Sunchokes, also known as Jerusalem artichokes, look very similar to ginger root, but when you begin to peel them they offer an intensely concentrated artichoke aroma. Raw, they have the texture of a water chestnut, but taste sweeter and nuttier. They are a member of the tuber farm and are packed with iron and potassium. They aid in digestion and store carbs as inulin, not starch, making them an ideal substitute for potatoes. The farmer suggested roasting them or serving raw in a salad, but I’ve had sunchoke soup on the mind since Ramona’s post in the spring. This simple soup lets their flavor shine. I added mushrooms which added to the earthy flavor, but you can omit them.

Recipe: Creamy Sunchoke Soup
Adapted from Thomas Keller

Ingredients:

• 1 pound sunchokes
• 1 leek, white part and an inch of the green portion, rinsed well
• 1/2 cup maitake mushroom
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1/4 teaspoon white pepper
• pinch of sea salt
• 4 cups reduced-sodium chicken broth
• 1/2 cup cream

Instructions: Peel and thinly slice the sunchokes. (They are a little tricky to peel, so go carefully.) Slice the leek cross-wise into thin strips. Coarsely chop the mushrooms. Melt butter in stock pot over medium low heat. Add sunchokes and leeks and cook until they are translucent, about 8 minutes. Add mushrooms and cook 2 minutes more. Season with white pepper and salt, and stir in chicken stock. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low and simmer for 15 minutes. Remove from heat and puree in blender or with stick blender until smooth. (If using hand-held blender, you may wish to strain through a chinois strainer or cheesecloth to remove any extra lumps.) Stir in cream, warm over low heat for two minutes, then remove from heat and serve. Makes 4 servings. Enjoy!

Farms of Origin: Organic sunchokes and leek, Next Step Produce and maitake from the Mushroom Lady, Dupont Circle Farmers Market. Butter from South Mountain Creamery.

Chef Eric Ripert recently launched a “Dinner Social” project on his blog, Avec Eric, to encourage fans to cook with friends and family. You have to love a chef who is willing to share recipes and techniques to encourage you to enjoy their food at home. As the theme for the first challenge was “Market Table,” I naturally was intrigued. When April, of The Food Scribe, suggested a collaborative effort with fellow DC food bloggers, I was definitely on board. Together with April, Tiffany of The Garden Apartment and Alison of The Humble Gourmand, we spent Sunday afternoon cooking and enjoying good wine and conversation. We bought as many of our ingredients as possible at our local farmers markets, with my squash from the Del Ray market, Tiffany’s root vegetables from the Dupont Circle market, and April’s pears from the Takoma Park market. With cameras in hand, we took over April’s lovely kitchen and set to work.

My assignment was the Pumpkin Soup with Herbed Creme Fraiche & Spiced Pumpkin Seeds. Chef Ripert suggested serving it in a large roasted pumpkin, but I discovered that it’s hard to find full-size pumpkins after Halloween. The pumpkin for the soup was actually Japanese Kabocha squash, with a rich, orange pulp. My only complaint was that the Kabocha was very hard to peel; next time I would probably roast it a little to make it easier. I hollowed out and roasted lovely orange and green Celebration squash to use as individual serving bowls. (Roasted at 450 degrees for 20 minutes.)

The local ingredients in my soup came from Potomac Vegetable Farms, Va. (thyme), Three Way Farm, Va. (squash, onion and elephant garlic), and Trickling Springs Creamery, Pa. (heavy cream). The rest were organic products from Alexandria’s My Organic Market.

Each course incorporated seasonal ingredients with unexpected flavor combinations. I never would have thought to add brussel sprouts to a roasted root vegetable platter, for example, but the bright green added a lovely visual component as well as a crisp bite among softer turnips, beets and carrots. While it would have been a lot of work for one cook, Ripert provided a several day preparation guide that would have lessened the work load the day of the dinner party. With multiple chefs, it came together easily. All together it was a fabulous meal, made better with great company and good wine! This was the perfect way to spend a chilly November afternoon. Thank you, Chef Ripert, for the inspiration!

(Pictured, clockwise from left, Tiffany, April, yours truly, Alison.)

Be sure to surf around to see Tiffany’s roasted lamb and root vegetable, Alison’s endives with prosciutto, blue cheese and pomegranate seeds – and perfect wine picks, and April‘s carmelized onion and olive croustade and roasted pears with chocolate bourbon sauce and homemade chestnut ice cream. And you can drool over all our pictures over on Flickr.

