FARMFood

When we went to Memphis in June, John's mom gave me a cookbook she'd recently bought. It's by Daniel Orr, the chef who owns FARM, a very popular, upscale restaurant in Bloomington that focuses on local ingredients. Though FARM is highly regarded, I somehow have yet to make it there. So I was excited when Julie offered the cookbook to me and John to take home.

 

So far we've made a few of the recipes, and I thought I would share some thoughts here. 

 Let's start with the bad: 

- The layout is strange. For instance: we wanted to make a veggie pizza. The recipe for the dough was on the same page as the toppings, so that works well. But the suggested sauce is a hummus recipe from the "Snacks" section - flip back about 10 pages. To make the hummus, you need a spice blend from the "Spice Blend" section - flip back another 20 or so pages. That much flipping to make a pizza is a little annoying, but I get it - he just wanted to print each recipe once. And he's adamant that you can sub anything you like for the recipes. 

I'll also say that this book is not for beginners. The ingredients can get slightly difficult to find (unless you have Bulk Barn, of course), and they can also be a bit complicated. While we loved the pizza we made, it took a LONG TIME to make, in order to let the dough rise, to make the hummus, to let the dough rise again, to grill the veggies, etc. It's kind involved for pizza. But it was damn tasty.

Speaking of exotic ingredients: one other complaint, and then I'll stop being a Negative Nancy: the chef suggests subbing anything you'd like for any of the recipes, and I believe in the intro he stresses that these recipes should be accessible. Ok, so far so good. But the very first recipe in the book is for Cattail Pollen Muffins. Oh yes, just stroll down to the local pond and pull the pollen out of some cattails! 

It doesn't exactly sound hard, but it's a little specific. And what do you sub for cattail pollen? Honey? Nothing? I have no idea. In fairness, if you do live within reach of pond (and I'd venture that almost everyone in Bloomington does), then this would very simple to make. But I found it a bit off-putting.

The good: 

Generally, I feel like it's an amazing book. The photos are beautiful, it's well written, and there are tons of options for veg people and omnivores alike. We've made some fabulous food with this book, and I'm looking forward to trying more of the recipes.

Let's look at some examples.

Here's the hummas recipe we used for the pizza.

This hummus has a TON of ingredients before you even make the spice blend, but we suffered through. It was fun to make hummus with white beans, instead of chick peas, and it's extremely flavorful. Making the spice blend took some time, and truly, we didn't do it right because we don't have a spice grinder (or coffee grinder that's designated for spices). John and I agree that it's not our favorite hummus to eat by itself, like we normally eat it. But it's a good base for the pizza. It also made me want to try making a simpler hummus with white beans, garlic, and rosemary.

Here's the pizza itself: hummas, grilled eggplant, grilled zucchini and red peppers, tomato, and kalamata olives.

The dough recipe was excellent and made enough for two nights of this fabulous pizza. It would go perfectly with a spicy red wine, like a Shiraz. I'd say the crust was the tastiest part, and that's how I like my pizza to be. You can get away with a lot if you have a good crust.

Next, we made a much simpler recipe: the BLT. For this, we used tempeh bacon, nicknamed faux-bacon,  "facon," "fakin,' etc. We bought special heirloom tomatoes for this sandwich, since tomatoes are sort of the main event, and then took a bunch of pictures of them, because we're weird.

I love heirloom tomatoes. They're so funky looking, and so flavorful.

Here's the sandwich in its finished form:
grainy bread, tomato, avocado, herbed mayo (we chopped some basil and garlic for the mayo), tempeh bacon (amazing!), basil leaves, lettuce, and goat cheese. This is a life changing sandwich.

Seriously, I would eat this all the time if possible. Tempeh bacon is one of the better faux-meats I've had, and I can't wait to make this again. Heaven!

All in all, we like the FARMFood book, and we'll keep using it. I'm interested in trying some of the brunch recipes, since FARM is known for an outstanding brunch.

Dave and Carla's Visit: A Photostudy in Food and Drinks

Dave and Carla's trip was mostly a beer and food festival at our house.

One night, Dave made a delicious almond cake.

After our second morning run in a row, I made a simple brunch out of tomato rosemary scones (Vegan Brunch), scrambled eggs, and melon. I love these scones! Tomato sauce, olive oil, and rosemary are a great combination.

