Kids Make Pumpkin-Wild Rice Pilaf

Last week I wanted to make something with pumpkin in our "food appreciation" classes to coincide with Halloween. But wouldn't know there wasn't a single pumpkin to be found in the local stores. We'd heard stories that the pumpkin harvest was going to be light this year because of the drought that hit this part of the country. We assumed our East Coast farmers had simply run out of pumpkins.

Well, the pumpkins are back in the Whole Foods this week, along with tons of other squashes. These are not the huge carving pumpkins you display on your front stoop, but the smaller culinary pumpkins, sometimes referred to as "pie pumpkins" or "sugar pumpkins."

I knew this would be an interesting lesson for the kids because it's not every day you skin and slice a pumpkin and then eat it. In fact, it turned out to be an interesting lesson for me as well because--confession here--I've never cooked with a live pumpkin before either. The closest I've ever come is processed pumpkin out of a can.

So how do you skin a pumpkin?

Fortunately, these pumpkins are smaller than a bowling ball and no trick to handle. But you want to create a flat surface so they aren't rolling around the cutting board. Use a large chef's knife or serrated bread knife to cut off both ends--not too much, just a sliver so the inner flesh is showing. Then use that same serrated knife to cut off all the skin, working the blade from top to bottom.

Next, the pumpkin has to be sliced in half to get at the seeds. For this I use a very long chef's knife and a rubber mallet. Position the blade, then tap with the mallet, first at one end of the blade, then the other. This doesn't require too much force.

It's easiest to scoop out the seeds at this point using a spoon. I use a grapefruit spoon with teeth on it. But to get the kids involved, I cut the pumpkin into thin wedges and passed these around so they could remove the seeds themselves. We collected all the seeds to roast later, and bagged the rest of the refuse to compost.

Now, on to the recipe. It's not at all difficult and it uses native ingredients (the pumpkin, wild rice, maple syrup), perfect for November, which is American Indian Heritage Month. For six to eight generous portions, simply cut the pumpkin wedges into 1-inch pieces (about 5 cups). Combine in a large bowl with a medium onion, cut into small dice. Mix in 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil and 2 tablespoons dark maple syrup. Season with coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper. Pour the mix into a baking pan, add 1/2 cup water. Cover tightly with aluminum foil and place in a 350-degree oven.

Meanwhile, cook the wild rice, placing 1 cup rice in a saucepan with 2 cups of water and a generous pinch of salt. Bring to a boil then reduce heat and simmer for about 45 minutes, or until the rice is very tender and beginning to crack open.

After the pumpkin mixture has been in the oven 30 minutes, remove the aluminum foil and bake another 30 minutes, or until the pumpkin is cooked through. Toss the pumpkin mix and wild rice in a mixing bowl and stir in 1/2 cup or more dried cranberries (some dried blueberries would also work) and chopped parsley. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve warm or room temperature.

This recipe came from The Washington Post, perhaps the first time I've used a recipe from that paper that I didn't write myself. And I have to say, if I were doing it again, I would probably do it differently. For instance, the pumpkin could be roasted on a baking sheet to caramelize a little for extra flavor. I would sautee the onions separately to caramelize as well, and I might use red onions rather than Bermuda onions for some extra sweetness and color. The Post's recipe did not call for dried fruit or parsley, but without them I think this dish is extremely plain. You could even add some toasted nuts, such as walnuts or pecans, and maybe some orange zest. At that point it comes very close to the sweet potato salad that we like so much.

While my assistant was mixing the pumpkin and wild rice and setting out serving plates for the kids, we read "Runaway Pumpkin," a rhyming story that just manages to bridge from the youngest kids to the older ones. As far as the food goes, even the younger ones like the combination of pumpkin and maple syrup, and they find the wild rice appealing. But then, kids seem to like rice no matter how it's prepared.

Dark Days: Meal 4

We had friends coming in from California plus in-laws for dinner and I knew exactly what I wanted to make: braised pork shoulder from SmithMeadows Meats.

I started braising the meat the day before the guests were to arrive and there in the recipe (Mario Batali) noticed that the meat was supposed to be marinated for three days. I'm not a huge fan of marinating meat anyway, so I just plowed ahead. And if this sounds suspiciously like the braised beef I served the week before--well, it was. Brown the pork, brown aromatic vegetables, braise with red wine at 250 degrees for about three hours. Then strain out the marinade, reduce it, add chicken broth and thicken with some corn starch for a sauce.


