Black Cat Natural Foods

Spring 2010!

2010-04-17T13:56:00.000-07:00

Where to start! Our new menu for the Mill City Farmer's Market is shaping up nicely. I hope to get some nice pictures of food and ingredients for the menu display, and I'll post some here too. Phil wants a large quantity of ramp butter for cooking, but lately my foraging has come up short. Lots of mustard greens and some fiddleheads, no ramps! I hope I can buy early ramps from a farm on Mother's Day weekend, otherwise we will run out of the stuff! This spring we've had some spectacular early warm weather on the Island. Peat let all of the chickens out of the yard to peck and scratch around in the meadow and take dust baths in a sunny patch next to the parking lot. He's also moved the rabbits from their winter quarters in a warm shed to breezy summer accommodations. Several of the female rabbits have had their litters already. The baby bunnies are awfully cute.

At right, a mother and baby rabbit eating apples together.

My own gardening activities are pretty tame compared to Peat's. I'm just happy to see the tulips and rhubarb I planted last year popping up again. This year I need to enrich the soil in our yard with more compost.

Here are some quick links to issues we've been concerned about lately. This article in the Star Tribune reports that Minnesota farmers' incomes dropped 63% in 2009. Please support our local farmers by buying directly from the farmer at a farmer's market or through a CSA. Remember to buy local meat, dairy and produce whenever possible at the grocery store or co-op, or we may lose more local farms! Finally, new USDA regulations threaten to shut down small meat processors. This would have a huge impact on our local small farmers and ranchers. It would also reduce the types of meat products available to consumers. Read more here

Above, chickens enjoying early Spring sun, free foraging and dust baths. At right, me "transplanting" a chicken from my own yard back to Peat's!

Black Cat Natural Foods is now on Twitter! Follow our local food adventures and thoughts on sustainability. blackcatnatfood

2009-07-06T16:00:00.000-07:00

It's summer on the Island. How did it happen so fast? Gardeners are busy weeding and watering and picking raspberries and strawberries. Lilies overhang the sidewalks. Wild apples and mulberries ripen on the trees. Neighborhood cats prowl through the hosta beds and under the lilac bushes, as we all await the first tomatoes of the season.

Peat's garden is overflowing with a profusion of baby zucchini, herbs, and Asian greens. Inside the chicken coop are young chickens and ducks at various stages of growth. Peat hatched some eggs in an indoor incubator and some under a "broody" hen earlier this season, and the little chicks are growing quickly into juvenile birds that are fond of scratching around the edges of the chicken yard and roosting on branches Peat props up for them.

Above, clockwise from upper left, a baby heritage chicken, juvenile birds roosting on a branch above the younger birds' enclosure, ducks, hens and rooster scratch in the yard, baby chicks and ducklings share a feeder.

Sitting outside on a shady patio is a popular pastime during these warm summer days. The sound of a neighbor at work composing a song on the piano competes with the songbirds in the canopy of trees, and cool breezes blow in off of the river. Some long summer evenings, charcoal fires burn in an old Weber grill, and we share spectacular feasts of local farm foods and garden harvests. For our garden recipe of local trout with new potatoes and snap peas, see this feature in The Heavy Table

Morel Risotto

2009-05-22T19:56:00.000-07:00

Wild morel mushrooms grow all over north America in the spring months, but most prevalently around the Great Lakes region. They are truly one of our great regional delicacies. Although most people are familiar with bagged, wickedly expensive dried morels, freshly foraged morels can be purchased at gourmet stores, farmer's markets, and Co-ops while they are in season, and some lucky people can find whole patches of morels in the woods near their own home.

I bought a half pound of gorgeous fresh morels from Pam, one of our "neighbor vendors" at the Mill City Farmer's Market. Each week at the market, she arrives loaded down with crates and cases of fresh produce from her own farm, and from her neighbors' farms in southeast Minnesota. Since Pam is one of the managers of the Southeastern Minnesota Food Network (SMFM), a group of farms that came together in order to ship and distribute their goods collectively, she often has Minnesota seasonal vegetables a little earlier than the farms closer to the Twin Cities. Lately, Pam's been selling out of fresh asparagus, watercress, and ramps at the market. She also sells bread and cheeses made on her own farm, named Prairie Hollow.

After I brought the morels home, I laid them all out to admire their different shapes and sizes. Morels are hollow inside, and sometimes they contain dirt or insects, so I split each mushroom open to inspect it. As you can see, these mushrooms turned out to be very clean. After splitting the morels I sliced them very thinly, width-wise, separated the stems, and saved them.

