyone can afford food from the local farmer's market, but that has a lot to do with the way the current system is set up. If more farm subsidies were shifted from producing mass quantities of cheap commodity grain to local fruit and vegetable farms, it seems fairly certain that local farmers could and would lower their prices. That's more of a political issue, not just a change your personal habits and the market will come kind of issue.

[This was also published (with a prettier picture) at Pick-a-Pepper, a great website devoted to connecting local farmers, food artisans, and producers with local consumers, restaurants, and institutions. Check it out!]

Friday link roundup and a recipe for a savory version of French toast

A fair amount of cooking went on this week even though it didn't seem as though it was going to work out that way. You see, I neglected to go to the farmer's market last Saturday. I was too lazy to go. My son had his little Happy Feet Soccer class in the morning, and I didn't want to miss it again. As a result, I didn't have a whole lot of fresh ingredients to work with. But somehow I managed to pull out a great meat sauce on Monday, come up with a savory version of French toast and serve it with caramelized onions and bacon, and make red beans and rice last night. Tonight's Friday treat? This fondue minus the brandy. With some ice cream for dessert.

I'd love to share the red beans and rice recipe, but it's not there yet. I added too much tomato to the mix, making it too acidic. It was definitely edible, but it just wasn't up to the level of wow-I've-died-and-gone-to-food-heaven I was aiming for. Especially given the amount of time that went into it. And the fact that I used up all the rest of the delicious pickled pork Mike made a few weeks ago. Oh well.

Another disappointment this week was the photos of the savory French toast. Not pretty. Not appetizing. It's getting darker in the evening, so the natural light that makes photos gorgeous is fading, and I don't yet know how to compensate (if anyone has some tips, please share). So I deleted all my toast photos. Here are some photos of a stunning sunset we had a few days ago instead. Some of these look unreal.

Although things didn't work out perfectly on the cooking front this week, I am proud to say we didn't have to resort to picking up dinner from Chipotle (our go-to fast food restaurant because of their efforts to use ingredients that are as sustainable and local as possible). Don't get me wrong, I love their bowls, but it feels good to be the one who creates the food that goes on the table, you know?

I also came across several good articles to share:

• I read this article about boiled cider from The Washington Post a couple of weeks ago and tried the accompanying recipe. It took all day to reduce the cider, but it was so worth it. I have this delicious syrup that I have been using to sweeten our morning oatmeal, and I also added some to the red beans and rice. It's so sweet and intense; it's like a sunrise explosion of sweet apple in your mouth. I am almost out and plan to make more this weekend. Another plus is that making it gives the house that fall smell of warm cider.
• Here's a story about a family from Arizona that pledged to buy 100 percent local for an entire year. I come across stories like this from time to time where someone forgoes something entirely for a year or however long, and I have to admit I couldn't do that. I don't want to. I prefer to take a more evolutionary approach path to locavorism and sustainability by replacing, eliminating, or changing one thing at a time. It's what I can do. Still, these stories provide inspiration as well as ideas for what I could do better. 
• Came across this story about a man who created his own bread starter, from which all his loaves of bread derive. I have tried making sourdough once--it was not a success--but I look forward to trying again some day.
• On the farming and sustainability front, the Agronomy Journal published results from the first long-term, large-scale study of the economic feasibility of organic farming versus industrial farming. As it happens, organic farming is profitable in the long term. These kinds of results are really starting to break down old arguments that industrial methods are the only economically viable methods. Think about these results in combination with the United Nations' study's findings Civil Eats reports that indicate organic farming is a viable method for feeding everyone on the planet, and toxic status-quo industrial methods start to look increasingly out of touch.
• Having grown up in Sweden where the potato is nearly as fundamental to the diet as rice is in China, this report from Marcus Samuelsson's website that the USDA plans to take potatoes off the menu just  pissed me off. Writer Dylan Rodgers was none too pleased either and explains the importance of the potato throughout history. 
• In contrast, this story about the pawpaw from NPR made me very happy. The pawpaw is a native fruit. Mike and I hunted for them last year to try them, but we were too late. We found a location with a whole bunch of pawpaw trees, but most were down by the time we saw them. I am just excited that someone is paying attention to a homegrown fruit. Wonder if a wander in the woods is in the cards for me? 