With or without the three-day marinade, it was awfully good, which I attribute largely to the local nature of the pasture-raised pork.


We also served a salad from our garden, spruced up with some sliced local apples and toasted walnuts. With the pork I served braised kale sauteed with onions. Buying greens for a crowd at the farmers market is always a crap shoot. You stuff a ton of greens into a bag and hope it is enough. I wanted two pounds--they always cook down to almost nothing--but the vendor looked at me like I was crazy. So I walked away with one-and-a-half, and realized later--sure enough--I should have gotten the other half-pound.

I confess we did cheat a little: we borrowed the idea for sweet potato and Swiss chard mash, as well as the pumpkin creme brulee, from the week previous. We're caterers, so we often think in terms of shortcuts, especially when cooking for large groups. But we did serve radishes from the garden with hors d'oeuvres, as well as bruschetta with caramelized mushrooms. I can't vouch for the provenience of the mushrooms, but the bread, a rustic loaf, was baked at the local Whole Foods.

People inevitably go wild for the bruschetta, which is grilled on the Jenn-air (a built-in grill, for those of you unfamiliar) at the kitchen island where everyone is gathered for cocktails. Then the bread gets a thorough rub-down with a garlic clove before it is heaped with mushrooms, drizzled with olive oil and smothered with finely grated Pecorino cheese.


I've misplaced the photo of the entree dish, but these nighttime flash photos taken in a great rush usually look pretty awful anyway. No great loss. Suffice to say, everyone walked (or crawled) away from the table very happy.

Fridge Scrounge for Breakfast

Brown basmati rice with local greens, cannellini beans, red pepper flakes and pecorino cheese.

Preparation time: 5 minutes

Shopping: none

Notes: Heat in microwave, season with extra-virgin olive oil, coarse salt, freshly ground black pepper.

I am big on cleaning out the fridge for breakfast. Does anyone else serve beans right out of the can? Next best thing to soaking dried beans. The greens were a mixed lot that came in our CSA package. I typically cook them down in boiling salted water, chop them up, then use them as an ingredient--breakfast, soup, bruschetta, frittatas. Whatever opportunity presents itself.

Cooked Oatmeal Bread

There is an ongoing dispute in our house over oatmeal.

Specifically, my wife disagrees with my method of cooking rolled oats.

"It looks like snot," she says.

"It's not snot," I reply. "It's porridge."

"It looks like snot and it's disgusting," is her retort. "I'm not eating anything that looks like snot."

My wife, you may have gathered, is sensitive to certain textures in food. She also does not like squash. Too much like, well, squash. Her disapproval of my oatmeal has affected our 7-year-old daughter as well. Now when I call her downstairs for breakfast, her first words are, "It better not be oatmeal."

The difference in cooking methods is extremely subtle. Only one little step separates my method from my wife's method. And that is, I place the oats in the water before bringing it to a boil. I know enough to remove the pot from the heat once the mix begins to bubble. My wife, meanwhile, first boils the water, then adds the rolled oats and removes the pot from the heat.

"If you'll notice," she likes to point out, "my oats are still flaky."

In other words, not like snot.

The other day I made a pot of oatmeal, but rather than just throw it in the garbage, my wife had a brilliant idea. Why not turn it into bread? For some reason, she was in a bread making mood. She located one of our favorite bread baking books--Beard on Bread, by James Beard--and set to work.

What came out of the oven later that day were two of the most perfect loaves of oatmeal bread. Soft, lightly textured and sweet smelling--I can't remember when I've had a more delicious bread. Better than anything you can buy in the store. We immediately cut a couple of slices and smeared them with butter, a rare treat for us in these days of heart-healthy cooking.


So if you have a pot of oatmeal that looks like snot, or if you just happen to have some leftover oatmeal doing nothing better in the fridge, or if you're just in the mood to make a great loaf of bread, I can recommend this bread to you. Here is the recipe as published by James Beard in 1973.


1 cup coarse rolled oats

1 cup boiling water

2 packages active dry yeast

1 teaspoon granulated sugar

1/2 cup warm water (100 to 115 degrees approximately)

1 cup warm milk

1 tablespoon salt

1/4 dark brown sugar

4-5 cups all-purpose flour, approximately.



