Winter Farmer’s Market Finds

Posted on by Sacha Cohen

Guest post by Carrie Madren

Some of the DC-area farmer’s markets stay open year-round, giving locals an opportunity to sample fresh winter vegetables. In season are apples (stored in cool temps), beets, cabbage, carrots, onions, parsnips, potatoes, rutabagas, sweet potatoes, turnips, and winter squash.

Among the best ways to prepare a cold-weather bounty is roasting it with savory dried herbs and spices, and with a flexible recipe such as the one below, you can throw together whatever vegetables you have on hand for a scrumptious side dish.

Roasted Winter Vegetables

6-8 cups winter vegetables: beets, carrots, onions, potatoes, rutabagas, sweet potatoes, turnips, winter squash (peeled and cut in 1-inch pieces or slices 1/2-inch thick)
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 Tbsp dried or 3 Tbsp fresh herbs such as rosemary, thyme, parsley, oregano

Directions: Toss ingredients together (keep onions separate, as they will roast faster; add them to the pan 10 minutes into the baking time). Spread in a single layer on greased baking pans. Roast in a preheated oven at 425 degrees until tender, about 30-45 minutes, stirring occasionally. Season with salt and pepper. Serve with roasted garlic sauce (see below).

Roasted garlic sauce: Remove loose papery layers from outside of a whole garlic bulb but do not peel. Slice off top of the bulb, exposing the tip of each clove. Place on a square of aluminum foil and drizzle with 1 Tbsp olive oil or just season with salt and pepper. Wrap tightly and bake alongside the vegetables until tender. Squeeze soft roasted cloves into a small bowl, mash with fork, and stir in 3/4 cup plain yogurt.

Serves 8
(Recipe courtesy “Simply in Season” by Mary Beth Lind)

Arlington Farmers Market
North Courthouse Road and 14th Street (courthouse parking lot)
703-228-6400 (George Parish)
Saturdays, year-round: 9 a.m.-noon, January-April

Bethesda Central Farm Market
Elm Street between Woodmont Ave. and Wisconsin Ave., Bethesda, MD
Sundays, year-round, 9 a.m.-1 p.m.

Clarendon Farmers Market
Wilson Boulevard and N. Highland Street, Arlington (Clarendon Metro Station)
703-812-8881
2-7 p.m. Wednesdays, year-round

Columbia Pike Farmers Market
South Walter Reed Drive and Columbia Pike (Pike Park in front of the Rite Aid)
9 a.m.-1 p.m. Sundays, winter season

Del Ray Farmers Market
East Oxford and Mount Vernon avenues
703-683-2570 (Pat Miller)
9 a.m.-noon Saturdays, winter season
pmiller1806@comcast.net

Dupont Circle FreshFarm Market
20th and Q streets NW
202-362-8889
Sundays, year-round: 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., Jan. 3-March 28

Eastern Market Outdoor Farmers Market
225 Seventh St. SE
202-698-5253 (Barry Margeson)
7 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays, year-round

Kensington Farmers Market
Howard Avenue (Kensington train station parking lot)
301-949-2424 (Shirley Watson)
8 a.m.-noon Saturdays, year-round

Montgomery Farm Women’s Cooperative Market
7155 Wisconsin Ave., Bethesda
7 a.m.-4 p.m. Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays, year-round

Takoma Park Farmers Market
Laurel Avenue between Eastern and Carroll avenues
10 a.m.-2 p.m. Sundays, year-round

Organic Ginger Mashed Sweet Potatoes

Posted on by Sacha Cohen

This Thanksgiving, why not make a simple side dish using some fresh organic ginger and sweet potatoes from a local farmer’s market? Treat your guests to this gingery mashed potato recipe, courtesy of Restaurant Nora.

Gingery Mashed Sweet Potatoes

I like to use the orange variety of sweet potato or Jewell yams.

There are two ways of making this dish. Use one small potato per person.

Option 1:

Rub whole sweet potatoes with olive oil, salt, and pepper, and baked at 400 degrees for about one hour or until soft. Halve the potato lengthwise and scoop out the inside and place in a bowl. Mash with a ½ tablespoon of butter per potato and season with grated fresh ginger (about ½ teaspoon per potato), salt and pepper. Garnish with crystallized ginger (optional).

Option 2:

Peel and thinly sliced raw potatoes. Toss with ½ tablespoon of butter per potato, 1 tablespoon of whole milk or half and half, salt and a pinch of sugar. Place in a saucepan, cover and cook over low heat for about 40 minutes or until soft, stirring from time to time. Mash with a potato masher or fork and flavor with freshly grated ginger. Season with salt and pepper and brown sugar (optional). Garnish with crystallized ginger (optional).


