A Note on Food Deserts #DrinkGoodDoGood

There are many Americans with limited access to fresh produce. Read more about this issue over on the blog and learn how you can help. #drinkgooddogood #sponsored

I'll admit that I sometimes take for-granted the wonderful produce Eric and I have access to. Our weekly vegetable pick up is full of locally grown, organic ingredients. For those items that might be missing, we're within walking distance to a farmer's market or grocery store. It's a luxury, I know, and it's one that many residents in areas around Boston and other cities don't share.

Around the country, nearly 24 million Americans live in what are referred to as "food deserts."In fact, there are 71,000 people in Boston who live without ready access to fresh fruits and vegetables. That’s nearly enough people to fill up half the Boston Common! Which is why I'm thrilled to be partnering with Naked Juice and Wholesome Wave on their Drink Good. Do Good. campaign to educate folks about food deserts in urban environments. Even in Boston, which is surrounded by countless farms, there are areas of the city where people do not have many options. Not all neighborhoods have stores or farmer's markets, so for individuals without access to a car, it's a challenge to acquire fresh ingredients. And, of course, there's the issue of affordability. In parts of the city, like Dudley Square, 50% of the residents make $25,000 a year or less.

As a part of their Drink Good. Do Good. program, they'll be donating up to 500,000 pounds of produce these communities. And you, dear readers, can help too! Simply take a photo of yourself holding a piece of fresh produce, post it on Instagram and use the hashtag #drinkgooddogood. Lastly, tag a friend to do the same. For every person who posts, Naked Juice will donate 10lbs of fresh produce.

Learn more about the Drink Good. Do Good. campaign here. 

There are many Americans with limited access to fresh produce. Read more about this issue over on the blog and learn how you can help. #drinkgooddogood #sponsored

There are many Americans with limited access to fresh produce. Read more about this issue over on the blog and learn how you can help. #drinkgooddogood #sponsored

There are many Americans with limited access to fresh produce. Read more about this issue over on the blog and learn how you can help. #drinkgooddogood #sponsored

Disclaimer: This is a sponsored post in collaboration with Naked Juice and Wholesome Wave. Working with these brands to get the message out about such an important issue is something I feel strongly about. As always, any opinions expressed in this post are my own.

Chilled Plum Soup

Chilled Plum Soup // A Thought For Food #recipe

I consciously took a week off from blogging. As much as I fought it, I think I needed a little break. Once again I was finding that I was putting pressure on myself to post because that's what I'd grown accustomed to. That's not a reason to blog. It's not why I want to blog. So, I took a little time off. I'm back now and feeling pretty darn good about this space, the creative process, and, most importantly, the recipes I plan to share over the next few months.

There was a bit of an inner struggle about what to post. I knew I wanted to do something seasonal, but I felt like I'd covered all the bases recently with the dishes I've created using tomato, corn, cherries and berries. What was there left to do? I looked through the local market and saw these beautiful plums. I didn't know exactly where it was all going, but I knew I didn't want to do a cake. Been there, done that. Poached? Eh. Not really doing it for me. Ok, so cooked and then turned into something. A soup. Cold. That's summer, but then, maybe, just a little hit of fall flavors. Cinnamon and ginger. This is one of those dishes I knew was going to work as soon as I smelled it cooking. Our whole house filled with the aromas that I find so comforting in the cooler months, and, yet, here we are with a chilled soup to enjoy during these last hot and humid days of summer.

Yogurt makes for the ideal garnish for a sweet soup like this, which needs a bit of tang to balance it out. In recent months, I've really grown to appreciate all the ways one can apply yogurt to a dish. For those interested in such a subject (believe me, I wasn't at first, but now I'm hooked), my friend, fellow blogger, and cookbook author, Cheryl Sternman Rule, recently came out with Yogurt Culture. Just flipping through the book will have you rushing to the store to pick up a container.

Chilled Plum Soup // A Thought For Food

Chilled Plum Soup

Yield 4 servings

Ingredients
1 1/2 lbs red or black plums (about 8), cut in half and pitted
1 cup apple juice
1 tablespoon ginger, peeled and sliced into chunks
1 cinnamon stick
1 tablespoon agave
1/4 teaspoon Kosher salt
1 teaspoon tarragon leaves
Yogurt, for serving

Directions

1. Place plums into a pot with apple juice, ginger, cinnamon sticks, tarragon agave and salt. Bring to a boil and then cover and reduce heat to low. Cook for 20 minutes or until plums are very soft. Discard cinnamon stick.

