Pimento Cheese!

Roasted homegrown pimentos

After a long, long period of neglect of my beloved Milkweed Diaries, I'm breaking radio silence with a short little ode to pimento cheese.  Oh pimento cheese, I love you!

A classic staple of the American South, this delicious and creamy treat is traditionally made with Duke's mayonnaise and canned pimentos. My slightly pretentious, healthy, homegrown version is made with raw goat cheese and fresh roasted peppers.  As I spooned this experimental concoction straight into my mouth fresh from the food processor, I announced to Christopher: "I believe this is the best thing I have ever made."  Even in the clear light of day a week later, I'm pretty sure it's true.  

Here's how to make it:

• Roast the pimentos. I did this at 450 degrees using the broiler setting of my toaster oven.  I drizzled  them with a scant bit of olive oil and broiled them until they had begun to pucker and develop black spots on one side and then flipped them and broiled on the other side.

  

  Roasting the pimentos

• Let the pimentos rest in a paper bag.  This will make them easier to peel.
• Peel the pimentos. This is the tedious and slightly time-consuming part. Remember, it's worth it.  At this point you can store the pimentos in a jar for a day or so if you need to sit the project down til you have time to complete it.

Mixing in the food processor

• Mix the pimentos with fresh raw goat cheese. I used a basic soft goat cheese I had made the night before from our goats' milk using Ricki  Carroll's recipe - a raw, cultured goat cheese made with mesophillic culture.  Any good mild, cultured goat cheese will do - the slight cultured tang adds a really nice zest.  I did the mixing by dumping the pimentos in the bottom of my food processor and gradually adding cheese until the consistency, color, and mix looked right. 
• Enjoy immediately!  This cheese stores well in the fridge and also freezes well, but I find it tastes best at room temperature.

The final product: Pimento Cheese!

One important tip: use good pimentos - as fresh as possible.  I was inspired to make this by the abundance of pimentos rolling in from our garden this year.  I used about 25 homegrown peppers - the beautiful, plump, and prolific Ashe County Pimento from the High Country of Western NC via Southern Exposure Seed Exchange.

Ashe County Pimentos

I also threw in some Doe Hill Golden Bells which are supposedly a bell pepper, but to me look like a small, golden pimento. This seed was also from Southern Exposure, and has been a great addition to our pepper production bed this year. The plants have produced abundantly, and the flavor is wonderful.  According to Southern Exposure, this little gem is a pre-1900 family heirloom from the Doe Hill area in Highland County, Virginia.

Doe Hill Golden Bells

This cheese is so delightful spread on toast, noshed upon with crackers, as a garnish on tomato salads, and eaten straight up with a spoon. I froze a ton of it and am envisioning pimento deviled eggs, pimento grilled cheese and tomato sandwiches, and all manner of pimento goodness through the months to come. Yum!

Pickled Peppers Two Ways

Even with hoophouse protection, pepper season is over. It was a great year for peppers in our garden, probably the best pepper season in the past five years, but all good things must come to an end. We had our first killing frost last night, and the temperatures dropped low enough to blitz the last of the peppers and tomatoes that had been barely hanging on in our unheated high tunnel.

So it was time to pick the rest of the fruits, lay the unripe ones out to finish ripening on the kitchen table in the sun, and preserve the rest. I usually fall back on my tried-and-true Sweet Pepper Hash recipe for preserving peppers, but I had already put away such a tremendous stockpile of Sweet Pepper Hash this year that it was time to diversify.

I tried out two new pickled peppers recipes, both of which look very promising. Both recipes are based on ones I found in "Stocking Up," a classic Rodale publication by Carol Hupping Stoner of which I have a treasured 1977 edition. (The entire book is amazingly available online here: Stocking Up: How to Preserve the Foods You Grow Naturally, Carol Hupping Stoner, Rodale Press, 1977.)