So that's the article round-up for this week. And here's that recipe for a savory version of French toast I promised:

• 8 slices bread
• 1 cup half and half or cream 
• 4 eggs
• 1/2 cup grated cheese (Cheddar or Parmigiano Reggiano)
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/8 tsp ground pepper
• 1/4 tsp smoked paprika
• 1/2 tsp dried thyme
• butter (for the skillet)

1. Place bread slices in a glass baking pan
2. Whisk together half and half, eggs, cheese, salt, pepper, paprika, and thyme. Pour the mixture over the bread in the pan. Let it sit for at least 10 minutes, but you can also start it the night before. (Flip the bread slices at least once to make sure both sides get a good soaking.) 
3. When ready to cook, take the bread slices out of the baking pan and let them dry off for a few minutes on a baking rack while you melt some butter in a skillet over medium heat. 
4. When the butter starts to sizzle and brown a little, place two slices in the pan. Let each side cook until golden brown (about 2-3 minutes) and remove from the heat (keep them warm in an oven heated to 275 degrees Fahrenheit while you do the next batches). Start each batch with a new pat of butter or else they will stick to the pan a lot. 
5. Serve with caramelized onions and bacon (if you like). You can also add a tiny drizzle of the apple syrup I talked about up above. It's mighty good and makes a nice, simple breakfast for dinner.   

 

Season's first grilling: Pork shoulder marinated in lime and orange juice

Some friends of ours came up from Richmond to have dinner with us on Saturday night. Of course, somehow we missed the memo that we were cooking dinner until Saturday morning, when we discovered this and became a tad anxious. Thankfully we still had a freezer full of meat (thanks to the Haskins Family Farm CSA we signed up for this year), so I decided to take a gamble and grill a nice piece of pork butt (which is actually the shoulder, but "pork butt" elicits more giggles) that was taking up a lot of space in the freezer and shred it for tacos. That way we could probably keep the kids happier than they would have been with some of my more esoteric meals.

But before I get too far into the details of making that dinner (which finally took place about two hours later than planned), I just have to mention this recipe for eggs poached in buttery sorrel sauce, which we had for dinner tonight and was absolutely wonderful. Thanks to Orangette for turning me on to it.

Anyway, back to the pork butt adventure, which at first seemed like it was going to be a fiasco, but turned out reasonably well in the end.

So, I had dinner to make out of a five-pound hunk of meat that needed to be defrosted and marinated and then grilled for at least three hours (or so I thought). I decided to take a chance and marinate the meat while it was defrosting. I made a marinade of

• lime juice from five limes
• 1/2 cup soy sauce
• 1 cup orange juice (delivered to us from South Mountain Creamery, which delivers our milk to us; yes, we get our milk delivered, and hearing the chink of bottles in the cooler on the front porch every Friday is wonderful, but more on that some other time)
• 3 Tbsp salt
• 1 tsp black pepper
• 1 Tbsp dried oregano
• 1 bunch cilantro, chopped finely (I actually got this from my back yard)
• 3 large garlic cloves, crushed
• 1/4 cup brown sugar

I mixed the ingredients together, placed the frozen pork butt in a plastic bag, and poured the marinade over it. I sealed the bag, pushing as much air out of the bag as possible, and then submerged the whole bag in cold water to try to speed defrosting. While it marinated, I turned it over a few times. I let it sit for about three hours (wish I had thought of it a lot earlier, an overnight soak would have been fantastic). 

At about three in the afternoon, I decided I had to start the grill or we were never going to have dinner. In another first, I decided to try my new chimney starter to start the fire. I wasn't sure if it was really going to work at first. It kicked up a LOT of smoke, but soon the coals glowed nicely, so I was happy. 

While the coals were heating up, I prepared the meat, which was still quite hard and cold, but I had to give it a try. I got the meat out of the bag (reserving the marinade), dried it off with some paper towels, and then rubbed it with a dry rub that I had left over from last summer (dry rubs usually include sugar, salt, dried mustard, cumin, and other dry spices).

Back at the grill, I poured the coals from the chimney starter into one half of my grill. (When you grill a large piece of meat, you use indirect heat, which means that if you have a coal-fired grill like I do, you place all the coals on one side, place the meat on the other side, and close the grill to basically create an oven.) Then I put the grate down, oiled it with some canola oil, and placed the meat on the grill, skin-side up. 

When the meat was on the grill, I decided to take a quick peak at my copy of Steve Raichlen's BBQ USA to get a sense of how much time I was looking at and how frequently I would need to add coals to maintain the heat in the grill. Of course, imagine my shock when he says that it's going to take four to seven hours, and our friends are expecting dinner in three. Oh dear. Well, hopefully it would be good enough to make up for the wait. 

In the meantime, I made a mild salsa with cherry tomatoes (organic from Florida, closest to home I can find right now), some local strawberries, a little spring onion, a sprinkle of salt, and a splash of red wine vinegar. 

After about an hour on the grill, I added 12 coals to the fire per Raichlen's instructions, but I wasn't thrilled with how low the fire had gotten in that hour, so I decided to add fewer coals more frequently (about six every half hour) to maintain the heat. (When you add coals, you want to leave the top off the grill for about five minutes to make sure they light up.) I also mopped the meat with the reserved marinade, which I had boiled for about five minutes to kill any bacteria that may have developed during the marinade.