Cook the oats in the boiling water until thickened, about 3 minutes. Pour into a large mixing bowl and allow to cool to lukewarm. Meanwhile, stir the yeast and teaspoon of sugar into the warm water until dissolved, and allow to proof. Add the warm milk, salt, brown sugar, and yeast mixture to the oats and stir well, then stir in 4 cups of flour, 1 cup at a time.

Turn out on a floured board. Knead into a smooth pliable, elastic dough, if necessary using as much as 1/2 to 1 cup, or more, of additional flour to get it to the right feel. (This will take about 10 minutes, unless you do it in an electric mixer with a dough hook, which is what my wife did). Shape the dough into a ball, put into a well-buttered bowl, and turn to coat on all sides. Cover and let rise in a warm, draft-free place until doubled in bulk, 1 to 1 1/2 hours.

Punch the dough down. Knead for 2 or 3 minutes and shape into two loaves. Thoroughly butter two 8 x 4 x 2-inch tins. Place the dough in the tins, cover, and let rise in a warm place until about even with the top of the tins, or almost doubled in bulk.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees, place the bread in the center of the lowest rack, and bake for about 45 to 50 minutes, until the loaves sound hollow when tapped on top and bottom with the knuckles. Return the loaves without the tins to the oven rack to bake for about 5 minutes and acquire a firmer crust. Remove the loaves to a rack to cool.

Note: If you want a very soft top crust, brush the loaves with melted butter when you bring them out of the oven.

Weekend Update

$ 6.75

That's what I paid at the local farmer's market for one head of broccoli and a pint of Brussels sprouts.

Does that seem reasonable to you--$6.75?

I went to my calorie counter and did a little math. Together, this head of broccoli and pint of Brussels sprouts contain about 250 calories. For the same amount of money, I could have purchased more than a pound of pork shoulder worth at least five times as many calories. Should I be concerned?

Well, I am a bit concerned. I find that my enthusiasm for fresh, local produce is being tempered by issues of price and equity. I'm all for supporting the local farmers. God knows, they need our support in order to survive. But after a visit to the farmers market, I have to wonder who the audience is for the produce we are supporting. Or maybe it would be better to ask who the audience isn't. Because to tell the truth, the shoppers I saw at this inner-city market did not seem to be particularly representative of the diversity of folks we have living in our neighborhood.

For some reason it bothers me that our farmers market is not more of a full-service shopping experience. Even a little more would help. Onions? Garlic? Potatoes? Carrots? In fact, this market--one of several that have sprung up recently--comes dangerously close to being a boutique for designer vegetables. And look at the prices! How are average people supposed to afford this?

I'm sure the prices we are seeing--$6.75 for a head of broccoli and a pint of Brussels sprouts being just one example--accurately reflect the true cost of growing organic vegetables within driving distance of the nation's capitol. We trust that these are the prices the farmers must charge to stay in business. But they do raise those hoary issues of a class divide that advocates of local, naturally-grown food--me being one--are loathe to address. Remember, a third of all children in the District of Columbia live below the poverty line.

With crude oil selling for nigh on $100 a barrel, I have a feeling these issues of price, class and availability are going to grow more acute, not less. But maybe by the time it becomes a crisis, we will all be growing our own. In any case, this seems to be a bit of theme running through the news this week.

*****

There's a new term being bandied about to describe areas where you cannot purchase real food, only the over-processed industrial kind. These are "food deserts," and they exist in both rural and urban areas.

Anyone who has seen the documentary King Corn is now familiar with the concept of farmers growing acres and acres of food they can't eat. It would be safe to describe large swaths of Iowa as food deserts.

Likewise, anyone who has lived in the inner-city knows there are some neighborhoods--read poor neighborhoods--where supermarkets do not exist. Poor urbanites often have to get in a taxi to go grocery shopping. Or, they shop for dinner at a corner convenience store where they are sure to find only industrial, processed foods at grossly inflated prices.

Some are now referring to this form of urban food dessert as "nutritional apartheid," a harsh, but regrettably apt, description. You can read about it here.

*****

The production of ethanol from foodstuffs to make automobiles run continues to press on the class divide, and increasingly on a global scale. Here's one of the latest examples, courtesy of writer George Monbiot at The Guardian:

Swaziland is in the grip of a famine and receiving emergency food aid. Forty per cent of its people are facing acute food shortages. So what has the government decided to export? Biofuel made from one of its staple crops, cassava.

