Food Features
The second HVFN MeetUp
Sunday was a great success. We learned about all things edible in
the forest and even along the sidewalks and streams of the Culinary
Institute.
From black locust flowers to stinging nettles, we took home baskets full of goodies. Share your thoughts and learn more about foraging by joining the Hudson Valley Gatherers group.
The unexpected detours, stops along
the way to and from, are often where we find the greatest
satisfaction. On Sunday, I discovered rich cheeses, raw milk and
local blossoms along a route likely overlooked by thousands heading
into the Catskills.
The poetic name, Future 86, foretells Route 17W's transformation from winding rural road to vast pavement of speed. But a wandering route off one exit will give you a chance to savor this community's character. Take the Liberty exit to Route 52W and you'll find a quaint Main Street with antique shops. Just beyond that is the delectable Catskill Harvest Market. In spring the plants for sale outside blossom. Inside, local cheeses, jams and meats await.
I picked up Tonjes Rambler and
a goat cheese from Sherman Hill Farmstead, local beef, rich
fudge, and an incredible crusty loaf from Pennsylvania's Beach Lake
Bread.
With goods in hand, the detour
doesn't stop there. Keep heading toward Livingston Manor, and
you'll pass nurseries, farms and fields: welcome relief from
70-mile-an-hour traffic.
Just before Livingston Manor, you can find one of the area's few licensed raw milk dairies on Shandelee Road. A weather-beaten sign calls: Raw Milk Sold Here. During daylight, the Diries will likely be inside, to sell you a gallon only feet from the cows being milked.
If you continue on to Livingston Manor, you can stop for lunch. Or continue on 17W to your destination: only this time, with raw milk and cheeses as your co-pilot.
View a Map of The Detour
Catskill Harvest Market, 2674 Route 52, Liberty
Dirie Dairy Farm, 1345 Shandelee Road, Livingston Manor
by Meghan
Murphy
My mother turned 60 this past weekend, and we took a trip to Santa Barbara. I toted along a paper bag of fiddlehead ferns plucked from a field near Rosendale to make a special birthday brunch dish.
Fiddleheads taste a bit like spinach, and should be par-boiled in hot water for a couple minutes before use in this dish. They last in the refrigerator for a couple of days but can also be frozen.
My friend Cynthia, who recommended making a fiddlehead quiche, is saving hers for the fall for a dish with black trumpet mushrooms. This dish even convinced my skeptical brother-in-law that ingredients fresh from the forest are delish.
Recipe 1 c Milk
1/2 c. Cream
3 Eggs
1/2 ts Salt
1/4 t. Pepper
2 T Scallions
1 c. Swiss cheese -- grated
18 fiddleheads, blanched for 2 minutes
4 slices bacon, crisped
Grated nutmeg
1 8″ pastry shell, unbaked
In a small bowl, combine the milk, cream and eggs; beat with a rotary egg beater. Add the salt, pepper and onions. Sprinkle half of the grated cheese in the bottom of the pastry shell. Arrange the fiddlehead tips over the cheese, then add the bacon, breaking it into bite-sized pieces. Pour in the milk mixture, add the rest of the cheese, and grate fresh nutmeg over the top. Bake at 375 F. for 30 minutes, or until a knife inserted in the custard comes out clean. From The Wild Flavor by Marilyn Kluger.
The Japanese and Chinese have been eating the flowers and buds of daylilies for centuries in tempura and the unopened flower buds can be boiled and eaten in place of green beans or added to soups and stews to give them texture. Anyone who wants to eat young shoots or flowers should eat a little the first time to make sure they aren't adversely affected.
The flowers and buds can easily be dried by placing them on sheets of paper in a warm, dry room for ten days and if they are then sealed in jars they will keep all year and can easily be revived by soaking in water.
The shoots can be eaten raw in salads or or steamed, sauteed, or baked or stir-fried. They cook in ten or fifteen minutes but be sure to only use shoots that are less then 6" tall because after that they get tough and may cause nausea.
Here's a recipe for an Asian-style meal:
3 1/2 cups daylily flower buds (rinsed and drained
1 cup water
1 tablespoon cider vinegar
1/2 cup almonds (sliced)
salt to taste
hot boiled rice to serve six
2 tablespoons soy sauce
Combine daylily buds and water in saucepan. Bring to boil and simmer for 20 minutes. Drain off most of water, leaving about 2 tablespoons. Add vinegar, nuts, soy sauce, and salt. Stir and cook for five minutes. Serve over rice.
Text by George Johanson
Chaga or inonotus obliquus is a rare mushroom prized for its medicinal purposes. It can be respectfully harvested so that it continues to grow, even though you use a hatchet or axe to harvest it.
