Cast Your Vote: Help Nella Pasta Go Big!

This afternoon I had the pleasure of visiting the lovely ladies of Nella Pasta in their Jamaica Plain kitchen. I'll be posting more soon about their fresh, seasonal pastas and culinary treats, but in the meantime I wanted to encourage you all to vote for this local-minded business in Daily Candy's "Start Small, Go Big Contest." Winners will receive $10,000 to put toward their business along with a host of other educational and networking opportunities. Voting is a great opportunity to support your local food community--not only are you voting for Nella Pasta, but also the many small farms and producers from which they get everything from veggies to flour. (Witness the roasted beet linguine in the photo to the left--that gorgeous color is all local!)

From now until September 29th you can vote once a day via Facebook or on the Daily Candy website. So put a reminder in your calendar and add a quick vote to your daily web surfing regimen. It's worth the extra click of the mouse!

I Heart TED.

Lately, I've been on the hunt for novel lunchtime activities at work. Sometimes I read, sometimes I catch up on a guilty reality pleasure via Hulu (Real Housewives, anyone?), and sometimes I just keep working. But when you work full time there are a lot of lunch hours to fill, and it's easy to feel like you're in a rut. Enter my new favorite lunchtime companion, TED.

Many of you are probably already well-acquainted--although I first stumbled upon TED videos last year via some clever friends on Facebook, the group has been in existence since 1984. The non-profit began as a conference designed to bring together thinkers from the fields of technology, entertainment, and design, and has since mushroomed into a powerful forum for forward thinking ideas on everything from gaming to public health. In addition to annual and traveling conferences, they've also begun awarding a TED prize, which this year went to Jamie Oliver for his work in promoting healthy eating and preventing obesity. You can watch his acceptance speech here. The fact that they chose the food-oriented work of a chef as this years winner speaks to the urgent need to change our current food systems, from kitchen counter to factory farm. And the importance of this discussion is represented in numerous videos on the site, covering topics ranging from sustainable seafood to world hunger. Hence, my new favorite lunch buddy, and one I highly recommend you get to know.

Today, I watched a thoughtful and moving talk by Cary Fowler, Executive Director of the Global Crop Diversity Trust, on the importance of preserving biodiversity in our agricultural systems. It's heartbreaking to hear how much we've already lost on this front, but it's heartening to learn that people in the world are crossing borders (thank you Norway) and truly taking care of business to ensure that we don't wind up facing starvation on a global scale. At just 17 minutes long, it's a more than worthwhile investment of your lunchtime. You can watch below or visit www.ted.com and search for other ideas that might float your lunchtime boat. Bon apetit!

Some Kale, A Few Tomatoes, and a Bun.

What do these things have in common, you ask? Quite simple: they are all things I've been busy baking in the oven over the past few months, and I submit the last as my excuse for Ecofoodie's long silence, as it is a bun of the metaphorical variety. Yes, that's correct...an Ecofoodie baby! Due to arrive sometime around Halloween (boo!), this little muffin has been the source of much joy, nausea, and distraction of late, preventing me from doing much writing of any sort.

But now I'm back, with more recipes (some kale chips are in the works), events, and thoughts on sustainable eating. Very soon I'll be posting about upcoming Slow Food Boston events and some lovely ladies in Jamaica Plain who make seasonal pasta...yum! But for starters, here is my recipe for Roasted Tomato Pasta: simple, easy, and a perfect way to enjoy the end of summer tomato boom! Happy eating!

Roasted Tomato Pasta

Ingredients

2 pints (or thereabouts) of whatever small tomato variety looks good at the market

2-3 T olive oil

salt

pepper

angel hair pasta, or whatever long noodle you prefer

Parmesan cheese

fresh basil

Directions

Preheat the oven to 400. In the meantime, rinse tomatoes and spread in a single layer in a glass or ceramic baking dish. Sprinkle generously with salt and pepper and toss with a good drizzle of olive oil. Roast the tomatoes for 40 minutes to an hour, depending on your oven. You'll know they're done when they've burst and begun to caramelize! Once they burst, they release their delicious juice, which mingles with the olive oil, salt, and pepper to make a wonderfully fresh sauce. Toss tomatoes and sauce with cooked pasta, sprinkle with some freshly grated Parmesan and a little fresh basil if you have it, and voila! Easy, tasty summer dinner.

Photo by Froge via Flickr Creative Commons.

Spring Has Sprung

Last night, as I stashed all of the new goodies from my farm share into the refrigerator, I was happy to see that we had received both baby arugula and some mesclun mix for salads this week. Today, as I made my lunch, I was even more delighted (I may have actually cried out in glee) to discover that what I thought were salad greens were actually fiddleheads! Somehow, I have never had the opportunity to sample these harbingers of spring, so I am very excited to experiment with another farm share first.

My husband seems fairly certain that they are best enjoyed via a quick pan sautee and a dash of salt and pepper. However, the little wrinkle of doubt in his brow as he says so leads me to believe that some research is in order. So, this afternoon I will be forgetting about the cold and rain outside and happily perusing the internet and my cookbooks for a recipe for tomorrow evening. In the meantime, suggestions from fiddlehead connoisseurs are welcome! Happy, happy spring!

Tales From the Freezer...and a Recipe or Two.

Last fall I made my first tiny attempts at food preservation. Being a renter with a rather quirky kitchen, my options were limited, but I wanted to make a go of it nonetheless. After all, if I'm ever going to go for a full scale canning, pickling, and drying operation I had to start somewhere, right?

