Prairie Hollow Farm

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Cooking Demos at Rochester Downtown Winter Farmer's Market!

Each week we will demonstrate a simple and nutritious vegetable dish ready in about 15 minutes.  Look for a different demo every week. 

November 19 - Mustard Greens

Mustard greens are an under appreciated veggie.  The trick is to not over cook.  Here's what you do:  wash your greens and shake dry.  Heat a couple of tablespoons of olive oil over medium heat.  While the oil is heating, peel and slice a couple of cloves of garlic.  Peel and dice an onion.  Place garlic and onion in hot oil.  Coarsely chop mustard greens.  Toss a handful of greens in the pan and stir.  Keep tossing in greens and stirring until all greens are in pan.  Stir just until greens are all wilted.  Sprinkle with salt and pepper and serve warm.  You can garnish with radish slices, nuts, raisins or cheese to suit your tastes.

November 12 - Apples and Squash

Cooking squash doesn't have to be time consuming, nor does it need to include lots of brown sugar and butter.  Here's a quick, easy, nutritious way to prepare a squash and apple dish that pairs well with meats or vegetarian entrees.

Melt a little butter in a skillet or electric frying pan, using medium high heat.  Peel and dice any type of winter squash.  I used butternut for the demo, but you can use whatever you have on hand.  Estimate about 1/2 cup per serving.  Place in pan and stir around.  Dice apples, peel first if desired. Estimate about 1/4 an apple per person if your apples are medium to large.  Add to squash in pan.  Pour in apple cider, about 1/4 cup for every cup of diced squash and apples.  Allow to simmer about 15 minutes or until squash is tender. You can serve it just like this with no other seasoning, or you can add a little cinnamon or nutmeg.

November 5 - How to Make a Perfect Stir Fry. 

The perfect stir fry is all about balance.  Balance in the ingredients and balance in how you cook.

To acheive balance with the veggies you need to have equal amounts of sweet, bitter and neutral.  For sweet you can use onions, carrots, sweet red or yellow peppers, apples, winter squash, etc.  Bitters include asparagus, pea pods, spinach, kale, the leaves of beet greens, chard or choi, etc.  Neutrals include all the items that add neither a sweet or bitter flavor and are all about color or texture.  Examples are pac choi ribs, the ribs of swiss chard, zucchini, summer squash, eggplant, potatoes, etc.  You can also use wild rice as a neutral. 

Balance also needed to be maintained in the length of cooking time for each vegetable. The most dense vegetable need the most cooking, so you'll want to arrange your veggies in order of density.  You will also want to cut the denser vegetables to maximize surface area.

Saturday morning I used carrots, onion, and red peppers for the sweet, pac choi, swiss chard ribs as neutrals and the leaves as the bitter.  Since I was light, volume-wise, on neutrals, I also used previously cooked wild rice. 

Since the cooking demo was at the market, I used electric frying pan with the temperature set at 350 degrees.  When the pan was hot, I added two tablespoons peanut oil.  While the oil was heating, I peeled 3 carrots, cut them in half and then sliced them diagonally.  Keep in mind that the more surface area in relation to the overall size of the piece will result in quicker cooking.  As soon as I was done cutting, I transfered the carrots to the pan and stirred to coat with oil.  Since the carrots were the most dense vegetable I was using, they went into the pan first.  Then I chopped the onion and added it to the pan, stirring once again.  Then I stripped the leaf from the pac choi and swiss chard ribs.  The ribs were also cut thinly and added to the pan.  Next I slivered the pepper and added that also.  At this point the carrot had been cooking about 7 minutes, and was just starting to get tender.  Tthis was my cue to quickly chop the swiss chard and pac choi leaves and add them to the other veggies.  With leaves, you want to just stir and fry until the leaves are wilted, no more.  Both flavor and texture become objectionable with over-cooking. I stirred the leaves about 30 seconds and then dumped in the rice and stirred everything together.  Ready to eat in less than 15 minutes from start to finsh. 

Note on wild rice.  I like to make a big batch and then freeze portion size amounts so it is ready for quick and easy meals.  The easiest way to prepare is put rice in a pan.  Whatever your rice amount, add twice that amount of water and a little salt.  Bring to a boil, cover and turn off heat.  In 30 minutes, the rice will be ready.  One of my buddies, Larry Gates, hand-harvested the absolute best wild rice.  You can order it from us.