Bluebird Grain Farms

There are many reasons to go to the farmer's market, chief among them the beautiful produce you find there grown by local farmers. Add to that the products that you can't normally buy at most stores, and I'm there. Bluebird Grain Farms falls into this latter category; while you can find their flour and grain products at local PCC stores, they are not readily available elsewhere. Apparently the rest of the world has yet to catch onto the incredible versatility, flavor, and nutrition benefits of these wheat alternatives. Although Bluebird Grain Farms does sell some common grain products such as wheat and rye, I know them more for their Emmer flour.

I used to refer to this grain as farro, but I learned recently from the helpful staff at the Bluebird Grain Farms stand that the word farro actually means "grain". Emmer is a type of grain or farro. That being said, many places use the terms Emmer and farro interchangeably, most notably in Italy where it is quite common, and with good reason. It is really good — more substantial than your standard white flour (and undoubtedly significantly better for you) without any of that dry or "healthy" taste sometimes associated with whole wheat baked goods. I have used it in cookies, quick breads, and this time, crepes.

I would highly recommend making these crepes. They are super simple and fast, and can be filled with anything you want, savory or sweet. Our apple-leek filling worked perfectly with the slight nuttiness of the Emmer in the crepes (and it paired extraordinarily well with a chilled Prosecco!). So find yourself some grains and get cooking!

Emmer Crepes — Combine 3 eggs, 2/3 cup Emmer flour, 1 cup whole milk, and 1/4 tsp. salt in a blender. Whirl until all ingredients are combined. If time allows, let sit for 30 minutes or an hour at room temperature, then whirl again in the blender before using.

To make crepes, heat an 8-inch skillet over medium high heat. Add about 1/2 Tablespoon of butter and swirl until melted. Use one hand to tip the pan while pouring about 1/4 cup of batter into the pan with the other hand, swirling constantly until the batter is evenly distributed. Cook for about 1-2 minutes, flip with a spatula, then put your choice of filling along the center of the crepe while it is still in the pan. Fold the sides in onto the middle, then slide the ready crepe out of the pan and onto a plate.

Cranberry Beans

I am a huge fan of beans of any variety, so when I see fresh ones, I am sold instantly. In this case I was drawn towards these fresh cranberry beans largely because of their beautiful coloring. The pod and beans both have this incredible marbled look that is quite striking. Unfortunately, the beans don't maintain their color when cooked; I'm still trying to work on that one.

Cranberry beans are a variety of shell beans, meaning that they must be shelled before being cooked. Even though this can be a bit tedious, I thoroughly enjoy the process of shelling beans. Find a sunny spot, put a cocktail beside you, and this otherwise monotonous task becomes a relaxing meditation. Once shelled, the beans must be boiled in water. Mine took about 20 minutes until they were tender when poked with a fork. The beans should be strained when done, then they are ready to use in anyway and in anything you wish. Since we still had a plethora of tomatoes and basil, I combined the above ingredients with the cooked cranberry beans, added some salt, pepper, garlic, and our best olive oil to make a delicious side dish.

The fresh cranberry beans had a wonderful flavor, almost nutty. They were a bit on the dry side however. I'm not sure if this is typical of cranberry beans or if it was caused by another factor (older beans? over or under cooked?). Regardless, they were a fun new way to get our daily dose of fiber.

Artichokes

You know that there was someone who was the first person ever to eat an artichoke. In the history of humankind, in the stats of the universe, who is first on the list? Who would have thought that that prickly and hostile plant was actually edible, not to mention tender and delicious when prepared properly? Whoever it was, they lived a long time ago because people have been eating this relative of the thistle forever now. There is some work required to get to the part that is actually worth eating, however. The first time I tried to prepare small, whole artichokes in their entirety (as opposed to pulling off individual leaves like you might with the larger globe artichokes), I ignorantly thought I could just cook the whole thing and end up with something good. Instead, I ended up with a mouthful of fibrous prickles.

