Black Truffles

An exciting farmer's market find! Truffles have a unique earthy flavor that give the simplest dishes power. These funghi are famous for being hunted by specialized pigs in France and Italy, but as it turns out there are plenty to be found in Washington and Oregon. Northwestern truffles are considerably less expensive as well. I've heard they can cost a fortune or your life in France, but I paid less than $10 for 6. Which is a lot, but for the novelty they provided, it seems pretty worth it.

They are kind of a pain to clean as they have quite a bit of dirt caked on them and you don't really want to water them down much if you can avoid it. Fortunately I had just picked up a free toothbrush at the dentists :). Truffles can be stored in cornmeal, in the fridge for up to a week. What's great about this is that when you are done storing them, you can still cook up the polenta.


The same holds true for eggs. Omlette is one of the classic truffle preparations, and keeping truffles in the same container helps the aroma permeate the egg.


In the end, I just went with these two preparations - truffled polenta and scrambled eggs with truffles. Both were delicious - you just shave the truffles into the polenta or scrambled eggs while they cook, add salt, pepper, and parm and you are golden!

Morels and other Spring Treats from the Farmer's Market

I am so looking forward to our farmer's market opening back up. I am especially keen to visit the forager again. In another life, I think that could be a great job, but in this one I am afraid of bears, so it's not happening. Instead I will buy my morels from our brave forager and his lovely dog Jasper.

Morels pair especially well with peas and salmon. This is a lovely brown rice risotto - I make it in a cheat way, instead of the laborious adding of broth one cup at a time, I just use left over rice added to sauteed vegetables, some half and half (or non-dairy creamer), and some madeira. This works just fine and takes half the time. I topped the salmon with a roasted scape from the garden. And the risotto is topped with delicious sage blossoms, a little trick I learned from eating at Jerry Traunfield's Poppy restaurant. Delicious!
 

Ahh fresh English Peas from the market. We are only a few months away from enjoying you again.
 

Spring onions and green garlic, the bottom half of whips and scapes, are wonderful farmer's market treats - the milder flavor of these two are perfect for spring dishes.
 

Same again, but with gnocchi instead of rice.
 

Pea Vines

Pea vine is hard to find outside of asian grocery stores, but it's excellent stir-fried with garlic and mirin. It has a delicate flavor that combines peas and lettuce with the heartiness of spinach. Emily often orders this dish off the secret menu at Chinese Restaurants and I got really spoiled with the quality of the greens. She has told me that the pea vine dish is actually a good indicator of the overall quality of the restaurant.

 

I have to admit that the greens I bought (above) at the farmer's market were not nearly as good as the ones I've enjoyed with Emily. I think my first mistake is that I bought ones with flowers - they looked so magical I didn't think of their significance - but the reality of flowering vines is that the stem is too mature to be stir-fried in this manner. But my dish was completely edible and Charlie said he didn't mind the stems.

I bought a second bunch later with no flowers.
 

And I really enjoyed them the second time round.
 

Sea Beans

Another farmer's market find. It's amazing that our local wild foods are so forgotten that they seem like exotic foreign vegetables. But these are harvested from our local shores. I honestly could not figure out what to do with them. They can be eaten raw or cooked, but they are surprisingly salty.
 

The best thing I did with them was make a faux Greek salad, which is great with just tomato, cucumber, sea beans and oregano. But also good with a little cottage cheese or yogurt on top.

 

Lake Forest Park Farmer's Market

As I may have mentioned, I'm trying to get out more. And one of those things I've "meant to do" for some time is shop at farmer's markets. We still have our Full Circle Farm CSA, but I find I need to supplement it a bit and am trying to do that now at the Farmer's Market.

Check out this cool windblown asparagus:

  (you can click on this photo to make it bigger)

Even cooler is that there is a forager stand at the market! I bought some fiddleheads and will post about them soon.