David Sirota in Why Americans can’t afford to eat healthy, arguing that the US must shift its agricultural subsidies from supporting the large-scale production of corn (used to make high fructose corn syrup) or soy (used to make low-cost vegetable oil) to other fruits and vegetables. 

In Sunday’s NY Times, Mark Bittman takes this argument even further and makes the case for imposing excise taxes on unhealthy food such as soda or potato chips, applying the same rationale that US states use to justify cigarette taxes. Bittman would use excise tax revenue to subsidize healthier food. 

Both good reads. What do you think?

So, we’ve been trying to join a neighborhood CSA ever since moving in together; we didn’t succeed until now because we never managed to get off the waiting list to buy a share. Brooklyn takes its community-supported agriculture seriously, and shares get snapped up almost immediately.

The solution presented itself when Anthony joined up with some other people in the neighborhood to start a new CSA, which they’ve named the Prospect Park CSA. Prospect Park CSA members will receive a share of produce grown at Windflower Farms in upstate New York.

Last weekend, CSA core members Anthony, Elena, and Becca went upstate for a weekend visit to Windflower Farms, and I was lucky enough to be able to tag along as well.

Windflower Farms is a small (38 acres) family farm near Saratoga Springs, NY and the Vermont border. Owned by Ted and Jan Blomgren, the farm produces a range of organic vegetables, fruits, and flowers. It’s a four hour drive from the city, though we managed to add another hour or so by getting hopelessly lost on the winding rural roads, arriving at the farm very late on Friday night.

The next morning, after meeting the Blomgren family (Ted, Jan, and their two teenaged sons Nate and Jake), Ted took us for a tour of the family farm.

The beginning of April is still too early in upstate New York for much to be growing (the last of winter’s snow cover had only recently melted). However, we did see a few shoots of garlic popping out of the ground:

Ted and Jan then put us to work in the greenhouse transplanting flower and pepper seedlings into larger beds.

Ted helped too. A Cornell agronomy researcher with deep roots in the sustainable agriculture and rural community development movements, I took advantage of working next to Ted to pepper him with questions about agricultural policy, sustainable farming, and the economics of conventional vs. organic farming. 

After lunch, Ted and Jan took us on a hike up a nearby hill, where we took in views of the farm and the surrounding Taconic Hills farm country. 

In the evening, the Blomgrens invited some of their farm workers over for a potluck. We ate, drank homebrewed beer, played cards, and generally made merry. 

The Blomgrens are an amazing family, and their warm hospitality made me genuinely sad to leave for Brooklyn early Sunday morning.

After visiting Windflower, I am even more excited to purchase our farm share and eat their produce for the rest of the year.

I should mention another awesome aspect of the Prospect Park CSA: the graduated pricing scheme. Members pay according to household income, which means that the CSA can subsidize below-cost shares for low-income community members, and the CSA is set up to accept food stamps.   

If you live in the Prospect Park/Crown Heights area and are interested in joining, sign up on the website. From past experience, I can say that these shares will probably go very quickly.

After a few days at home over the holidays I started to go into bagel withdrawal.  At this point, I’ve lived in New York long enough that midwestern supermarket bagels just don’t cut it.  Also, there is very little to do at my parents’ Appalachian Ohio farmstead in the winter: the cold temperatures keep me indoors while there’s no tv or cell service and only the crappiest of Internet connections.

Therefore, I had both the time and motivation to make my first foray into bagel-making.  I had actually seen this done once before four years ago when I briefly worked at a kitchen in an eco-lodge in Belize (what I was doing there, and why they were making bagels in Belize are both questions for another time).

Anyways, I asked google “how to make bagels” and found a basic wheat bagel recipe on this page, which we followed pretty much to the letter as we made the dough, let it rise, and then divided it into eighteen balls.

To shape the bagel, you roll the dough ball into six-inch ropes, then form into rings, pressing the ends together tightly while still maintaining ring uniformity.  We didn’t do an amazing job at this.

The next step is to boil the rings, briefly, five at a time, for a few minutes.  Once the bagels start floating, you turn them over and boil for one more minute, at which point you remove them from the water with a slotted spoon.

