Lost &

Found: Scott Morse's apple cider donuts.

Lost last spring, after the Marstons Mills Winter Farmers' Market closed, and the bakery moved from the Cash Market downtown to a new location in Hyannis that apparently didn't work out.

Found last week, at the new winter farmers' market in Sandwich, at the American Legion Hall on Route 130.

Just thought you'd like to know.

On-the-spot sold

A year ago, I was eating a breakfast that looked like this:

Of course, I was also on my honeymoon, and in Paris. Today, I am at my dining room table with a mug of cold tea. Life is rough.

Except that actually, it's not. Buttery croissants and flaky baguette are all well and good, but really, if we're being honest, they're not what I need right now. After the turkey, and the creamed onions, and the grapenut pudding, what I really want is some whole grains, a few leafy greens, and a long walk.

That's where Ancient Grains comes in. I first had Ancient Grains at the Scottish Bakehouse on Martha's Vineyard with my friend Ali. It was early, and it was cold, and I'd just flown over for the day to do some interviews. Ali told me that what you're supposed to order at the Scottish Bakehouse is the egg sandwich, but I had already told the girl in line I wanted the hot spelt and quinoa, and so I got a steaming mug of whole grains, cranberries, pecans, and milk instead.

It was, hands down, one of the best mistakes I've ever made.

There was something about the combination—the way the spelt was big and nutty, the way the cranberries were at once sweet and tart, the way the quinoa swam around in the hot, sweet milk—that made warm cereal magical. There were undertones of cinnamon and hints of maple, and I was instantly, on-the-spot sold.

It took some fiddling, and some trial and error, but just in time for the cold weather and the annual interholiday health-food kick, I've finally figured out how to make Ancient Grains at home.

ANCIENT GRAINS

I'm not sure how close this is to the version I had at the Scottish Bakehouse, but it's easy to prepare and I think that taste-wise it comes pretty close. The key is to pre-cook big batches of spelt and quinoa—I keep bags of the cooked grains in the freezer, so that they're ready to go when I roll out of bed. This recipe makes two bowls.

1 cup cooked spelt
1 cup cooked quinoa
milk or cream to taste
1 tablespoon maple syrup, or more to taste
1/4 cup fresh cranberries, halved
1/4 cup crushed pecans

Combine the spelt and quinoa in a small pot. Add milk or cream to taste—depending on how thick you like your breakfast cereal—and the maple syrup, and stir well. Warm over medium heat until just steaming—you don't want to overheat the milk. Pour the cereal into bowls, top with cranberries and pecans, and serve at once.

Note: I haven't been able to find quinoa locally (or pecans, for that matter!), but I don't think any other grain complements the spelt as well. If you have local suggestions, let us know!

The Local Food Report: Thanksgiving turkey

Happy Thanksgiving!

This is Turkey-Lurkey. He's a two-year-old American Heritage White turkey who lives at Miss Scarlett's Blue Ribbon Farm in Yarmouth Port. He got this big on bugs, and cranberries, and pumpkins, and a daily grain supplement. I don't know if the picture really conveys it, but he's huge.

He's also very lucky. Most of the turkeys Susan Knieriem raises—all of the other turkeys, in fact, besides Turkey-Lurkey's lady friend Henny-Penny—don't live beyond about 20 weeks. They arrive each year in July as tiny chicks, and the week before Thanksgiving or Christmas, depending on their holiday fate, they meet their end. They head off to a state-certified slaughter house, and come back without all those white feathers, ready for stuffing and roasting and carving and serving.

Of course, that's where people like you and me come in. Susan sells all her birds locally, to families like yours and mine, which means that those birds you see up there are showing up today, golden and crispy, on tables all over Cape Cod. It's pretty amazing, really: locally raised birds, eaten all together, on a single day in local homes.

At any rate, I'm guessing you have important things to do today—like stuff a bird and bake a pie and cream a pot of onions and hopefully also eventually stuff yourself—but I wanted us all, in this space, just for a moment, to be thankful for this.

So here's a Thanksgiving thank you—to Susan Knieriem for her local turkeys, and to all of our farmers and fishermen for feeding us so well—not just today, but all the year. Thank you everyone, and cheers.