I made the potato-based cookie dough dip from Oh She Glows, to mixed reviews. Personally, I think it tastes awesome. The likeness to cookie dough is uncanny! Others thought it tasted faintly of potato. But for the nutritional make up, you can't go wrong. It's basically potato, cashew butter, and honey.


 








 I added a few chocolate chips before chilling it so that it had a faint chocolate swirl.


 






One night, we made flatbread pizzas with dough from the PPK, and topped them with shaved asparagus and mozzerella, based on a recipe from Smitten Kitchen that Dave and Carla had tried. I loved it! We will definitely make this again.










And we drank it with a bottle of Strewn (Niagara) wine that we had been saving to share with them.












On Saturday, I went with Carla and John on a five-mile run. When we arrived home, Dave had already gone to the store for supplies and was making BRUNCH! I told him he could move right in.

 He made a fantastic egg/potato/fake sausage casserole.

Abby: I'm so touched that you bought vegetarian sausage!
Dave: Oh good, it was my goal to touch you with sausage. 










He also made pancakes so that we could have Pancake Friday (Observed).










Here are pictures of everything else we drank that I managed to take photos of.


A cucumber-melon-gin cocktail that I saw on No Meat Athlete, forever ago. The thyme syrup was an interesting touch! These would be good on a very hot day. But I didn't like it enough to want to make it again and again.










This Kentucky Ale is aged in bourbon barrels and it's delicious! I think it was my favorite of the whole week. It was one of the beers that Carla and Dave graciously brought to celebrate Beer Friday. We pretty much observed Beer Friday for 5 days straight. But we also consumed a lot of these tasting-style, where we each took a small portion of the same bottle. It was fun to try so many beers without having to drink an entire bottle of each in one sitting.

The Yazoo Sue. This stout is especially smokey, and when I sniffed it, I got a distinct whiff of S'nausages (as in, dog treats). But it was nice to have a small taste.

 The Southern Tier Double Milk Stout we'd had before, but it's still a very good one.

Dave and Carla also brought this Lychee-flavored sour beer from New Belgium, part of the beer-heaven where they live in Colorado. It was extremely flavorful, what with the fruit and sour flavors. Tasty, though I don't know if I'd order or buy it myself.

Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout. I didn't try this, but John enjoyed it.

Here's the final picture of them all. We made a trip down to St. Thomas, ON for the Railway City Brewery, and took home a few of their Iron Spike beers. John and I also bought some beers from Grand River Brewing in Cambridge, ON, most of which he really likes so far (more on those later).

 

And now I'm going to enjoy a week of non-alcoholic, non-dessert, non-cheese cleansing, to detox from a very delicious visit.

Herbalicious

As the temperature increases, so, too, does the need for beer Friday seem to increase. John and I have each been trying to finish a couple of academic projects before Dave and Carla arrive this week, and so Beer Friday is a great incentive to keep writing all week long.

This week for Beer Friday, John tried a Great Lakes Brewing Co., Burning River IPA, while I stuck to one of my favorites, the Harpoon UFO. I tried some of the IPA, and it was really nice! Kind of fruity compared to others. I would definitely order that or buy it again, given the chance.

We drank those while making pizza dough and prepping for this recipe: Grilled Flatbread Pizzas from the PPK, with a creamy scallion and red pepper spread. Delicious! They were a complete success, although storing the leftovers was a bit of a challenge. We both just ended up eating the greens off the leftover pies and storing them with only the spread on top.

 

We had some extra spread, and it went well with sliced cucumber.

After dinner, John and I split a Southern Tier, Double Milk Stout. Normally I'm not a stouty person, but this was really tasty - especially with a little frozen chocolate-peanut-butter-banana bite that I made (a subject for another post). The chocolate and the stout were perfect together. This beer has actual milk sugar in it, so it's a bit sweeter than other dark beers I've had. I'm hoping that it could be a gateway to more stouts in my future.

The other highlight since our trip to Ann Arbor is that I finally got around to planting my herb garden! Left to right: dill, lemon basil, thyme, and rosemary. I'm still planning on adding regular basil and mint, and maybe sage, to a planter on the other side of the patio. That's part of a larger Clean-Up-The-Patio project that I'm about to undertake, pictures to follow.