To make a good risotto, start with a good stock. I made a stock out of a meaty sage-roasted chicken carcass, and added the morel stems, onions, and sea salt for flavor. For a vegetarian risotto, use a mushroom-based stock. Stock is easy to prepare while doing other kitchen tasks; it only takes a few moments of attention. I vastly prefer homemade stock to store-bought stock for all cooking, and it is much more economical.

For the Morel Risotto:

Morels:
1/2 lb morel mushrooms, cleaned and sliced
2 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 cup shallot
1 garlic clove, minced

Rice:
7 cups stock, homemade if possible (you may not use all of the stock)
2 tablespoons butter
1 1/2 cups Arborio rice
1/2 cup white wine
Parmesan, or other good grating cheese
sea salt and fresh cracked pepper

Begin by cooking the morels in a wide chef's pan with a thick bottom: heat the butter and oil over medium heat, add the shallot and cook until the shallot is transparent but not browned, stirring frequently. Increase the heat and add the morels, saute until the mushrooms are just beginning to brown around the edges. Add the garlic and a generous pinch of sea salt and cook 1 minute. remove the mushroom mixture from the pan and reserve. Meanwhile, bring the 7 cups stock to a simmer and keep hot while you make the risotto.

For the rice: in the same pan, melt the 2 tablespoons butter. Add the rice and stir to coat all the grains. Cook the rice, stirring, one or two minutes. Add the wine and simmer until it's completely absorbed by the rice. Add 2 cups of the hot stock, cover the pan, and simmer until it's completely absorbed.

Now add the stock 1/2 cup at a time and continue to stir the risotto until each addition is completely absorbed. After 3 additions of stock, add the reserved morel mushrooms to the risotto. Continue to add the stock 1/2 cup at a time and stir until completely absorbed. The risotto rice is cooked when it yields to the bite but is not mushy, and there is no excess liquid in the pan. Season to taste with salt and fresh pepper, stir in grated Parmesan, and serve immediately in heated bowls. Serves 4.

A morel risotto is nice when served with a springtime green salad or roasted or grilled asparagus, and a glass of the same wine used in the risotto.

For more information about foraging and cooking with morel mushrooms, check out a fun site: The Great Morel Homepage

The Urban Garden: You Can Grow That Here? Part One

2009-05-18T16:21:00.000-07:00

I am new to Nicollet Island, the only inhabited island on the Mississippi River. Every day, I step out onto my front porch and feel like I've arrived in paradise. I can hear songbirds and the clucking of chickens, and the occasional sound of a car. More likely, a scooter or bicycle may pass me by as I breathe in the springtime scents of flowing fresh water and growing plants. Brick streets and flower gardens surround historic Victorian-era houses, just steps away from the steep riverbanks of the Mississippi. Many folks like to bike or stroll around Nicollet Island, and it isn't unusual to see someone stop and snap a spontaneous picture of one of the Island's gardens or the facade of a pretty Queen Anne home.

When the apple blossoms are falling in springtime, or the red and orange maple leaves in the fall, it's easy to become enchanted into thinking you've been transported into some remote New England village, lost in time, circa 1900. It's quiet, except for the sound of a woodpecker. A neighbor's laundry on a clothesline moves gently in the sunlight. A rooster crows. A man wearing overalls crosses the street with a wheelbarrow full of prairie flowers. But bucolic Nicollet Island is in the very heart of Minneapolis' urban center, separated from downtown Minneapolis only by the river, and joined to it by a train bridge and the Hennepin Avenue suspension bridge. The Merriam Street bridge, which is an old iron-beam link to the historic storefront area of St. Anthony Main, and the second span of the Hennepin Avenue bridge join Nicollet Island to Northeast Minneapolis. Many Twin Cities residents don't even know that the Island exists, or they only know about the school (DeLaSalle high school) or the inn and restaurant (Nicollet Island Inn) that are just off of the Hennepin Avenue bridge. As a result, the residential end of Nicollet Island is a peaceful oasis for its inhabitants, and for a few bikers and joggers in the know, who take advantage of the Island's trails and scenery.

Above, lilacs and apple trees in bloom on Nicollet Island.

