SPRING GREENS, FETA & PASTA

Rainbow Chard

Spring is my favorite time of year. Not only for the yellow and pink blossoms that erupt from leafless trees and as daffodils, but also for the GREENS from the garden. And now, thanks to hoop houses and growing tunnels, mustard greens, Tuscan kale, curly kale and the above Rainbow Chard hit the markets even earlier.

At Tumbling Shoals Farm, in NC's northwestern corner, Shiloh and partner Jason grow a smorgasbord of terrific veggies. Former Peace Corps workers, they came home and apprenticed with an organic grower in the Triangle area, took some classes in sustainable farming, then found their mountain farm to pour their hearts and souls into.

Last summer during the Blue Ridge Women in Agriculture's farm tour, I saw tomatoes in hoop houses, rain gutters adapted as a growing place for starting seeds, and the elaborate schedule used to rotate crops.

Shiloh is a great cook, and I was so happy that she shared this recipe with me. It's become one of my favorite "meatless meals." I just love the slightly bitter flavor of the chard with the tang of the feta and the flavor of the spinach pasta. And it's quick and easy! Try the recipe that follows.......

And, watch my latest appearance on Roanoke's WSLS10's OUR BLUE RIDGE, where I make this dish with co-host Natalie:

http://www2.wsls.com/lifestyles/2011/mar/25/spring-greens-and-pasta-elizabeth-wiegand-ar-927660/

Here's the RECIPE:

SPRING GREENS FARMERS MARKET SUPPER

from THE NEW BLUE RIDGE COOKBOOK, by Elizabeth Wiegand, Globe Pequot Press, 2010

At the Watauga Farmers Market, Shiloh Avery and Jason Roehrig of Tumbling Shoals Farm, sell chemical-free strawberries, lacinato kale, rainbow chard, escarole, endive, arugula, and lots of other spring greens. They recommend procuring the rest of the ingredients at the market, also.

1 package spinach linguine or other fresh pasta

one bunch (4 to 6 cups) chopped rainbow chard or other spring green

4 tablespoons olive oil, plus a splash

2 bunches chopped green onions

salt to taste

5 ounces feta cheese

freshly ground black pepper

1. Cook the pasta in a pot of salted boiling water with a splash of olive oil. If pasta is fresh, be careful not to overcook.)

2. Meanwhile, separate the stems from the chard leaves. Coarsely chop the stems, then roll the leaves together and coarsely chop.

3. Heat the 4 tablespoons olive oil in a large, heavy skillet. Saute the onion and chard stems (not greens) in the oil for about six minutes.

4. Add the chard greens and salt. Cook until wilted.

5. Add the feta cheese and pasta and continue cooking for another minute, until feta begins to melt. Add ground black pepper and serve.

SERVES 3 to 4

THE BUZZ

BEE SMART

Our honey bees are in trouble. Since 2006, beekeepers have lost from a third to 90% of their hives, in what is called "Colony Collapse Disorder" or CCD. And no one knows what causes this sudden disappearance of all adult bees.

Pesticides are the most suspicious culprits, as is urban sprawl and decreasing farmland. For a while, cell phones were thought to bother the bees. There's a varroa mite that feeds on bee's blood and transmits viruses, and a pathogenic gut microbe, nosema, that also cause bee deaths. It could be a combination of all of the above problems, scientists say.

WHY YOU SHOULD BE CONCERNED

Bees pollinate as they search for food to take back to the hive. And 130 crops - most of them food - depend on bees, from almonds in California to blueberries right here in N.C. Without a healthy bee population, our food supplies will dwindle. Beekeepers here in NC and VA truck their bees all over the South and even out to California, earning money from farmers who rely on bees to pollinate their crops. Without bees, there would be little fruit or veggies.

That's why I'm posting the link below that I want you to follow. Let Congress know that you want the EPA to look into pesticide use and colony collapse disorder.

http://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/5986/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=5833

HONEY DO LIST

Honey in tea, on a warm piece of toast, in marinades, vinaigrettes....I do love my honey. Gallberry is the flavor I have left in my pantry, and I look forward to the spring crop of wildflower honey, and tupelo honey during early summer and . . . .