The Local Food Report: Cranberry Land

Everyone, I'd like to introduce a new friend. This is Cranberry Goodin Pudding:

We met through Ralph Tupper and his wife Kathy, who own a cranberry bog in East Brewster. They sell their berries each fall at Windfall Market in Falmouth and the farmers' market in Orleans, and along with the fruit, they bring recipes. They have all sorts of ideas: cranberry chicken, cranberry sauce, cranberry pumpkin bread. When Ralph and I started talking cranberries for my radio show this week, I pressed him to pick out a favorite, and he pointed to Cranberry Goodin Pudding. Apparently, it lives up to its name.

If you don't have your dessert roster lined up yet for Thanksgiving, Cranberry Goodin Pudding would be a good candidate. It's easy: just a layer of fresh cranberries, then a sprinkling of brown sugar and walnuts, and finally a thick, whipped batter of eggs, flour, sugar, and butter. Then you simply bake and serve, with a dollop of vanilla ice cream. It's about as easy, delicious, and local as it gets.


CRANBERRY GOODIN PUDDING

Despite the name, this recipe is less of a pudding and more of a crisp or pastry. The cranberries form a sticky, sweet layer on the bottom, and the batter and nuts add a nice crunch on top. We liked it best warm, with vanilla ice cream.

1 and 1/4 cups fresh cranberries
1/4 cup packed dark brown sugar
1/4 cup chopped walnuts
1 egg
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup butter, melted

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Spread the cranberries over the bottom of a buttered 9-inch pie plate. Sprinkle the fruit with the brown sugar and nuts. Beat the egg until frothy, slowly add the sugar, and beat until blended. Add the flour and melted butter and beat well. Spoon this batter over the nuts and cranberries. Bake for 30-40 minutes, or until the top is golden. Serve warm, with vanilla ice cream.

Dear Parsnips,

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry it has taken so long. I'm sorry I've overlooked you in all your wispy, homely grace. I'm sorry I haven't grown you, ever, never thought twice about you when I paged past your seed in the catalog. I'm sorry I hardly ever buy you, and that when I do, you're shoved into a pan with all the others, roasted, hardly allowed to shine. And of course, I'm sorry that I ripped this recipe out of Yankee Magazine eleven months ago, and that it's taken me until now. Because Maple Syrup-Roasted Parsnip Bisque is absolute heaven, and I really should have known.

It's pretty obvious, when you start by roasting parsnips with olive oil and maple syrup and salt, that things are going to be good. It gets even more clear when you make the stock—parsley, onion, carrot, a bay leaf and a handful of peppercorns. When you mix the two together—when you drain the stock and add you—golden, roasted parsnips—things really start to come along. And as you simmer and puree, add a glug of cream and simmer again—well, then you really know.

So here's to you, parsnips—to a future of growing and buying and cooking—and to your endless possibilities.

MAPLE SYRUP-ROASTED PARSNIP BISQUE

I ripped this recipe out of the January/February 2009 issue of Yankee Magazine. It has everything I look for in a soup: simplicity, balance, just enough heartiness to satisfy. I've made a few tweaks and I've also cut the recipe in half—big batches of soup tend to languish around here—but if you have a big family, go ahead and double it. I have a feeling it'll disappear.

1 and 1/4 lbs parsnips, washed, trimmed, and roughly chopped
2 tablespoons olive oil
4 tablespoons maple syrup, divided
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 cups water
1 medium carrot
1 small onion, halved
1/2 small bunch flat-leaf parsley
1 bay leaf
1/4 teaspoon black peppercorns
1/2 teaspoon white pepper
1 and 1/4 cups heavy cream

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. In a small casserole dish, toss together the parsnips, olive oil, 2 tablespoons of the maple syrup, and the salt. Roast for roughly 45 minutes, or until the parsnips are tender and golden brown.

While the parsnips cook, get out a soup pot and combine the water, carrot, onion, parsley, bay leaf, and peppercorns. Bring to a boil, turn down the heat and cover the pot, and let the vegetables simmer for 30 minutes. Strain the broth and return it to the pot, discarding the vegetables and spices.

Take the parsnips out of the oven and add them to the broth, making sure to pour in any extra oil and maple syrup along with them. Add the remaining maple syrup and the white pepper and simmer for 20-30 minutes.

Puree the soup, either using an immersion blender or in batches in a food processor or blender, and return it to the pot. Add the cream, season with salt to taste, and simmer another 10 minutes. Serve hot.

The Local Food Report: a cottage comeback

I have always been fascinated by history. I like to know how things were—before we messed with them, originally, in the past. So Deirdre Portnoy had my immediate attention when I found out she was ripping up the front lawn at the Wellfleet Historical Society to put in a 19th century cottage garden in place of the weeds and crabgrass.