Given the superoverabundance of farm share peppers and back yard basil that I found myself struggling with at the end of the summer months, I decided to give both treats a go round in the freezer. I vaguely recalled hearing that peppers could simply be chopped and thrown into a freezer safe container, and a little online research revealed that basil could be frozen in a variety of ways (to mixed reviews)--I opted to test out freezing chopped basil in both water and olive oil. Result? A mixed bag.

I'll start with the bad news. The basil, sadly, did not fare well in either form. I froze them in cubes in the ice tray, and when thawed...it looked more like fragments of ash than the delightful taste of summer that I'd hoped to preserve. Still worse, flavor seemed to have disappeared altogether. In short, this was a double fail. In hindsight, I suspect I may have tried to pack far too much basil into each tiny cube. Consequently, much of the leaves were exposed to the harsh freezer air rather than protected by a solid fortress of water or oil. In the end, I did find some success in freezing small batches of pesto I had made. It thawed out looking as green and fresh as the day it was born, and with a little dash of salt all of those fabulous summer flavors came right back to life. For the simple and easy recipe, click here.

Happily, the frozen peppers were a marvelous success. Not only were they much easier to prep for freezing than the basil--just wash, dry, and cut into whatever size and shape you desire--but they lasted through the whole winter without getting dry or freezer burnt. For the most part, I used them in my favorite new recipe, a veggie stir fry with peanut sauce. Thanks to my winter farm share with Enterprise Farm, I was able to combine my summer peppers with organic carrots, zucchini and other yummy produce from their East Coast Food Shed.

All in all, I'm happy to have discovered two reliable freezer methods for preserving the abundance of summer. As for the basil, if any of you lovely readers have had better luck with these methods or something altogether different, I would love to hear about it! In the meantime, enjoy this peanuty stir fry recipe, which can be made with just about any veggie you love, fresh or frozen.

Veggie Stir Fry with Spicy Peanut Sauce

Ingredients (makes enough for 2-3 people)

2 T unsweetened peanut butter

2 T warm water

1-2 T low sodium soy sauce

1 t rice vinegar

1/2 t sesame oil

3 t chili paste (less if you like it not so spicy!)

1 small head of broccoli

1 very large or two medium carrots

1 large or 2 small zucchini

1/2 red or vidalia onion

1 yellow or orange bell pepper

a sprinkle of sweet peas

2 cloves garlic

1 t diced fresh ginger (or several dashes of powdered)

Cooked brown rice or pot stickers

Directions

In a bowl or a large measuring cup, combine the peanut butter and water. Whisk until thoroughly blended, adding a touch more water if it's still very thick. Add 1 tablespoon of soy sauce along with the rice vinegar, sesame oil, and chili paste. If you don't have fresh ginger to cook with the veggies, add a few good dashes of powdered ginger here. Give a good stir and a taste. This sauce seems to work a little differently each time, so once you've got the base recipe feel free to add up to another tablespoon of soy sauce or a dash of any of the other ingredients in order to bring it into balance.

Julienne the carrots, zucchini, peppers, and onion (i.e. cut them into thin strips, matchstick-sized strips), chop the broccoli into small florets, and dice the garlic and ginger. Sautee the vegetables in olive oil, starting with those that take the longest to cook. For this particular combo, it's best to start with the broccoli, add the carrots, then add the zucchini, peppers, and onions. Save the peas for the very end so that they keep their lovely green color. Just before you add the peas, make a well in the center of the pan and add the garlic and ginger. Sautee for a minute or two and then stir them into the rest of the vegetables along with the peas.

Add your peanut sauce and serve over brown rice or pot stickers. Simple, quick, and tasty!

A Little Weekend Fun in the Sun

After a few more days of wind and rain, many of us Bostonians are looking forward to enjoying a little sunshine over the weekend. If you count yourself among that many, here's one great way to spend a sunny Saturday. From 10:00-2:00, Earthworks will be hosting a volunteer day at their Edward L. Cooper Center Orchard, doing general cleanup, pruning raspberry bushes, preparing the soil, and transplanting some beech plums, just to name a few activities. If you're not familiar with Earthworks, they are a wonderful local non-profit that plants and cares for urban orchards as a means toward environmental education and creating a healthier, more sustainable city. They maintain orchards in urban areas across Boston, many of them in schoolyards, and the fruit is free for the picking throughout the summer and fall--you can find the orchard nearest you on their website. Needless to say, they do some fabulous work in our communities, and supporting the start to the growing season certainly sounds like a great way to spend a few hours on the weekend! If you're interested in joining them on Saturday, the details are below. And if you can't make it this weekend, not to worry--there will be volunteer days on April 24th and May 22nd as well. If you're interested, please call for times and details as the dates get closer.

The Edward L. Cooper Center is at 34 Linwood Street in Roxbury. There is plenty of room to park, and it's about a five minute walk from the Roxbury Crossing stop on the Orange line. Earthworks will provide you with all the tools and guidance you need, but long sleeves and pants are recommended as there may be some messy or thorny spots that need attention. Water will also be provided, and you should feel free to bring some snacks as well! If you plan on joining in the fun, please be sure to call the Earthworks office (617.442.1059) to let them know you'll be coming--they need to know how many people to expect.

My New Favorite Neighbor

For the new issue of Edible Boston, I wrote an article about Community Servings, a remarkable organization just down the street from me in Jamaica Plain. In addition to providing healthy, nutritionally-balanced meals to the critically ill, they play host to a farmers market, a CSA, and a number of other programs centered in healthy, whole, sustainable food. They are a force for positive change in many underserved neighborhoods of Boston, and I am happy to count myself among their many regular volunteers.

To learn more about their work and how you can get in on the fun in their kitchen, click here.