Farmers Market Finds and Weekly Menu 10/31 - 11/5/11

Happy Halloween everyone!

Where the heck did this year go? Here we are showing the the final haul from the Kingfield Farmers Market for the season.

Seeing all this bounty makes me sad to see it over for the year. Here's what we got...

Yukon Potatoes
Squash - These store nicely in a cool, dark place for quite a while.
Red Peppers
Leeks
Eggs
Parsnips
Garlis
Green Bean
Ground Beef - To stock the freezer
Italian Sausage
Ribeye Steaks
Foxy Falafel Hummus
Sun Street Buttermilk Biscuits

There will be a Holiday Market in November where we'll be able to stock up on a few more things and our meat vendor has monthly winter drop-offs in the city which is great.

On to Menu Planning Monday...

Buttermilk Biscuits with Sausage and Coffee Gravy

Chicken Enchiladas - Because I never made it last week

Potato and Leek Soup

Thyme and Sea Salt Turkey Burgers

Red Wine Beef Stew

Sausage and Peppers Pasta

If you are not reading this post in a feed reader or at http://agoodappetite.blogspot.com OR at http://agoodappetite.com then the site you are reading is illegally publishing copyrighted material. Contact me at katbaro AT yahoo DOT COM. All recipes, text and photographs in this post are the original creations & property of the author unless otherwise noted. © 2007-2011 Kathy Lewinski

Korean-Style Crock Pot Short Ribs

We've had some short ribs in the freezer for awhile that I had mental tags for Korean short ribs. I know they are often gilled, but I wanted to do them in a chock pot. Why? Because cooking in the crock pot is so easy.

I'm sure these are not traditional in anyway, but I looked at lots of different recipes for the sauce and they are seemed to have very similar ingredients. It's a pretty simple mixture yet full of flavor. Cooking the ribs in a crock pot braises them until they are fall off the bone tender. Perfect with just a little jasmine rice.

Once thing I will say is short ribs are quite fatty and a lot of that fat cooks into the sauce. We didn't use any of the sauce left in the pot, so it didn't really matter to us. Though I think that sauce would be really tasty if it was let to set for a bit, the grease skimmed off the top and then reheated.

Korean-Style Crock Pot Short Ribs
(You may feel like you are buying a lot of meat per serving here, but short ribs have a lot of bone and fat in them)

1/2 c soy sauce
1/2 c rice wine
1 T honey
1/2 t sesame oil
1 clove garlic, chopped
2 scallions, sliced
1 - 1.25 lbs Short RIbs, cut into separate ribs

Mix everything but the short ribs in a small crock pot*. Add the ribs, they should be covered about half way by the liquid. Cover and turn the crock pot to high. Let cook for about 3 hours, turning the ribs once. When the ribs are starting to fall off the bone, turn the crock pot to low and let cook another 2 1/2 - 3 hours.

2 servings.

We have a small crock pot that we got at Target for like $7. It is the perfect size to fit these three ribs and have the sauce come up about halfway. If you only have a large crock pot and are doing a small amount of ribs you may need to make more sauce. You could also do this in an oven-proof pan in the oven at a low temp.

If you are not reading this post in a feed reader or at http://agoodappetite.blogspot.com OR at http://agoodappetite.com then the site you are reading is illegally publishing copyrighted material. Contact me at katbaro AT yahoo DOT COM. All recipes, text and photographs in this post are the original creations & property of the author unless otherwise noted. © 2007-2011 Kathy Lewinski

Weekly Menu 10/24 - 10/29/11

Some of you may know I write a craft blog as well as this food blog. Recently, that blog changed names to Just Crafty Enough and I'm writing it with my good friend Susi in San Francisco. I've been doing a few posts over there about throwing an adult Halloween party which, of course, calls for a special cocktail.

Matt came up with this drink that he calls the Harvest Campfire. It features the fall flavors of apple and cinnamon, plus a very special ingredient, Smoked Club Soda. Head over to Just Crafty Enough to check it out.

Menu Planning Monday...

Pizzeria Lola Anniversary Dinner - Lola's anniversary not ours.

Roast Chicken with Potatoes, Carrots and Onions - I love a roast chicken and it gives me leftover chicken for the rest of the week.

Creamy Chicken WIld Rice Soup - The favorite soup in our house

Braised Korean Short Ribs

Chicken Enchiladas - Using our Chile Verde Sauce

If you are not reading this post in a feed reader or at http://agoodappetite.blogspot.com OR at http://agoodappetite.com then the site you are reading is illegally publishing copyrighted material. Contact me at katbaro AT yahoo DOT COM. All recipes, text and photographs in this post are the original creations & property of the author unless otherwise noted. © 2007-2011 Kathy Lewinski

Squash Pizza

Where did this week go? Oh, I know, it's been filled with home remodeling woes from upside-down light to tiles of different dye lots. Ah well, at least we had a really good pizza this week.

This is just one of those perfect fall pairings, squash, bacon and goat cheese. It doesn't look like enough toppings, but its full of sweet, salty, spicy and tangy flavors. Have leftover squash from dinner? That would be a great way to make this too.

