It’s officially official — she passed her 8th Grade Assessment and was recommended for Honors classes when she chooses her High School Classes…she’s officially also been accepted to the Maine Arts Academy!! Onward ho! She’s excited. And if she’s excited, we’re excited.
Celebratory ice cream was to be had. The butterflies are out, the sturgeon were jumping, and our lovely friend Justin is visiting!! It’s the most wonderful Summer day!!! And a birthday at the end of the week?!!! Whaaa?! Best week ever.
We’ve got so many good things going on we can barely sit still. The Solstic energy is getting us revved up to have some fun. The homestead is ready to be re-imagined and enjoyed — gardens galore needing wattle fencing, grapes exploding and ready to be trellised, flower garlands and rock patterns dying to be tra-la-laaad, goodies begging to be foraged for teas and bath soaks, pizzas, and pestos. It’s a lush jungle out there.
And in the shop, we’re staying open late (starting in July) on Friday nights for the coffeeshop vibe — books, snacks, music, people…all the good things. Maybe get a Tarot reader in here, film showings, art nights…we’ve been networking with like-minds and they are stimulating our fun-cells! We’re bursting. Poetic performances, readings, workshops, and open (no) mic nights. Book festivals, bread conferences — all on the agenda.
We have the most amazing mushroom growing/selling folk at our farmer’s market (Wild Fruitings); they sell gorgeous gourmet Oyster mushrooms of many colors, Lion’s Mane, Chestnuts, Pioppino, Enoki, Trumpets, Shiitakes and probably some I’m forgetting or don’t recognize. They grow the gourmet but they also forage and offer some dried and make medicines. They also work with the awesome spice guy from Spicy Staples (previously known as The Chef’s Cupboard) and offer a Mushroom Salt that I use here.
I get a couple of quarts of these beautiful bouquets every week or so and do so many things with them — in savory stews, on a steak, roasted on rice, bundled little crispy appetizers, creamed in soups or gravy, with pasta…the options are endless. We love them (the mushrooms and the mushroom people). This last week, I made a mixed mushroom risotto for my Mom for her birthday. It was delicious.
For a long time I was intimidated by risotto — it has the air of being a finicky or long involved process but it really isn’t. It comes together quickly, or rather, just as long as anything else if you make food by hand (about 20 min or so). In a dish like this you don’t have to cut them carefully either, there will be no mushroom aesthetic left at the end, just lovely little mushroom bits and a stunning earthy flavor, so the prep is pretty quick, too. And you could make it even more (or less) homemade, depending on if you have broth on hand, grated cheese, etc. You could also add other things — asparagus is great (cut into 1/2 or 1″ bits and added after cooking onions), or pancetta (cut into 1/2″ bits and thrown in with the onions to cook), or chopped ramps or scapes, sun-dried tomatoes, artichokes, or herbs like sage, rosemary, thyme, marjoram — or get really fancy and add crumbled Saffron or Maine Sweet Clams and Arugula like they do in The Arrows Cookbook (where my process and foundational recipe is from).
The secret is the right rice — Arborio rice (not that expensive and no longer hard to find), and warming your broth before using. I also think that if you are using veg broth, it is best to brown your onions a bit — the carmelization process gives a little body otherwise found in animal fats, or use a full-bodied wine (like a Chardonnay vs. a Pinot Grigio). I find that in vegetarian cooking body is easily made with either adding a full-bodied alcohol to things (think brown ales or red wine), added fats (still can be vegan, like coconut oil or olive oil, or even nut powder or butters depending on the dish) or carmelization — all deepen the flavors helping them meld together.
This dish is rich, so it is best cut with a side like Fresh Quickles or a salad with vinaigrette. It can also accompany a side of meat (like pork loin medallions, london broil, venison steak, grilled chicken breasts — something light and clean).