And so it went. For about four hours, I added coals every half hour, mopped the meat with marinade, and anxiously watched the thermometer (I had pushed our meat thermometer into the thickest part of the meat and was aiming for 160 degrees). I knew I wasn't going to get meat that was falling-off-the-bone tender in the time frame that I had, but I sure as hell wasn't going to serve my friends undercooked meat. 

It was a long wait. Dinner didn't happen until about eight (half an hour past my four-year-old's bedtime). We had to feed the kids peanut butter sandwiches to tide them over. When dinner did finally happen, I set the candles on the table on fire, so things got a little chaotic but thankfully the house didn't burn down. But the tacos were delicious. The meat was incredibly flavorful, the salsa was juicy, tangy, and fresh. I'll definitely make it again, but next time I will start much, much earlier.

Scraping the bottom of the barrel

As I've mentioned before, I am pretty much done with winter food. I can't wait for spring. Visions of glowing strawberries and roasted asparagus with a touch of lemon and some goat cheese tempt my palate. But I must be patient. There's no local food right now. And I've got leftover root vegetables and squashes hanging around in my veggie basket and frozen fruits (mostly peach slices) from last summer at the back of the freezer. It's time to clean all of that out and make way for the fresh food that's soon to come.

Today's task was to get rid of the three celebration squash that I bought oh so many months ago from the good people at Glascock's Produce, back when I thought I should store away as much produce as I could and was feeling adventurous about trying unfamiliar squash varieties. (I love winter squash, but a long winter makes root vegetables and squashes boring, although I have no doubt I will be excited about them again come fall.) The celebration squash were pretty beasties back when I bought them: variegated orange and yellow, smooth skin. Now out of the basket, they seemed a little dusty and felt as though they had lost a lot of weight. (I guess the moisture was pulled out of them.) So I cut them open to see how they looked, and they seemed fine. No black spots, no sliminess, no bad odors. Probably OK to eat. There wasn't a lot of meat on them anymore, but I decided they would make  good cups for a stuffed squash dish. So I cleaned the seeds out of the six halves, sliced a small bit off the bottom so they wouldn't roll around in the pan, and placed them in a baking dish I had rubbed with some olive oil. Finally, I drizzled a little maple syrup into the cups because maple syrup works magic on squash.

Then, I had to decide what I could stuff them with. I happened to have some ground chicken. Maybe I could make a chicken-apple sausage to stuff the squash? No, no, no, these squashes didn't have enough meat to make a meal. We need some carbohydrates. So I looked in the veggie basket and found a decent-looking sweet potato, a bruised apple, and some slightly wrinkly red-skinned potatoes. Got it: Hash!

Now, before I go on, let me say that I am not a fan of bad food, or, to be honest, even particularly tolerant of it. I've known people to dump the contents of their crispers into a pot with some water or a couple of cans of commercial broth and call it soup. This is appalling to me. And, as a lover of soups, it's offensive. Would you also call the contents of your garbage disposal soup? Well, I suppose that's one thing you could call it. What I wanted to do was to transform ingredients that were past their prime into something yummy.

So I'd decided to make a hash. I finely diced a yellow-skinned onion about the size of my fist (this turned out to be a good dish for practicing your knife skills) and added it to about two tablespoons of hot olive oil bathing in my wonderful iron skillet. (Anyone who has ever gotten a good season on an iron skillet must love their skillets the way that I do. Or perhaps not. OK, I'll be over here.)

I slow-cooked the onions until they caramelized into golden-brown bits that crusted the pan, which gave me time to dice the sweet potato, two potatoes, and the apple into about a quarter-inch dice. When I was done, the ground chicken went into the pan until it was slightly browned and mostly cooked through. Next the diced potatoes and apple went into the pan, just long enough to brown a little. I added about a tablespoon of salt, a tablespoon of dried sage, and a generous pinch of white pepper. Then I threw in a handful of chopped almonds to get a little crunch.

The next steps were to fill the squash cups with the hash, top them with some fresh bread crumbs and a dab of butter, and pop them into a 375-degree oven for an hour. Because I had lots of hash left in the skillet, I popped it into the oven with the squash cups for about 20 minutes to finish cooking the potatoes and have some leftovers ready for tomorrow's lunch. (Just heat it up and fry an egg sunny side up to put on top. Yum. I love a good runny yolk on hash.)

I need to work on my food-styling skills.

This was my experiment. The verdict? The flavor was great. The sweetness of the apple and the sweet potato mellowed with the onions, the squash, and the chicken into a warm and savory mixture. However, the crumbs were a bit burnt, the squash a bit stringy, and the chicken a bit on the dry side. These flaws were not enough to kill the dish, but flaws they were. And yet, it tasted great, and I had managed to use several old vegetables and fruits that have been languishing for a while. A few more meals like this, and all the vegetables and fruits from last season will be gone, and there will be plenty of space for the fresh fruits and vegetables we will soon see in the markets. (And I don't have to feel guilty about wasting good food.)