Here are the recipes:

Pepper Pickling Method #1:

Pickled Whole Peppers

• 4 quarts whole, ripe long peppers (these can be hot peppers like Hungarian or Banana, or sweet frying peppers - I used Jimmy Nardellos)
• 1 1/2 cups salt
• 4 quarts plus 2 cups water
• 2 Tbs prepared horseradish
• 4 cloves garlic
• 10 cups apple cider vinegar
• 1/4 cup honey

Jimmy Nardellos after soaking in salt water for 18 hours, ready for packing into jars.

1. Cut two small slits along the long sides of each pepper
2. Dissolve salt in 4 quarts of water. Pour the salt water over the peppers and let stand for 12 to 18 hours in a cool place, covered.
3. Drain, rinse, and drain again thoroughly.
4. Combine 2 cups water and all remaining ingredients except the honey and bring to a simmer. Add honey.
5. Pack peppers into hot, sterilized jars, leaving 1/4 inch headspace. Pour boiling pickling liquid over peppers, ensuring that the 1/4 inch headspace remains. Adjust sterilized lids and process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes.

Whole pickled peppers after processing

Pepper Pickling Method #2:

Pickled Sweet Pepper Strips

Wash, stem, and core peppers, and slice lengthwise into strips. Steam blanch the strips for 2 minutes, then plunge them into ice water to cool. Drain.

Pack the cooled strips into hot, sterilized pint or half-pint jars. Cover them with a boiling syrup made from 1/2 part honey to 2 parts apple cider vinegar. Leave 1/4 inch headspace. Cap with sterilized lids and process in boiling water bath for 10 minutes.

Red bell pepper strips ready for steam blanching, canning pot boiling on the woodstove

The finished product

The second recipe is much quicker, easier, and less involved than the first, so if you're looking for a speedy way to deal with a pepper onslaught, I recommend pickling them in strips. It turns out looking really lovely, too, especially when you mix red, orange, and yellow peppers. The pickled whole peppers didn't turn out looking as glamorous as I thought they would, I think because the horseradish makes for a little cloudiness. I'm sure the horseradish could be left out for a clear, pickling liquid that better shows off the pretty peppers.

We grew about 20 varieties of heirloom and open-pollinated sweet peppers this year, plus a few seasoning peppers and hot peppers mixed in. My long-time favorite sweet peppers are Jimmy Nardello, Corno di Toro, and Kevin's Early Orange, and they did not disappoint. But Chocolate Bell and Quadratto di Asti Rosso were standouts this year too, and we will grow them again.

Peppers are a great lesson in patience in the garden, starting out from seeds indoors as early as February and only really coming into their prime in September or even early October. The big, ripe bells always feel like treasures to me after all the months of waiting.

Having enough peppers to preserve for the winter feels like such abundance. Store-bought out of season peppers are such a luxury item, pricey both in terms of cost to the customer and cost to the planet. To have a few jars of peppers stashed away on the shelf feels like real wealth--what better riches than beautiful, bright, sweet peppers on a dark winter day!

Eating from the garden in the very early spring

Our spring garlic at the tailgate market this time last year

This time of year things are just on the cusp of full-on Spring in the garden. Perennials are pushing their miraculous first green shoots up through the April mud, crabapples and apple trees are coming into bloom, and the summer annual veggies are hard at work growing inside, waiting waiting for the moment that it's warm enough to plant them out.

It's a time of year that I find deeply satisfying as a kitchen gardener and garden stockpiler. Having put away food in every way imaginable in order to eat from the garden through the winter (and maybe going a bit overboard, I have to admit), I'm still pulling jars and baskets off the shelf and finding canned goods, dry beans and peas, cured winter squash and sweet potatoes and garlic, dried tomatoes, and the last of the (slightly spongy, at this point) fall potatoes. There is still pesto in the freezer and the last of the fall-planted carrots are lingering in the bottom of the crisper drawer.