Mushroom Risotto Serves 6 as central, 8 as a side
2 Quarts Beautiful Mushrooms
1 cup chopped young onion/scallions (save the greens for garnish)/baby leeks/shallots
1 Tbsp Thyme Leaf (and a little extra for garnish, if desired)
3 cups Arborio Rice
1/2 cup White Wine
2 Quarts Chicken or Vegetable Stock
1 Tbsp Olive Oil
1 Tbsp Unsalted Butter (or if not using, add a little more olive oil), and an additional 1 Tbsp, if desired, at the end (mushrooms love butter)
1/2 cup grated Reggiano Parmesan Cheese (or Asiago)
Sea Salt/Fresh Ground Black Pepper, to taste
In a Medium saucepan, bring the broth to a simmer.
In a Large 2 qt saucepan or deep-bottom pan (stainless steel is best as it distributes heat evenly), warm the butter and olive oil over Medium heat. Add onion and saute for 2 minutes until translucent and then add chopped mushrooms, stirring frequently, until soft and dry about 5 min (they will give off a lot of liquid, be patient and stir, it will dissipate). Add the thyme, a little sea salt, and the rice — using a wooden spoon or paddle, cook and stir for 2 minutes.
Then begin adding the warm broth, one big ladle at a time (about 1/2 cup), to the rice, stirring and letting the rice absorb the liquid each time (but not letting it get dry or stick to the bottom of the pan) until al dente and with a little liquid left in the rice. When you get close to the end of the broth, add the White Wine and the Black Pepper, if desired, as a last or next to last liquid addition and stir in, letting the rice be loose but not too soupy. Remove from the heat and stir in the cheese, perhaps an extra Tbsp of butter if you are feeling decadent (I usually am), and top with chopped scallion greens or fresh herbs. Cover and let sit for a few minutes to let it settle and come together.
She dances, she runs, she sews, she reads, she crafts, she whines, she makes messes, she leaves dirty dishes everywhere…she’s 13. It’s all good, even when it’s crazy-making.
Our Duende is a lovely person; she’s freaking funny as heck, creative and smart, confident and assertive, she knows what she likes. Right now, her favorite food is probably pickles but she says it’s pork chops with some nice roasted broccoli. And ice cream. She’s a junkie for ice cream. And gourmet cheese. Her favorite music right now is probably BLACKPINK or Ava Max or the soundtrack to Victorious (even Daddy likes MBFB, or at least, it’s stuck in his head and he’s willing to dance with her to it). Her favorite book series is probably the Sinclair’s Mysteries or the Graceling series but she’ll claim Snapdragon as her favorite book ever. But you can’t pin any of this kind of stuff down — she’s 13. There’s no definites.
And this week she loves her curls, last week — hated them. Last week she would never wear black, this week she’s going to Wednesday’s funeral. A month ago she was only ‘into pop’ but I swear I caught her singing along to the Grateful Dead with J the other day. Her life goal awhile ago was to go to Scotland to the James Herriott veterinarian school and now all she wants to do is go to Japan to hang out in a bunny cafe. Or maybe the Glasgow Arts University…(apparently, still Scotland, just a different school). But let’s get her through high school first. Our little imp still has a lot of changing to do.
Ok, this is really an inspiration from a mash-up of 2 Paula Wolfert’s recipes from her Mediterranean Claypot Cooking book. I have been a massive Wolfert fan for years and years (I’m sure I tell you this all the time) and have collected a few of her intense tomes. The Slow-Mediterranean Cookbook is really stunning but generally out of my financial reach (as many reductions call for as much food as to feed a family of 5, only to be thrown out after reducing), but I find a lot of gems in Mediterranean Grains & Greens and I couldn’t survive without my copy of CousCous.
And I do this sometimes, I think my best artichoke/spinach/crab dip recipe are the 2 (and sometimes 3) consequetive recipes for such things in The Joy of Cooking, all of them, together. This one is like that — where I have a bit of this, a bit of that, the cooking is from one, the method from the other, and the two were handfasted and now reside on my plate. So, this below is the lovechild of Tile-Roasted Lamb Shepherd’s Style and Moroccan Mechoui…I chose to head it under the latter since it covers the cut of the meat and the stronger spices.
