Orange and Pale Ale Marinated Steak

grilled steak sliced

The other day I wanted to cook the little pastured blade steaks I had ordered from the CSA, but wanted to add a little oomph to them beyond simply salting and peppering.  I know this particular cut can be a little tough, too, so I wanted to prepare them in way that would relax them a bit.  Right around that time, I had received the August issue of Sunset Magazine, which featured a selection of marinade recipes, one of which sounded perfect for my little steaks.

marinated steaks

This marinade called for orange juice and beer as its main ingredients, both of which help to tenderize meat.  It also included garlic and onion as aromatics.  I decided to try it.  The night before I wanted to cook them, I put the marinade together and poured it over the steaks.  By the next evening, they were ready to go!

Well, the marinade definitely helped to tenderize the steak – while not buttery in texture by any means, the meat sliced well and was delicious, cooked at medium.  The marinade gave them wonderful flavor, while allowing the inherent taste of the meat to come through.  It was well-received in my household and I would totally use this marinade again.

steak on the grill

It will come as no surprise to some of my friends that I would be a little lost at sea when it comes to cooking slabs of meat, having been a vegetarian for so many years.  I needed a little guidance, so I must give props to the instructions in Alice Waters’ The Art of Simple Food.  It has great basic info for a noob like myself!

Orange and Pale Ale Marinade
adapted from Sunset Magazine, August 2010 issue

1/2 cup medium-bodied beer, such as pale ale
Zest and juice of 1 large orange (2 large oranges would work, too, if you want more orange flavor)
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon naturally fermented soy sauce
1 large garlic clove, minced
1/2 medium onion, peeled and coarsely shredded on a box grater
1 teaspoon coarse sea salt

Whisk all ingredients together. Put beef in a nonreactive baking dish and pour marinade over, turning to coat.

Marinate for one day, then grill.  Makes enough marinade for 2 pounds of beef.

Lacto-Fermented Salsa

lf salsa

This week I expanded my fermentation repertoire into lacto-fermented salsa.  I’d not fermented anything involving fruit (tomatoes are really a fruit) before, so this was a new experience.  I learned that fruit-based ferments progress quicker than vegetable-based ones, so I expected to see some results early on.  Additionally, it’s pretty warm right now, and that ambient heat also encourages a quicker fermentation.  I love salsa, and thought I’d enjoy a lacto-fermented one, but had no idea just how delicious it would be!

This is a timely dish because tomatoes are in season.  Summer tomatoes are one of the true joys of the season.  They taste so amazing right now. Canned tomatoes can be used, but they are nothing like fresh tomatoes.

peeled tomatoes

So why make fermented salsa?  Well, the lactobacilli helps to increase the digestibility of the salsa, plus the increased levels of vitamins and enzymes go way up.  The lactic acid helps it to not spoil, and helps promote a healthy gut with the natural probiotics that develop.

chopped tomatoes

This is a pretty easy recipe to prepare without a food processor, but if you have one (or a stick blender even), preparing this salsa will come together in a jiffy.  I like chopping things by hand, so I was fine with doing it manually, but if I ever get myself a food processor, I’ll try it that way, too.

ingredients pre mixing

This salsa tastes like summer and has a delicious tang to it from the fermentation.  I actually took it with me as an example item for my talk on traditional foods for Queens Holistic Moms, and it was very well received!  People loved it, and went back for second and third tastes.  I was really happy about that!

The whey works really well with it, too.

salsa in a jar

This post is participating in Fight Back Friday, hosted by Food Renegade.

CSA Bounty – Week Ten

Week 10 Collage

This week was another winner – ultra-summery veggies and fruit.  From the top, left to right, row by row, starting at the top:

cucumbers, basil, green and purple peppers (we got one of each), blackberries, summer squash, tomatoes, donut peaches, cantaloupes, okra

We actually got melon in both the vegetable and fruit shares! So I have two lovely melons at home.  I think the last time we got melon in a veggie share was the first season as Hellgate CSA (so, in 2006), and we’ve never had melon in the fruit share.  It’s very exciting.

Donut peaches are amazing!  I love them.

Not sure what to do about the okra – maybe make lact-fermented okra?  Will explore some recipes.