Next, we dipped the bagels in a mixture of salt and poppy seeds, and then baked at 375 for about 25 minutes.

All four of us (my mom, dad, Anthony, and I) agreed that the end product tasted amazing fresh out of the oven. 

The appearance, however, was a different story. Some of them looked ok:

Others, less so:

While the four of us managed to snarf down a bunch of these guys while they were still warm, the recipe made 18 small bagels, so we had lots of leftovers. They tasted ok the next morning, but were dried out and gross by day #3.  Lesson: make bagels in smaller batches or freeze half.

Overall, I would characterize the bagel-making experiment as a success.  They weren’t that hard to make, as long as we didn’t get overly concerned with how they looked, and definitely satisfied my bagel craving.  

However, now that I’m back in Brooklyn, I’ll stick with buying them fresh from the coffee shop below my apartment.

Recipe: Spicy Chipotle Pumpkin Soup

My own recipe, I made this for the first time tonight.

Ingredients:

• 1 smallish pumpkin (or 1 can of pumpkin)
• 1-2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 small onion (or half a large onion), diced
• 2 cloves garlic, diced
• 2 chipotle peppers, diced (I use canned chipotles in adobo sauce)*
• 1 tablespoon adobo sauce (from the above-mentioned can)
• cumin, 2 teaspoons or so
• paprika, 1 teaspoon
• vegetable broth, or water + bouillon, in an amount equal to the amount of pumpkin puree you’re working with
• 1/2 cup heavy cream, sour cream, or creme fraiche
• the juice of half a lime
• salt and pepper

1. First, make the pumpkin puree.  If you’re working from a can, open the can.  Otherwise, cut open your pumpkin into wedges, scoop out the seeds and guts, and steam in a steamer for 25 minutes or so, until the rind slides right off.  Alternately, roast in the oven until you reach the same point.  Remove the rind and puree the pumpkin flesh in a blender or food processor.
2. Saute the onion in olive oil at a low temperature until the onion turns translucent, about 10 minutes or so.
3. Add the garlic and chipotle.  Saute for an additional 5 minutes.
4. Stir in the adobo sauce, cumin, and paprika for about 30 seconds.
5. Add the broth and pumpkin puree.
6. Simmer, covered, for 15 minutes or so.
7. Remove from heat.
8. If you feel like it, puree the soup in a blender, food processor, or using an immersion blender.  I think taking this step better distributes the chipotle and garlic notes.
9. Add the cream and lime juice, then salt and pepper to taste.
10. Gently reheat to desired eating temperature, taking care not to let the soup boil.

We ate this with a fresh loaf of Anthony’s bread (which keeps getting better, I should add), and white wine.

*There are about 8 peppers in a can, which will keep for awhile in the fridge if you place it in a plastic or glass container.  I use chipotles in my black bean burgers, and make chipotle mayo with any leftovers.  Chipotle mayo = chipotle peppers in adobo sauce + mayo + blend.

There is a certain mystique surrounding cheesecake, particularly homemade cheesecake.  

“You MADE it?  From SCRATCH?! People can do that?” is a common response from friends and co-workers when presented with one of my cheesecakes.  At the risk of diminishing the benefit this mystique gives to my reputation as a baker, I’m here to dispel this myth.

Question: can you throw ingredients into a bowl and operate a mixer?

Congratulations, you can make cheesecake.  

Now, all you need is a good cheesecake recipe.  I made this cheesecake for a co-worker’s birthday last week.  It comes from my 1992 version of the Mrs. Field’s Cookie Book.  (Yes, the mall chain.  I believe someone bought this as a gift for my sister and me in the early 90’s, and we used it a ton back in the day).  As with anything else, the better quality the ingredients, the better the end product.

