French-style local breakfast

This could be a picture taken in France, but notice the milk from Spokane Family Farms! Local milk!

I made the peach jam myself from peaches I bought at the market a few weeks ago, from the Columbia Valley. I'll be teaching a class on how to make jam, in September. If you want to come please register through Moscow Parks and Rec department.

And the bread, is multigrain, from Moscow's own Panhandle Artisan Bread. They use Shepherd's Grain flour, grown and processed right here in the Inland Northwest. I'm addicted - two loaves a week, without fail.

The Inka that's lurking in my cup, pretending to be coffee, came from Eastern Europe. It's one of the exceptions to my local diet, because I just can't do without Inka. Luckily it weighs very little, so the shipping is fairly carbon-light.

Gazpacho week at our house

Tomatoes, bell peppers, onions, shallots, cucumber, olive oil, vinegar, salt. Chop the veggies up into a very fine dice, mix in a bowl, add a good splash of oil, a smaller splash of vinegar, and a dash of salt. Stir it up, chill it well, and serve cold, with big hunks of crusty baguette. It's the perfect summer lunch and god is it good. Don't ruin it by using your food processor. Enjoy the process of dicing, and you'll be rewarded by an explosion of taste and crunch.

Feel free to keep tomato seeds in there, but you might want to leave out the bell pepper seeds. Keep the cuke peel if it's organic, otherwise toss it.

I bought all the veggies this morning at the Moscow Farmer's Market, every Saturday from 8 to noon, downtown in Friendship Square. Most came from Affinity Farm, others from Elizabeth Taylor.

Easy way to fix green beans

So if you've got a big mess of lovely tender fresh green beans, the first thing to do with them is to snap off their little stem ends. But do leave the cute little tails - they're delicious. While you're topping the beans, bring a pan of water to boil on the stove; salt it well. When it's at a rolling boil - that is, boiling madly - put all the beans in at once. Let them cook for about 5 minutes and then immediately pour off the hot water and run cold water over the beans until they're cool.

Then you can do two things. You can put them in the fridge in a covered dish to eat later, dressed with olive oil and balsamic vinegar and a little bit of diced shallot or onion and a pinch of salt, or you can eat them immediately with those same ingredients. A bit of cooked bacon is delicious too.

The French would eat these as part of a nice dinner by reheating them quickly on the stove in a saute' pan with melted butter. YUM!

Got these beans from Elizabeth Taylor. She's at the far end of the first row of the Moscow Farmer's Market, on the left.

Mexican Chocolate Zucchini Cake

This is our favorite summer cake and a really decadent way to use all that zucchini that your friends are forcing on you this time of year. Perfect with vanilla ice cream and a lovely snack or breakfast all by itself.

Mexican Chocolate Zucchini Cake

Makes one 8 x 5 inch loaf pan

1 ¼ cup flour
1 ¼ teaspoon baking powder
1 ¼ teaspoon baking soda
¼ cup unsweetened dark cocoa powder (plus more for dusting pan)
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 cup sugar
½ cup butter, softened
2 medium eggs
¼ cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon orange extract
1 cup grated zucchini (unpeeled if organic, peeled if not)
½ cup chopped nuts (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a loaf pan with butter and lightly dust it with cocoa powder.

Combine all dry ingredients in a mixing bowl, stir with a whisk and put aside.

Mix butter and sugar together in a small mixing bowl until well combined; add eggs, milk, and vanilla and orange extracts and mix well but do not overbeat.

Gently mix the butter mixture into the dry ingredients. Add zucchini (and nuts if using) and combine gently. Spread into the prepared loaf pan.

Bake for 1 hour or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Let cool for 15 minutes in pan before tipping cake out of pan onto a cooling rack.

Between the Teeth...

I've been flossing a lot more often lately and that can only mean two things. Sweet corn, and blackberries!

I've just returned to the Palouse from a trip to the Midwest, where the sweet corn was abundant. The farmer next door to my parents' invited my dad to come pick sweet corn and Dad brought home a feed sack full, so we ate it for many a meal. Remember, the trick to good sweet corn is not to over cook it. FIVE MINUTES in boiling water is enough!!

Then, we arrived home Friday evening, just in time for me to hit the farmer's market at 8 am sharp Saturday morning, where I found sweet corn as well. Even better, the blueberries and blackberries are in, too. I bought a flat of blueberries for $24 which all went straight into the freezer in freezer bags, to use throughout the winter. I bought 2 pints of blackberries that I baked into a pie this morning. The juice overflowed into my oven, making a mess, as usual, but it just added to the mess from the last pie I baked that overflowed. There is no way around it I think.

Company for Saturday lunch and the sheer bounty of it all inspired some other purchases: new potatoes, green beans, lettuce, heirloom tomatoes and cherry tomatoes, parsley, carrots, and of course, two loaves of Panhandle Artisan multigrain bread. It's my new favorite and I think I'll be going through several loaves of that each week. Affinity Farm provided most of my veggies as usual. Our lunch menu (vegetarian and gluten free for our guests) included a vegetable gratin, green beans with balsamic vinegar, olive oil, and shallots, a quinoa salad with grapes and pecans, and for dessert, Cowgirl Chocolates mild chocolate truffles. We loved all of them but my favorite was the double dark chocolate in the aqua wrapper. Second favorite was the one that tastes like Creamsicles. YUM!

Dinner later was sweet corn with salad and roasted chicken. No dessert - just a tiny glass of Kahlua w/ cream. Not local but oh so delicious. :)

I've been doing a LOT of reading this summer about local vs. organic, organic vs. conventional, sustainability and so on, and what I've learned is that it's too complex to think I know what's right and what's wrong. There are no pat answers. No one can just say, this thing is always better than that thing, or everyone should eat like this, or farmers ought all to do this. It's all very dependent upon the particular conditions in a particular place. I encourage anyone who is interested in food and farming and eating well to keep an open mind and most of all to seek out what is the best food for you in your place, and to enjoy it fully, with friends and family.