The Slow Food Harvest Cook-Off

Sunday was a gorgeous, sunny day which I spent in fabulous company at the Slow Food Huron Valley Local Harvest Cook-Off. The presumptive purpose of this food fest was to showcase the bounty of Michigan’s amazing ingredients: from squash to beets, from butter to flour, from cheese to pasta. But it was also a celebration of taking the time to sit and enjoy real food -- not drive-up or drive-thru take-out -- with friends and family … slowing down to actually prepare food in one's own kitchen, and to take time to savor both a wholesome meal and precious time with loved ones.

Jeremy joined me on the trek out to Chelsea, and helped to save me from ending up on 94 (I don’t usually do freeways with my atrocious depth perception and pitiful sense of direction) when I drove right past the Fairgrounds where the event was being held and just kept on going. Once we arrived, I found I was among warm and wonderful company as fellow food writers (whom I follow on AnnArbor.com) and local farmers and bakers, as well as other devotees of real food -- that which doesn’t contain hydrogenated oils and high fructose corn syrup, among other poisons -- were in attendance.

I placed my Mama Bear crockpot and a plate of crackers on the table reserved for those competing in the Soup category, then proceeded to chitchat and schmooze as I perused the gorgeous offerings among the Meat and Vegetarian Entrees, the Salads, the Breads and the Desserts: borscht, apple pie, banana bread, pumpkin ice cream, a rye quick bread with a hint of orange, apple-beet-carrot salad, sauerkraut, meatballs with pineapple, salsa, quinoa salad, pizza, fresh pasta with a butternut squash sauce, a jelly roll-style carrot cake, apple-maple-cornmeal muffins, and so many other options that I can’t even remember them all.

After the judges (Chef Alex Young of Zingerman's Roadhouse, Corbett Day of the Lenawee Intermediate School District Culinary Arts Department, and Natalie Marble of Ann Arbor Cooks cooking school) took on the enormously difficult job of assessing the entries, the feasting began. I tried valiantly, good eater that I am, to sample a bit of everything; but there was such an abundance of astounding variety that I simply couldn’t do it. Jeremy’s favorite was the pizza, which he flat-out told me was better than mine (and I make my own sauce and have a pizza dough recipe given to me by the stepson of a Calabrese immigrant!). It contained peppers and mushrooms, which Jeremy loathes, and yet he devoured it … the whole was not only greater than, but it transformed and transcended, the sum of the parts.

I don’t know all of the winners’ names, so I will simply offer a heartfelt “mazal tov” to the fabulous dishes they prepared (with apologies if I don’t get the titles of the dishes exactly right, as I most unfortunately don’t have recipes to refer to for most of them):

Soup: Borscht
Salad: Curried Quinoa Salad
Vegetarian Entrée: Fresh Pasta with a Butternut Squash Sauce
Meat Entrée: the Pizza Jeremy adored
Bread: Mill Pond Bakery Rye Bread
Dessert: Banana Bread

The Cook-Off was also a fundraiser for Food Gatherers, which can always use donations. And to provide a bit of diversion from the obsession about food, there was a competition for the best haiku written about the Fall harvest. Those who wrote either poems or checks had their offerings placed into a basket, and names were selected to win prizes of extraordinary homemade jams with such diverse flavors as Apricot Amaretto, Blueberry Marmalade (which I was the proud and joyous winner of!) and Strawberry Lemonade. Really, this event was such an amazing celebration of fresh ingredients and of the lovingly prepared dishes created with them!

Although my soup and its accompanying crackers didn’t win a blue ribbon, I am proud to say that there were only a few beans and bits of kale at the bottom of the crockpot when I picked it up at the end of the potluck, and there were 3 lonely little crackers. I received very nice compliments, and hope that my offerings were at least a popular choice if not a prize-winner!

