Birthday Foraging Expedition

Susan tries something green and hearty during our foraging tour - brave girl!

We are having *crazy* weather here in New England this summer. Today it is so humid that I am huddled by our new air conditioner, hoping to get a little bit of relief from the sticky, icky, yucky day. It has been much improved by my cold glass of white wine, and a tour of this summer's photos...including those from my birthday. My birthday falls at the end of June, and we spent the evening at Waltham Fields Community Farm - just what I love! Susan, Tim, Andrew, and I participated in a foraging tour of the farm, we ate birthday potluck dinner (including rhubarb pie!), and stayed to watch Andrew host star gazing night for farm members. It was a happy, relaxing way to spend the evening, and a fantastic way to forget that I am currently in my mid-30s.

WFCF in the evening light.

On our foraging walk, we learned about many, many plants that one can harvest from the Massachusetts landscape - I will admit that I'm a bit lukewarm about the greens, but the nuts and berries are quite tasty. We enjoyed fruit leather made from Autumn Olive, toasted black walnuts and hickory nuts, and a June berry pie made by the leader of our foraging expedition. As the guide said, we do NOT recommend that you go out and pick things from the landscape without a proper guidebook - there are few things in Massachusetts, besides mushrooms, that could kill you, but you do not want to get sick. If you are interested in attending a foraging walk or learning to forage with a guide book, check out Russ Cohen, our guide. And, now, enjoy our photos!

Russ Cohen educates us about the natural bounty of the landscape.

Tim was totally into it!

Though they are an invasive species, autumn olives are a lovely berry that make great fruit leather.

Hickory (l.) and black walnut (r.) - we ate them both, but I preferred the hickory nut - black walnut is definitely an acquired taste, but is widely available in New England forests.

Lettuce extraordinaire!

Possibly the biggest head of lettuce I've ever seen. It took 6 people to finish this thing off...

Susan's Oven Risotto

Grains sure are hard to come by here in New England. When we lived in California we ate rice from the Sacramento Valley, but otherwise we just bought grains in bulk - and that's what we're doing here, too. I have found Maine cornmeal and the lovely wheat from western Massachusetts, but we need our whole grains to stay trim and fit! So, I do buy rice, quinoa, and other things, and occasionally we get a bag of wheat or barley from the Enterprise Farm Share. If you, dear readers, have suggestions for where to find more local grains, please let me know.

Now that Susan and Tim are on their honeymoon in la bella Italia, I have been craving Italian goodness...pizza, ricotta, tomatoes and basil, olives...Risotto, a creamy Italian rice dish, is one of my favorite meals and is a great way to use up the veggies from the Waltham Fields Share, especially when one begins to grow tired of summer squash and zucchini. My sister Susan is an absolutely wonderful cook and she has several tried and true recipes (if you're lucky, I'll share some more). One of these is an oven risotto that takes less than half an hour from beginning to your bowl. This is not the traditional way to concoct an Italian risotto and may offend you die-hard risotto eaters, but it sure is quick and delicious.

I'm writing this as the smell of risotto fills the air - temperatures are finally cool enough for me to turn on the oven and we had an abundance of veggies in the fridge. Hopefully this will satisfy my Italian cravings!

Susan Foster's Oven Risotto:
1/4 c. onion, chopped
1-2 c. other veggies - leeks, summer squash, zucchini, fennel, or whatever hearty summer veg you might have on hand - cut into very thin slices. If you are using peas or other very delicate vegetables, cook these separately and add at the end!
Sautée the veggies in olive oil in a pan you can cover (a covered sautée pan or Le Creuset pot, for instance). Add salt and pepper.
When the veggies are soft, move them to one side of the pan and add 3/4 c. arborio rice - sautée until it begins to turn translucent (2 minutes, approximately).
Add 1/4 c. dry white wine and cook off alcohol.
Add 1/2 c. chicken stock and 1 1/2 c. boiling water.
Bring mixture to a boil, cover, and put into a 425-degree oven.
Check the rice after 5-10 minutes and stir.
After another 5-10 minutes, the mixture should be sticky and gooey, but not dry - at this point you can add 1/4-1/2 c. grated parmesan cheese.

...and the buzzer tells me my risotto is ready, so off I go, white wine in hand, to imagine I'm in an Italian villa overlooking the sea. Buon appetito!

Using my Barefoot Contessa cookbook as a guide, I made the leftover risotto into cakes - mix with a bit of yogurt or ricotta cheese, coat in bread crumbs, and sautée in olive oil.