Here's a bread recipe from THE NEW BLUE RIDGE COOKBOOK that comes from Sweet Providence Farm near Floyd, Va, given to me by Ann Houston, the just-turned-20 year-old who is the chief baker at her family's roadside market. As a teenager, Ann loved to bake so much and had such success, that they had a "barn-raising" for the bakery/market they built to sell her oven-baked apple turnovers, pies, cakes and bread. She and her siblings man the cash registers, order and sort the produce and meats that come from other local farmers, and display other Southern products. It's worth the drive to check it out, and during the summer, Ann and her six young siblings play bluegrass on the porch on weekend afternoons.

MAPLE, HONEY AND OATMEAL BREAD, from THE NEW BLUE RIDGE COOKBOOK

butter for pans

3 cups boiling water

1 cup rolled oats, plus ¼ cup oats, for topping

2 ounces (1/2 stick) butter

2 tablespoons maple syrup

¼ cup honey

1 ½ cups wheat flour

1 teaspoon salt *(I added)

1 teaspoon yeast

about 4 ½ cups white flour

2 egg whites

1. Boil water.

2. Combine 1 cup rolled oats and butter in a bowl.

3. Add boiling water to oat mixture. Let stand until butter melts.

4. Add maple syrup, honey and wheat flour, and mix.

5. Let stand until room temperature. Add yeast and stir.

6. Add white flour slowly, stirring, and then kneading until a soft and smooth dough forms. You may not need all of the white flour.

7. Place dough in a clean bowl and let rise until it doubles.

8. Punch down and let stand for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 350°. Grease two loaf pans with butter.

9. Divide the dough into two equal amounts, shape loaves, and place into loaf pans.

10. Let rise until double.

11. Glaze with egg whites and sprinkle with oats.

12. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes, until dark golden brown and hollow sounding when thumped.

YIELD: 2 Loaves

(c) THE NEW BLUE RIDGE COOKBOOK

TWO PLACES WHERE YOU NEED TO EAT BEFORE YOU DIE

Hey, I'm not kidding. You need to eat here. Now. You've got two months left before it closes for this year, and who knows if the Cypress Grill in Jamesville will survive hurricanes and the economy for yet another season. Although, it's been open for business since 1936 and the place stays crowded.

Eat a bit of history at the Cypress Grill, NC's only remaining "cook up" shack, those impromptu eateries that lined the Roanoke River each spring during the annual herring run.

And I do mean "shack." Stains run a few feet up the old board-and-batten siding, made from cypress harvested from the trees interspersed with tupelo gums that grow up and down the Roanoke River. Inside, crude booths make you sit up straight, and a sideboard full of pies remind you to save room for dessert.

Articles singing praises about the place, from Gourmet, Southern Living, and the Smithsonian, hang in frames on the wall, along with photos of a nine-foot, 92-pound diamondback rattlesnake caught nearby.

Turn off of HWY 64 into Jamesville, then head to the river and head right till you see a small sign for the Cypress Grill. Go down to the boat ramp, and it's on your right.

WHADDYA EAT?

Herring and/or shad. You can have either "sunny side up," meaning crisply fried till golden, or "cremated," cooked till hard and crunchy. Each fish, headless but with its tail, is gutted, then slashed or what they call "notched" to the bone several times, rolled in cornmeal, then put into the fryer.

Herring is a fishy fish. You gotta like fish, oily fish, to like herring.

And you've got to deal with bones. Lots of bones. Not for the squeamish or picky eater, herring is a primordial sensation. But you need to eat it, here at the Cypress Grill, at least once in your life.

"Scrape the meat up with your fork down the middle," our waitress recommended when my husband asked her how to eat it. That was after she rolled her eyes. "Or, just pick it up and scrape it with your teeth. And you can eat the bones." Now my husband rolled his eyes.

And you need to try the ROE, as well. We missed out on the roe by one week, said our waitress (last week of Feb 2011). Herring and shad roe are an Eastern North Carolina treat that old-timers really look forward to. The roe is also rolled in cornmeal, then fried, and served with scrambled eggs. In years past, I've enjoyed its naturally salty, fishy taste and crunch.

Save room for the homemade lemon and chocolate meringue pies, made by owners Leslie and Sally Gardner. I can personally attest for the scrumptious fudgy chocolate version with its cloud-like meringue.

