Challenge Met!

My husband had to question me when I can home with a bag of shrimp. He asked me if I wasn't planning to eat dinner. I smiled and explained the challenge here on the Windflower blog, then told him that I didn't have the heart to buy all the other seafood ingredients that the original recipe suggested.

Needless to say, Jeremy enjoyed his part of the seafood and chard recipe that night, the rest followed me to the farm the next day. I must comment that the dish was extremely easy to make and used minimal yet flavorful ingredients. By lunch the next day, the flavors had melded very well. Most folks still gave it an uncertain eye, but tried it anyway. The spicy nature, though subtle, was the most negative comment worth mention. I tried to put a picture in this post, but smartphone keeps giving me trouble. Take my word for it, the finished dish looked beautiful!

Overall Rating: * * * three stars

Next Up! Morrocian Eggplant

P.s. So we here that many of the city folks email Ted saying they don't know what to do with so many potatoes! Gasp! Let us country folk help. This dish is great with eggs for breakfast or as a dinner side.


POTATOES with CARAMELIZED ONIONS

4 medium potatoes
2 medium onions
2 tbsp butter or olive oil
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/2 cup feta cheese, or any other kind you prefer
a pinch of dried basil

Peel the onions, halve them, and cut into thin slices. Heat the butter in a 12 inch skilet and add the onions, stirring to coat. Meanwhile, cut the potatoes into quarter inch slices (I like to leave mine whole, but you can quarter them first if you like). Arrange the potatoes over the onions in a single layer, sprinkle with salt, cover and cook on medium heat for fifteen minutes.

Flip the potatoes and onions with a spatula, recover and cook 10 more minutes or until fork tender. Turn off heat. Top with the feta and basil, recover and let sit until cheese to slightly melted. Serve hot or cold.

Potatoes

I love the color of the Rose Finn Apple potato. Makes me want to fry up some chips and admire the way they look. And that's a good thing. You absolutely may feed the workers on Windflower! If I don't eat it, everyone else will. Come to think of it, there isn't much that I won't eat.

We planted dozens of different potato varieties this year, some as lovely as the Rose Finn and others as classic as what you'd find in the grocery store. It took two days to cut all the seed potatoes and I am missing those afternoons in the sun, standing barefoot with my pants rolled up to my ankles just cutting them into sections. It's relaxing, but it wasn't always like that.

My second year at Windflower was when I first remember being a part of the potato action. It may have been the first year we ever grew them, I'm not sure, but I recall the several days we spent dragging plastic tubs of seed potatoes along the furrows just to plant them. (Transplanters were the best invention ever . . .) The tubs weighed more than one person could carry and there was no tractor that went by that evening to cover the furrows. It was all by hand back then. Imagine my appreciation for the new equipment.

It's my firm belief that newcomers to Windflower cannot fully appreciate the comfort we have in our tasks. It still seems hard, but it really could be (and was once) harder.

Check out the poll at the side of the page if you know anything about potato planting.