We also really really wanted to start our Summer goal of cooking over the firepit — we put up (freezing, canning, fermenting) so much last year we need to eat it down in order to get ready for this year’s harvests, which we’re using this method to get through. We have a tripod to hang a pot (or piece of meat over a pot), or a cauldron, or a big pot you can put right into the coals (we recommend cast iron, it gets hot but bakes/roasts pretty evenly), and a grill over it so there are many options to cook over a fire. Josh loves the added elemental flavor, the extra grittiness to the dish — it feels real, and connected, and frankly, freaking delicious. We are also trying to get through the last of our lamb from the Winter, and have the big bits and the weird bits left. Cooking over a fire makes all this possible in easy ways. We highly recommend it!
1 Stick of Tbsp Unsalted Butter, 4Tbsp at just room temp, and 4Tbsp cut into pats
1 1/2 Tbsp ground Coriander
2 tsp ground Cumin
1 tsp Smoke Paprika (sweet or hot, your desire)
1 tsp freshly ground Black Pepper
2 tsp Greek Oregano
2 cups (or more if desired) of Fregola, cook as directed (2 cups of water to 1 cup of Fregola), alternatively potatoes or bread or classic Couscous
2 Medium Vidalia Onions (or 3 Med Shallots, or 2 Med Leeks, even frozen), chopped coarsely
And then clear out your frozen/canned veggies: we used a bag (1/2#) of frozen Scapes, and 3# of Whole frozen Tomatoes (they freeze great whole! or we slice them/roast them with garlic, olive oil, and herbs and then freeze them);
Last year we did this and also threw in that random bag of Zucchini (doesn’t freeze that great), canned Green Beans, frozen Pell Peppers, and chopped fresh Potatoes (unless using couscous, which I guess you could still throw in potatoes, especially if you have a crowd to feed)…we’ve also tossed in (generally with the tomatoes, they make a nice liquid to not burn everything) frozen and fresh Kale and the incessant bags of kale stems that I keep, all kinds of stuff you think will roast up nice in a tomato stew, essentially. It becomes like a decadent Ratatouille. Or medium button size Mushrooms, whole.
A few hours before cooking: Take all the spices and the 4Tbsp of room temp butter and combine (best with your hands or a fork) and rub into the scoring of the Lamb (it’s fine to put it into the pot you’re going to cook in and let rest for a couple of hours if you can.
Set up the tripod or grill and the fire, get it to where there are nice slow coals so you can bank them up or remove them when needed. When ready toss in remaining butter (in pats) and chosen vegetables, set the lid all the way on if you are putting in the pot or hang meat with a meathook from the tripod over the vegetables (then either on a grill above the fire or hanging from the tripod). At this point we put the Lamb in the pot with the veg and hung over the coals on the tripod, you could equally put the whole pot into the fire and keep coals low and slow (and can even put them on the lid in the right cast iron pot) and cooked over the fire for 2-3 hours (depending on how slow your coals are, we could’ve probably gone a little slower but it turned out extravagent, nonetheless). You only need an inner temp of 140degreesF on the meat which you will probably get pretty easy, if it cooks slow enough it will keep the meat soft. Keep an eye on the liquid, you need enough so as not to burn the veggies or the meat and then as much as you want it to be stewlike, we chose a thick sort of stew to stir into the fregola…turn the meat occassionally to test its tenderness.
Remove from heat. We didn’t cook the fregola as per directions but threw it into the pot with extra water to absorb but leave a little movement (I might recommend 3:1, liquid to fregola). Or serve with bread/wide egg noodles/couscous, etc. And serve with a vinaigrette or lemon green salad or fresh pickles to brighten the unctiousness.
We’re getting to a place where we need to rethink our systems. Pretty much all of them: homesteading, parenting, the shop, our creative endeavors, our eating habits…what we thought was a goal is now either satisfied or will not come to be. I’m not one to think of success or failure as measures — the practice is the key, if we choose to acknowledge what we have learned from it, it’s all good. And it is good to reevaluate. Our needs change, so should the way we go about them.
So, we’re tweaking all of the things. Some changes to the way we view how we want to work with the world — the shop is about community-building so we will add to our partnerships, pare down extraneous busyness and complication (I prefer complexity over complication), and keep trying to work with folks who want to work with us. The homestead has proved to be challenging in ways we weren’t expecting; I can’t spend the time or energy in growing everything and it obviously wants to grow what it wants when it wants, so we will be more subject to the things that are favorable to the changing conditions here (blackberries, grapes, perennial herbs, small mixed gardens — not apples, not elderberries, not pumpkins, not corn) and more foraging opportunities. No laying chickens for now (perhaps more meatbirds next Summer) and we are converting the coop to a garden shed. I don’t feel like we are failures, we are just adjusting our expectations and designing better outcomes for us at this time.