The Cypress Grill is open from January through April, in Jamesville, NC. (252) 792-4175.

A DAY DOWN EAST

We feasted with our eyes and ears, too, during our day Down East.

Tundra Swans beckon us to Lake Mattamuskeet each winter to watch their graceful movements in the shallow water. One year we were so lucky to watch hundreds of them take off, right at sunset, for their beds somewhere west. At February's end this year, only dozens remained, but there were egrets, hawks, herons, and all sorts of ducks to amuse us.

ROSE BAY OYSTERS

Along Swan Quarter, near the ferry that goes over the Pamlico Sound to Ocracoke Island, there are names that make oyster lovers swoon. Rose Bay. Engelhard. Stumpy Point.

On our way to Lake Mattamuskeet, we stopped at this oyster processor. It's the only one left in this area that could be likened to California's Cannery Row, with dozens of big oyster canneries that employed the locals and migrant labor, too. Back in the '70s, oysters just about disappeared from NC's waters, due to over-harvesting as well as the draining of land with canals and ditches that dumped too much freshwater and pollutants into the sounds. Oysters have made a comeback, thanks to regulations and efforts to re-establish oyster reefs with used oyster shells and other materials.

Oysters from the natural half-moon-shape along this inner coastline, known as Rose Bay, are today prized for their salty yet sweet, briny taste. In season, during the colder months, you can now get oysters from Rose Bay at a couple of oyster bars across the state, even in Cary.

We headed to Williamston, to Sunny Side Oyster Bar, an icon in North Carolina. . . . one of those places you just have to eat at before you die.

THE OTHER PLACE TO EAT DOWN EAST BEFORE YOU DIE . . . .

Sunny Side has been open for business since 1936. When new owners took over in 1991, they decided it needed little improvement, and tried to leave it as it was.

That included the use of sawdust, cedar shavings, on the floor of the horseshoe bar. No kitchen, but rather an outdoor roaster, where galvanized buckets of oysters are placed to be steamed. The swinging hook and circle to amuse you while you wait. And a big dance floor where you can boogey to live music some weekends.

You might have to wait 30 minutes or more to belly up to the oyster bar, which occupies the room in back. But it's worth the wait, and lately, the oysters have come from NC waters, like Rose Bay.

Passing time while our oysters were steaming, one of our party was game to try "The Rooster" - an oyster on a saltine, topped with a bit of horseradish, then a habanero pepper and more hot sauce. Folks around the bar chided and peppered her with dares to "just do it," then cheered loudly as she sputtered down a beer.

"Geezer," like many of the shuckers, has been working at Sunny Side for decades. He poured melted butter into a small bowl, and filled another with a warm, slightly spicy hot sauce whose recipe, bought back when the place was just opened, is still a secret.

Geezer returned from out back with our bucket, a peck of Rose Bay oysters lightly steamed, which he swiftly and deftly opened one by one, laying each like a pearl into a bowl in front of each of us.

Those Rose Bay oysters were plump. Salty, tasting of the sea. Done to perfection, still juicy. Like jewels themselves.

"Ever found a pearl?" asked the guy next to me. "My wife has a jewelry box full of them," Geezer answered. "If she hasn't lost them."

Sunny Side Oyster Bar, 1102 Washington St (where US 17 & 64 meet), Williamston, NC (252) 792-3416.

BREAD PUDDING, CHIPPED & ALED

Okay, I admit it. I am "ruint." After a sweet sail in the Caribbean, I returned home pouting. So I sought some comfort food.

Bread pudding soothed my soul that was plagued by our winter weather.

It's a magical dish, turning leftover stale bread into something so sweet and delectable. Called "poor man's pudding," it's a good way to use up leftover loaves of French or country white bread that has a bit of texture to it. Soft, fluffy bread just will not do.

I thought bread puddings were a just a Southern thing until I did some research. Turns out just about every cuisine has developed a sweet way of using up yesterday's manna. Bread pudding is famous in New Orleans, usually made with golden raisins and smothered with a bourbon sauce.

DOUSED IN LOCAL BREW

For THE NEW BLUE RIDGE COOKBOOK, I found a marvelous recipe for bread pudding while visiting a brewery near the Blue Ridge Parkway at Afton, VA. Blue Mountain Brewery is a fabulous place, with great scenery and a crop of hops just out the front door. I'd never seen the tall vines growing before.

