Quick Bites: Turtle Mist Neck Roast

So I do realize that something which takes 3 hours to slow cook isn't exactly quick, but if you consider that this takes 15 minutes of prep, at which point you can walk away for 3 hours, its pretty easy. I spent the morning at Turtle Mist yesterday, and Bob asked me for some advice on what to do with a neck roast. This is what I came up with; everything is local.

• 1 lb. lamb neck roast
• 1 tbsp. bacon grease
• 1 large long hot or mild pepper, chopped
• 1 medium purple carrot, sliced - do not peel!
• 1 medium tomato, diced
• 3-4 fresh sage leaves, julienned
• 1 cloved garlic, minced
• 4 cups of lamb stock (chicken or vegetable are OK too)

1. Cover all sides of the meat with salt and pepper. Heat up the bacon fat to medium in a medium-sized pot.

2. Brown the roast on all sides. During the last few minutes of browning, add the garlic, peppers, and carrots, and stir.

3. Add enough stock to cover the roast halfway. Stir in the tomato and sage.



4. Bring to a boil. Cover, reduce to low heat, and braise for 3 hours. Your meat will be falling-ff-the-bone tender.

Becoming Locavores, Part 2: Late Summer Farmers' Market Dinner

Another Saturday, another successful trip to the Creedmoor and Wake Forest farmers' markets. This week's haul included purple carrots, Malabar spinach, goat's milk Roquefort, goat cheese w/ fresh herbs, spelt flatbread, tomatoes, hot peppers, eggplant, Mississippi Red peas, Yukon Gold and red potatoes, and organic, pasture-raised pork loin chops.

The spinach and carrots came from Turtle Mist, and as always, it was good to see Bob and Ginger. I'll be going over to their farm tomorrow to trim hooves and tag ears. Should be a wonderful learning experience.

I also learned a lot more about Pine Knot Farms. We've been getting vegetables and fruits from Mark for a few months, but I just recently learned that this farm is certified organic and also does pasture raised pork. I picked up some loin chops this morning:



and they turned out wonderfully:



Kate used the eggplant to make baba ghanouj:



and I took the carrots, hot peppers, goat's milk Roquefort, and spinach:



and sauteed them all together in a little olive oil:



for this wonderful meal:



And as you can see above, Mike T. Bunny loves the purple carrots too. Check back soon for a post on making bacon, start to finish. If you can get a whole pork belly, its not as tough as you might think. I continue to be amazed at what I can find within 20 miles of home.

Becoming Locavores, Part 1

In recent months, we've spent a lot of time exploring local farms and farmers' markets in Granville, Franklin, and Wake counties, and also learned about pickling / preserving / freezing / etc. As we meet more farmers and find more local variety, we're quickly moving away from grocery stores and buying local whenever possible. Meats, produce, eggs, and cheeses are all easily obtained in the Triangle area. I've personally met the growers / farmers and in addition to having great food, they are great people.

This weekend's haul included:

• figs
• Malabar spinach
• goat's milk feta
• goat's milk 5 pepper cheese spread
  
• lamb spareribs
• lamb leg chops
• purple-hulled peas
• Crowder peas
• butterbeans
• okra
• white eggplant
• Yukon Gold and red potatoes
  
• eggs

But this is only a sampling of what NC's farms have to offer. We've built a pretty solid network of farmers that we like; here's a rundown:

Lyon Farms Hwy 15 and Munns Rd, Creedmoor, NC

• strawberries, blueberries, and blackberries in season; can pick yourself
• They do sell other produce but much of it is shipped in and not local, we stick to the berries.
  

MAE Farm Mitchell Church Rd, Louisburg, NC / NC State Farmer's Market
http://www.maefarmmeats.com/
Mike and Susanne Jones

• pork - all cuts, including bacon, ham, and many types of sausage
  
• beef - all cuts
  
• goat - all cuts
• all meat is pasture-raised
  
• eggs
  

Turtle Mist Farm 227 Suitt Rd., Franklinton, NC / Creedmoor and Wake Forest farmers' markets. Creedmoor Wednesdays; Wake Forest Saturdays.
http://turtlemistfarm.com/
Bob and Ginger Sykes

• lamb - all cuts, many not found in stores such as spare ribs and neck roasts. Pasture-raised.
  
• eggs
• various veggies
• aloe plants
• jewelry
  

Mark / Pine Knob Farm Creedmoor Farmers' Market

• Butterbeans
• Crowder peas
• Melons
  
• Okra
• Pork
  
• Squash
• Eggplant
• various other veggies and fruits depending on season
  

Deborah's Fresh Vegetables Creedmoor Farmers' Market

• potatoes
• sweet potatoes
• cucumbers
• banana and hot peppers
• butter beans
• purple-hulled peas
• corn
  
• tomatoes
  
• squash
• melons
• various other veggies and fruits depending on season

Sleepy Goat Farms Pelham, NC / Wake Forest Farmers' Market

• goat cheeses, such as feta
• goat cheese spreads - garlic/paprika, 5 pepper, curry, etc.
  