Meanwhile, the Sage blooms, the late Lilac entices the Swallowtails, the Peas grow, the Peonies open, the Multiflora Rose hedge gets ready for its yearly debut (only lasting for a week) and I will get the rest of the Beans in today, the Pepper plants, seed the Tatsoi/Pak Choi bed, put up some more Tomato buckets (going for buckets this year, we’ll see), plant the rest of the Calendula, the Dahlia, the Strawflowers, Celosia, Gomphrena, Poppies, and whatever else I have as little babies (many herbs: Horehound, Basil of 6 flavors, Ashwaganda, Feverfew) and seeds (Sunflowers, Chamomile, Thyme).
And we’ll just see. We’ll see what sticks when we reassert some interest and change.
Yes, the weather says it is Summer but if we named things by how the weather changes we would miss the planetary, solar, and lunar alignments and that is important, too. And we would be naming a lot more things (though, I do like randomly naming things just for the heck of it but it drives me a little crazy every year when people call the Solstice midsummer, which is in August and a very important celebration for us) but it is still Spring, at least for a couple of weeks. The Summer Solstice is a lovely time to feel the lushness of the days.
As we lead up to it, Duende has been out and about more. Rollerskating, of course, on Tuesday-delivery-day (though she misses her old roller skating partner at the park), badminton and archery in the backyard (though she needs an actual bow, she has a little handmade one but she’s too big for it now, but not yet big enough for Josh’s, though she does her best), and the other day J and she busted out the old bikes from the garage to start working on them (she has some detailing dreams now). Today she is mowing and making bracelets (she even made herself a platform with hooks to help her, and now she’s adding beads and buttons). She found a splash pad, a sprinkler, and Betty’s kiddie pool to get a little water play in, too. Then Betty came by to cool off!!! It was as if she invoked her; my wonderful little wytch.
She was happy to hit the Ice Cream Shoppe in Randolph for a first ice cream cone out of the season (though I don’t know who she is kidding, she gets ice cream cones from Goldfinch Creamery & Cafe all the time now but it’s a tradition we go out for family ice cream from time to time by the river).
I’m going to guess this Summer will be more of the same though with a visit from Grammy, a birthday by the end of the month, and a camping trip after true Midsummer.
Working on getting the garden going some more (putting many beans and peppers and flowers in, tilling and putting corn in a new stretch, settling on a hops fence which also shapes a new garlic bed and will get us to remake the white grape fencing by Fall), potting my tomatoes this year (I will have a year without hornworms!!!), and converting the chicken coop into a garden shed. I’m jealous of all the lovely sheds I’ve seen lately (living in the fantasy world of #shedlife) and having laying chickens again, as much as I miss them, is more work than I need to do (though I’m already planning on a batch of meat birds next year). We interrupted some daft little Song Sparrows nesting in the grass next to the garden the other day — little fledglings running for the trees!! I suppose that’s what they get for nesting there (ha!, no, I was worried all day after).
Also, working on the lovely board of the Good Life Center, the educational homestead of Scott & Helen Nearing, and feeling positive about getting them more visibility and support. As I write about the Nearings, I get to work directly with preserving their legacy, keeping it a living practice of social justice and simple living. I wish I could go to Harborside (I’ve only been once, and it’s quite lovely) more often. They have great workshops, a Summer speaker series, and a stewardship program — if you haven’t checked it out, you should. There are many ripples from their work you are likely familiar with.
We’ve got some Rhubarb Compote to whip up for the shop, new publisher partnerships to embark upon, events to schedule, pamphlets to create, and as always, not enough time to get it all together and feel like we have down time. Today is really our Friday (which we now call Fruesday, or something crazy like that) so as we get to our weekend, we get to all of the things we don’t get to do while we’re at work.
Rock Bottom Homestead 