Squash Pizza

Crust for one pizza
1 small squash, we used an Acorn, you can chose your favorite
1 yellow onion, sliced
olive oil
kosher salt
2 slices bacon, chopped
chevre goat cheese (if you like a really cheese pizza or don't like goat cheese you can use grated provolone like Matt did)
crushed red pepper flakes

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Peel and cube the squash. Put the squash and onion into a small roasting pan or baking sheet. Drizzle with enough olive oil to coat everything. Sprinkle with salt. Roast for about 30 minutes until the squash is soft.

In a small skillet, cook the bacon until crispy. Drain on a paper towel.

Preheat oven to 450 F.

Roll out the pizza dough to your desired thickness.

Crush the squash up a bit. Top the dough with the squash, onions and bacon. Crumble the cheese over the top. Sprinkle as much red pepper as you like.

Bake until the crust is golden brown and the cheese is melted about 15 minutes.

Serves 2 - 3

If you are not reading this post in a feed reader or at http://agoodappetite.blogspot.com OR at http://agoodappetite.com then the site you are reading is illegally publishing copyrighted material. Contact me at katbaro AT yahoo DOT COM. All recipes, text and photographs in this post are the original creations & property of the author unless otherwise noted. © 2007-2011 Kathy Lewinski

Eating and Drinking Madison

As I mentioned last week we are in the middle of remodeling both the bathrooms in our house. At the end of last week, we had no working bathroom for two days plus it was our fifth wedding anniversary, so it seemed like a good time to get out of town. We packed up the car and headed to Madison, Wisconsin for a beautiful fall weekend of tasty restaurants and microbrews.

Our first stop was Capitol Brewery just outside of Madison in Middleton, WI. Capitol offers a short tour with three tastings and a tasting glass you get to keep for $5.

Capitol is enjoying its 25th Anniversary this year so along with all their other beers we go to try the special 25th Anniversary brew, Eternal Flame, a blend of their limited Autumnal Fall and an Imperial Dopplebock. My favorite of their beers though had to be the Autumnal Fire, a rich doppelbock. Capitol has some beautiful tasting rooms inside that were being used for private parties, but we were happy to spend the afternoon in their large beer garden with a lot of other neighborhood folks.

That night we headed downtown to The Old Fashioned for dinner. Apparently so did half of Madison and everyone there for homecoming. Luckily, we were able to grab a couple of seats at the bar and dive into their list of 150 beers. The Old Fashioned patterns itself after traditional supper clubs, but an updated menu.

They have amazing sounding Lazy Susans full of cheese, sausages and other treats, but they all sounded too big for us, so we went with the Wisconsin cheese spread tray. Yes, cheese spread, horseradish, sharp cheddar and garlic, all very good. Since it was Friday night it was fish fry night with three different fish on order. I had the cod and Matt had the Walleye. If we lived in Madison I think we'd be among the half crowding it every night.

The next morning we went to the Dane County Farmers Market that surrounds the capitol building. A huge market full of cheese, meat, vegetables, flowers and tons of bakeries. It didn't have the prepared food vendors like the Minneapolis markets do, so we walked a block to Marigold, a restaurant recommended to us by a couple of different people. The had a duck confit hash on the menu so how could I refuse. A bright cheerful place with all the breakfast favorites and some interesting "gourmet" choices.

Later that day, we drove the 30 minutes to the small Swiss-style village of New Glarus to visit New Glarus Brewing. Their large, modern brewery really reminded us of California wineries. They offer a self-guided tour of the brewery which as nice as the brewery is would benefit from some signage for those of us interested in the brewing process. Really it seems like everyone is there for the gift shop, tasting room and beer depot.

New Glarus offers three tastings for $3 with a take home tasting glass. You can also purchase a pint glass for $6 with $3 refills or $9 for specialty beer with $8 refills. Since New Glarus beers are only available in Wisconsin we head to pick up s few six-packs at the beer depot to take home. Matt has been a fan of their Moon Man and Fat Squirrel, but on this trip I discovered my love of their Back 40 Bock.

That night being our anniversary, we had made reservations at what many people told us is the best restaurant in Madison, L'Etoile. A modern glass and steel building warmed with blond woods, white furniture and candlelight, L'Etoile is an elegant downtown spot. The menu is French, but definitely French influenced by what is in season locally. The whole back of the menu lists all the local farms where they get their ingredients. We had a beautifully prepared meal paired with wines that suited each course perfectly. On the pricey side, L'Etoile is not a place to eat out often, but for a special occasion it was worth it.

We capped off our weekend with a tour of Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin. Truly a perfect midwestern fall weekend.

If you are not reading this post in a feed reader or at http://agoodappetite.blogspot.com OR at http://agoodappetite.com then the site you are reading is illegally publishing copyrighted material. Contact me at katbaro AT yahoo DOT COM. All recipes, text and photographs in this post are the original creations & property of the author unless otherwise noted. © 2007-2011 Kathy Lewinski