Last week was Virginia’s Farmers Market Week, so we celebrated by heading to three local markets last weekend. The toddler and I visited the McLean Market Friday morning, which is located in a shady corner of a park and had a nice mix of vendors, many familiar and a few new. The Middleburg ice cream truck was a fun touch. Westmoreland Berry Farm had giant blackberries and sweet raspberries – the toddler instructed me to keep them coming, one color in each hand. They also had one box of wilted squash blossoms (we were there shortly before closing time) that she threw in free since they were rather sad-looking. Mount Olympus Berry Farm had a rainbow of beautiful peppers (I picked purple and orange), tomatillos and purple and white cream peas. We got our favorite sweet potato bread from Grace’s Pastries, to eat along with the berries, cheese and watermelon for our picnic lunch. (At Clemyjontri, awesome playground a few minutes away.)

Saturday morning the toddler and I headed down to Old Town Alexandria. There were still a few dubious produce stands, including one with lemons and avocados, but I was pleased to see some well-known vendors, like Bigg Riggs, J&W Valley View and Twin Springs. I still have to dock them points on the lay-out though, with so many vendors smushed together in the front and wide open patches in the back, it made for tough going to get through to Bigg Riggs. But, peaches were everywhere. One vendor had a bin of squash blossoms and some small gooseberries still. We hit up the meat/dairy stands, with sweet Italian sausage from Babes in the Woods, Calhoun’s Country Ham, and Blue Ridge Dairy ricotta.

For brunch that day I stuffed my squash blossoms with the ricotta, fresh oregano and a bit of prosciutto, then coated in corn meal and fried. The corn meal was a little heavy – I might mix it into a batter next time instead of dipping in milk/egg and corn meal separately – but they were oh so good. (And that was my local corn meal, too!)

Sunday was a quick stop at the West End Market, where Norma’s had these lovely purple tomatillos. Since I already had the green ones from Friday, I had to pass them up. We picked up Hilldale’s organic chicken which isn’t cheap, but was far and away the juiciest chicken we’ve ever had.

I was sick all week so we stuck to simple meals and I really slacked off in the photo department.

Dinner #1: Grilled Tomatillo Chicken — We marinated the Hilldale chicken (breasts and legs) in a tomatillo-pepper salsa and grilled it, along with some corn on the cob from our CSA bag. Simple and so good!

Dinner # 2: Italian grill — Babes’s Italian sausages, peppers, pattypan squash and golden zucchini, all brushed with olive oil, fresh oregano, sea salt and pepper and thrown on the grill. The toddler is rejecting squash lately (last year he ate the golden zucchini straight from the market table) but loved the sausage. Served with watermelon agua fresca to drink, made from the final remnants of our Eastern Shore melon.

Note to DC-area bloggers: This is the week for the August Farm Fresh Recipe Round-up. Email me at foodietots at gmail dot com by midnight Weds. Aug. 13 if you have a favorite recipe to share!

Last weekend, the toddler and I wrapped up the Maryland/WaPo Eat Local Challenge week with a tour of the farmstands and markets of the Chesapeake shores. The husband was away for work, so I thought the boy and I would fake a beach trip with day-trips to the Bay.

On Friday nights, the town of North Beach in Southern Maryland hosts a farmers market and cruise in. The market was fairly small, but there were Harris peaches (so good we stopped at their farmstand off Rte. 4 again this weekend), pesticide-free corn, lots of tomatoes, melons and peppers, cheap blue crabs, and kettle corn. The toddler enjoyed the cars on display at the “Cruise In,” and we topped off our Tastee Freez dinner with kettle corn and dancing to live music as the sun set.

Saturday morning we hit the road for St. Michael’s on the Eastern Shore. Traffic got us into town just in time to catch the tail end of the market, undoubtedly the most scenic of FreshFarm’s eight area sites. There were peaches, Chapel’s Country Creamery raw milk cheese, local lamb and more. A 2-week old calf provided entertainment before the toddler selected his peach and took off to see the boats. We headed over to the Chesapeake Folk Life Festival for seafood, watermelon, Smith Island cake and more dancing.