For the crust:

• 1 cup (5 oz.) chocolate cookie crumbs
• 2 Tablespoons salted butter, softened

For the filling:

• 16 oz. cream cheese, softened (really, you need to leave it out for a couple of hours or it’ll be much more difficult to make this)
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 2 cups (16 oz. sour cream)
• 3 large eggs
• 1 Tablespoon vanilla
• 1 and 1/2 cups (9 oz.) semisweet chocolate chips

This recipe will make enough for a 9 inch springform pan.  If you don’t have a 9 inch springform pan, it will also fill 2 standard-sized pie shells.  If you want to make this recipe even easier, you can use premade chocolate cookie pie crusts and skip steps 2 and 3.

Directions:

1. Turn the oven to 350F.
2. Grind the cookies in a food processor or blender.  Add the butter and blend until smooth.
3. Press the mixture into the bottom of the springform pan until it’s thoroughly compacted, then place the pan in the fridge to harden.
4. Using an electric mixer (or doing it by hand if you’re hardcore and want an arm workout), beat the cream cheese until smooth.  You’ll want to use a rubber spatula to keep scraping the mixture down from the sides of the bowls.
5. Blend in the sugar and sour cream.
6. Add the eggs and vanilla and beat until smooth. 
7. Stir in 1 cup of the chocolate chips.
8. Pour the mixture into the springform pan/premade crusts and smooth out with the spatula.  
9. Lightly sprinkle the remaining 1/2 cup of chocolate chips over the top.
10. Bake 30-40 minutes.  The cheesecake is ready when it’s puffed up at the top and turned a slightly golden color.  
11. Turn the oven off and let the cheesecake sit for an hour.  This step is important to ensure that the cake sets correctly.
12. Refrigerate until firm.

Halloween 2K10 DIY costumes ftw!

My halloween costume rules: 

1. store-bought costumes are cheating
2. should cost under $30 for everything
3. ideally, is warm enough to not have to wear a coat, and
4. has pockets

This year, my “log lady from Twin Peaks” costume satisfied all four.  The outfit was thrown together from Salvation Army finds, the glasses were $6 at a cheap-hat-and-sunglasses-shop, and the log was found under a pile of sticks on a Crown Heights sidewalk.  (Anthony kindly used his handsaw to get the log down to a manageable size).

Anthony was a “ghost biker” (yes, morbid, but also fitting given his run-in with a car this week), which entailed buying size 8 women’s pants at said Salvation Army (couldn’t find any white pants in the men’s section), white make-up, white hair spray (that I also used), white spray paint for his helmet, white gloves, a cheap flower bouquet, and white tape to cover his shoes and helmet straps.

Sylvia and Jeff, also pictured, went the gauze mummy route. 

Today’s adventure in pizza blogging: hash brown pizza.

There are many awesome things about pizza, and, particularly, about having a sweet home pizza set-up.  One of them is the ability to clear your fridge of leftover cheese and veggies (and meat, I suppose, if you’re into that).  

Therefore, hash brown pizza.

Ingredients:

• creme fraiche mixed with chipotle peppers in adobe sauce for the base.
• sharp cheddar cheese
• leftover hash browns
• fresh rosemary
• two rings of sriracha sauce, to give it a spicy kick.

It turned out delicious, having kind of a spicy breakfasty kick.

Tonight’s pizza recipe:  white pizza

• Mix a cup and a half or so of ricotta cheese with truffle oil, salt, pepper, crushed red pepper flakes, dried parsley and basil, and garlic powder (yeah, I could have minced a clove or two, but I was feeling lazy)
• After rolling out the dough on fine ground corn meal, drizzle it with olive oil, then spoon on the ricotta mixture, evenly distributing it.  (Read here for more pizza instructions).
• Add mozzarella and parmesan cheese
• Then chopped portobello mushroom, rosemary, and jalapeno
• Bake.

It turned out awesome.  Mixing spices and oil into the ricotta is key: otherwise, it will turn out extremely bland.

We also made a more normal pizza tonight, with sauteed spinach, cherry peppers, and yellow tomato slices:

Because it’s autumn, and also because there were a number of special events this week at work (two birthdays, someone coming back from maternity leave, someone else leaving), I decided it was time to break out the pumpkin cupcakes.