Virginia used the be the hops capitol of the New World, but these days most hops are grown in the Northwest of the country. So it's a bit unusual to find a nearby brewery that grows its own hops for fermentation.

Blue Mountain Brewery has several varieties of beer, but there's one that matches up with Bread Pudding just perfectly, at least the way co-owner Mandi Smack makes it for their tasting room. She adds chocolate chips and nuts for a crunchy topping, and soaks it all with their Evil Eight Degree, a dark, caramel and chocolaty flavored ale. I fell in love with it at first bite, and begged for the recipe.

Please note that if you cannot find that particular bottle, substitute a dark, Belgian-style ale. Make it a local brew, if possible.

TV DEMO

Roanoke's WSLS10 noontime show, Our Blue Ridge, has invited me several times to prepare some of the recipes from THE NEW BLUE RIDGE COOKBOOK. It's a live show, and I get FOUR minutes to complete a dish. Four. It's been fun to do, and I love working with Natalie and Jay, the hosts, and their producer, Stephanie.

Catch my latest episode where we make this very Bread Pudding!

http://www2.wsls.com/entertainment/2011/feb/18/chocolate-and-brew-bread-pudding-ar-852725/

Recipe follows....

BREAD PUDDING WITH CHOCOLATE CHIPS & ALE

vegetable oil cooking spray

2 cups sugar, turbinado or granulated

5 eggs, beaten

2 cups whole milk

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

½ bottle (6 ounces) Blue Mountain Brewery’s Evil 8° Belgian Double Ale

3 cups country white bread pieces, stale

½ cup chocolate chips

1 cup brown sugar

2 ounces (1/2 stick) softened butter

1 cup pecans, chopped

aluminum foil

FOR THE EVIL 8° CARAMEL SAUCE:

1 cup sugar, turbinado or granulated

6 ounces Blue Mountain Brewery’s Evil 8° Belgian Double Ale

4 ounces (1 stick) butter, melted

1 egg, beaten

2 teaspoons vanilla extract, pure

1. Preheat oven to 350°. Grease a 9 x 13-inch pan.

2. Combine the sugar, eggs and milk in a mixing bowl. Add the vanilla and Evil 8° ale.

3. Lay out the stale bread pieces in the bottom of the greased pan.

4. Pour the egg mixture over the bread pieces and let sit until most, but not all, is absorbed, about 15 minutes.

5. In a separate bowl, mix and crumble together the chocolate chips, brown sugar, butter and chopped pecans to make the topping mixture.

6. Sprinkle the topping mixture over the soaked bread pieces in the pan. Cover with foil and bake for 35 minutes.

7. Remove foil and bake for an additional 10 to 15 minutes, until nicely browned.

8. Meanwhile make the Evil 8° Caramel Sauce. In a saucepan, mix together the sugar, butter, egg and vanilla. Cook over medium heat, stirring until the sugar is melted. Add Evil 8° ale and stir.

9. Spoon warm caramel sauce over bread pudding.

YIELD: 6 to 8 Servings

NOW THE WORLD KNOWS ABOUT NC FOODS

Barbecue, ramps, sweet potato pie. Yes, indeed, we've got great things to eat here in North Carolina, just as they do in MOROCCO.

And that's what two prominent travel publications think.

They've ranked both Durham and Asheville in the same keeping as MOROCCO.

It's not often that Durham, NC is thrown in as a destination with the likes of Morocco, Zanzibar, Greece or China. But a recent Sunday NY TIMES Travel piece placed this Tar Heel city in WHERE TO GO.

I'll be posting about SCRATCH BAKERY soon, as I've stopped in several times. Read on.

http://travel.nytimes.com/2011/01/09/travel/09where-to-go.html?pagewanted=4&sq=January%209,%202011&st=cse&scp=2

35. Durham, N.C.
A downtown turnaround means food worth a trip. A decade ago, downtown Durham was a place best avoided after sundown. But as revitalization has transformed abandoned tobacco factories and former textile mills into bustling mixed-use properties, the city has been injected with much-needed life. In the heart of downtown, a crop of standout restaurants and cafes has recently sprouted around West Main Street, where low rents have allowed chefs and other entrepreneurs to pursue an ethos that skews local, seasonal and delicious.

