Beans for the Heart

This week was a bit surreal in regards to my culinary life. There is no doubt that I have done my best to live each day to it’s fullest and drink deeply from the cup of life. Unfortunately, that has also meant eating deeply from the plate of life. And I like my plate full. Layered really.

A recent visit to the doctor revealed that it would be a good idea to put a little less on that plate and be a heck of a lot pickier regarding the contents. So be it. I’ve battled the bulge before and I’ve won some battles. I know what has to happen and I’m sure with the help of the cosmos, this battle will be bested. I’ll die trying…

First, I try not to eat things out of cans, but I like beans. So it has been beans the old fashion way, bags of dry beans soaked overnight and boiled to the desired firmness. For this dish, I like my beans at a mashable consistency. Everything else is pretty straightforward.

Bowl O’Beans
2 tsp olive oil
½ onion
1 tbls minced jalapeno
1 tsp minced garlic
1 cup broccoli florets
4 oz. boneless, skinless chicken breast
1 tomato
¾ cup black beans
2 tbls hot salsa (whatever you dig)
1 ounce shredded sharp cheddar or pepper jack cheese
½ avocado

Dice your onion and mince your garlic and jalapeno while the olive oil is heating in a large skilled. When you have a nice warm pan and some glistening oil toss in your veggies and let things get happy. Meanwhile dice your chicken breast. As the onions become translucent add your chicken and broccoli and stir-fry.

Plate your beans and top with shredded cheese and some super hot salsa, if that is your thing. Add the tomato and avocado and when you are happy with the contents of the skillet, slide it right on top of the bowl o’ beans. Customize to your hearts content.

Huevos Rancheros

Last week the kids and I ate breakfast at a local place in my hometown. I don’t generally order Huevos Rancheros, but the extended Ramsey family is not into heat as a flavor and I was missing some excitement on the palate. I enjoyed the breakfast immensely and started poking around for a recipe to try at home. Thanks to the recent snow, wind and miserable temperatures, I found some time to give the dish a try this morning and was pretty pleased with the results. Here goes:

Sauce:

• 2 teaspoons vegetable oil
• Three small onions, chopped
• Two bell peppers, chopped (I picked red and yellow)
• 2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon salt
• ½ teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 2 tablespoons minced jalapeno
• 2 cloves minced garlic
• 2 14 oz cans of diced tomatoes
• 1 12 oz can tomato juice
• ¼ cup water
• fresh cilantro

The fixings:

• 2 eggs
• 2 small tortillas
• refried beans
• sour cream
• guacamole
• pepper jack cheese

In an 11-inch sauté pan, I warmed a couple teaspoons of vegetable oil while chopping the onions and peppers. They went in the hot skillet and softened for about 8 minutes. The cumin, salt, cayenne, jalapeno, and garlic went in next and I stirred to mix for about 30 seconds. Then I added the tomatoes and cooked for about 2 minutes before adding the tomato juice and water. Finally I brought the whole pan to a simmer and reduced for 20 minutes or so.

Once the sauce reached my desired consistency, I transferred to a dish and stirred in a handful of chopped, fresh cilantro.

Then I warmed the beans and tortillas while frying a couple eggs. To assemble, I placed a warmed tortilla on a plate and spread with beans, adding a layer of the ranchero sauce and then the eggs. To garnish I added a dollop of both sour cream and guacamole and served with a second tortilla and a bit of shredded pepper jack cheese.

A good breakfast for a cold morning…well, perhaps a good breakfast for a cold noontime meal. There is quite a bit of the sauce, enough to serve 8 or so. Tonight I plan to smoother a pork chop with the spicy sauce. In the future, I’d like to roast the vegetables for a deeper flavor. I’ll report back with significant improvements. Eat on.

Local Food (and Drink)

The following was published in the Atchison Daily Globe on September 2, 2009. I'll be doing a monthly column for the Globe on issues related to localized food. Keep an eye out for it.

Over the past several years, I have read more and more about “local” eating. That is, consuming foods grown/produced within a set perimeter of where you live. For example, Eden Alley, a vegetarian restaurant in Kansas City, strives to prepare all means with local, organic ingredients. Don’t worry, this movement is not just for vegetarians. In the last year, I have purchased a quarter of beef, half a hog, and the better part of a lamb, all raised within 40 miles of my home.

The idea of eating locally, which has been alive and well at the Atchison Farmers Market for years, has been on my mind lately due to our current economic concerns. If the food we buy from grocery stores must be transported from great distances, it is only logical that prices will increase if and when fuel prices increase. Considering costs involved when we drive to another city to purchase our family’s food, perhaps the idea of eating locally makes even more sense.

With these realizations I’ve started reading a bit about urban farming, gardening, animal husbandry and home processing. I’ve starting hearing stories of local folks who make their own goat cheese, collect eggs daily, as well as garden. I’ve even been invited to dinner by friends and eaten a wonderful meal comprised only with foods that hung on a vine hours before consumption.

I imagine there is a wealth of locally produced food and drink within a 40-mile radius of Atchison. I like to eat and I like to drink, so I have made it my mission to discover this food and drink and report back to you with my findings. Hopefully, doing so on a monthly basis, thanks to the fine folks at the Atchison Globe.

To kick things off, I thought I’d share a recipe I tried a few mornings ago. It isn’t entirely local, but the main ingredients are and I’m new at this.