Creedmoor Farmers' Market Hwy 50 and Hwy 56, Creedmoor, NC
http://www.creedmoorfarmersmarket.com/

• Wed. 1-6 PM, Sat. 8 AM - 1PM
• April - November
  

Wake Forest Farmers' Market White Ave. and Wait Ave., Wake Forest, NC
http://www.wakeforestfarmersmarket.org/

• 8AM - 12PM in season
• Holiday markets
• Winter markets
  

The Creedmoor Farmer's Market and Local Lamb

Last Saturday, Kate and I made quite the haul at the Creedmoor Farmer's Market. It's not nearly as large as something like the state market in Raleigh, but there are a variety of vendors and some amazing finds.




This trip brought eggs, basil, banana peppers, cucumbers, white and Italian eggplant, Silver Queen and Peaches & Cream sweet corn, zucchini, cantaloupe, shelled butterbeans, and Cherokee Purple heirloom tomatoes.



The majority of this food made an amazing dinner Saturday night, but the cucumbers and banana peppers were pickled in a matter of hours:



Earlier in the week, we got some local lamb from Turtle Mist Farm in Franklinton - shanks to be specific. Priced at $6/lb., grass-fed, pasture raised, USDA inspected, and processed in a local Halal facility, this is some of the best lamb I have ever eaten. I braised the shanks with celery, onion, tomato, and garlic in lamb stock, for about 2.5 hours, and it was fantastic. I just bought more from Bob yesterday.

We've also discovered MAE Farm in Louisburg, and I just talked with Susanne for the first time today. Their pork, beef, and goat is raised with the highest ethical and humane standards, and the farm holds a Certificate of Compliance from the Animal Welfare Association. I'll be going up Sunday to get pork tenderloins, butts, and a belly; beef chuck, skirt, and ribeye steaks; goat chops; eggs; and jalapeno-onion and Andouille sausage. I expect it will be nothing shy of amazing.

Well folks, it looks like Kate and I are going local. Stay tuned for a post on the Farmer's Market Dinner...

Pickling Day!

Well summer is in full swing here in eastern North Carolina, which means the local farms have all sorts of wonderful stuff. Kate and I hit the Creedmoor Farmer's Market last week, and got cayenne, jalapeno, banana, and large hot peppers, zucchini and spaghetti squash, cantaloupe, okra, and string beans.



We had decided earlier in the week to have a pickling extravaganza at my mother-in-law's, and when we got there, she also had yellow squash, more cayennes, and "mini" tomatoes - that is, the resultant fruit of grape and Better Boy tomatoes cross-pollinating.

We used 2 recipes for pickling liquids, a "hot" based on white vinegar and salt, and a "sweet, made with cider vinegar, tons of sugar, and mustard and celery seeds. By the time it was all said and done, we had dill pickles, squash pickles, sweet pickled cayennes, sweet pickled mini tomatoes, sweet pickled okra, and sweet pickled string beans. Not bad for a weekend's work. Thanks to Gene and Barry for the lesson!



"Hot" pickle recipe

1. Add chopped onion and some garlic cloves, 2 per quart
2. Pack the produce tightly into the jars.
3. Bring 5 cups water, 5 cups white vinegar, and ¾ cup salt to a boil
4. Once boiling, ladle into your jars and immediately put the lids on as tight as you can
5. Give them 3-4 hours to cool and seal
6. Allow to sit for 2 weeks before eating.


"Sweet" pickle recipe

Note: this is adapted from an old cookbook and the proportions of liquid to produce were way off. I've included the recipe for the liquid; make as much as you see fit for the amount of produce being pickled. MAKE SURE YOU HAVE PLENTY OF SUGAR!

1. Combine the produce and some sliced onion. Salt lightly and allow to sit for an hour.
2. Combine 1 cup cider vinegar, 1 3/4 cups of sugar, 1/2 tsp of celery seed, and 1/2 tsp of mustard seed; bring to a boil.
3. Add produce; return to a boil.
4. Immediately add to jars, cover with vinegar mixture and seal.
5. Allow to sit for 2 weeks before eating.