So, if you want to avoid the whole fibrous prickle thing in your mouth, the following steps might be of help to you if you are in the market for eating, and enjoying, artichokes.

1. Select several small (about 3-4 inches tall, including stem) artichokes. Prepare a large bowl of cold acidulated water by adding the juice of one lemon or 2 Tablespoons of white vinegar into the bowl.
2. With a sharp knife, cut off the top 1/2 inch or so of the artichoke "flower". Next, use your fingers to snap off the outer leaves. Continue turning the artichoke and snapping off leaves until you get down to the very light green-yellow leaves. You will also notice that they are much more tender.
3. Use a peeler to peel off the rough ends where the leaves used to be attached to the stem, peeling off the skin of the upper 1/2 inch of the stem as well. Cut off the stem below this peeled area.
4. You should be left with a significantly smaller product than your original artichoke. Place it immediately into the acidulated water to prevent it from browning. Keep it submerged in the water until you are ready to cook it.

At this point, the artichoke should be ready to use in any number of ways. I decided to boil them first (for about 10 minutes, or until tender), then I drained them and sliced them in half. At this point you will also need to use a spoon or a small knife to scrape out the somewhat hairy fibers from the middle. Next, I heated some olive oil and butter (about 1 Tablespoon of each) in a skillet and let it heat until most of the milk solids from the butter (that foamy white stuff) had disappeared. When that was hot enough I gently placed the artichoke halves in flat side down and let them cook undisturbed for about 5 minutes. When they were beginning to brown nicely on that side, I added a bunch of thinly sliced garlic, then flipped the artichokes and cooked it a few minutes more, adding white wine at the end to deglaze.

We had also carmelized a big onion on the grill, so I chopped that up and served it with the artichoke over the wonderful cedar plank cooked Loki salmon. There were just a few bites of the artichoke that were still a little tough, but mostly it was tender and full of sweet, acidic flavor. Yes, it was work getting to the good part but it's the kind of work I happen to like.

Chilies

Needless to say, these beauties came from the east side of the mountains, Royal City, Washington, to be exact, where it has not been soggy and sunless for the past few weeks. The Tonnemakers Farm booth was brimming with hot weather crops recently, including peaches, nectarines, and impressive mounds of chilies. Not only did they have most of them categorized into mild, sweet, or hot, but many of the signs even included their often creative monikers.

From top to bottom, you are looking at two "mild" Mariatchi chilies, two"sweet" Godfathers chilies, and the small ones on the end came from the "Very Hot" bin. Should I be worried?

My favorite way of enjoying most chilies requires roasting them first. If the grill is going, we will char them over the coals. But in light of our recent sorry-excuse-for-August weather, these chilies went into the oven, under the broiler. I put them directly on the oven rack, fairly close to the broiler element. I also left the oven door ajar just a tad so that the heat would stay on continually. When charring chilies this way, the smell of burning chili flesh will usually remind you that they are in the oven. Don't panic; they're supposed to burn. I prefer to use tongs to turn them until they are nicely blackened on all sides, then slide them into a plastic bag where they will "sweat". The longer they can cool down in this bag, the better. But it probably takes at least 15 minutes of sweating before the skins will just slide right off.

After they were out of their skins we set up a taste test. Here are the results.

Left: "Sweet" Godfathers--fruity, good medium spice
These would be great stuffed or even used for chile rellenos.

Middle: "Mild" Mariatchi--no spice, grassy, and a bit fibrous
Good for salads, soups, or in a quesadilla.

Right: "Very Hot"--fruity (citrus flavors?), smokey, definitely hot
Good for anything you want to add spice to.

I then proceeded to cut off the ends, scrape out the seeds, and chop all of the chilies up to create a salsa for our grilled flank steak. The thing I loved the most about this salsa? The chilies retained so much flavor even though they had spice. The spice was certainly there, but it didn't overwhelm any of the food. I could taste the grassy, fruity nuances that we picked up on in the taste test and I enjoyed every bite!