I always start the winter out hoarding those preserved foods, rationing out tomato sauce, weighing sweet potatoes in my hand to measure out just the right quantity for dinner, and skimping on the garlic. As the Spring gardening season begins, a sense of impending abundance overtakes me, and those preserved foods start flying in the kitchen as I dive into the stockpiles with reckless abandon.

And just as the preserved foods have their last hurrah, the first few early Spring vegetables and herbs are beginning: spring garlic, sorrel, chives, and hearty biennials and perennials like celery, lovage, and parsley.

I still get a thrill being able to make a meal at this time of year, before spring and summer abundance begin, with foods almost exclusively harvested from our garden.

Here's tonight's homegrown soup:

• 2 cups dried soup peas (I used some of the Blauwschokkers we dried last Spring)
• 4-5 cups of water
• A couple/few bay leaves
• 3 good sized potatoes, thinly sliced
• A few carrots (I used some lovely little oxhearts from our fall garden), thinly sliced
• One large onion, chopped
• 4 or 5 spring garlics, greens and bulb, chopped
• A handful of lovage, parsley, celery, mustard greens, sorrel -- whatever combination of greens you can get your hands on, roughly chopped
• A generous Tbs or so of dried thyme leaves
• Salt to taste
• Butter and/or olive oil for sautéing
• Pinch of dry mustard
• Splash of red wine
• 1/4 or so of red wine vinegar

Gorgeous heirloom Blauwschokker peas as they looked on the vine last May

And the Blauwschokkers today after cooking all day on low heat

Lovage, potatoes, carrots, onions, garlic....

1. Soak the peas overnight and cook on low heat all day with bay leaves in a crock pot or over a low wood fire
2. Sauté everything else in butter or olive oil with salt and thyme, adding the greens at the last minute so that they just get cooked to bright-green and tender
3. Pour a little of the pea broth over the veggies and let simmer for a few minutes until all of the flavors meld and the veggies are soft enough for soup.
4. Combine everything in the soup pot, and add wine, vinegar, and dry mustard. Add salt to taste.

Pea soup, yum. A perfect combination of fresh Spring garden goodness and the last of the winter kitchen stockpile. With a glass of red wine and a hunk of bread and a little cheese, this is a meal that makes me very happy.

Pausing for Gratitude

This time of year, marked with harvest festivals in many earth-based cultures, is a time to pause from the garden frenzy, take stock, enjoy the fruits of our labor, and be grateful. In the ancient Celtic calendar, one of the four major festivals of the year was observed at the beginning of August, called Lá Lúnasa, Lughnasadh, or Lammas, which was in that part of the world at that time the beginning of the main harvest season.

In years past, we have celebrated this time of year with fanfare; this year Lúnasa came and went without any vegetables being launched down the Swannanoa river or harvest altars being constructed, but I have been taking time to pause and give thanks for the garden this week.

I spent some time this week in the garden taking photos and feeling immense gratitude for all of the labor that created this bounty, and for the Earth's incredible abundance.

Here are a few shots from the past week in the garden and at market. Happy harvest!

Zinnias and Purslane

Black

Swallow-

tail

Moon & Stars Water-

melon

Cherokee Trail of Tears Black Beans

Edamame

Bush beans, edamame, and lots and lots of pole beans

Depp's Pink Firefly tomato - a gorgeous and delicious Appalachian heirloom that has been a heavy producer for us this year.

Tomato jungle in the hoophouse...

Cucumbers and Globe Amaranth

Sweet potatoes, squash, and pole beans

Edamame surrounded by pole beans

Cardoon flowering

Magenta spreen lambsquarters

Love-Lies-Bleeding and Autumn Joy Sedum

Moonflower climbing

Our tomatoes for sale at the West Asheville Tailgate Market

Italian heirloom frying peppers at market

Cherry tomatoes at market. We are growing the varieties White Currant, Peacevine, Sungold, and Black Cherry.

More tomatoes! Two of my all-time favorite slicers. The green-ripening Emerald Evergreen and the beautiful Flame/ Hillbilly.