Quick Bites: Pork Tacos with Cilantro and Cotija

A few days ago, I happened across some center cut, boneless pork chops that were too good to pass up. About 1.5 inches think and 8 ounces each, they were beautiful. I marinated them for around 6 hours in a mix of lime juice, minced garlic, 1/2 bunch of cilantro, crushed with mortar and pestle, and a mix of jalapeño, serrano, and habañero chiles, also crushed. I grilled these on the Weber over charwood, searing hot heat for about 5 minutes on a side. The chops came out seared, juicy, and still a little pink in the middle. Here's what I did with the leftovers:



You will need:

• 1 lb. marinated and wood-grilled pork, cooked
• 4 taco-sized flour tortillas
• 2 tbsp. Búfalo Chipotle hot sauce (its actually quite mild)
  
• 1/2 cup grated Cotija cheese
• 1/2 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese (I like Cabot)
• fresh cilantro leaves
  

Dice the pork into bite size pieces and mix with the chipotle sauce. Reheat in a saucepan over medium-low heat or in 30 second intervals in the microwave. Spoon 1/4 of the pork into each tortilla. Top with cilantro leaves and cheeses.

Makes 4 tacos / serves 2

Kenutcky Grilled Oprah

So I realize it has been months since I posted and I apologize. But KFC's Kentucky Grilled Chicken has been all over the media lately, and between the commercials, the coupons, and the ensuing "scandal", I just couldn't stay away. For those not in the know, KFC recently launched a grilled chicken line, and Oprah arranged a promo so that anyone with a Windows or Mac machine can print a coupon for a free 2-piece meal:



Needless to say, the issues ranged from the coupon website being overloaded, to absurd comments in web forums, to certain restaurants not honoring the coupons, and ultimately reaching its apex with a racially charged KFC sit-in in NYC. (Thanks to SeriousEats for this info.)

Some of the quotes are scary:

"THANK YOU OPRAH, I WAS JUST NOW ABLE TO PRINT THE KFC COUPON! IT TOOK OVER 3 HRS.. THANKS AGAIN!! NEW JERSEY GIRL"

while others are downright hilarious:

"Requires Windows or Mac. So to get a free dinner I have to spend $300. Linux users are people too, but I guess we can afford dinner with the money we saved on our OS."

and others just seem to miss the point of the promo (and KFC) entirely:

"It would be nice if you had something for us veg folk who don't eat meat."

By this point, I was just as interested in the media spectacle as the food, and I seemed to be one of the "lucky ones" - I was able to print the coupon with relative ease, found a KFC with no lines, the coupon was honored without question, and I was in and out in under 3 minutes. There's only one problem - the chicken sucks.

I'm not really sure where to start, so I guess we can break it into 3 categories: appearance, aroma, and flavor.

Beginning with appearance, I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. Let's just say there is some distance between what's depicted in the ads and what you get. Not uncommon for fast food, but worth noting:

What they sell


What you get:



Just based on what I saw, I found several things that just weren't right. The pale color wasn't exactly appetizing. And while the chicken in the ads doesn't look quite like what comes off my grill, the presence of dark grill marks almost serves to say "Yes, it's really grilled!". All I can assume here is that they left my chicken on the "grill" long enough to cook it but not to fully impart the "grill" marks. I'm pretty sure this is just baked in a convection oven on a wire rack.

Next, the size. The thigh is smaller than the biscuit, and the leg is in similar proportion. I realize chickens vary in size, I just hope KFC isn't killing babies for Oprah's promo. These chicken pieces are really, really small.



And I'm pretty sure someone already took a bite out of this leg:



Moving on to the aroma of this meal, I wasn't prepared for what I got when I opened the lid. The smell was reminiscent of a hospital cafeteria, only boosting my suspicions that no grill is actually involved in the process of cooking this meat. I've spent a lot of my 28 years grilling on charcoal, propane, and electric, and never conjured a meal that smelled like this.

As I'm sure you can guess by now, I don't have anything good to say about the flavor. I spent some serious time convincing myself that I needed to actually taste the stuff in order to justify this post. So eventually I did. It just doesn't taste grilled. Or good. In fact, it doesn't have any taste at all. I chewed on the leg for a good 45 seconds trying discern the flavors, and there were none. It honestly didn't even taste like chicken, and it was tougher than dark meat should be.

I'd really like to know more about the "grilling" method KFC employs to make this new chicken - it could use some improvement. A basic brine, or marinade, or wave of the salt shaker would help enormously, as would higher temperatures during the cooking process. This chicken honestly looks and has the skin texture of chicken baked in a low-temperature oven.

Kudos to Oprah and KFC for this promo to try to reach the masses and give some folks a free meal, but it definitely leaves something to be desired. I remain a lifelong fan of Original Recipe, but if you're not already a KFC customer, the Kentucky Grilled Chicken isn't going to convert you.