Monbiot, who is no shrinking violet on this particular subject, notes that one United Nations official has called this sort of fuel pimping in the face of hunger a crime against humanity.

This week, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation will announce the lowest global food reserves in 25 years, threatening what it calls "a very serious crisis". Even when the price of food was low, 850 million people went hungry because they could not afford to buy it. With every increment in the price of flour or grain, several million more are pushed below the breadline.

The cost of rice has risen by 20% over the past year, maize by 50%, wheat by 100%. Biofuels aren't entirely to blame - by taking land out of food production they exacerbate the effects of bad harvests and rising demand - but almost all the major agencies are now warning against expansion. And almost all the major governments are ignoring them.

You can read his entire screed here.

*****

Meanwhile, government agencies seem to be more concerned about individuals taking matters into their own hands, especially farmers skirting health laws to deliver products the public clearly wants at prices farmers can live with.

We have previously written about the case of Virginia farmer Richard Bean, a trained butcher, who for years it turns out was selling meats to restaurants and farmers markets around Charlottsville without submitting the meat for inspection. Armed state troopers raided Bean's farm, confiscated his computer and took Bean away in handcuffs. He now faces several years in prison.

Here's a local magazine takeout that looks at the case of Richard Bean in depth.

In California, meanwhile, some dairy farmers fear the state is on the verge of wiping out all vestiges of a raw milk trade.

Here's the tale of one California dairyman who thinks the state is out to destroy him personally.

*****

In the category of How Desperate Are We to Maintain Our Polluting Lifestyle, the New York Times ran a piece about a private company that hopes to profit from the business of carbon offsets by seeding the oceans with iron that will promote algae blooms that suck carbon out of the atmosphere.

Check this discussion at the Carl Safina blog.

*****

Finally, it is the Slow Cook's fervent desire that when he has written the last of ethanol and food deserts and nutritional apartheid, he can retire to a life of roaming about the globe in his search for the perfect sausage.

Yes, we've called it the The Great Sausage Quest, and it is our ultimate fantasy of a food enthusiast's last gasp--or gulp. Thus we leave you with this final link to a most fascinating discovery: the world's oldest recipe for German Bratwurst.

As usual, bon appetit...

On Falling Behind

I may have mentioned before that one of my heroes is Ward Sinclair. Ward was a colleague--on the other side of the newsroom--at The Washington Post back in the 80s. He covered agriculture, but left the paper to buy a small farm in Warfordsburg, PA.

While Ward was busy farming, he also started writing a column in the Post's food section called "Truckpatch." The columns became a small book, and one of the chapters has remained with me ever since. It was called "A Farmer Can't Be Listliss," and in it Ward printed his "to do" list.

The list is too long to re-print here. It is mind boggling. There were fences to mend, cold frames to fix, equipment to paint, coolers to sanitize, greenhouse flats to scrub, irrigation parts to check, potting mix to procure--and on and on. Ward's "to do" list made a profound impression, and shaped my idea of what farming is about.

As I look around my own little urban farm here in the District of Columbia, I see that I am falling further and further behind on my "to do" list. Matters became pressing with the cooler weather, as that brought out a whole new wave of weeds in the vegetable beds. Suddenly my rutabagas and turnips were being overrun with chickweed. I spent the better part of a day on hands and knees digging out the chickweed, and still the job is not completely done.

Then came a weather forecast for temperatures dipping close to freezing. The basil patch, already long in the tooth, would have to be harvested immediately. Turning the basil into pesto and freezing it (shown in picture above) again took another day.

As I look around, I see so many other chores that need tending to. The lima beans were never completely harvested. The dried seed pods call for attention. The trellises for the beans and the cucumbers must be disassembled and returned to the garage. The annual flower bed needs to be cleaned out and turned. There's garlic to plant, bags of old leaves to be shredded and worked into the compost pile. The yard around the vegetable beds has not been mowed in a month (the electric mower broke).

Then a peach tree arrived. Earlier in the year I had planted a dwarf peach in the garden at my daughter's school and it never broke dormancy. I was told to expect a replacement in the fall. Here it was, and it needed to be planted. Which meant a trip to a secret location to fetch soil to fill a container.

I cannot mention the location of this stash of immaculate compost, lest the whole world pounce on it. It's in a place where the U.S. Park Service dumps its truckloads of wood chips, gleaned from its work in ou urban parks and woods. The chips eventually break down in huge piles of compost, leaving this treasure tucked away among the oak trees, just waiting for those few pennywise gardeners willing to spend a few extra calories to haul it away.