Where to Find Heritage, Free-Range, and Organic Turkeys

Posted on by Sacha Cohen

Heritage TurkeyThanksgiving is right around the corner. Do you know where your turkey is? If you haven’t already ordered a bird, there may still be time to get one that’s organic and/or locally-raised.

The advantages of ordering a non-commercial bird are plentiful: If it’s certified organic, you can rest assured that it wasn’t injected with antibiotics and has been fed organic feed.

Other types of birds–including free-range and pasturized–weren’t confined to cages or subjected to inhumane living conditions.

There are also Heritage turkeys, which are the ancestors of the common broad-breasted white industrial breed of turkey that account for almost all of the supermarket turkeys sold today. They dine on fresh grass and insects and lead relatively long, happy lives.

By buying a free-range, organic, or Heritage turkey, you’re not only getting a better bird, you’re supporting small local farmers.

Ready to order? Here are some local farms and shops where you can find a splendid turkey to be the centerpiece of your Thanksgiving celebration:

Ayshire Farm: Organic

Cibola Farms: Pasture-raised and heritage

Eastern Market: Locally raised

Let’s Meat on the Avenue: Free-range

Maple Lawn Farm: Free-range

MOMs Organic: Local free-range and organic free-range

Whole Foods: Organic and heritage, depending on location

YES! Organic: Organic and free-range, depending on location

Does the idea of a tough bird fill you with dread? To make sure your turkey turns out moist and tasty, consider brining it. Here’s an apple-brined turkey with herbs recipe from the Washington Post. Your friends and family will, um, gobble, gobble it up.

On-the-Go Green Carts

Posted on by Sacha Cohen
Sweetflow taking a nap
Sweetflow taking a nap

We’ve been fans of On the Fly’s Smartkarts for some time, and now, they have company. The other evening we spotted SweetGreen’s adorable Sweetflow mobile parked outside of E Street Cinema (after the Food, Inc. premiere) serving up their addictive tangy frozen yogurt.

The environmentally friendly, custom-built vehicle doesn’t have a generator, so it runs on 8o% less gas than a traditional ice-cream truck.

Sweetflow yogurt is made with Stoneyfield Farms Plain fat-free organic yogurt and many of the toppings are organic or local. And just like at the standing Sweetgreen locations, all the spoons, cups and lids doled out at the mobile are 100% biodegradable.

Owner Nicolas Jammet was manning the cart with a pal, and suggested we follow them on Twitter to find out where they can be found around town. Starting in July, the truck will have a fixed schedule during weekdays

If you’re willing to venture further afield, the Local Sixfortyseven cart, which was recently featured in The Washington Post, offers a seasonal menu featuring locally sourced ingredients. Husband-and-wife team Derek and Amanda Luhowiak serve everything from buckwheat pancakes with blackberry-rosemary syrup to burgers made with organic, grass-fed beef and locally made cheese.

You can find Local Sixfortyseven parked at the Centreville farmers market on Fridays from 3:30 to 6:30 and at the Winchester farmers market on Sundays from 9:30 am to 1:30 pm. For more info, email them at luhowiak@hotmail.com.

Brave Food World

Posted on by Sacha Cohen
Joel Palentin of Polyface Farms courtesy of Food, Inc.
Joel Salatin of Polyface Farms courtesy of Food, Inc.

Eat something organic before you head to see Food, Inc., the provocative new documentary from filmmaker Robert Kenner, featuring authors Michael Pollan (An Omnivore’s Dilemma) and Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation) because you surely won’t want to eat after watching it.

The film serves up a stomach-churning look inside the highly mechanized world of food production, from chickens that never see daylight to cows forced to stand all day in their own feces. Even seemingly innocent soybeans are revealed to be “patented” by chemical giant Monsanto in their effort to control seed production and independent farmers.

Perhaps even more disturbing than the shocking reality of modern food production gone awry is that the agencies (FDA, USDA) that are supposedly there to protect us are in cahoots with the handful of corporations that put profit ahead of our health, the livelihood of the American farmer, and the safety of workers and our own environment.

Interspersed among the food borne illnesses and soul-less, window-less factories are interviews with colorful social entrepreneurs like Stonyfield’s Gary Hirshberg and Polyface Farms’ Joel Salatin. Says local hero Salatin,“Imagine what it would be if, as a national policy, we said we would be only successful if we had fewer people going to the hospital next year than last year? The idea then would be to have such nutritionally dense, unadulterated food that people who ate it actually felt better, had more energy and weren’t sick as much…  now, see, that’s a noble goal.”

Besides strengthening my resolve to not eat processed food and to support local producers whenever possible, the take-away for me was that we must pay even closer attention to what we are eating and why. Vote with your wallet by choosing locally grown food and organics, eschew mass-produced meats, corn syrup laden snacks and genetically modified produce. We can’t afford not to.