As I write this, the tomatoes are gone.  I used most of them to make lacto-fermented salsa, and ate the other one in a tomato and basil salad.

Will make cucumber soup this week, most likely.  Would be good to use some raw yogurt in it.

Love the summer veggies and fruit!

Lacto-Fermented Beets

One of the things I’m going to talk about on Wednesday is lacto-fermentation, that traditional method of preserving food with salt and/or whey, that results in a more nutrient dense food that is high in vitamin C, and full of probiotics.  I want to have an example to show everyone at the talk, and I had some beets in my refrigerator, so I chose to ferment them.

whole raw beets

I love beets prepared many ways, and fermenting them is just one way to make them delicious.  I first learned about lacto-fermentation from Andrew Faust, a permaculture specialist based in Brooklyn NY, but formerly lived 8 years off the grid in rural West Virginia.   He taught a fermentation workshop in Sunnyside (sponsored by Food Not Lawns) that was really great and I learned so much!  It got me really excited about fermentation.

To make these beets, I used my experience from this workshop with a little guidance from Sandor Katz’s Wild Fermentation, a wonderful book about, well, fermented foods.  These foods range from vegetables to dairy, to beverages, and more.  It’s an awesome book.

The first thing to do is find yourself a non-reactive bowl.  I use a large pyrex bowl when I’m doing any kind of fermentation, be it LF veggies, working with sourdough, or soaking grains/flours.  Another material to use would be ceramic – just don’t use metal.

Prepare your beets – rinse them off to get rid of dirt but don’t scrub the outside or peel the beets.  There are microorganisms living on the outside of the beets (and other vegetables, too), that you want to retain to help with the whole fermentation process.

I used about a pound and a half of beets for this batch.  It might seem like a lot, but it compresses quite a bit.

The next thing to do is to grate the beets.  Those of you with food processors, you can just put them through that, but a hand grater works great.  I use a box grater.  Be careful of those knuckles!

grated beets

After you grate the beets, add 1/2 to 1 tablespoon of sea salt; iodized salt is not recommended for this.  If you want your ferment to be saltier, use more salt.  I used a whole tablespoon because I’m going to use these beets as a flavoring for beans and grains, which I won’t salt.  Pound the beets with a wooden spoon, smashing them and mixing them together as you go.  Soon, the beets will start to break down and exude some liquid.

juicy beets

These beets got kind of foamy, probably because of the saponins within.

really juicy beets

Find yourself a very clean (sterilized is great, but thoroughly washed with soap and water works, too) glass jar with a lid – I like using canning jars with metal lids.  I also like to use a wide mouth funnel, which helps immensely when putting the beets in the jar.

the vessel

Put the beets in the jar!  As you put them in there, press down to exude even more liquid.

beets in the jar

This liquid is a kind of brine that will help protect the beets from exposure to outside air.

from the top

As you can see in this picture, there was space between my beets and the top of the jar.  So, I made a separate brine – 1 tablespoon sea salt to 1 cup of water. I poured it into the jar until there was about 1/4-1/2 inch left at the top.

pouring in the brine

After you’ve poured enough brine in, screw on the lid until it’s finger tight, but not too tight.  It’s good to turn the jar upside down a few times to let any air bubbles come up and release into the area just below the lid.

beets ready to ferment

Set your jar of beets in a dark, warmish cupboard.  After a couple of days, check the beets and see how you like them.  If you want them a little tangier, let them ferment for another day and check it, and so on.  If you like what you taste, store the beets in the fridge in the door.  The fridge is the best “refrigerator microclimate” for such things.

These beets – or any lacto-fermented food – are a living food.  Mine were so alive this weekend that they wanted to escape some!  Our warm summer no doubt has accelerated certain processes in the fermentation process; I doubt this would be the same situation in the heart of winter.

Apparently I tightened the lid just a tad too tight, so that the beets didn’t have any space to release their gas, so they pressed up against the lid as hard as they could!  The lid was slightly domed when I saw it on Sunday morning.  I had to release the tension so that I could check on them, and they exclaimed all sorts of fizzy sounds in the process!  I did spoon out a couple tablespoons of beets and added more brine to relax things.  They’ve been fine since then.