We stopped at historic Wye Mill for local! organic! cornmeal and buckwheat flour (more on that soon), and the Councell Farms farmstand with grown-on-site sweet corn and melons of every shape, size and color. (I highly recommend this stop if you’re taking Rte. 50 to the shore — they have a farm playland for kids that includes a tractor, combine reconfigured into a slide/swing, John Deere tricycle racetrack and adorable pygmy goats.) Came home with a Blue Bonnet watermelon that is so sweet and flavorful.

I wanted to use the local grains in my meal with all this Chesapeake bounty, so I made buckwheat crepes filled with corn, tomatoes, peaches, onion and Chapel’s crab spice (Old Bay) cheddar cheese.

Recipe: Chesapeake Crepes

Corn & Peach Filling
Ingredients:

• 2 ears sweet corn, cut from ears
• 2 peaches, chopped into small pieces
• 2 tomatoes, chopped into small pieces
• 1 small yellow onion, chopped
• 1 t olive oil
• 2 T fresh parsley or other herb(s)
• salt & pepper
• 1 c grated cheddar cheese

Instructions: Stir all ingredients except cheese together and let stand.

Crepes
Ingredients:

• 3 eggs
• 1 c milk
• 3/4 c buckwheat flour
• 1/4 unbleached flour
• 1/4 t salt

Instructions: Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Whisk eggs, add remaining ingredients and whisk quickly until lumps are gone. Cook in oiled crepe or frying pan over medium heat. Takes about 2-3 minutes per side, depending on the size of your pan. Remove and place on warm cookie sheet. Top each with generous scoop of filling, then cover with shredded cheese. Roll. Cook in oven 5 minutes, until cheese is just melted. Makes 6-8 crepes. Enjoy!

Notes: I made a toddler version by making mini crepes (about 2 inches in diameter), then topped with cheese and corn/peach filling for a mini pizza. This would have been improved immensely with some fresh crab meat (the Old Bay in the cheese was such a tease!), but I wasn’t able to bring back crabs since it would be a few days before I got to cook this. Next time!

This weekend, the toddler and I hit three Northern Virginia markets in honor of Virginia’s Eat Local week (Aug. 3-9) – stay tuned for a report on those. It’s also National Farmers Market Week, so visit LocalHarvest to find your closest market and check it out!

Everyday Food’s Dinner Tonight recently posted some no-recipe, quick dinner ideas. During the summer months, one of my favorite quick dinner strategies is to make a salad using the bounty of that week’s CSA delivery. The general formula is to cook a quick-cooking grain, usually quinoa or cous cous, mix with fruit (fresh or dried) and protein (chicken, pork &/or nuts) and serve atop the fresh greens with a simple vinaigrette. This is even quicker when you have leftover meat on hand. Last week, I had some peaches from the market, pork chops, and there were sweet onions, garlic scape, basil and lettuce in the CSA bag. Later in the summer when tomatoes are plentiful I often make a tomato/basil/mozzarella version. But in the meantime, the first summer peaches called for pork. Here’s what we wound up with this past week.

Recipe: Peachy Pork Quinoa Salad

Ingredients:

• 1 c quinoa
• 1 c chicken or vegetable broth
• 1 c water
• 2 boneless pork chops
• salt
• smoked paprika
• olive oil
• 1 sweet/yellow onion, thinly sliced
• 1 garlic scape or 1 garlic clove, chopped
• 1/3 c chopped almonds
• 2 peaches, chopped
• 6 leaves basil, chopped
• 1 head lettuce, rinsed
• red wine vinegar and/or lemon juice
• salt and pepper

Instructions:

Place quinoa, broth and water in small saucepan and bring to a boil. Stir, reduce heat to low, cover and cook for 10 minutes. Water should be completely absorbed.

While quinoa cooks, heat 1 T olive oil in frying pan over medium high heat. Add onions and cook 6-8 minutes, until golden brown. (If using garlic clove, add to pan for last 1-2 minutes.) Remove from pan. Season pork chops with salt and smoked paprika (or your favorite seasoned salt) and cook 3-4 minutes per side (less if using thin-cut chops). Remove, let sit while assembling salad.

Assemble salad – gently mix almonds, peaches and basil into quinoa. Arrange lettuce, top with onions, garlic scape and quinoa mixture. Slice pork chops and place on top.

Vinaigrette: mix 2 T each olive oil and red wine vinegar, add salt, pepper and a splash of lemon juice.

Makes 2-4 servings.