The farmers’ market favorite Scratch Bakery has a brand-new storefront for its seasonal homemade pies that include chestnut cream pie and buttermilk sweet potato pie. At the cafe-cum-grocery Parker and Otis, the menu features sandwiches made with freshly baked bread from nearby Rue Cler and locally roasted java from Durham’s Counter Culture Coffee. And at the sophisticated Revolution, squash tamales, mascarpone gnocchi, and tuna with wasabi caviar rotate through the seasonal menu.

ASHEVILLE IN FODOR'S TOP SPOT Fodor's, the much respected travel guide, also recognized Asheville as a culinary destination...and brew hub, too, along with exotic places likes Tokyo, Copenhagen, Nicaragua and again, Morocco.

Trout with Green Tomato & Blackberry Sauce from Early Girl Eatery

21 Places We're Going in 2011

Why Go Now: Get a taste of Asheville while it still feels local and before it goes global. On the edge of the alluring Smoky Mountains, the food and drink scene of the recently dubbed "Beer City USA" is the perfect compliment to the scenery. You'll find over 30 galleries and 20 music venues devoted to everything from folk pieces to modern mash-ups.

Check it out:

http://www.fodors.com/travel-photography/21-places-were-going-in-2011-216.html

YELLOW-EYED PEAS

GOLDEN EYES...

James Bond's Golden Eyes came to mind the first time I laid eyes on these peas.

"What do you call these?" I asked the older lady manning the farm stand, one of many on HWY 64 between Chimney Rock and Hendersonville, back in October.

She just stared at me, like I just didn't have any sense at all in my head.

Finally, she cocked her head and pointed to the sign below the basket that read YELLOW-EYED PEAS.

"Oh. So how do you cook them?" I asked, undaunted.

She kept staring, then shook her head. "Honey, you do them just like you do black-eyed peas," she said with disgust and turned away.

A SOUTHERN TRADITION

In most regions of the South, peas and beans were dried for winter use. Often times, this staple was all folks had to fill and warm their stomach on cold, dreary days, such as we've been having lately. Traditionally, they were cooked with a bit of fatback, or if they were lucky, a ham hock.

Both black- and yellow-eyed peas are members of the cow pea family, brought here by the enslaved from Africa, and developed by farmers for feeding livestock. Hence the name.

COMFORT FOOD

Most folks have Hoppin' John or some such on New Year's Day, with the black-eyed peas representing coins, served with greens of some sort, with hopes that digesting such would produce a good flow of money, green bills or change.

My yellow-eyed peas might bring me GOLD, I hoped, as I stirred the pot filled with the hock of a ham we had devoured during the holidays. I added some kale during the last 15 minutes of cooking for good measure, too, thinking for sure some greenbacks might also come my way.

We devoured the whole pot in one sitting.

With the nasty cold weather we've had lately, I've been thinking about that pot of peas. Truly comfort food, warm and filling, the dish is quite simple and no-nonsense. Just like that old lady. Yet, I'd place that mess of peas right up there on my list of great foods, one that brought me and mine much pleasure. That in itself is good fortune this year.

Before cooking, dried peas and beans need to be either soaked in water overnight, or covered with water, brought to a boil, then soaked from two to four hours. I'll put my leftover stash of dried yellow-eyes in water before I head up to bed.

RECIPE That old lady at the farm stand left me wondering about the best way to use my novelty peas. Fortunately, New Year's Day dictated that I needed to produce something to bring me "luck and money". Forgive the generalities of this recipe, but I imagine it's how my grandmother would have told me to do this!

If you'd prefer, you can do a healthier version of this minus the ham or bones.

about 2 cups dried peas

one onion, chopped

hambones or a bit of chopped country ham

small bundle of kale

salt and pepper to taste

Place the peas in a bowl or pot and cover with about two inches of water. Let sit overnight. Or, if you're in a gall-durned hurry, put them in a pot and cover with water, bring it to a boil, turn the heat off and let them sit for a couple of hours.

Add the onion, and the ham or bones. Bring to a slow boil, then turn the heat down and simmer for about an hour or so, until the peas are tender.

