Fire roasted oats with Cape Cod cranberries and maple fried butternut squash seeds

There are two families of granola: the crisp, sweet oat clusters of the store, and the loose, chewy variety made at home. While both have their place, my family has always been of the homemade school. As kids, my sister and I were packed off to camp or school with tins of slow roasted oats and slivered almonds. “It’s heart healthy,” my mother would petition. “Chuck eats it every morning!”

Chuck was our surrogate grandfather of sorts. Following a serious heart attack in the late seventies, he embarked on a strict regimen of daily granola. Almost thirty years later, he is 89 and going strong.

Much as I like Chuck’s granola, I had occasion recently to begin experimenting with my own. I choose to roast the oats over a wood stove rather than in an oven, which allowed the oats to stay chewy while still toasting enough to become dry and slightly brittle. I added dried Cape Cod cranberries and substituted a batch of butternut squash seeds for the more traditional slivered almonds. The result is a chewy, ever so slightly honey tinged cereal with the sweet earthy flavor of rolled oats and Cape fruits.


WELLFLEET GRANOLA

Serves 12

Fire up woodstove, burn on low.

Spread 6 cups oats across a 13 by 9 baking pan.

Over low heat, combine 1/2 cup honey and 1/2 cup walnut oil in a saucepan.

Pour melted honey and hot oil over oats, stirring until all are coated and the liquid has been absorbed.

Depending on the temperature of your stovetop, place the pan directly on its surface or position on a slightly elevated iron trivet. Roast the oats over low heat until lightly toasted, one to two hours, stirring often.

Let cool and add 2 cups dried cranberries and 1 cup maple fried butternut squash seeds. Serve over plain Greek yogurt and top with a splash of fresh milk or a dollop of apple butter.


MAPLE FRIED BUTTERNUT SQUASH SEEDS

Wash and dry one cup butternut squash seeds. This will require several squash; pumpkin seeds can be used as an alternative or together with squash seeds.

Over medium high heat, fry seeds in 2 to 3 tablespoons hot oil. After 10 to 15 minutes or when the seeds begin to turn golden brown, turn off heat and drizzle maple syrup over seeds to taste.

Let cool and refrigerate in a glass jar.

Wellfleet littlenecks on the half shell with chorizo and spinach

Wellfleet littlenecks are always a delicacy. The clams that Gourmet magazine calls the "most prized littlenecks in all of New England" are plump, briny, and full of flavor. Jazzed up with an exotic chorizo and spinach topping, they enter the realm of the ethereal.

The choice between various embutidos, as the Spaniards refer to their array of sweet paprika and pork sausages, is an important one—too spicy and the broth will overpower the clams; too mild and the dish will lose its kick. A soft chorizo with a high proportion of fat, a hint of garlic, and a deep red color (indicating a good amount of pimentón, or smoked paprika) will yield the best results.

Spinach can be substituted with beet greens or endives, and for an exercise in true Spanish decadency, finely chopped olives can be sprinkled on top as a last minute addition.

All said and done, so long as you know how to wield a clam knife, this appetizer shouldn't take more than 20 minutes to prepare.

Serves 4

Preheat oven to 350.

Shuck 18 Littlenecks and arrange on the half shell in a 13 by 9 Pyrex baking dish.

Cut 8 ounces of chorizo (removing plastic casing if necessary) into large pieces and sauté over high heat for several minutes, until the fat begins to separate from the pork.

Add two tablespoons of butter; continue cooking on high until the pork fat and butter form a rich broth.

Add one cup chopped spinach; wilt and remove from heat.

Top Littlenecks liberally with chorizo, spinach, and broth, allowing extra liquid to spill over into pan. Cook 3-5 minutes to combine flavors. Serve hot on a flat platter with a shallow lip.

Why I do this

There are a lot of reasons why I do this. It might have started because when I graduated from college I didn't have a job, but it has turned into much, much more. For starters, I am here because I love to write. I love to tell stories about food and the people behind it and especially about the way it ties into my every day family life. I also think trying to eat locally is important, mostly for social reasons, but also for environmental reasons and even economic ones.

In my wildest dreams, I will one day live in a Wellfeet that has a daily, year-round farmers' market complete with artisanal baked goods and beers and pastas and fresh seafood stands and a butcher and of course all sorts of produce. That day might be a long ways away, but I hope that by writing and posting recipes and sharing what I discover in my radio reporting about local food here, more and more of you will be inspired to want (and work for) the same thing.

I also really like chocolate, and I don't think that recipes for things like Wellesley fudge cake are out of place on this site. I am not a total locavore. There are too many foods I enjoy that simply don't grow here—things like spices and extracts and fresh clementines—and trade between foodsheds has been a hot commodity since way before my grandmother's time. That said, where you see a recipe for chocolate cake, the flour is local and the milk and and the eggs and the butter and the vanilla extract is almost always homemade by a very generous and crafty friend. I don't really think it's very exciting to talk about where I buy my eggs every single time, so I don't list that in the recipes (most things are in a that "Shop Like a Local" sidebar list), but if you ever have a question about an ingredient that you can't find a source for please feel free to ask.

Really actually, if you have any question, or comment, or anything else pleasant to say, I'd love to hear from you. I write this blog for fun, as a hobby really, so I'm not particularly interested in anything on the not-so-pleasant side. I think of this blog as an extension of my kitchen, and as such, I ask you to be respectful and not write anything you wouldn't feel comfortable saying to all of us over a cup of tea sitting face to face. I reserve the right to remove any comments that I feel are hurtful or rude or otherwise damaging to this space. (Sorry, I know that wasn't very much fun, but I had to get it out there.) Of course, mostly the point of this blog is to have fun, with each other and of course with food. So, please, please stick around, and feel free to get in touch. Every comment you leave is emailed straight to me, but you can also send me a note directly at elspeth.pierson@gmail.com. You have no idea how much I enjoy being here with you each week.

T-shirts are in !

My friend Josiah has been asking me to get t-shirts printed with the Diary's logo for months. Finally—with the help of his friend Robert, who owns an all-natural hemp t-shirt company—you can show off the handiwork of former White House calligrapher Rick Paulus of Brewster. (He designed my logo—and if you want to see a big close up, it's over here.)

I only ordered 36 t-shirts for this first batch. They're navy blue with blog-orange lettering—on the front they say Diary of a Locavore in the calligraphy font used in the logo (see the picture you clicked on to get here), and on the back, the logo stretches from shoulder blade to shoulder blade. They're soft, they're colorful, they were designed, conceived, and printed locally. 

In order to cover my costs, they're selling for $22 a pop. If you want to order one (or maybe even two!), send an email to elspeth.hay@gmail.com with the following information:

1: How many you want,
2: of what size,
3: sent to what address.

I will figure out the shipping cost,
ask you to send me a check for the shipping + the cost of the t-shirts,
receive your check,
and put your shirts in the mail.

Happy local shopping everyone!