It's a rare day when Phil and I don't thank our lucky stars that we ended up on Nicollet Island. All of our neighbors seem to be artists, with beautiful gardens and interesting hobbies like painting, playing the mandolin, and handspinning local wool yarn. Lots of them have hobbies that have to do with food, our favorite profession and pastime! We're suddenly surrounded by cheesemakers, homebrewers, venison sausage makers, shortbread bakers, wild rice gatherers, and foragers of local wildfoods. And of course, we're within a rooster's crow of the urban farm/potager/heritage garden maintained by Peat Willcutt, Twin Cities local foods guru.

Right: Peat Willcutt transplants heirloom tomatoes and peppers into pots in his garden.

"Take all of these peonies, I want to get rid of them so I can grow peppers there," Peat told me, as I was transplanting some perennial plants from his garden to my own. On a small urban plot, Peat grows innumerable food crops, as well as keeping chickens, geese, ducks, quail, and rabbits, and he's giving up the ornamental plants in order to have more space for food crops. Many of the plants are heritage varieties, or plants suited to our northern, "zone 4" gardening year. Despite the cold winters, Peat successfully grows many plants out-of-zone. Due to the urban "heat bubble" phenomenon, many plants flourish here during the summers, and with good husbandry, they can overwinter successfully. When I asked Peat for a list of all of the food crops in his garden, he sat down and made a list of the fruit plants. As for the vegetables, for one thing, it may take him several sessions to list them, and for another thing, he's not done planting this year's crop yet!
Above, Peat & Ben's pet dove, Fatima, perches on the handle of Peat's watering can while he tends his Nicollet Island potager.

I will return to Peat's garden throughout the growing year to describe his farming practices, the plants, and the harvests, but what follows is a list (perhaps incomplete) of Willcutt's fruit trees and plants, again raised in a very small urban plot:

Apricot, Manchurian apricot, Kieffer pear, Gala apple, "other" apple, Whitney crabapple, black currant, red currant, & white currant bushes, 5 gooseberry bushes of 3 varieties, Elberta peach, approximately 250 alpine strawberry plants, as well as everbearing and June bearing strawberries; red raspberries, yellow raspberries, blackberries, Nankin cherries, Sour cherries, snow cherries; "Alderman," "Superior," and Damsom plums, mulberries, rhubarb, medlar, quince, and jostaberry.

Feeding Chickens

2009-05-17T11:52:00.000-07:00

Each year Americans waste 96 million pounds of edible food, enough to feed 80 million people for a day. One third of edible food is wasted, and one third of what's dumped into landfills is food. A New York Times article has sobering statistics, a graphic depicting the amount of food the average American family of four wastes in a month, and states that American food waste amounts to one pound per person per day. Not only is the wasted food not eaten, but the decomposing food in landfills creates methane gas, which contributes to global warming. When we calculate how much energy and resources go into producing, transporting, preparing, and packaging food that will go on to be wasted (again with transportation and disposal costs for this waste), it's just depressing!

Most people believe that wasting food is bad, but few people realize how prevalent food waste actually is, and how it occurs at every level of food production. Restaurants and cafeterias throw out tons of perfectly good edible food daily. Bakeries, delis and supermarkets throw out day-old items and cosmetically imperfect food items. Food banks tend to be an inadequate solution to prepared food waste, as many don't accept perishable foods or foods that are not wrapped in individual servings. Many places that do accept fifty pounds of sliced fresh tomatoes, for example, all seem to have warehouses outside of urban centers, they only accept donations during weekday afternoon hours when restaurant people are preparing dinner, and not at all during the weekend, when many catering events occur. As a result, lots of high-quality food winds up in the garbage.

How does Black Cat Natural Foods handle food waste? First we strive to reduce it as much as possible. We don't use prepackaged, pre-cut vegetables the way many establishments do. We change our bread order every day to reduce bread waste. We use locally grown foods when possible and order half or partial cases of vegetables to reduce spoilage waste. Because we cook from scratch, with whole foods, and in small batch sizes, there is very little daily food waste besides vegetable trimmings.

These vegetable trimmings are brought to feed poultry and other animals on an urban farm approximately one mile from our commercial kitchen. At right, the beginning of a typical Black Cat "chicken bucket" with trimmings from organic Romaine lettuce, carrots, cucumbers, and apple cores.

The farm has about 30 chickens, about 20 ducks, 3 geese, 5 rabbits, and 3 quail at the time of writing. The poultry live well in a sheltered coop and scratching yard and are let outside into a meadow for daytime foraging; then they are sheltered from predatory raccoons and other enemies in the evenings. They produce eggs that help to feed 6-10 households, which help contribute to their care. Several rescued or abandoned animals have found a home here, including wood ducks, abandoned roosters, and local Wildlife Rehab animals.