If you want to try this "recipe," the steps are described above. Here are the general quantities used:

• 1 lb of ground chicken (ground beef or pork with a slightly higher fat content would be a bit less dry; however, make it's not too fatty or the stuffing could get greasy)
• 3 celebration squash, halved, seeded (if you use acorn squash instead, you may want to pre-bake it for at least 40 minutes before stuffing it because it's such a meaty, slow-cooking squash)
• 1 large onion, diced finely
• 1 sweet potato, diced (about a quarter inch)
• 2 medium potatoes, diced (about a quarter inch)
• 1 apple, cored, peeled, and diced (about a quarter inch)
• about half a cup of chopped nuts (I used almonds because that's what I had, but most nuts would taste good here)
• about half a cup of fresh breadcrumbs
• some dabs of butter 
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 1 tablespoon sage
• a generous pinch of white pepper

In search of...perfect eggs

Don't know why...

There's no sun up in the sky...

Stormy weather...

Billie Holiday crooned on the car stereo. The rain pelted the windshield with big, fat, juicy drops. The interior of the car was warm and dry--a cozy bubble travelling through a chilly, soaking wet spring morning. Everywhere hazes of fresh green and the pale purple of the flowering redbud trees softened the horizon. I was on my way to Leesburg to see a man about some eggs.

I woke up this morning with a craving for eggs. But not just any eggs, specifically Haskins Family Farm eggs.  I know, weird right? Having a craving for eggs seems odd enough, but eggs from a particular seller? I mean, eggs are eggs, right?

Eh, no. I haven't eaten supermarket eggs in more than two years now. For a long time, I was a lucky recipient of my former boss and friend Jacki's chicken's eggs, but she left her job and now we don't see each other as often (sigh--and not just for the eggs). I had to find another source, because reading Omnivore's Dilemma and  watching Food, Inc. basically turned me off industrial food and especially animal products.

So I went to the winter farmer's market in Leesburg (discovered thanks to a Washington Post article I read a couple years ago). I tried eggs from a few different sources there, and most were excellent (although I did get a batch once that tasted strongly of fish; it was so revolting I actually had to throw the eggs out). But I always wanted to try the Haskins's eggs, but every time we got to their stand either to pick up our CSA chicken or to buy some of their amazing bacon, they were always out. But, finally, a couple of weeks ago, they had some left, and I bought a dozen. What a treat to open the box and find a lovely assortment of eggs in various shades of white, brown, and green; one was a tiny, speckled thing that seemed (nearly) too pretty to eat.

I got them home and decided to try some right away. I fried eggs, sunny side up, to serve on buttered toast--a simple dish I make several times a week for breakfast or lunch (and sometimes when in a hurry, dinner). Something was different about these eggs. When I cracked them, the yolk was an orangey yellow, the richest color I'd ever seen in an egg yolk (and remember, I have been eating excellent eggs for years ow), and the white didn't spread out all over the pan, but instead assembled itself into a neat oval around the yolk. I was enamored of the beauty of this egg, but the proof was in the cooking and the tasting. It cooked more evenly than many eggs that I have cooked. I didn't have the issue with a slightly runny white (yuck) when the yolk was cooked as much as I wanted it to be cooked. Then I ate it. In the same way a chicken that eats bugs and runs around freely tastes "chickenier," the egg tasted eggier. And the rich, unctuous mouth feel of the yolk was beautiful. This was why I found myself out in the pouring rain without an umbrella this morning, because I just had to have those eggs!

Soaking wet and returning home with my haul of two dozen eggs, I decided to test whether there really was a difference. After all, I haven't seen or eaten one in a long time. So I stopped at a local grocery store and picked up a dozen standard commercial eggs to do a side-by-side comparison (see the photographs). The yolk of the Haskins egg had a deeper color, and the white had greater viscosity and tended not to spread out as much. Next to it, the industrial egg looked anemic, and the white spread out in a most unappealingly watery way.

I am afraid I didn't do a one-to-one taste test. For one thing, I wasn't sure I could fairly judge the taste given that I would know which egg was which. But truthfully, my motives were less pure than a desire for fairness. The industrial egg simply gave me the willies. I even hesitated about adding it to the compost heap, but that's where it eventually ended up. The Haskins egg went into a pan with some olive oil, a sprinkle of salt and white pepper, and then served on toast. Yum.

The egg on the right is the Haskins egg. Note the deeper color and its general perkiness.

On the industrial egg side, the white spread out like water over most of the plate.

So now that I have my two dozen gorgeous eggs (minus one), I think I will try some new egg dishes. Just a few days ago, Görvälns Slott (a castle in the neighborhood where I grew up in Sweden that is now an inn) posted some beautiful-looking egg recipes, which I hope to try soon.