We were very disappointed to lose the mushroom vendor from our neighborhood (Del Ray) market this past year, especially as I had made such great progress the prior year in convincing my previously mushroom-adverse husband that they really weren’t so bad. So now to get our local ’shroom fix I have to head to one of the FreshFarm markets, which means Dupont Circle in the winter months.

The preferred choice of both the husband and my son are these cute, sweet little honey mushrooms. They require little effort to prepare, and for a really easy meal, I whipped up some instant polenta, with a generous touch of cheese, then topped it with leftover tomato sauce and sauteed mushrooms.

Quick and scrumptious, what could be better for a (meatless) Monday night?

Recipe: Polenta al Funghi (Mushroom Polenta)

Ingredients:

• 1 pint honey mushrooms
• 1 box instant polenta
• 4 cups water
• salt
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1/3 cup grated parmesan cheese
• 1 cup pasta sauce

Instructions:

1. Bring water to a boil.

2. Rinse mushrooms and pat dry. Heat a dry skillet over medium heat. Add mushrooms and cook, stirring only once or twice, until they begin to darken. Add 1 tablespoon butter to pan and remove from heat. Season mushrooms with sea salt and pepper.

3. Prepare polenta as instructed on package. When thickened, stir in 1 tablespoon butter and the cheese. Remove from heat.

4. Warm pasta sauce.

5. Spoon polenta onto plates, shaping a small well in the center. Top with a few spoonfuls of pasta sauce and scatter mushrooms over the top. Enjoy! Makes 4 servings.

Hopefully you’ve already ordered your local, free-range, and/or Heritage-breed turkey, but now what?

cranberry baked brie

My strategy for cooking Thanksgiving dinner with a toddler underfoot is to prepare one simple but impressive appetizer. My favorite cranberry baked brie is sure to get your family and guests oohing and aahing while they wait for dinner, just in case it takes a little longer than planned to make it onto the table…

Here are a few other favorites from the Foodie Tot family over the years:

organic maple spiced cranberry sauce

Organic Maple Spiced Cranberry Sauce (and a post about organic cranberries)

Green Bean Almondine with Blue Cheese — a green bean casserole alternative

Pumpkin Pie … from a pumpkin!

I’m pondering a new chocolate dessert this year, courtesy of Nigella. What new recipe are you trying this year? Please share!

We were out of town the past two weekends, and the absence from farmers markets and cooking prevented me from wrapping up the One Local Summer challenge with as big a bang as last year’s all-local barbecue. Sure, we savored local foods on our travels — the first weekend the boy, sister-in-law and I road-tripped our way to Burlington, Vermont, for the first Vermont Cheesemakers Festival. In New York, we ate at Marlow & Sons, featuring local eats including my Pennsylvania chevre, peach and mint crostini and sweet corn soup with fresh dill. (Perfect for the rainy day.) And I picked up still more local cheeses from two Brooklyn cheese shops, Bedford Cheese Shop and Marlow & Daughters, and Brooklyn-made bread and pickled pears for an all New York cheese plate to share with my in-laws. (Reviews to come over on Cheese + Champagne.)

Still on my foodie task list before summer officially ends: chocolate zucchini muffins (would you believe we’ve hardly had any zucchini yet from our CSA?), tomato gazpacho and *fingers crossed* putting up some peaches if there are any left at the markets this week. (See tomato jam and chilled plum soup for ways we’ve used up at-risk fruit lately.)

My most exciting local foods find this season is one I haven’t even gotten to taste yet: local, organically-grown and milled flours from Moutoux Orchard. Truly local grain is the holy grail for locavores; here in the greater DC area we have several grist mills that may mill locally, but generally use Midwest-grown grains. While I’ve made do with Wye Mill in Maryland, which does use local grain but requires a 120-mile round-trip journey to secure, it is somewhat impractical as a regular source of flour. I was thrilled to learn of Moutoux’s new grain crops at our Summer Solstice feast earlier this summer, but the first batch of flours just arrived at the markets (Falls Church and Dupont Circle) as we were headed out of town. I’ll be sure to report back when I’ve finally procured and experimented with these Loudoun County-grown grains.