The recipe comes from a scanned page of my mother’s cookbook, in which she had a pasted a number of recipes cut out from the newspaper.  Though there’s no date on the clipping, the neighboring recipes suggest that it’s from the early 80s.  The clipping gives credit to one Carol Poling, of Vincent (wherever that is), who found the recipe in Farm Wife News magazine and sent it in.

I’ve updated the recipe quite a bit, replacing margarine with butter and “salad oil,” whatever that is, with canola oil.  I also reduced the sugar and added spice. 

Here it is:

• 1 cup of flour
• 1 and 1/4 to 1 and 1/2 cups sugar, depending on how sweet you like it
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1/4 to 1/2 teaspon nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 4 eggs
• 3/4 cup vegetable or canola oil
• 1 15 oz. can of pumpkin

1. Preheat your oven to 350 F
2. Mix the dry ingredients together (up to the salt)
3. Mix in the rest of the ingredients
4. Use a mixer or just stir it really hard for about a minute, until the batter is of uniform consistency.
5. pour batter into a lined cupcake tray (I found this made 16 cupcakes), filling the cupcake liners 3/4 of the way full
6. bake for 15-20 minutes, until the top bounces back when you lightly touch it.

While your cupcakes are cooling, make the frosting.  You should take the butter and cream cheese out of the fridge to warm up as soon as you decide that you’re going to make cupcakes.

• one stick of butter
• one 8 oz. packet of cream cheese
• 2-3 cups powdered sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla

1. beat the softened (but not melted) butter and cream cheese together
2. add powdered sugar in increments, until you’ve achieved your desired consistency
3. mix in the vanilla

Once the cupcakes have cooled down, frost ‘em.

Once you’ve frosted them all, lick the bowl and beaters clean:

Later, at the bar, we realized that we both had frosting in our hair.

As garden season nears an end in Brooklyn, Anthony and I are left with the decidedly pleasant task of disposing with our basil. 

Our basil did spectacularly well this year.  We started them from seeds in May, and in June they looked like this:

Today, each one of those stalks has turned into a bush like this:

Magic, right?

Therefore, it’s pesto time.  (You may or may not want to sing that in your head to the tune of Flight of the Conchord’s “It’s Business Time.”  Up to you.)

If you have a food processor, making pesto is as easy as throwing a few ingredients in and pressing a button.  You can also make pesto in a blender, kind of, but doing so will be a pain in the ass and probably shorten your blender’s life, as it did to one or two of mine. 

Seriously, though, if you’re into food, you should listen to Mark Bitman and get yourself a food processor.  It will make your life better.  You can find them used everywhere, though you should make sure to set it up and turn on a secondhand processor before buying to ensure that you have all the parts you need.

I break with tradition slightly in my pesto-making.  First, I use walnuts instead of pine nuts, because they’re much cheaper.  Second, I use less olive oil than most recipes call for.  Third, I add a little bit of lemon juice.  Crazypants, I know.

***

Here’s how I make pesto.

Throw into a food processor all of the following:

• a few densely packed handfuls of basil leaves, washed well, since you’re not going to be cooking them.
•  1 to 3 cloves of peeled garlic, depending on how much you like garlic
• about half a cup of walnuts
• a quarter cup or so of parmesan cheese
• a quarter cup of olive oil
• the juice of half a lemon
• pinch of salt and pepper

Then turn on the food processor until the ingredients are broken down into pesto.

Note that these proportions are very rough.  Really, you should just start with conservative amounts of garlic, walnuts, parmesan cheese, olive oil, lemon juice, and salt/pepper and then add more to taste.  (You can always add more of each of these, but there’s very little you can do if you’ve overdone it besides adding more basil).  I don’t like mine with too much olive oil, but you can decide for yourself how you like your pesto.

—-

Last weekend, Anthony and I made a big batch of pesto.  Since then, we’ve had pesto and goat cheese bruschetta, pesto grilled cheese sandwiches, and pesto on our pizza:

However, once you’ve got a ton of basil on your hands like we do, you’re not going to be able to eat all that pesto before it goes bad. 

The solution? 

Freeze the pesto in small batches, either in small plastic bags or in ice cube tray-shaped blocks.