Local Farmer Open House -- March 17

Before the St. Patrick's Day festivities start next Saturday, March 17, I'll be spending some time at Milwaukee's Urban Ecology Center for the 10th Annual Local Farmer Open House.

I'm one of three local bloggers who will be attending the event and writing about our experiences in choosing a community-supported agriculture (CSA) farm. Over the course of the summer, in addition to my usual blogging, I'll be posting about the farm we went with, the foods we've received and the dishes we've made from the fresh produce.

You might remember that Nate and I had a CSA share two years ago. We took a year off last year, so I'm excited to be part of one again this year!

But back to the Local Farmer Open House. If you're interested in learning about participating in a CSA, how you can buy more directly from farmers and connecting with other folks who are also interested in buying locally grown food, I highly encourage you to attend. This will be my first Local Farm Open House, but from what I hear, it will be a great -- and informative -- time.

The event will run 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Urban Ecology Center, 1500 E. Park Place,  in Milwaukee (the center is located in Riverside Park on the east side of Milwaukee).

Here's is a bit more about what the event will include:

• Attendees will have the chance to speak with different farmers about what each CSA offers -- shares may differ in size, length of season, variety of produce offered and drop-off locations. 
• A resource table will offer information on cooking and food preservation classes and how to find farmers and local food in the area. Additionally, experienced “locavores” will be on hand to help attendees make decisions about joining a CSA. 
• Other local farmers who sell directly to the public through at farmers markets, on their farms and through home delivery will be available to chat with to learn how to be directly from them. Additionally, some of their food will be for sale during the Open House.
• If you've been missing food-truck food this winter, the Open House provides a chance to have lunch from two trucks: Tigerbite Truck and the Vegan Truck.
• The event will include three workshops attendees can go to (no sign-up is necessary):
• Intro to CSAs – 11:30 a.m. or 2:45 p.m.
• Cooking from your CSA box – 12:15 p.m. or 2:00 p.m. (I think I might hit up this one!)
• How Pesticides & Food Choice Affect Our Health & Water Quality – 1 p.m.

I hope to see you at the Open House, and please check back to On My Table for more posts about my CSA experience and the food I've made from it!

 

The New Love of My Life

Sorry, Nate, but there's someone new in my life.

My pearl metallic KitchenAid Professional 600 series 6-quart stand mixer. I've wanted one for years (and I've always kicked myself for not registering for one as a wedding present), but have more recently become somewhat obsessed with the idea of getting one. I mean, I cook and bake quite a bit, so it only makes sense, right? Luckily, my birthday is coming up and this particular mixer -- the one I was considering anyway -- came up on sale at Amazon for a really good price, so I just had to get myself an early birthday present. And my mother-in-law -- who is an avid baker and cook herself, and undestands the importance of having a stand mixer -- sent along some "mixer money" (thanks, Julie!).

The thing is really pretty big, and it took quite a bit of kitchen rearranging to figure out where to keep it after we learned it wouldn't fit underneath the cabinets. But I think we figured it out, and it has a prominent spot in the kitchen.

Because Nate was the recipient of a random text from me mid-day last week saying "I bought a KitchenAid mixer. Hope that's OK!" I told him the first thing I would make would be for him. After settling on cookies rather than beer bread, I turned to the Chocolate Chip Cookies recipe in the instruction and recipe booklet that came with the mixer. I followed the recipe very closely (see p. 43) because I wanted to be sure I used the mixer just as the recipe intended. But I subbed in 1 of the cups of flour with whole wheat flour, added some mixed chopped nuts (walnuts, almonds and pecans, probably 1/4 cup) and didn't measure the chips I threw in, but rather used up the three partial bags (milk chocolate, semi-sweet chocolate and butterscotch) I had in the pantry.

Rather than using a teaspoonful of dough, I used closely to a tablespoon, so I ended up baking my cookies for closer to 15 minutes. The cookies were fantastic -- they had a bit of a crunch on the outside, but were still soft on the inside. The butterscotch offered a nice burst of flavor.

It was a great first experience using the mixer, and I can't wait to use it again ... and again ... and again!

Bacon + Caramel Corn = Happy People

Last year during a foodie-friend soup night, my friend Rachel brought bacon bourbon caramel corn as an appetizer/dessert. As you can imagine, the dish was a hit! If you attended last May's Cookies for Kids' Cancer, you might have snagged a bag of this deliciousness for yourself.