Of course, there are systems that are truly designed for fermentation.  The Harsch crock is one, regular crocks with a plate is another system, and there are fancy lids for mason jars.  My system has worked for me, and I’ve made some great LF foods this way.  Plus, it utilizes tools I have at home, at my fingertips.  One day I’ll buy a Harsch, I expect, but it’s not on my list for the moment.

I tasted the beets this morning and they are already tangy!  And a little salty, but they will be fantastic with black beans or millet.

Hooray for lacto fermented beets!  Yum.

holding beets

Giant Tomato – Prudens Purple

Wednesday morning I was finally able to pick “big bertha” the monstermato on my Prudens Purple plant.  It’s one of the few tomatoes on this plant that did not suffer from blossom end rot.  So many tomatoes on that plant are suffering from this ailment, and it is a real bummer.  I may get a few more whole tomatoes off that plant, but I expect that will be it.

Anyway, behold the tomato!

pruden's purple monstermato

It’s at least 4 inches across and craggy up top.  I think the craggy-ness is another kind of ailment, but I’m not so worried about it.

craggy

Spooky.  It really is kind of scary to behold.

from the top

I’ll eat it in the next few days because it seems really ripe.

I’m sure you’ve noticed that this tomato isn’t purple, as the name of it might suggest.  Not sure what’s up with that.  I just hope it’s delicious!  Apparently it has a similar taste to the Brandywine tomato, a very popular variety it seems.

Will report back on the taste soon.

CSA Bounty – Week Nine

Well, this week we got a fantastic selection of summer vegetables.  I was really excited when I saw the share menu for the week!  I was so excited that I forgot to take pictures of my share before I dove in, d’oh.  It’s been a hectic week, too, so I haven’t had a chance to do a share photoshoot.  Still, I’ll tell you what we got this week:

tomatoes
cucumbers
bell peppers
summer squash
eggplant
parsley (mint was another option)
peaches
plums
blackberries

Fantastic!!!  You can’t ask for a more summery selection than that.

I took the tomatoes, eggplant, and peppers and stewed them all together and topped it with a little grated parmesan.  I have a lot to learn about cooking eggplant, I think.  It is one of the most challenging vegetables to cook well.  I have a white eggplant that I will work with over the weekend.

I also peeled the cucumber, sliced it, and combined it with the tomato, cut into wedges.  Add a little extra virgin olive oil, salt and pepper, and perhaps some sherry vinegar, and that makes for a delicious summer salad.

As for the summer squash, not sure what I’ll do with them exactly.  I am overloaded with summer squashes of all kinds right now. One thing I could do with them is simply grate them and freeze them for use in zucchini bread or sprouted muffins over the winter.

As for the fruit, I’ve eaten most of the blackberries and am enjoying the yellow plums a lot.  I think I’ll make a peach crisp this weekend, too.  I would like to see if I can adjust the recipe for the crisp topping to accommodate rapadura/sucanat and coconut sugar. Yum!

Pictures next week, promise.

Traditional Food for Urban Families

Trad Urban Lecture

Later this month I’ll be giving a talk at the August meeting of the Queens Holistic Moms about eating and preparing real, traditional food, entitled Traditional Food for Urban Families.  Specifics include how to:

  • Soak beans and lentils for increased nutrient assimilation
  • Sprout and soak grains for easier digestion
  • Lacto-ferment produce to boost the immune system

I’ll also bring up the subject of raw milk, traditional sugar alternatives, pastured meats, and encourage people to eat a more unrefined diet in general.

And although I do not have children, I have a very busy life schedule, from my day job, to my work with my CSA; from  running to writing; to spending time with family and friends, and more (including getting back to playing music)!  So, I know what it’s like to be pressed for time.   My goal is to help people understand that eating whole, real, traditional food is totally possible even with time constraints and demands, with a little planning.

If any of you reading this are local, please join us!  Women and men are welcome, as are those of you that don’t have kids. You can RSVP here.  Here are the logistical details:

Traditional Food for Urban Families
Talk by Meg Cotner for the Queens Holistic Moms
ARROW Community Center
35-30 35th Street (between 35th & 36th Aves) in Astoria
Wednesday, August 11th, 2010, 6:30pm – 8pm

Hope to see you there!

Photo credit:  image by Queens Holistic Moms