Besides the herbs, I also bought this tomato plant. When I look at it, I don't see a plant - I see salsa. And caprese salads. And jarred sauce. This little guy will probably only produce a few tomatoes, so I'm trying not to let my expectations get out of control. But it's a fun new experiment, and if we get a few tomatoes out of it, I'll be happy.

Early May Foods, Running, and Beer Friday

Last week, John and I finished watching the last season of Buffy. I had to start reading the Hunger Games to fill the strong-heroine-shaped void it left in my heart. I have to say, I made a lot of fun of Buffy at first, and the sixth season really was a downer, but it's a great show and I'm glad we came back to it. Watching Buffy and reading the Hunger Games makes me want to exercise.

Running has just included a lot of maintenance runs. I'm not going to start training for the half quite yet, so I'm just focusing on building some good mileage, and doing more strength training. We have a fairly busy June and July planned, so it'll be tough to get in a fun summer run in the mean time. Between the theory conferences, friends potentially visiting (please visit! yay!), the engagement party (more on that to come), and helping my parents move, we kind of have a lot planned.

So instead of running, let's talk about the best foods best foods we've had recently.


 First up, the tahini-miso pasta sauce from Daily Garnish.

















I loved this. Just looking at the picture is making me drool. It's so much creamier and more flavorful than any vegan mac n' cheeze I've had, though it's not really trying to be mac n' cheese. Given the opportunity, I would eat three or four shovel-fulls of it right now.


Next up, Jerk (Vegan) Sloppy Joes from PPK. 

With some roasted taters and a Duvel on the side, and with coconut-creamed spinach on top. The anise in the spinach and the thyme and other spices in the "meat" made these taste so beefy! We couldn't find the fake meat it called for, so we used Gardein Beefless Ground (oddly missing from their website), and it worked perfectly. The only thing about Gardein and similar wheat-based meat products is that you have to be careful not to over cook them, or they turn into something like a rubber eraser. So I lessened the cooking time all around, and they turned out fantastic. We will definitely have these again.


 Also, Eggplant and Provolone Pizza with Green Olives from Smitten Kitchen.

John picked this recipe as a surprise when he was making our meal plan/grocery list, and I was thrilled that he did. I would say that I think our eggplant slices were larger than the ones on Smitten Kitchen, and I would have preferred smaller pieces of eggplant in general. Also, the provolone was a bit like a salt bomb to my stomach. But it's a tasty, indulgent recipe. It would be great cut into small portions for a finger-food appetizer.



 Then we made this Roasted Beet and Farro Salad from Daily Garnish.

The dressing has OJ in it, so we had some on the side each time we ate it. The recipe calls for golden beets, which we couldn't find. The red beets turned the whole thing a florescent shade of pink. We used couscous instead of farro, which our grocery store didn't seem to have. I really liked this recipe hot, instead of cold, and with the root vegetables and soft couscous, it was kind of like comfort food.



And finally, we had Beer Friday yesterday with these Veggie Masala Burgers in the style of the same ones from Trader Joe's, via Daily Garnish.

We've made this recipe a couple of other times, and every time, I like it more. Delicious with a little mayo, some salsa, and especially good with an avocado. They also went really well with Harpoon Leviathan we drank.


Beer Friday has been John's...thing for the past few months. He's in a Beer Renaissance (there have been other Renaissance periods for both of us. For me: running, then cooking. For John: running, peanut butter, coffee, and now beer). Sometimes Beery Friday is just one beer with dinner, but yesterday the weather was nice, so we had a couple on the porch, too. For John it's just a nice way to end the work week. The new official slogan is "Beer Friday: Come as you are."

On the left is the Harpoon Leviathan that I mentioned. Next, the Harpoon UFO, which is basically like a wheat beer brewed with some orange rind - perfect for warm weather. Third you can see the Arrogant Bastard Ale, which completely lived up to it's name. Neither of us liked it enough to ever buy it again, but I'm glad we tried it. The taste is just way too bitter for my liking. And last, the Yazoo Heffeweizen, from a fun brewery in Nashville that we visited with Kira two summers ago. Also perfect for summer.

A Tale of Three 'Villes - Cookeville

After our goodbyes to Kira and Joe, John and I headed to Cookeville to see his conducting teacher/mentor from his undergrad days, Dan Allcott. Dan's always been so supportive of John, and me - even though he was never my actual teacher - so we love to visit him and his family.