Eggs and Greens

2 farm fresh eggs

2 handfuls of fresh spinach

2 teaspoons olive oil, divided

A bit of salt

Some pepper

A pinch of cayenne pepper

2 tablespoons Balsamic Vinegar

Heat a skillet on your stove. Add 1 teaspoon of olive oil, salt, pepper and cayenne when the skillet gets warm. Wilt the spinach in the oil and cover for a few minutes. When the spinach looks good, move it to a plate and return the pan to the stove. Add the second teaspoon of olive oil and fry the eggs to your taste. When the eggs are happy, slide them on top of your spinach and return the pan to the stove for the third time. Add the vinegar to the pan and let it reduce by half. When the vinegar is reduced, drizzle over the eggs and enjoy!

If you are a local food producer, I’d love to hear from you. If you have time to let me check out your operation, I’d love to come for a visit. If you want to share a recipe, I’ll pass it along. Hopefully this little adventure in newspaper column writing will be fun and educational for all of us.

———————

Matthew Ramsey is an avid foodie. When he is not eating he serves as an Assistant Professor and the Director of the Special Education teacher preparation program at Benedictine College.

Three slabs of spare ribs and a Faculty Annual Review

The Tuesday after Memorial Day, no kids tonight and my FAR is due on the 1st. I’m leaving town on Thursday so I have to get the shit done. If you smell what I’m shoveling… I’m heading to the farm for the first leg of my journey and then off to my favorite mountaintop in Arkansas for some live music, good friends and fun. I wanted to take some ribs with me to Arkansas so they had to be smoked too. Shit. Thank gosh I’ve got a fresh keg in the beer fridge.

I’m not a bit fan of spare ribs. That fat just kills me. Dad told me if I get them hotter the fat will render and life will be better.

Stage One: Same ole, same ole. Lots of magic dust, 200 degrees, three hours.

Stage Two: I’ve done this before. Foil wrapped in the oven at 300 for an hour. This time I sprinkled some brown sugar as I was wrapping the ribs.

Stage Two: Out of the oven and painted with a bit of sauce (see The Sauce posted below), rewrapped and back in at 300 for another hour.

The results were pretty good. I’ve had a sample and will need a bit more time to analyze…I think they will get eaten. I’m freezing these to take with me on the camping trip.

That is all. I appreciate all three of you for reading this drivel. Oh ya, the FAR is complete as well. A once over the morning and then submission. A presentation proposal and an article to edit and I'll return to my normally scheduled summer.

Disclaimer

I found the chicken and sauce recipe listed below years ago on Foodtv.com. I'm sure I'm not supposed to be posting it but since I'm not making any money off this damn blog, I imagine I'm safe. If somebody at Food TV wants to sue me I will remind them about blood and turnips.

Anyway the recipe is awesome and I highly suggest trying it out with cheap lager.

The Chicken

3 whole chickens, halved (I found 8 hind quarters for $6, so I used those)
1 cup poultry seasoning
1 large onion
4 cloves garlic
1 can beer
1 stick butter
2 tablespoons cider vinegar

Add all items to a very large pot of boiling water. Reduce heat, cover with a plate and simmer for 1 hour. Remove from the pot and let cool to room temperature, covered.

Your grill should be very hot. We use a smoke box with wet wood chips in the gas grill to add a nice wood flavor (optional). Lightly spray the grill with non stick spray. Add the chicken and get nice grill marks on both sides. The bbq sauce should be in a large pot that has just been removed from the heat.

Very important: Just paint the chicken lightly with the sauce and let it stay on the grill for 1 minute on each side, just to burn the sauce. Remove from the grill and submerge in the hot bbq sauce for a just a second. Put on platter and serve with very sour dough bread and vinegar and oil based cole slaw, cold beer and look out.

The Sauce

The Sauce

5 cloves garlic, peeled
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 (#10 size) can catsup
1 large Vidala onion fine chopped
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 teaspoon liquid smoke
2 tablespoons Worchestshire sauce
3 tablespoons yellow mustard
1 (5-ounce) bottle pickapeppa sauce (This contains: mangos, raisins, tamarinds, salt and pepper, tomatoes)
2 tablespoons wine vinegar
2 large juice oranges
1 large lime
2 lemons
1/2 cup brown sugar
3 tablespoons grated horseradish
1 can cola, (recommended Dr. Pepper
Few dried chiles, to taste
1 tablespoon cayenne pepper, to taste

Place the garlic in cup of boiling water for 3 minutes. Remove and chop fine. Saute the onions in the olive oil over medium-high heat for 5 minutes, until just starting to brown. Remove from the heat and wait 1 minute for the pan to start to cool. Add the chopped garlic, stir, and place mixture in a bowl to cool - never let the garlic hit the hot oil over the fire - this way the garlic will infuse the remaining moisture and not burn and get bitter.

In a large stock pot over medium-low heat add the catsup and bring to a slow simmer, always stirring. After 10 minutes add the onions, garlic, soy sauce, liquid smoke, Worcestershire sauce, yellow mustard, pickapeppa sauce, and wine vinegar, and let simmer for another 10 minutes, covered.

Cut all the fruit into quarters and squeeze the juice into the pot. Then, add the fruit to the pot, with the brown sugar, horseradish, and Dr. Pepper. Continue to simmer for at least 40 minutes, covered.

Add the dried chili peppers and cayenne, turn off heat and let the chilis go to work for about another 20 minutes.