Cakes & Ale, in Decatur, is owned by Chef Billy Allin. Come meet him at the show!

“The Good Things in Life” —that’s what Cakes & Ale means to chef/owner Billy Allin.  And yum, yum, yum…. the food at Cakes & Ale is good indeed.

This wonderful Decatur restaurant whips up its meals from scratch everyday, using the best and freshest vegetables in season from local stores.  Their freshly-milled grains are artisan-produced; the meats and non-endangered fish species are humanely raised.  In short, dining at Cakes & Ale means better taste and more nourishment for you and your family.

What’s cooking right now, in the winter of 2009?  Chef Billy shops at this time of year for lettuces, trout, and radishes.

Today’s menu—just to give you an example, as the delicious offerings change frequently–includes entrees like these:

• trout stuffed with bay, lemon, garlic and croutons;
• roasted pork loin with rye bread stuffing, creamed Brussels sprouts, and apples;
• spicy Italian sausage and slow-cooked cabbage on polenta;
• and more.  Are you hungry yet?

I am!  Join me to hear Chef Billy talk about “Cooking from the Garden” on Sun., Feb. 1, at 12 noon on the Home Depot Stage.   Bring your appetite!

cheers,

Lynn

P.S.–don’t forget to look for me at the show.  I’ll be blogging live each day inside the Galleria.  On Wed., Jan. 28, I’ll be there around 5 P.M.

Lynn Coulter, "Master Blogger" for the 2009 Southeastern Flower Show

Is this cold weather making you shiver?  Sounds like you need some comfort food, the kind that warms the body and feeds the soul on a blustery winter’s day.

When the flower show opens, you’ll hear from some fantastic chefs about how to prepare healthy, delicious meals with fruits and veggies from your own garden.   Check out the show’s schedule:

(TIP:  click on the red words to access related web pages)

On opening day, Wed., Jan. 28, Chef Linton Hopkins of Restaurant Eugene will appear with Alice Rolls, from Georgia Organics, a non-profit organization dedicated to bringing fresh, locally-grown foods to our tables;

On Thursday, Jan. 29, Chef Laurie Grizzle, former owner of Mustard Seed Cafe, will speak alongside Chad McKinney, of Etcetera Farms, who furnishes Laurie’s produce.

And there are more chef appearances ahead, for each day of the show!  Watch this space, and I’ll give you details as time goes on.

Until we hear from these renowned cooks, here’s a comfort food-type recipe sent in by fellow blogger and flower show follower Lucy Mercer.  Yum—we had pot roast for dinner last night!

“The Gardener’s Reward

One of the nicest things to do for yourself as you spend a few hours gardening on a cold winter or spring day, is to have something nice and toasty in the house to look forward to when the gardening work is completed.  A bubbling stew in the crock pot, perhaps…. If you have help, it’s especially considerate to put a roast in the crock pot or oven and serve it after a hard day’s work.

I learned this well the spring I was pregnant with my first daughter, when my nesting urge manifested itself in a vegetable garden.  This was in those glorious pre-drought days when rain was abundant and so I went a little nuts buying tomato and pepper seedlings, to the tune of 60 tomato plants and 30 peppers.  There were also hills of cucumbers, beans, squash and zucchini. And two rows of corn.   My due date was mid-July, and truly, what was I thinking? That I could harvest a garden and care for a newborn at the same time?

My neighbor Diane, good as gold, agreed to help me plant the seedlings on a windy April day.  I promised her all the tomatoes and peppers she could eat when the harvest rolled in, plus a supper of pot roast following the planting.  This was a few years ago, and my standard pot roast recipe required a can of Campbell’s Golden Mushroom soup and a crock pot.  I’ve since decided that a crock pot takes up too much space on either my kitchen counter or pantry and that the convection oven essentially accomplishes the same task without clutter….

Here’s how I make my pot roast, using shiitake mushrooms.  Cremini or button shrooms will work, too.  You could also leave them out, but the preachy part of me will look over my glasses with a disapproving gaze, and tell you that you’re missing the very best part.

Pot Roast with Mushrooms

1/2 pound sliced bacon, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 (1 lb. or so) beef chuck roast, trimmed of excess fat
2 medium onions, peeled and cut into wedges
4 carrots, peeled, trimmed, split lengthwise and then into 2-inch sections
2 stalks celery, trimmed and sliced into 2-inch pieces
4 medium red potatoes, peeled and sliced into 2-inch chunks
1, possibly 2 small containers of shrooms, rinsed, dried, trimmed and sliced (for shiitakes) or halved (for buttons)
4 small bay leaves, or 2 large
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1/4 cup or more, red wine, or perhaps beef broth, or just water, to deglaze the pan
1 (28 oz.) can whole organic tomatoes
salt and pepper

1. Preheat the oven to 350 or find your crock pot and plug it in.  Get a good-sized Dutch oven and place on burner set over medium.  Fry bacon, until fat is rendered and bacon is crispy.  Make the most of this time to multi-task by chopping the vegetables.