As we drove along I-40 we saw a sign for Del Monaco Winery just 5 miles from the Cookeville exit, and we decided to pull off.


















They had a nice tasting room, beautiful property, and friendly staff. Dan told us that the winery is THE place to have a wedding, if you live in Cookeville, and if you click here to see their pictures, you'll understand why.

We tasted several of their wines and you can read about them here. A lot of them were too sweet for my taste, but the chardonnay pretty nice. A lot of them would be good to drink while sitting out on their patio.


























Their tasting room overlooks the production part of the building.






































After some tasting and buying a bottle for our Knoxville hosts, we went on to Cookeville to hang out with the Capron-Allcotts.



















Dan and his wife Susan made us a fabulous dinner of grilled pizzas and salad, and then we played with the family's new dog, Sandy.




















Their son, Carter, posed some of his action figures for John to photograph.

































Dan still imparts life lessons to John when we visit. This time we learned two important things, though I'm sure John can tell us more:
1) When pouring beer in a glass, you want it to have some foam because its more fragrant.
2) If the glass is warm, pour slowly. If the glass is properly chilled, you have to pour aggressively to get the right amount of foam.
























The next few photos take a little explaining. The gist of the story is that Dan went to IU for grad school, and while there, his wife really fell in love with the Bloomington children's museum, Wonderlab.









John puts the dress frame-thing on Jacque (short for Jacqueline), their daughter.















After they moved to TN, Susan felt Cookeville should have something similar and so she started her own version of it: the Kiwanis Cookeville Children's Museum. This year they had a fundraiser called the Mad Hatter's Ball, where the Allcott's bought that dress frame-thing (can someone tell me the real name of it?) that John is putting on Jacque in the picture above.

























As part of the fundraiser they also asked local artists to create a fancy hat for the auction. John is modeling the one they took home.

We were so grateful to the Capron-Allcotts for hosting us. It's always nice to visit them and to see the local changes around TTU and Cookeville.

Next up: John's-professor-reunion part 2 in Knoxville.

Grills Gone Wild

Last week I didn't mention that John and I bought a grill from our friend Emilie.

And it. is. awesome.



















We had little charcoal grill, but we haven't used it much. The new-to-us grill is gas, and we've used it almost every day since we got it.

Here are some of the results.
Portobello burgers with grilled sweet potatoes (based on this preparation), asparagus, and zucchini.

















The mushroom burgers were marinated in balsamic vinegar, olive oil, and garlic. We topped them with goat cheese and lettuce. Amazing!




Next up: Asian-style Grilled Tofu with an enormous salad.

















We grilled these cuts of tofu on foil so that they didn't stick to the grill and then go up in flames. They stuck a little bit when the marinade caramelized (it was made of hoisin sauce, soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, and lime juice), but they came up ok. The marinade was delicious, if a little higher in sodium than I prefer. I had one of the leftover slices on a hamburger bun for lunch the next day. They're pretty tasty.
















By the end of the week we were ready for something non-grilled, so we made pizza with sauce I read about on Dave and Carla's food blog.

















This recipe makes a ton of sauce, so we've made several versions of the same pizza over the past few days: zucchini, red peppers, mushrooms, and goat cheese with some fresh herbs. It might be my new favorite combination of toppings. Apparently the sauce is a copy cat from a pizza place called Palermo's (I'm guessing that's the right place, but if it's not, let me know!). It's a sweet, flavorful sauce, and I'm glad we have so much of it. We even froze some to use again, probably next month during our comps.

And finally, totally unrelated to grilling and pizza, I saw a blog post this week (similar to this one) about torching some bananas with sugar on them as an oatmeal topping that mimics creme brulee. Since John and I have a torch, I felt like I had to try it.








It doesn't involve the grill, but it does require a flame.









They were a little too sweet for my taste, but, what can I say? I can't resist the chance to light my breakfast on fire.



In other news, the weather felt a lot more like spring this week. The purple wildflowers are coming up in our neighbors' yard.





You can see downtown just behind those trees.










Compare with this somewhat similar angle.






Things really have improved.











Though it snowed like crazy for a couple hours today, it didn't stick. Maybe that's how we can tell it's really spring?