A fall tradition - Green Chili

Every year I visit Santa Fe, NM in the fall to experience the various festivals and enjoy the great food. During my visit, I make a point of visiting the farmers market and stocking up on some local chilies. I've been buying Chimayo chilies for their great flavor and spice - they make a wonderful green chili stew.

The green chili stew starts off with about a half bushel of roasted Chimayo chilies. Peel and seed the Chimayos, then dice them into half inch pieces. Reserve the diced chilies and any juices for later.

Next braise the pork - I usually use pork shoulder (while i use boneless shoulders from CostCo - bone-in would be preferable). For the braise, you'll need a large heavy pot - this is where my 9q Le Creuset comes in handy! Brown the pork shoulder on all sides and remove. Then add onion, garlic, celery and parsley to the pot - scraping up any accumulated fond. Add spices (coriander, cumin, cinnamon, brown sugar, salt, black pepper and chili powder) and cook with the vegetables. Return the pork shoulder to the pot and add chicken stock until about 2/3rds of the shoulder is submerged. Bring up to a boil, then cover and braise in a 250 degree oven for 3 hours. You should rotate the shoulder about ever hour. Once the pork is done, remove from the braising liquid, and cool to a safe handling temperature. Strain and reserve the cooking liquid - once cool you should skim off any fat that has risen to the top. Discard the spent vegetables. Cut the pork shoulder into a small dice - I recommend a electric knife since this is a lot of meat and typically big pieces.

Next you can start the base for the stew - begin by sauteing onions, add garlic, tomato paste, and diced potatoes. Next add the reserved stock from the braise - bring up to a boil and add the diced chilies. At this point, check for salt. Simmer for 20 minutes, then add the diced pork and continue to simmer. Check the seasoning again. You may need to adjust the amount of liquid by adding more chicken stock, or by simmering down to reduce. You can also add flour paste if you want a thicker chili.

Serve on its own with a bit of sour cream and a tortilla, or serve over tamales!

This has become one of our household favorites so I usually make a double batch and freeze to enjoy throughout the year!

Weekly Blog on Grant Family Farms CSA - Week26

A great CSA season comes to a close with week 26. As I look back over the last 26 weeks, we've had an amazing bounty of vegetables. While there were some weeks where I couldn't believe there was still more kale or cilantro, I was exposed to many things I've never cooked before, which expanded my cooking repertoire! Additionally, I learned about what grew in our Colorado seasons - so often we're disconnected from reality when we're buying tomatoes in December, forgetting they were trucked half way across the country. The flavors of locally grown tomatoes, allowed to ripen on the vine, then picked at their peak was unlike anything i've every experienced from a store bought tomato. Sometimes there was more food then I could handle (especially when I was traveling for business) - this taught me what needed to be eaten immediately versus what could survive in the fridge until I could get to it.

This week's harvest included:

• Kambocha squash
  
• Acorn squash
  
• Carrots
  
• Potatoes
  
• Onions
  
• Brussel sprouts
  
• Diakon radish
  
• Decorative corn
  
• Beets
  
• Cabbage
  
• And Wine!

Thank you to Grant Family Farms for a great CSA experience - I'll be back next year!

Weekly Blog on Grant Family Farms CSA - Week25

Week 25 continues the fall harvest with a nice variety, including:

• Spinach
  
• Brussel sprouts
  
• Kambocha squash
  
• Pumpkin
  
• Diakon radish
  
• Broccoli
  
• Radishes
  
• Beets
  
• Carrots
  
• Potatoes
  
• Chard

The brussel sprouts were fantastic - I removed them from the stalk, then cut an x into the base off each sprout. I boiled them for 7 minutes in salted water. I removed and then tossed with a mustard butter with truffle oil.

Weekly Blog on Grant Family Farms CSA - Week24

Another great food week with brussel sprouts on the stalk!

This week I made a curried butternut squash soup with cilantro oil and creme fraiche.

The recipe was adopted from Deborah Madison's Greens Cookbook. The soup starts with simple vegetable stock made from carrots, zucchini, celery, onion, potato, parsley and curry spices (cinnamon, clove, garlic, coriander, cumin and cardamom). Cook everything together and then strain the stock. For the soup, saute onion, and cubed butternut squash until tender. Next add ground curry spices (cumin, coriander, mustard seeds, cardamom, cinnamon, turmeric, and cayenne pepper) with fresh garlic and ginger. Continue to cook until the spices become fragrant. Then add the soup stock and simmer until all the flavors come together. Finally, puree the soup in batches until smooth.

For the cilantro oil, quickly blanch the cilantro in boiling water and shock in an ice bath to preserve the color. Then puree until smooth with a neutral flavored olive oil. Add a pinch of salt.

For the creme fraiche, bring whole milk or half and half to a simmer, take off the heat and once its returned to room temperature mix in some cultured buttermilk. Let the mixture stand, covered for a day or until the desired thickness is achieved.