Most importantly, Italian plums and figs are finally at the market reminding me that the best local produce is found in the fall. If you’re like me and can’t fathom quitting the One Local challenge just when it’s getting good, please continue to check in and I’ll post occasional “One Local Harvest” updates from now through November. Whether you’re cooking local suppers or putting up local produce for winter, we want to know!

Visit Farm to Philly for the final round-ups of the One Local Summer challenge; including a beautiful vegetable lasagna from Nancy and Kristina’s reflections on catching one’s own meal.

We’re already more than a third of the way through our CSA season, and we’ve finally left the abundant leafy greens behind and moved on to the baby vegetable phase. Well, there were some full size sweet onions this week, but everything else seemed perfectly sized for the toddler — baby beets, baby yellow squash, baby potatoes (white and blue), and even a few small tomatoes. One of the things that surprised me our first year with our CSA farm was the lag in the bags behind what’s at the market. Something about quality over quantity, yada yada yada. (Seriously, the farm’s vine-ripened tomatoes are worth the wait, but some weeks can be a little frustrating.) Faced with a shortage of fridge supplies after a week away, the hodge podge of veggies, cheddar from our “emergency” stop at the Wednesday King Street Market for some of Mr. Tom’s cheese, and some random pieces of meat unearthed from the freezer, I came up with this summer veggie nacho supper.

Recipe: Mid-Summer Nachos with Squash and Tomatoes

Ingredients:

• 1/2 bag tortilla chips*
• 1/2 cup tomatillo salsa*
• assorted chicken pieces, diced
• 1 sausage, preferably chorizo but I had Italian
• 1 large or 2 small yellow squash, halved length-wise and sliced
• 1 tomato, diced
• 1 red onion, diced
• 1 cup cheddar cheese, shredded

Instructions: Heat oil in skillet over medium heat. Add chicken and crumbled sausage, cover with salsa and cook until meat is cooked through. Remove from heat. Meanwhile, spread tortilla chips on rimmed baking sheet. Sprinkle with half of the shredded cheese and arrange squash, tomato and onion over top. Spread meat over and sprinkle with remaining cheese. Place under broiler and cook 4-5 minutes, until cheese is melted and bubbly. Cool slightly and enjoy! Makes 4 servings.

*Chips and salsa from Las Glorias at the Crystal City/Crystal Farms Market.

One Local Summer is an annual challenge in which people around the world join together for 13 weeks of seasonal eating, supporting local farmers and exploring their local foodsheds. Visit FarmtoPhilly on Tuesdays for the weekly round-up; here’s what my neighbors in the Southern region cooked up this week.

Asparagus may be a few weeks away still here in the DC/NoVA area, but Diane’s new “Friday Foodie Fix” event with the secret ingredient eggs seemed like the perfect reason to pull this recipe out of the archives. Perfect for a spring Sunday morning…

Recipe: Spring Asparagus-Chive Quiche

Ingredients:

• 1 9-inch pie crust 
• 4 eggs
• 2 cups milk (next time I may use half cream as my quiche was a little softer than should be)
• 1 cup crumbled Keswick* Wallaby cheese, or other Monterey Jack or similar white cheese (goat cheese would also be fabulous)
• 1 bunch asparagus, cut into 1-2? pieces
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh chives
• salt + pepper

Instructions:

Bring a pot of water to a boil and blanch asparagus for 2 minutes; drain and rinse in cold water. In a mixing bowl, whisk together eggs, milk/cream, cheese, and a dash of salt and pepper. Spread asparagus and chives in pie shell, and pour egg mixture over. Bake at 425* for 15 minutes, then reduce heat to 300* and bake additional 30-35 minutes or until firm. Let stand at least 10 minutes before serving.

The toddler devoured this (”cheese egg? more!”) but still ate around the asparagus, so the quest goes on for a kid-friendly asparagus dish. (Maybe I’ll just puree it next time!)

* Farm Source(s): Keswick Creamery’s Wallaby cheese is available at the Dupont Circle FreshFarm Market and the new La Fromagerie in Old Town Alexandria.

(Originally published May 27, 2008.)