I rarely see anyone at the secret compost stash when I pull up with my plastic buckets and hand truck. But this day as I pushed my hand truck down the trail an elderly Russian-speaking couple came into view. They were busy digging into the side of a tall pile of compost, filling big white garden bags with a long-handled spade.

The man was hobbled in one leg and leaned on a cane. It was the woman--his wife, I guessed--who loaded the heavy bags into a rickety old wheel barrow and pushed it back up the trail toward the roadway. As I passed the man he smiled broadly and muttered a few words in Russian, of which I could just make out "xorosho, xorosho," good, good. And since I don't remember enough of my college Russian to ask what he thought was "good, good," I imagined he was perhaps happy to see someone else taking advantage of the compost hidden out here in the woods, or maybe he just liked the looks of the compost, or maybe he was already calculating the great benefit the compost was going to bring to his garden.

I started filling my buckets and trucking them back to my car. The second time I passed the man I smiled and said "xorosho," and he smiled and repeated "xorosho," as if we were sharing some secret. And it gave me great pleasure to know that while the rest of the world was scurrying about in their daily tasks--toiling away at their desks, stuck in meetings, battling traffic--there was still a place where a couple of gardeners could revel in secret compost and spend some time in the labor of shoveling it into bags and buckets as if it were a pirate's bounty.

This, it seems to me, is precisely where modern agriculture has broken down. We handed the business of working the soil over to huge machines, industrial economics, factory-made fertilizers and pesticides, assembly-line animal husbandry--all in the name of efficiency and convenience. What was lost in the deal was any personal involvement, any sense of human scale, in the working of the land.

How do we humans relate to a 1,000-acre filed of corn, a tank of anhydrous amonia? Of course we cannot. The choice of an industrial food system is a bargain with the devil, because we sacrafice part of our soul--the part that needs to be connected to the earth and the affirmation of life that springs from it. Our modern food system feeds us, but it does not sustain us.

There has been nothing invented to replace the feeling of digging in soil, or of feeding compost to the earth, or of watching life emerge where one has toiled. So I am not regretting my long to-do list. As long as it is there,--as long as there is work to be done--I am connected to my little piece of the planet, I am doing good. And that is xorosho.

Cheesy Cauliflower Casserole

Warning: Heart-healthy cooks, avert your eyes.


This dish is full of cheddar cheese. But it is also full of cauliflower, and now that we are approaching the "dark days," when the freshest local produce may consist mainly of cauliflower, Brussels sprouts and other hearty brassicas, a good cauliflower recipe is not such a bad thing.

I've been holding onto this one for years because it is so easy and so full of decadent deliciousness on a cold night. It could be a meal in itself, served with a salad, or wonderful next to a roast chicken or ham.

We purchased a huge head of cauliflower from the farmers market down the street along with a hefty wedge of cheddar cheese from the Keswick Creamery in Newburg, PA. So this is one guilty pleasure that is completely local.

If you know how to make a Bechamel sauce, there is nothing at all tricky about this casserole. First, divide a large head of cauliflower into florets and cook them until just done in a large pot of salted water. Drain and set aside.

For the Bechamel sauce, melt 3 tablespoons butter in a sauce pan over moderate heat, then stir in 3 tablespoons flour. Cook 3 or 4 minutes, stirring frequently, until the mixture becomes frothy. The object is to cook the flour without letting it brown. Begin adding about 2 cups room temperature milk (I use 2 percent), 1/4-cup at a time, stirring continuously.

The sauce will become quite thick as it cooks. Continue adding milk as needed. Remove sauce from heat and stir in about 1 1/2 cups grated cheddar cheese. Season to taste with salt, white pepper and ground nutmeg.

Add the cooked cauliflower to a souffle dish and pour in the cheese sauce. Top with bread crumbs and place in a 350-degree oven for about 1 hour, or until the bread crumbs are golden brown. The cauliflower should be extremely tender, and the kitchen filled with the aroma of baked cheese.

Serve hot.

My secret vice is the leftovers from this dish. They are impossible to resist. The souffle dish, covered with plastic, calls to me from the refrigerator. I warm a heaping serving spoon-full into a bowl and heat it in the microwave. A glass of white wine and I am content.