Life goes on. To continue from last post, things were normal enough. I have been harvesting and canning the garden bounty as well as applesauce and drying some tomatoes. To learn more about food preservation and being a more hard-core localvore, do read our posts from 2009. But I digress! We begin here on Tuesday, September 20th, a work day in the Simmons Soap shop. Our local meal was Breakfast - fresh eggs and Loleta Bakery sourdough toast with our first ripe melon from our lower greenhouse.
9/21 - Lunch was my summer favorite sandwich - Cucumber, tomato and Loleta Pepper Jack on Loleta Bakery sourdough. I used our home made mayonnaise for this.
9/22 - Lunch - The amazing, ultimate salad! Not just lettuce & tomato & carrot & red cabbage from the garden, but sliced steamed beets and grated Loleta Cheddar and home canned local caught Albacore. Vinagarette of our herbed red wine vinegar.
9/23 - this is the day things got exciting! I do volunteer Emergency Medical Dispatching. I'm usually on call one weekend a month. This was NOT my weekend. However, at around 1 in the afternoon a wildfire started up in Ruth and the dispatcher who was to be on call was evacuated!
I had planned to can Ancho peppers and had picked the peppers, which we grow in containers in a greenhouse. Anchos are fabulous big blocky peppers with an occasional bit of heat. We have been using them instead of Anaheim chilies for years. I can them for future chile rellenos - much like the canned Ortega Chilies you buy in the store (which are Anaheims).
While I often roast them over a charcoal fire, we did it on the gas grill this time. Slower, but just as efficient. The aroma of the roasting chiles is amazing, and we got them all done with visions of a dinner of Chile rellenos dancing in our head - and that's when the phone rang!
For the next 6 hours I pretty much was on the phone helping coordinate information for the fire. From Sheriffs to Red Cross, Forest Service, Cal Fire, Volunteer Fire Departments, EMS personnel, road closures, evacuation centers and more, the beginning of a wildfire in an inhabited area is a mass of organization and controlled chaos!
Did we have dinner? I don't remember. I did have a breakfast of eggs and toast, so that was covered...I somehow managed to get my peppers peeled and in the refrigerator to finish processing manana!
9/24 - Well, tonight is a benefit dinner and the official Ruth Fire USFS meeting. No rellenos tonight, but we got the peppers into jars, setting some aside for tomorrow's dinner. Our Localvore meal was Lunch - Quesadillas with Bien Padre tortillas, Loleta Pepper jack, chopped peppers and fresh tomato salsa from the garden.
9/25 - Yippee! Dinner - Chile Rellenos! A very special treat.
Stuff the roasted, peeled, seeded Ancho peppers with a piece of Loleta jack cheese and dredge in flour. I used some Shakefork Farm barley flour to keep it local. Then I separate eggs (I used 3) and beat the whites until stiff. Now I mix a little salt (exception alert!) in the flour & fold the flour into the egg whites. Lastly I fold the egg yolks into the beaten whites.
I use a small 6" cast iron frying pan and put (exception alert!) about 3/4 inch vegetable oil in it (I'm using safflower)(I know they grow safflower as close as Davis, Ca.). I heat it until a drop of the egg mix sizzles immediately and browns fairly quickly. Then, carefully, dip the floured, stuffed chiles in the egg mix and add to the hot oil. 2 fit nicely in the pan. turn as soon as they brown on one side. When brown on both sides remove from oil onto a cooling rack over paper over a plate or pan. I use newspaper. It's just to catch the drips. Adjust the heat as needed to keep the rellenos cooking quickly, but not too fast. You'll get the hang of it in short order.We had these with fresh tomato salsa and our homemade hot sauce, corn on the cob, and watermelon grown by a friend in nearby Larabee Valley. FEAST!
9/26 - I neglected to photograph the dinner before we ate it (sorry) but Breakfast - leftover relleno (heated in a microwave) with watermelon and scrambled eggs with some leftver corn cut from the cob & stirred in. Fresh salsa and hot sauce on top and Oh Boy! This is livin'.
9/27 - Poached egg on toast for breakfast with another melon, Honeydew, from the garden.
9/28 - Last Wed. of the month and our local Book Group chat & chew. I brought the delicious Zuchinni Curry and Cucumber Raita. There were local apples and grilled eggplant and tomato on ciabatta and many more delectable treats including a wine made by a group of folks who get together to make wine in Hayfork (Trinity County).
9/29 - Breakfast was scrambled egg with chopped garden vegetables: onion, bell pepper, summer squash... topped with fresh chopped tomato.
Tomorrow is the last day of the Eat Local Challenge and I have been saving for another special treat. I will be making the Eggplant Parmesan I came up with in 2009, last time we took the Challenge
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