Elmer LeSuer of Mid Hudson Myco offered these informative links:
Chaga 101: How to find and identify it
Mushroom therapeutic effect chart
Chaga recipes
Sugar shacks around the Hudson Valley are offering
tours, festivals and pancake breakfasts during this month,
culminating in two maple weekends: March 20, 21 and the 27, 28
Local sugar shacks: Sugarbrook Maple, 351 Samsonville Road, Kerhonkson, Call for tours mid-Feb.through March, (845) 626-3466
Lyonsville Sugarhouse, 591 Cty Rte 2, Accord, Sap house open daily during season, call first (845) 687-2518
Events:
March 14
Rosendale indoor farmers market pancake breakfast
Sugaring Off Sundays: Every Sunday in March enjoy mapley events at the Farmers Museum in Cooperstown
March 20, 21 & 27, 28
NY Maple Festival Dutchess County Fairgrounds
Maple Days at Cronin's Farm in Hopewell Junction.
Maple Pancake Breakfasts: at Muscoot Farm and Hahn Farm.
Sharpe Reservation Maple Celebration, March 20, Fishkill
For more maple weekend events throughout the state, visit the NY Maple Growers site.
NEW! How to tap a maple tree
Barbara and Mark Laino hosted a backyard chicken workshop in Warwick Saturday. The couple operates what Mark calls a micro-farm, with about 100 chickens and a CSA for between 12 to 25 members.
Their work derives strictly from passion for organic foods: at the end a year selling eggs at marketsm they essentially break even financially, Mark said. Both work full-time jobs, meaning the farming happens in the wee hours of morning. and after the sun goes down.
The workshop covered everything from supplies to natural health care for chickens. The farm also sells heritage breed chicks, pullets and groups of chickens. There are also more workshops planned and an organic seedling sale.
Contact Barbara through HVFN or visit the farm website.
Two pigs, thirty people, a lot of sausage. During a two-day workshop at Mead Orchards in Tivoli, NY, butcher Bryan Maher and chef Daniel Meyer of Brooklyn's The Green Grape taught a village about preparing hog from head to tail. The weekend's menu included pork belly braised in milk and honey, Northeastern picadillo with apples and dates, and breakfast with apple fritters fried in pork lard. The Greenhorns, a nonprofit film project about young farmers, and Smithereen Farm sponsored the event.
Ken Greene and Doug Muller hosted a tour of the Hudson Valley Seed Library farm Sunday, Oct. 15, 2009. The partners discussed their intent to improve the biodiversity of seed stock and taught a lesson on how to save seeds in your home garden. The seed library is launching its 2010 catalog Nov. 14 with a gallery show. The library invited artists to create seed pack designs. The art selected will be exhibited along with pottery by Ayumi Horie. Find out more about what these seedy guys are up to at their website.
From black locust flowers to stinging nettles, we took home baskets full of goodies. Share your thoughts and learn more about foraging by joining the Hudson Valley Gatherers group.
The unexpected detours, stops along
the way to and from, are often where we find the greatest
satisfaction. On Sunday, I discovered rich cheeses, raw milk and
local blossoms along a route likely overlooked by thousands heading
into the Catskills.The poetic name, Future 86, foretells Route 17W's transformation from winding rural road to vast pavement of speed. But a wandering route off one exit will give you a chance to savor this community's character. Take the Liberty exit to Route 52W and you'll find a quaint Main Street with antique shops. Just beyond that is the delectable Catskill Harvest Market. In spring the plants for sale outside blossom. Inside, local cheeses, jams and meats await.
I picked up Tonjes Rambler and
a goat cheese from Sherman Hill Farmstead, local beef, rich
fudge, and an incredible crusty loaf from Pennsylvania's Beach Lake
Bread.With goods in hand, the detour
doesn't stop there. Keep heading toward Livingston Manor, and
you'll pass nurseries, farms and fields: welcome relief from
70-mile-an-hour traffic.Just before Livingston Manor, you can find one of the area's few licensed raw milk dairies on Shandelee Road. A weather-beaten sign calls: Raw Milk Sold Here. During daylight, the Diries will likely be inside, to sell you a gallon only feet from the cows being milked.
If you continue on to Livingston Manor, you can stop for lunch. Or continue on 17W to your destination: only this time, with raw milk and cheeses as your co-pilot.
View a Map of The Detour
Catskill Harvest Market, 2674 Route 52, Liberty
Dirie Dairy Farm, 1345 Shandelee Road, Livingston Manor
by Meghan
MurphyMy mother turned 60 this past weekend, and we took a trip to Santa Barbara. I toted along a paper bag of fiddlehead ferns plucked from a field near Rosendale to make a special birthday brunch dish.
Fiddleheads taste a bit like spinach, and should be par-boiled in hot water for a couple minutes before use in this dish. They last in the refrigerator for a couple of days but can also be frozen.
My friend Cynthia, who recommended making a fiddlehead quiche, is saving hers for the fall for a dish with black trumpet mushrooms. This dish even convinced my skeptical brother-in-law that ingredients fresh from the forest are delish.
