Recipes

It’s March. Hooray?

March may be home to the official start of Spring but, despite those handfuls of gorgeous, blue-skied days, it still gets cold, bitterly so (especially for those in the arctic zone formerly known as the Northern United States) and it certainly isn’t a month without its hardships.

I think this French proverb captures the mood of our current month best:
En Mars, quand il fait beau, prends ton manteau.
(In March, when it’s beautiful out, take your coat.)

Take. Your. Coat.

It’s a transitional month and one that can be confusing for mind, body, spirit and, as illustrated above, wardrobe.

Perhaps these are the founding qualities behind Fun-a-Day, a March tradition created by the members of a sweet community in northern Michigan. You choose a project for the month–haiku-writing, beer-brewing, bread-baking–that you do every day and at the end of the month you meet with the other participants and share your results.

I learned about this tradition in the summer, and, while I didn’t get to participate, I got to see some results of a few projects, and the sentiment behind this tradition–a way of combining personal new or challenging experiences with community and shared experience to cope with a month that can be trying–has stuck.

So much so that I’m declaring March a collaboration celebration on this here blog. Every week, I’ll post an entry from a friend as well as my own weekly entries featuring a recipe from, or inspired by, a family member.

This weekend keep your eyes peeled for the first collaboration, an entry that celebrates the approaching arrival of Spring.

For now, I’m taking my coat and posting a last winter recipe for these last winter days: Pot-au-Feu, the traditional, broth-y, vegetable-brimming version. It’s a simple recipe, one from Lulu’s father–Marco, or Papa Olive for those whom he gifts olive oil and honey to on the regular–, a wool-blanket-around-the-shoulders kind of meal, deeply nourishing and satisfying without a lot of fuss.

Peel Yr Potatoes

In fact, the only fuss in this recipe is the peeling of a few potatoes.

While it may seem like an anathema to some holistically-minded folk, yes, I peel my potatoes. Potatoes contain toxic compounds called glycoalkaloids, which function as a kind of natural pesticide, or protection, for the potato and are the reason why some folks avoid foods from the nightshade family (tomatoes, peppers, eggplant) altogether.

Glycoalkaloids are especially concentrated in the potato’s skin. You’ve probably been told to avoid green-hued potatoes, or ones that have started to sprout. This is because the glycoalkaloid content is very high.

Glycoalkaloids are why potatoes can be said to be inflammatory and I often wonder if those who report symptoms (like headaches, bloating, swelling) would find the experience of a peeled potato better. (Anyone out there who can speak to this?)

In any case, I hope this recipe lends some brightness to you during these oft-rough first weeks of March.

Merci Papa Olive!

Papa Olive's Pot-au-Feu

Ingredients

1 pound beef shoulder
few marrow bones
2 carrots
2 leeks
2 onions
2 parsnips
4 potatoes, peeled
1 celeriac, de-bearded and peeled
2 turnips
1 rutabaga
2 teaspoons cloves
4 bay leaves

Directions

Slice beef shoulder into big chunks. Add meat and marrow bones to large stockpot and fill w/ cold water. Put on high heat and bring to a boil. Once boiling, take off heat, drain water and remove meat and bones from pot. Wipe pot clean.
While meat and boils are boiling, cut all the vegetables, except the onions, into big chunks -- you want them to be roughly the same, big size (remember, they're going to cook for a few hours). Peel your onions and stick the cloves in the skin (the onion is your pincushion, the cloves are your needles).
Add vegetables, meat and bones into stock-pot. Cover with cold water. Place on stove and heat on high until comes to a rolling boiling. Skim surface for impurities, then lower. Cover with a lid and simmer for 2-3 hours, checking every so often to see if your meat is tender. Once tender, serve!

Serve with lacto-fermented pickles, grainy mustard, course salt and a chunk of sourdough bread.

It will keep in the fridge for 4 days, if well-sealed. Otherwise, it freezes well.

It’s nearly March, which means (from a glass-half-full vantage) that it’s nearly Spring or (from a glass-half-empty one) that citrus season is nearing its end and that it’s nigh time for us in the Northern Hemisphere to bid farewell to (relatively) locally-grown lemons. Sigh.

You see, as much as I try to keep my diet in harmony with my region’s seasonal rhythms, I tend to make excuses for lemon. Sweet, sunshine-hued lemon, the only fruit that I consume daily, throughout the day in fact, starting my morning with a limonene concentrate and proceeding to sprinkle its juice on grains and greens, roast slice on top of chicken or fish, drop wedge in glass of water or cup of herbal tea. Come Winter or, for those experiencing the isn’t-it-over-yet blues, Citrus Good Times, I fill my market bag with the finest lemons that this region has to offer. And when the winds have shifted toward Spring, my hands can’t help but reach for those mesh-bags, y’all know the ones, brightly hued and filled with 10 not-always-so-fine-but-fine-enough looking lemons. And in Summer, seasonal-living-be-damned, I make lemonade.

I can’t quit you, lemon. And to speak, pardon my French, franc-ly, I don’t want to. But this year, I’m going to try to reserve the use of the fresh version of you and make more use of the preserved one.

Yep, that’s right preserves, or the results of preserving the bounty of one season for the next. Like curing ham in the fall, or making sauerkraut in the winter, or eating as many strawberries as humanly possible in June. The lemon is no stranger to the process of preserving and, like many other plant-based lacto-ferments, all that’s needed is some salt, a vessel and time.

Call them pickled or lacto-fermented or salt-brined or just plain ol’ preserved, these lemons will last far beyond this last stretch of Wint…, ahem, Citrus Good Times. And while they won’t yield even remotely…remotely!… palatable results for something like, say, lemonade, the combination of salt and time mutes the bitterness of pith and peel, meaning that preserved lemons are lemons you can eat whole.

The classic use for these lemons is in chicken tagine, but I find their uniquely-umami quality lends brightness and complexity to something as simple as a plate of 10-minute couscous. I’ve added slices to a pan of sizzling brussel sprouts, stuffed them in a roasting chicken, simmered them in a pot of spelt-berries all with equally lip-smacking results.

Let the Citrus Good Times roll!

Preserved Lemons

Adapted from Ottolenghi's "Jerusalem"

Ingredients

6 organic lemons (important! as you'll be consuming the peel); whole
6 tablespoons of course Celtic sea salt
6 lemons; juiced
1 sprig rosemary
1 sprig thyme
few dried hot peppers (optional, but delicious for us spice-lovers)

Directions

Cut an "X" in each lemon, cutting deeply enough so that it folds open, but lightly enough so that it remains whole. Rub 1 tablespoon of salt into the inside of each lemon. Place lemons into a sealable glass vessel, pressing down on them as you go. The lemons should fill the jar (if your jar is too big or too small, add/subtract lemons accordingly). Seal well and wait 1 week, storing someplace cool and dry.
Your lemons will have shrunk a bit by now and there will be some space at the top of your jar. No big deal! Add the juice of 6 lemons (or more, depending -- the goal is to cover the lemons with juice) and herbs and peppers. Add a pour of olive oil on top of the lemon juice. This layer of fat will protect your lemons from developing molds. Seal well and wait 3 weeks, storing in that cool and dry place.

After you've opened your jar, store in the refrigerator.

The Soaked Bean

Seeking Nourishment, Finding Traditions

Papa Olive’s Pot-au-Feu

Last-Stretch-of-Winter Lemons