Orange Banana, Pearly Pink, and Cream Sausage tomatoes

Cherry tomatoes, sunflowers, and zinnias in the garden...plus some found- object garden art!

Deep In the Thick of It

The season of spring busyness continues!

After a week of cramming in farm and garden work in between taxes, grant reports, and meetings, the next three days are all about the garden.

Genovese Basil seedlngs perched above French heirloom lettuces

Arugula and Mizuna

Today I'll be trellising heirloom blue-podded shell peas (Blauwschokkers, to be exact), planting Red of Tropea onion seedlings (beautiful Italian heirloom red bottle onions that we started from seed back in February), building a bed for brassicas and shallots, pinching flowers off of all of the winter greens that are trying to bolt, cutting potatoes into chunks for planting tomorrow, potting up sorrel plants and Canturbury Bells for the herb show, and watering everything. The watering of everything takes about an hour a day at this point, which is entirely inconvenient but essential.

Onions!

There are thousands of baby plants growing in the hoophouse, on our porches, on our kitchen counters, tucked into every available cranny. Winter-planted lettuce is growing to gargantuan proportions in the unheated hoophouse, spinach and beets are doing their slow and steady thing, chard and collards are kicking out the jams. In other words: it's Spring! Plants are doing what they do best in Springtime: putting on some serious growth.

Italienischer lettuce

This goes for all plants, including the plethora of weeds and wild plants that are sprouting up everywhere I look. Some of these wildsters I'm happy to see: beautiful medicinal agrimony, nourishing dandelion, prolific creasy greens, medicinal nettles. Others I have a love-hate relationship with -- blackberries, lambsquarters, wild onions. I'm grateful for their gifts of food and medicine but I'm tired of pulling them out of my lettuce beds. So I pull some and leave some and turn loose of the ridiculous notion that I can control the force of nature that is plant life.

It's a good metaphor for life in general for me these days - I'm deep in the weeds, best to just take a bite here and there and relish the chaos!

On Fullness

Onion seedlings

Life has been incredibly full since the beginning of 2010 - and consequently my posts here at the Milkweed Diaries have become become woefully sparse.

My Real Job (working with nonprofits and political campaigns) has been at full throttle since the first week of January, a rude awakening after a relatively sleepy 2009. I'm not complaining though: income is a wonderful thing.

Adding to the fray, I worked as a cook at a Permaculture Design Course in south Georgia for two weeks last month, sharing kitchen duties with my kitchen co-conspiriator and dear friend Puma, cooking three meals a day for 30-60 people using local and regional in-season foods. Though I didn't blog about this Great Cooking Adventure, I did chronicle the experience on facebook.

And then there's Red Wing Farm, our homestead garden that has very quickly grown to market-garden proportions. We're selling at two tailgate markets this season, hosting our first farm interns this summer, teaching classes on the farm, and ramping up our production fast and furious with an eye toward both Christopher and me being able to quit our day jobs.

Lettuces, mustards, and kales growing in the unheated hoophouse

Homemade heat table for seedlings (salvaged lumber + gravel + heat tape) with tatsoi & bok choy growing in a raised bed underneath

Christopher has been in non-stop construction mode, building the first section of our duck and goat barn, a heat table for our hoophouse, and various other structures and contraptions, and I've been prepping beds, making soil blocks, and planting seeds. Thousands and thousands of seeds. And stepping up plants. Thousands and thousands of plants.

Tomato seedlings

Cardoon!

Our Starting from Seed class planting peas in the garden

Life is good. And full.

So apologies in advance, dear readers, for the less frequent posts in the next few months. I promise to post images as often as I can of what's going on on the homestead, in the garden, and in the kitchen.

You can also follow Red Wing Farm on facebook, where I'm posting more frequent albeit briefer updates.

In the meantime, here are some images of recent goings on at the farm...Happy Spring and good gardening to all!