2. Using an immersion blender or food processor or blender, purée mixture until smooth.

3. Transfer to a container and refrigerate until chilled, about 1 hour. Ladle into bowls and serve with a dollop of yogurt.

Buttermilk Biscuits with Mushroom Gravy

Buttermilk Biscuits with Mushroom Gravy | A Thought For Food

The moment came where I had to make a decision: do I go the easy route and bust out the food processor or mix the butter in by hand. Normally, I'd go with the former, but right now I feel like taking my time and getting my hands dirty. This is how Jessica does it in her book, Stir, and, having just finished reading it, I felt compelled to follow in her footsteps. Rubbing each cube of butter into the flour with my fingertips, I could focus on the feel of the dough and how it was forming. At the point it resembled a "coarse meal," I picked up the bowl of buttermilk I'd mixed together (a combination of milk and white vinegar, because we rarely have buttermilk in the house) and drizzled it in as I circulated a wooden spoon.  When all was combined, I gave it a taste. As a cook, I can't help but try uncooked dough before it hits the oven. This met all the marks: buttery, a touch of sweetness, and a hit of salt. While the biscuits baked, I mixed together the vegetarian mushroom gravy. We had some cherry tomatoes around, which gave the sauce some acid and sweetness. I've now made this twice for breakfast, though, I think it'd would make for a delightful dinner as well. Just throw together a light green salad on the side and you have a meal.

Buttermilk Biscuits with Mushroom Gravy | A Thought For Food

Buttermilk Biscuits with Mushroom Gravy | A Thought For Food

Buttermilk Biscuits with Mushroom Gravy | A Thought For Food

Buttermilk Biscuits with Mushroom Gravy | A Thought For Food

Buttermilk Biscuits with Mushroom Gravy | A Thought For Food

Buttermilk Biscuits with Mushroom Gravy | A Thought For Food

I should step back and talk about Stir a bit more. This was a book that I knew nothing about before its release. I didn't know who Jessica was despite her living in Cambridge and being a fellow food blogger who created her site, Sweet Amandine, around the same time I did. But as soon as her book came out, her name kept popping up around the blogosphere. I marked it down on my books to read this summer and I'm so glad I did. This isn't a cookbook, which she states very clearly from the start, though there are recipes. Instead, Stir: My Broken Brain and the Meals That Brought Me Home focuses a brain aneurism that she endures and the subsequent complications from the illness and corresponding procedures. But food has always played a powerful role in her life. Following her time in the hospital, she struggles to get back into the kitchen... so she turns it into a goal. If I can bake x, it means I'm still me. The writing is striking, personal and honest. But, most importantly, it's inspiring. It made me think hard and deep about the important things in my life. And it made me want to get into the kitchen and make something, with my hands, and feed it to the people I love.

Buttermilk Biscuits with Mushroom Gravy

Source
From the Dot's Diner recipe published in Bon Appetit (Oct 2000) via Stir: My Broken Brain and the Meals That Brought Me Home by Jessica Fechtor

Ingredients

For the biscuits
3 cups (375 grams) all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
4 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon fine sea salt
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks; 170 grams) cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
1 cup cold buttermilk

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

2. Whisk together the dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl. Add the cubes of butter into the bowl and rub them into the dry ingredients using your fingertips until mixture resembles course meal.

3. Stir in buttermilk until the mixture forms a moist dough, but make sure not to over mix the dough.

4. Pack a 1/4 cup measuring cup with dough and drop onto the prepared baking sheet, spacing 2 inches apart. Bake until the tops are golden brown, about 15 minutes. Remove from oven and serve warm with mushroom gravy (see recipe below).

Vegetarian Mushroom Gravy

Ingredients
For the gravy
2 tablespoons butter
1 small onion, diced
1 garlic clove, minced
10 ounces mushrooms, thinly sliced
10 ounces cherry tomatoes, cut in half
1 teaspoon Kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
1 teaspoon oregano
1/2 cup vegetable broth
2 teaspoons corn starch

Directions

1. Melt butter in a saucepan set over medium-high heat. Add onion and garlic and cook for a minute. Add mushrooms and tomatoes and season with salt, smoked paprika, and oregano. Add the vegetable broth and let cook for 5 minutes, until some of the vegetable broth has evaporated.

2. Put the corn starch in a medium mixing bowl. Spoon in the liquid from the pan and whisk with the corn starch until you have a slurry. Stir the slurry back into the pan with the vegetables and mix to combine. This will create a thick sauce.

3. Taste for seasoning and, if necessary, add a touch more salt. Spoon gravy over biscuits (or serve in a bowl with biscuits on the side).