2. Remove the bacon from the pot and drain on paper towels.  Pour off all but a couple tablespoons of the bacon fat and discard in an appropriate manner (translation: not in the sink drain).  Season the roast with salt and pepper and brown in bacon fat.  This is a crucial step and will take at least 20 minutes and possibly longer, depending on the size of the roast.  Do not skimp on time here.  Your goal is to have a crusty piece of meat to roast to perfection.  The key to brownness is for the meat to release, if you’re using a regular, not nonstick pan.  Do not tear the meat…the meat will release when it is ready…. When meat is completely browned, place either in a crock pot (if using) or on a plate, if oven-braising is your method.

3. Still over medium heat, in the Dutch oven, with the roast removed, brown the tomato paste for a couple minutes.  Deglaze the pan with the wine, broth, or water, and scrape up the brown bits on the bottom of the pan.  Pour in the can of tomatoes and heat through.  This is a good time to taste for seasoning.  Return the meat to the pan, top with vegetables, bacon, bay leaves, additional salt and pepper if needed.  If you like a little heat, toss in a dried chile pepper.  If using the crock pot, place all ingredients in the crock, cover, and cook for a couple of hours at high, or at least four hours on low.  If using an oven, place all ingredients in an oven-safe Dutch oven or casserole, top with a lid or foil and bake for at least 2 hours at 350, or longer at a lower temperature. I know that’s kind of imprecise and Zen and sounds like how Miles Davis would quote a recipe, but that’s how you learn what works.  Trust me, each time I make this, I do something different, and it’s always delicious.  The roast is done when it’s fall apart tender and the vegetables, especially the mushrooms, have soaked up the yummy sauce.

4. Be sure to remove the bay leaves, then serve to your hungry garden helpers… If you need a go-with, try buttered noodles, creamy polenta (the baked polenta recipe from Fine Cooking magazine is especially tasty and easy), or cheesy grits for the starch.  You could serve some warm bread, and maybe a salad, but that’s beginning to sound like a lot of work. If you need something sweet at the end of this meal, I’d say go for brownies, but that’s another story…

Lucy Mercer

www.acookandherbooks.blogspot.com.

See you at the show, where I’ll be blogging LIVE each day! Watch my blog and I’ll post the times.

Your “Master Blogger” for the Southeastern Flower Show,

Lynn Coulter

author, Gardening with Heirloom Seeds

The catalogs, that is.  In January, my mailbox is stuffed with gardening offers, and today brought a fantastic catalog from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds. I’m still shaking my head at how expensive it must have been to produce and mail, because it’s oversized, with glossy, magazine-type pages. And it’s packed with so many intriguing flowers, fruits, and vegetables, it’ll make you want to run straight to the garden and start growing something.

Here are just a few items I’m putting on my list to order:

• Mississippi Silver Hull peas, a runner type that produces very well here in the South.  The beans are large and tan and delicious.
• D’Alger melons. I’ve never eaten this kind of melon, but it sounds great.  The catalog says it’s a “colorful, ancient, French cantaloupe (possibly from Africa)…(T)he flesh is highly perfumed and very smooth and creamy.”  The photo shows a dark green-black rind with silvery splashes.
• Sugar Snap peas.  These are for my hubby, who loves to eat them sauteed or raw in salads.  I like that they’re produced on bushy vines that don’t need staking.


Hungry? Try sugar snap peas in Chicken Marsala. Then visit the show to get more ideas on cooking from your garden!

There are lots more things I want to grow, but Thai Long purple eggplants won’t make my list.  We grew them last year and I found them annoying skinny and too bland.

The Baker Creek catalog has many exotic seeds for sale.  For tips on using unusual fruits or vegetables in your kitchen, don’t miss the cooking demonstrations coming up at the 2009 Southeastern Flower Show. On Wed., Jan. 28, you’ll hear from Chef Linton Hopkins, owner of Restaurant Eugene, about “Cooking From the Garden.” He’ll speak at 12 noon on the Home Depot Stage. The next day, Jan. 29, Laurie Grizzle, of the Mustard Seed Cafe, will also talk about preparing homegrown produce. She’ll speak at 12:30 P.M. from the Demo Stage.

When you visit the show, be sure to bring your questions for these knowledgeable cooks.  See you there!

Lynn

Author, Gardening with Heirloom Seeds