Soup:
1 cup dry cranberry beans
4 purple potatoes, cut into 8 pieces
4 red potatoes, cut into 8 pieces
2 carrots, peeled, cut into 1/2” slices
1 red onion, peeled, quartered, cut crosswise into 1/2” slices
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
10 cups homemade chicken broth
2 tablespoons Kenzoil (basil oil)
3 large garlic cloves, minced
1 head roasted garlic cloves*
3 tablespoons salt
1/2 teaspoon seasoned salt
3 cups chopped kale
1/2 cup chopped curly parsley

Place cranberry beans in a bowl, and pour 3 cups of water over them; cover and refrigerate overnight, until the beans are softened. Drain and set aside.

Preheat the oven to 375° F. Place the purple and the red potatoes, the carrots and the onion into an 8”-square baking pan and drizzle with the olive oil. Stir to toss, and bake for 1 hour until the vegetables can be pierced with a knife and are golden.

Place 2 cups of the broth into a blender along with the Kenzoil, the minced garlic and the roasted garlic; puree, then pour the mixture into a soup pot along with the remaining broth. Add the salt and seasoned salt; bring to a boil. Add the prepared beans and the roasted vegetables, then turn the heat to low; cook for 30 minutes, then add the kale and cook for 30 more minutes. Add the parsley and cook for 10 minutes, then serve hot with crackers.

*To roast garlic: Cut the pointed top off of an entire head of garlic, just exposing the tops of the cloves. Place the garlic onto a large square of foil, and drizzle with a bit of olive oil. Fold up the foil to enclose the garlic, and roast at 400° F for 45 minutes, until the garlic becomes golden and the cloves are soft enough to push out of their skins.

Crackers:
1-1/2 cups stone ground flour
1/2 cup butter
5 ounces Zingerman’s Creamery garlic-pepper cheese
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
1 egg beaten with 1 tablespoon water
1/3 cup each red, green and white fettuccine, from a bag of Al Dente Fiesta Fettuccine (Jeremy says that the red, white and green coloring make these crackers look like Christmas cookies, so choose any flavor/color of pasta that you like if this is not your desired motif. I think they’re pretty!)

Place the flour and the butter into a large mixing bowl, and use a pastry cutter to combine them until the mixture looks mealy. Continue to use the pastry cutter to mix in the cheese, then knead the dough until it forms a cohesive ball. Wrap in plastic and refrigerate for several hours until firm.

Preheat the oven to 350° F.

Take the red fettuccine and place it into a blender or food processor; grind until it becomes fine crumbs, and set aside. Repeat with the green and with the white fettuccine, keeping the colors separate.

On a lightly floured countertop, roll the dough to 1/8" thickness; use a 1-1/2” cookie cutter to cut out crackers, and place them onto a Silpat- or parchment-lined baking sheet. Lightly brush the rounds with the egg, then sprinkle decoratively with the fettuccine crumbs. Bake for 15-20 minutes until the crackers are golden around the edges. Remove to a rack, and let cool. Makes about 40 crackers.

Local Ingredient Sources
(from Plum, the People’s Food Co-Op, the Farmers Market, and Sparrow Market)

Basil OIl -- Kenzoil
Butter -- Calder Dairy
Carrots -- Imlay City
Chicken -- Michigan Amish Farmers
Cranberry Beans -- Carlson Arbogast Farm
Egg -- Sunrise Poultry
Fettuccine -- Al Dente
Flour -- Ernst Farm
Garlic -- Community Farm
Garlic-Pepper Cheese -- Zingerman’s Creamery
Kale -- Tantre Farm
Parsley -- Needle Lane Farm
Potatoes -- Tantre Farm
Red Onion -- Homer

Mary Bilyeu has won or placed in more than 60 cooking contests and writes about her adventures as she tries to win prizes, feeds hungry teenagers and other loved ones, and generally just has fun in the kitchen. The phrase "You Should Only Be Happy" (written in Hebrew on the stone pictured next to the blog's title) comes from Deuteronomy 16:15, and is a wish for all her readers as they cook along with her ... may you always be happy here!

You can contact Mary at yentamary@gmail.com.