Coarsely chop the kale, and stir into the pot. Continue to cook until the kale is tender enough for your taste, probably about 15 minutes.

Taste and season with salt and pepper. (Be careful with salt, for the ham may have added plenty.)

NUTS FOR PECANS

PECANS

It's pecan time.

The season for pecans gears up just before the holidays, allowing cooks to go nuts making all sorts of marvelous holiday treats, even into the winter. Pecans have been in the markets for the last couple of months, with one gallon bags fetching at least $20.

And believe me, that's worth it.

Dan Finch, owner of Finch Blueberry Nursery in Bailey, NC, also grows pecans for his family. And I am now family, since he married my sister a few years ago. When they were first courting, he brought me several of those gallon bags full of beautiful, already-shelled pecan halves, ready for cooking, sorta like a peace-offering to a future in-law.

Since then, he's shared big boxes of pecans that have been dried, boiled, then cracked, ready for ME to pick out the nuts from among the shell fragments. Didn't appreciate how spoiled I was the first time!

A LABOR OF LOVE

I love, love, love getting these big boxes of pecans. However, it takes me several evenings going through them to pluck the meat from the shells. It's tedious work. And believe me, I am NOT complaining. I tend to fill my mouth as I fill my bags with the pecan pieces, sorta OCD-like in raking my fingers through the fractured, brown shells.

Note that I wear rubber gloves. The tannin in the shells will stain your fingers but fast.

And I now have a year's worth of pecans to make pies, add to salads, cakes and other cooking ventures.

So that twenty bucks or more for a bag of pecans at the market seems quite fair to me. And that's not even taking into account the effort it takes to grow and then maintain the trees. Or to collect the nuts in the first place. Dan tells me he shakes the trees with a front hoe or whatever attached to his tractor, and the nuts fall onto a drop cloth laid on the ground. Then they've got to dry out for a while, then he takes them to a facility where they quickly boil the shells to soften them, then cracks and shakes the majority of the outside shell from the meat.

Anything considered a treasure takes time and labor to produce. And pecans are definitely a Southern treasure.

AN ALL-AMERICAN NUT

Pecans are native trees, found in the Southern states. Texas and Louisiana are big producers, as is North Carolina.

"Pee-can" or "puh' kahn"? Native Americans called them "pecaunes" which translates as "a nut requiring a stone to crack." Ha!

There's an art to cracking them gently enough to open them and pull out the two complete, pretty halves. My dad could put two together in his big hands and crack them open.

Thomas Jefferson loved pecans, and had several planted at Monticello. He knew that you need at least two varieties for cross-pollination. Today, you'll find most pecans planted in a "grove."

And, they're healthy for you! Pure protein. Full of omega-6. Antioxidants. Can lower cholesterol.

Guess that mess of pecans I've been eating as I sort through my boxes is doing wonders for my health, as well as my soul.

RECYCLE THE SHELLS

I could place the shells in my compost bin. Better yet, I'll spread them over my herb garden, and let the birds and squirrels pick out the little pieces of nut left, digging and hiding them in the soil. It should be a good mulch. Any one with a negative experience doing this? Please let me know.

RECIPE - CHOCOLATE PECAN PIE

We recently helped our youngest daughter move to Pennsylvania. I picked out enough pecans to make her favorite, a chocolate pecan pie, to take with us. We christened her new house and eased our aching backs with big ol' slices of the fudgy sweet.

Enjoy this recipe that appeared in my first cookbook, THE OUTER BANKS COOKBOOK.

1 cup corn syrup (light or dark)

3/4 cup sugar

6 tablespoons butter

4 to 6 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped

3 large eggs

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 1/2 cups raw pecans

1 unbaked 9-inch pie crust

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Place corn syrup and sugar in small saucepan. Stir together, then bring to a boil without stirring further. Remove from heat, and add butter and chocolate, and stir until both are melted and mixture is smooth.

3. In a large mixing bowl, whisk eggs until frothy then add salt. Slowly whisk chocolate mixture into eggs,and stir until well blended. Add pecans, and stir.

4. Pour mixture into unbaked pie shell, smoothing pecans into filling.

5. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 to 45 minutes, or until filling is somewhat set in the center.