Cottage gardens are the old English kind—that distinct style of dense plantings hedged with boxwoods and lined with picket fences and brick pathways in a way that is at once homely, graceful, and charming. Portnoy can't be sure that's what was on the lawn of the old 1860s home that houses the historical society—there are very few pictures of Wellfleet front yards from that period, and even in the ones we do have, it's difficult to make out the varieties and organization of the plants—but she knows that stylized cottage gardens were incredibly popular at the time. In a town like Wellfleet—coastal, busy, prosperous—it's as likely a guess as any.

And so Portnoy ripped up the lawn—pulled out the crabgrass and started turning earth. Locals donated a granite step, and bricks and help to put in a walkway that leads down from the sidewalk to the old millstone that steps up to the front door. Portnoy lined the front with a picket fence, the sides with English boxwoods, and started filling in the middle with flowers and fruits and culinary and medicinal herbs.

She planted all sorts of things—too many to list—but I'll give you the highlights. There's a Seckel pear tree—short, semi-dwarfed, with small, sweet fruit that's good for canning. For medicinals there's bee balm and rue and echinachea, and a particular kind of yarrow known as Achillea millefolium. For cooking herbs there are rosemary and thyme and chives and sage, for fruits a whole bank of strawberries, and plans for heirloom tomatoes come spring. There are callendula flowers and nasturtiums and a beautiful Cape Cod climbing rose twining around the fence.

The biggest surprise, Portnoy says, was how many varieties of herbs and flowers she found from the cottage period are still in use today. Some plants she had to dig around for—it's hard to find specific historic varieties these days, now that many tags don't carry the second Latin name—but between the garden stores and donations, she managed to get the yard pretty well filled in. Next spring, she's hoping to make an educational brochure with the historic uses and plant names, and she left room for walking in curved, ampitheater-style pathways.

If you have a chance, go check it out. It's still a work in progress, and the weather isn't doing much for its looks, but the layout of it, the look, is very inspiring. And just in case you get really inspired, below I've made a list of the books Portnoy used in the project, to help you with your own come spring.

REFERENCE BOOKS:

American Gardens in the Eighteenth Century: For Use or for Delight, by Ann Leighton

For Every House a Garden: A Guide for Reproducing Period Gardens, by Rudy and Joy Favretti

Landscapes and Gardens for Historic Buildings, by Rudy and Joy Favretti

On my list

I'm sorry I wasn't here Monday. I was in New York City, with Alex, celebrating our one year anniversary. I can't quite wrap my head around it just yet, but when I can, I'll let you know. I want to tell you about Esca, and the oven-roasted radishes, and the Romesco sauce I had at Back Forty before we went to my favorite fabric store.

In the meantime, I want to do some housekeeping. I want to remind you that the farmers' markets are closing soon, terribly soon—Orleans on the 27th and Provincetown on December 4th—and also to remind you, in case you could possibly have forgotten, that Thanksgiving is coming up. There will be a special market in Falmouth on Tuesday, November 23rd to help you stock up, and another one for holiday goodies on Saturday, December 4th. Also, Susan Knieriem of Miss Scarlett's Blue Ribbon Farm in Yarmouthport is raising Heritage American Turkeys, 10 to 18 pounds each, at $4 a pound. Birds for Thanksgiving are sold out, and if you want one for Christmas, the time to speak up is now.

Finally, I have been thinking a lot recently about homemade gifts. I love the act of creating something, and I think giving someone something handmade is one of the greatest acts of love you can show. So I wanted to tell you what I'm thinking of making this year, and find out what's on your list.

Here's what I've got written down:

—these knit sachets, with lavender from our plants

—homemade vanilla extract

—bold, bright quilted potholders in colors like these

—a whole bundle of these sloppy josephine tees

—the Cary eggnog

—these soft baskets from More Last-Minute Knitted Gifts

—tins of my grandmother's sugar cookies

—pear liqueur and cranberry-clementine cordial

Happy crafting, and I'll see you soon.

The Local Food Report: turnip tops

Anna Henning is on a mission: she wants everyone to start eating turnip greens.

In case those gangly greens up there don't convince you, I'll lay out her reasons.

For starters, she calls turnip greens the Best of the Best when it comes to nutrition. We've all heard about beet greens, sure, and Swiss chard, but the fact is, when it comes to things like vitamins A and C and calcium, turnip greens blow those other greens right out of the water. (Kale is the exception to this rule; it has one and a half times the vitamin A and two and a half times the vitamin C. If you're interested, check it all out on nutrition data.com.)