Recipe 1 c Milk
1/2 c. Cream
3 Eggs
1/2 ts Salt
1/4 t. Pepper
2 T Scallions
1 c. Swiss cheese -- grated
18 fiddleheads, blanched for 2 minutes
4 slices bacon, crisped
Grated nutmeg
1 8″ pastry shell, unbaked
In a small bowl, combine the milk, cream and eggs; beat with a rotary egg beater. Add the salt, pepper and onions. Sprinkle half of the grated cheese in the bottom of the pastry shell. Arrange the fiddlehead tips over the cheese, then add the bacon, breaking it into bite-sized pieces. Pour in the milk mixture, add the rest of the cheese, and grate fresh nutmeg over the top. Bake at 375 F. for 30 minutes, or until a knife inserted in the custard comes out clean. From The Wild Flavor by Marilyn Kluger.
Daylily Delicious
The Japanese and Chinese have been eating the flowers and buds of daylilies for centuries in tempura and the unopened flower buds can be boiled and eaten in place of green beans or added to soups and stews to give them texture. Anyone who wants to eat young shoots or flowers should eat a little the first time to make sure they aren't adversely affected.
The flowers and buds can easily be dried by placing them on sheets of paper in a warm, dry room for ten days and if they are then sealed in jars they will keep all year and can easily be revived by soaking in water.
The shoots can be eaten raw in salads or or steamed, sauteed, or baked or stir-fried. They cook in ten or fifteen minutes but be sure to only use shoots that are less then 6" tall because after that they get tough and may cause nausea.
Here's a recipe for an Asian-style meal:
3 1/2 cups daylily flower buds (rinsed and drained
1 cup water
1 tablespoon cider vinegar
1/2 cup almonds (sliced)
salt to taste
hot boiled rice to serve six
2 tablespoons soy sauce
Combine daylily buds and water in saucepan. Bring to boil and simmer for 20 minutes. Drain off most of water, leaving about 2 tablespoons. Add vinegar, nuts, soy sauce, and salt. Stir and cook for five minutes. Serve over rice.
Text by George Johanson
Chaga tea time
Walking through the woods, I saw a conspicuous lump on a tree. Looking a bit like a rotted wasp hive, it sparked in my memory a tea I'd had at a mushroom club meeting.Chaga or inonotus obliquus is a rare mushroom prized for its medicinal purposes. It can be respectfully harvested so that it continues to grow, even though you use a hatchet or axe to harvest it.
Elmer LeSuer of Mid Hudson Myco offered these informative links:
Chaga 101: How to find and identify it
Mushroom therapeutic effect chart
Chaga recipes
Maple Madness
Sugar shacks around the Hudson Valley are offering
tours, festivals and pancake breakfasts during this month,
culminating in two maple weekends: March 20, 21 and the 27, 28Local sugar shacks: Sugarbrook Maple, 351 Samsonville Road, Kerhonkson, Call for tours mid-Feb.through March, (845) 626-3466
Lyonsville Sugarhouse, 591 Cty Rte 2, Accord, Sap house open daily during season, call first (845) 687-2518
Events:
March 14
Rosendale indoor farmers market pancake breakfast
Sugaring Off Sundays: Every Sunday in March enjoy mapley events at the Farmers Museum in Cooperstown
March 20, 21 & 27, 28
NY Maple Festival Dutchess County Fairgrounds
Maple Days at Cronin's Farm in Hopewell Junction.
Maple Pancake Breakfasts: at Muscoot Farm and Hahn Farm.
Sharpe Reservation Maple Celebration, March 20, Fishkill
For more maple weekend events throughout the state, visit the NY Maple Growers site.
NEW! How to tap a maple tree
Backyard Birds
Barbara and Mark Laino hosted a backyard chicken workshop in Warwick Saturday. The couple operates what Mark calls a micro-farm, with about 100 chickens and a CSA for between 12 to 25 members.
Their work derives strictly from passion for organic foods: at the end a year selling eggs at marketsm they essentially break even financially, Mark said. Both work full-time jobs, meaning the farming happens in the wee hours of morning. and after the sun goes down.
The workshop covered everything from supplies to natural health care for chickens. The farm also sells heritage breed chicks, pullets and groups of chickens. There are also more workshops planned and an organic seedling sale.
Contact Barbara through HVFN or visit the farm website.
It Takes a Village To Make A Sausage
Two pigs, thirty people, a lot of sausage. During a two-day workshop at Mead Orchards in Tivoli, NY, butcher Bryan Maher and chef Daniel Meyer of Brooklyn's The Green Grape taught a village about preparing hog from head to tail. The weekend's menu included pork belly braised in milk and honey, Northeastern picadillo with apples and dates, and breakfast with apple fritters fried in pork lard. The Greenhorns, a nonprofit film project about young farmers, and Smithereen Farm sponsored the event.
A Seedy Shindig
Ken Greene and Doug Muller hosted a tour of the Hudson Valley Seed Library farm Sunday, Oct. 15, 2009. The partners discussed their intent to improve the biodiversity of seed stock and taught a lesson on how to save seeds in your home garden. The seed library is launching its 2010 catalog Nov. 14 with a gallery show. The library invited artists to create seed pack designs. The art selected will be exhibited along with pottery by Ayumi Horie. Find out more about what these seedy guys are up to at their website.
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