When trying to think of something unique yet crowd-pleasing for my office's Friday treat club, I quickly thought of doing the bacon bourbon caramel corn. I know my colleagues would enjoy the treat. I decided to do one batch of the full-on bacon and bourbon and the other batch of a regular-old caramel. 

Luckily, Rachel had blogged about making the caramel corn, so all I had to do was follow along with her instructions.

For the "regular" batch, I followed the recipe exactly (by the way, five quarts of popped popcorn is 20 cups), except that I just omitted the bacon and the bourbon. This batch was fantastic, and I could eat lots and lots ... and lots and lots of it in just one sitting. The caramel flavor is great and the popcorn stayed crisp and wonderfully buttery. 

For the other batch, I followed Rachel's recipe to a T. While this batch was good, too -- and got rave reviews at work -- the bourbon smell was very pronounced and I think there might have been just a bit too much in that batch. The popcorn also seemed to shrink a bit. But, like I said, it was still good and the bowl was just about empty by the end of the day. The sweet-salt taste is fantastic.

One thing that worked well for me (probably because I can get a little messy in the kitchen) was to divide the popped popcorn  into two big bowls, pour the caramel sauce on top and mix that way, rather than in the jelly roll pan. I tried it this way the first time, and it was a little too messy.

Even if the bacon and bourbon portion of the recipe weirds you out, try making the regular caramel corn. You'll be glad you did -- and you'll be especially glad when there is a little extra caramel left on the spatula you've been using. Yum!

Beer-y Cupcakes

Like lots of other people (mostly gals, I'm sure), I'm currently obsessed with Pinterest. My "Yum!" board is definitely the fullest of my boards, and there are TONS of recipes I want to try.

One of the first Pinterest recipes I made was this one for Blue Moon cupcakes, from The Bitchin' Kitchen. The thought of beer inside cupcakes was just too much, so I knew I had to make them and bring them to work for our Thursday afternoon beer club.

I followed the recipe closely, as I usually do for baking, only -- despite the name -- I didn't use Blue Moon beer, but rather Gumball Head from Three Floyds Brewery. I also elected to make mini cupcakes instead of the regular-sized ones, as I knew many people would want to try them.

For the frosting, I followed the original recipe fairly closely, but after reading some comments, I decided to cut the amount of powered sugar in half, from 5 cups to 2.5 cups. It was plenty sweet, and 5 cups would have been way too much. 

I had the cupcake testers frost the cakes as they ate them, as I thought the cream cheese frosting would get to soupy if I had frosted them beforehand.  

  

The verdict? Really tasty with just a hint of beer flavor and smell. The orange cream cheese frosting was great, too (I used up the last of it on Nilla Wafers and graham crackers. Yum!).

Mini Corn Dogs

When we got invited to a Super Bowl party, I knew I wanted to make some fun. Luckily, one of my favorite food blogs, Iowa Girl Eats, had some great party-ready finger food recipes. I was instantly drawn to the mini corn dogs, as I love corn dogs, but don't get to enjoy them that often.

If you like corn dogs, these are a great way to satisfy the craving. They're super easy and make a perfect meal with the leftovers you're bound to have because the recipe makes a ton!

I followed Kristin's recipe exactly, and I opted for her applesauce substitute for butter to make them a teeny bit more healthy.

I also used Lou's Garrett Valley Naturals all-beef franks from Outpost.

To serve them, I put out small bowls of honey mustard and ketchup spiced up with Sriracha.

They were a hit at the party, and Nate and I enjoyed them for additional meals later in the week.

Baked Tofu Stir Fry

If you've been reading my blog for any length of time, you know I love a good homemade stir fry. You probably also know I love tofu. And, luckily, Nate is a good sport when it comes to eating tofu. He may not seek it out, but he'll always finish a plateful of tofu veggie stir fry.

We hadn't made stir fry in a long time, so we whipped up some for Sunday night's dinner. I loaded up on some good stir fry veggies at Outpost, getting a big handful of each kind. I also used some veggies we already had on hand: button mushrooms, sugar snap peas, green beans, red onion and red bell pepper.