Beyond the health benefits, though, turnip greens just taste good. They're crunchy, and sweet, and just a little bit spicy, and when you cook them down, they get wilty and smooth, perfect for wrapping around pasta or serving with mashed potatoes alongside a nice cut of meat. They're the kind of thing you might want to stir into a batch of Portuguese kale soup, or sauté in bacon fat for a bacon-egg-and-toast lumberjack side treat.

And last but not least, Anna says, pulling up a turnip and throwing its greens into the compost is a colossal waste.

Anna is a farmer—she grows with Bob Wells at Redberry Farm, off Schoolhouse Lane in Eastham—and when I talked to her, this was a three-person campaign. She was in, and Bob. and Heather Bailey, who makes those ridiculously good scones that I get every Saturday morning at the farmers' market in Orleans. And although I have to admit I was a little skeptical at first, after taking a bite, and then another, and then sauteing up a whole mess of turnip greens with sausage and garlic and cream, the campaign now counts another convert in me.

PENNE WITH SAUSAGE, GARLIC, AND TURNIP GREENS

I always like the combination of sausage, greens, and penne—there is something hearty and rustic about it that suits this season just right. Turnip greens are an excellent stand-in for the usual chard or kale, and if you like broccoli, the stems of the turnip greens make a nice addition along with the leaves. Slice them like you would celery—they have a sweet, spicy flavor, and add a nice crunch.

1 pound sausage links, cut into 1/2-inch rounds
2 tablespoons olive oil
5 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup white wine
3/4 pound turnip greens (with stems or without, depending on your taste), coarsely chopped
1 cup heavy cream
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 pound penne pasta, cooked

Brown the sausage over medium-high heat in a big, deep cast iron skillet. Set aside, leaving any remaining fat and browned bits in the pan.

In the same pan, heat up the olive oil and sauté the garlic until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Pour in the white wine to deglaze the pan; simmer until reduced by half. Stir in the turnip greens.

Cover the pan, turn the heat down to medium low, and let the greens wilt down a little bit.

After about five minutes, remove the cover, turn the heat back up to medium-high, and add the cream. Season with salt and pepper to taste and simmer for a minute or so to let the cream thicken up.

Add the pasta and the reserved sausage. Toss well and serve hot.

Your favorites

We were a little slow with Halloween this year. It snuck up on me in all the end-of-season hoop-la, the winter planning and restaurant closing and fall cleaning, long overdue. It wasn't until Saturday morning, when Clare showed me this Rouge Vif d'Etampes, that I realized it was here.

By the time I got a face carved in the pumpkin's deep ruddy flesh, it was Sunday morning. And so this indignant little jack-o-lantern only had one night to live—one night out on the stoop, glowing orange and yellow and red.

That turned out to be okay, though. This pumpkin was edible, and expensive, and I had no intention of letting it sit out on the stoop to mold and rot and droop like most Halloween pumpkins do. I toasted its seeds—big, thick disks, warmed golden brown and tossed with olive oil and salt—and today, cut the flesh up into long, moon-shaped strips. Now we have four cups of roasted, pureed squash—the question is, what to do with it?

I have a few ideas—I'm thinking this or this or maybe one of my mom's old standbys, Sophie Minkoff's Pumpkin Bread—but I'd like to hear your favorites, too. This time of year, you can't have too many good squash recipes—there's always more coming in from the garden, the market, huddled in the cold of the guest room, on newspaper underneath the bed.

SOPHIE MINKOFF'S PUMPKIN BREAD

This recipe comes from Molly O'Neill's New York Cookbook, a favorite in our family. My mom says she makes it exactly as written, except that she usually pours the batter into a tin to make twelve muffins rather than a single loaf. Either way, it's moist, sweet, and exceptionally good.

1 cup raisins
2 large eggs
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 cup pureed pumpkin
2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup coarsely chopped walnuts (optional)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a muffin tin, or a loaf pan.

Combine the raisins and 1/3 cup water in a saucepan and bring to a boil over high heat. Remove from the heat, and set aside to cool.

In a mixing bowl, whisk together the eggs, oil, and 1/4 cup water. Add the pureed pumpkin and stir well.

In another mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt. Add the pumpkin mixture and stir until just combined. Fold in the un-drained raisins and the walnuts.

Pour the batter into the prepared muffin tin or loaf pan, and bake for roughly an hour, or until a broom straw inserted into the center of the muffins or bread comes out clean.