At right, the farm's chickens in their scratching yard. The chickens are a variety of heritage breeds including Americana, Speckled Sussex, French Maran, and New Hampshire Reds. Also visible is an adolescent rabbit (middle left) and an Americana-cross rooster (right of the center of the photo). Photo, bottom right: farm egg in a nesting box.

Despite all of the many environmentally sound reasons to donate our food scraps to these animals, the biggest reward is getting to watch the birds eat (well, okay, the occasional egg or two, still warm from the nest, is also pretty great). When the birds see us coming, carrying our buckets, they all come running to the fence. The geese start squawking loudly, as if to say "give us the Romaine lettuce cores!" When we toss the goodies into the scratching yard, it's fun to watch the ducks go for the cucumber ends and the chickens grabbing and chasing each other for cheese rinds. Amazingly, the urban farm was recently able to stop buying grain-based feed for the animals because local food donations alone can sustain them. To learn more about keeping urban chickens, upcoming poultry classes in the Twin Cities area, and how you can contribute to and benefit from this truly sustainable food cycle, check out UrbanAgrarian

As individuals, we can help decrease food waste by shopping sensibly and re-learning how to cook and eat our leftovers. We can compost our household food waste. We can support local restaurants, cafeterias, and grocery stores that strive to manage food waste responsibly.

Instead of throwing out overripe or bruised fruit, make juice, a smoothie, a pie, or apple/fruit sauce
Instead of discarding stale bread, make homemade croutons, bruschetta, or bread pudding
Instead of throwing away meat and veggies, make them into pot pies, chile, or soup stock
Rather than throwing out extra rice, make it into fried rice with other leftovers, or rice pudding
Onion skins can deter grazing pests-- place them around the garden
Make too much food? Freeze some, make a second recipe, or make up a portion to give to a friend or neighbor
Freeze beef and bison bones as treats for your favorite neighborhood pooch! Save poultry bones for homemade stock.

Above: is this the easter bunny? No, it's just one of the farm rabbits, cuddling with Phil and showing off three different colors of eggs laid by the farm's different breeds of chickens. Left: Jacques, the farm's gray Champagne D'Argent rabbit, has a cozy hutch outside the chickens' scratching yard. Jacques' favorite scraps include lettuce leaves and carrots (pictured).

Foraging for Fiddleheads

2009-05-17T08:33:00.000-07:00

It's spring on Nicollet Island. The trees are budding, and little green tips are poking up through the earth. On our walks, we remark: how high the Mississippi River is this year! Among the first green things that appear in our yards, the woods, and on the riverbanks are fiddleheads: the curled, edible shoots of ferns. I don't have to go far to gather fiddleheads-- with just a pair of scissors, I can forage these springtime delicacies right in my yard! Within ten minutes, I've filled a bowl with the curled tendrils, given them a quick rinse, and have them soaking in iced water upstairs in my kitchen. From time to time, I swirl them around in the icy water to remove any trace of grit from them.

Fiddleheads should be foraged when they are small and tightly coiled. If the fern leaf tip has unfurled and is visible, the shoot is too old to be gathered-- should have harvested it yesterday! Fiddleheads have a distinctive mild flavor, a little like asparagus, and they can be used successfully in any recipe that calls for asparagus. They are delightful when lightly steamed, stir-fried, pickled in salads, or served over pasta. As a vegetable, fiddleheads can be enjoyed with a cream or hollandaise sauce or lightly sauteed with sesame or olive oil, or a soy-based sauce. They are fantastic additions to omelets and frittatas, or when fried with bacon or pancetta. If you have only a few fiddleheads, lightly pan-fry them and use to garnish cream soups or dress a springtime plate.

In this picture, the young fern on the left is out of fiddlehead stage, while the one on the right displays perfect coiled fiddleheads, ready for harvesting.

Since I'd gathered lots of fiddleheads, I decided to simply pan-fry them and enjoy them as a delicious springtime wild vegetable. I heated a saute pan with a little ramp butter, tossed in the fiddleheads, and added a few young dandelion leaves and wild garlic chives. These spring greens also grow wild on Nicollet Island, and it was easy to gather them at the same time as the fiddleheads.

The resulting dish was a rustic, but delicious celebration of spring. The tender greens tasted so fresh after the months of eating mostly local keeper vegetables and shipped in, non-seasonal salad greens! Springtime wild foods are among the great joys of eating locally.