I chopped up the veggies and stir fried them in the wok in peanut oil and jalapeno grapeseed oil until softened but still crisp.

For the tofu, I did something I've never done before, but have always wanted to try -- rather than pan frying the tofu like I usually do, I marinated it for a while and then baked it. I took a block of extra firm tofu, pressed it between two towels with books to take some of the water out and then cut it into cubes. I mixed up a marinade of soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, sesame oil, garlic, cayenne pepper, ground black pepper and Sriracha and poured it over the tofu. I marinated it in the fridge for about an hour and then I baked it at 350 for about 45 minutes. Yum! The flavors were fantastic. I'll definitely do it again that way.

For the sauce, I got inspiration from one of my favorite food blogs, Iowa Girl Eats. Searching Kristin's recipes, I found a sweet and spicy peanut sauce. The sauce was simple and delicious, and forced me to buy a jar of chili garlic sauce. Yum!

For the sauce:

• 3 Tbs chicken broth (I'd usually use veggie broth for a veggie meal, but we just happened to have ice cube-sized amounts of chicken broth)
• 3 Tbs soy sauce
• 1.5 Tbs chili garlic sauce
• 1 Tbs peanut butter
• 1 Tbs rice vinegar
• dash of garlic powder, ground ginger, onion powder
• 4 shakes of sesame oil

Microwave broth, soy sauce, peanut butter and chili garlic sauce for about 20 seconds. Whisk until peanut butter is smooth, then add in the rest of the ingredients. Whisk to combine.

When the veggies were ready and the tofu done, we mixed everything in the wok and poured the sauce on top and mixed well. I took Kristin's idea here, too, and added an egg, with a few drops of sesame oil, to the stir fry to make it into like a fried rice dish.

It was good, but I have to say, with all those flavors, you really couldn't even taste the egg.

We served the veggies, tofu and sauce on top of steamed brown rice. All in all, it was a great meal, and I would definitely make that sauce again.

Restaurant Review: La Parihuela

How many people knew there was a Peruvian restaurant in West Allis? I certainly didn't until I saw a Groupon for La Parihuela a few months ago. I knew it was something I would want to try, as I've never had any Peruvian except for a plate of lomo saltado at Antigua about six months ago). So I purchased the $20 option to get one appetizer and two entrees during our visit.

We finally used the Groupon last Friday, just a week before it expired. The small restaurant, located on 90th and National Ave., was packed with people, and I assumed many of them also had Groupons to use up. Luckily, we snagged a booth that wasn't directly near the door, as the restaurant got pretty cold any time the door opened.

We started our meals with the two alcoholic beverages they serve. Nate ordered the beer, Cusqueña, which was a light beer and similar in taste to a Mexican Tecate and with a hint of lime. I had a pisco sour, which the waitress said was the national drink of Peru. It was really good, reminding me of a good margartia that wasn't too syrupy, but it got pretty sweet by the end of it.

For the appetizer, we ordered causa de pollo, which was a yellow potato puree seasoned with yellow chili powder, lime juice and olive oil, and then stuffed with what tasted like chicken salad -- cooked chicken with mayo. The entire dish was cold, which at first seemed odd, but it was really very good. Nate and I agreed it would be a good dish for a hot summer day. (Ugh, sorry for the silly picture -- I can't turn it!)

For meals, Nate ordered the ají de gallina. Translated, it means "chili pepper chicken," and the dish is made with shredded chicken in a creamy (not spicy) sauce, served with chopped pecans, potatoes and rice. It was really good -- the flavors were great and the flavors were fantastic.

I ordered the escabeche de pescado, which was a lightly fried fish under a mound of sauteed onions and served with a half a roasted potato and some white rice. It was good, but the piece of fish was relatively small, and I'm pretty sure the dish didn't come with the sweet potatoes, aji panea chili and red pepper it was supposed to. 

The service, unfortunately, wasn't that great, although I suspect it was because they were swamped with Grouponers and didn't plan for it. We weren't in a hurry, so it didn't matter too much, but we saw other tables in which two of the four diners received their meals about 15 minutes before the rest of the party, and a table of two sat at a dirty table, with no menus, for about 20 minutes. I'd definitely go back -- there are lots of things on the menu I'd like to try -- but I wouldn't go while they have a Groupon.