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I love autumn weather. Before I go to sleep at night, I open all of the windows and throw extra blankets on the bed. That way, in the morning, I can feel the crisp morning breeze wrap around my sleep-warmed skin. If I am lucky, my skin will get cold enough to produce steam when the hot shower water pours over it.
After a few 75 degree days, you can imagine my excitement one morning when I felt extra cold air swirling through the half-open windows. Indeed the temperature was 46 outside and the high would be in the high 50s. I threw on a sweater and made my way to Green City Market (it was Wed.) and stocked up on the gorgeous gourds you see above (from Leaning Shed!). Although I will miss tomato season, there is so much to be thankful for with the autumn harvest. Apples, pears, carrots and eggplants are just a few of the highlights.
Here is a list of my favourte new things popping up at Green City Market, as well as a few items you should grab and freeze before they stop making an appearance!
1. Seedling’s hot apple cider with caramel: Gabriel hand-makes the most delicious caramel that he adds to the already amazing apple cider. If you are really nice to him, he may even add an extra spoonful. :o)
2. Seedling’s apple butter, blueberry lavender jam and peach vanilla jam: The two jams are complex and sophisticated while the apple butter is sweet, creamy and is dying to be paired with a buttery croissant from Bennison’s!
3. Floriole’s Sea Salt Caramels: I almost ran into a pole while walking down the street because of this confection! Generous squares of gooey caramel are enhanced with coarse sea salt, bringing out the buttery, sweet flavour and enhancing the already gorgeous texture.
4. River Valley Ranch’s Tomato Soup: The perfect fall food and complement to grilled cheese sandwiches. The best thing is that this soup is made from heirloom tomatoes.
5. Leaning Shed Farm’s garlic
6. Stoney Run Field’s Bittersweet: You could be like everyone else and pick up an icebox “fall bouquet” from Jewel, or you could head over to Jerry and Jill and let them wow you with their autumn country flower collection. The Bittersweet is charming with little orange berries studding every slender branch.
7. Leaning Shed’s gourds and pumpkin selection
8. Smit’s Mums: hardy, colourful and the perfect flower to decorate your front porch or window box.
9. Granor Farm’s carrots: They are crisp, sweet and perfect for a carrot-apple cake!
10. 1st Orchard and Greenhouse’s Honey Crisp apples
11. Oriana’s Oriental Orchard’s asian pears
12. Heritage Prairie’s flours: Milled by Ted’s Organic Grains, you have to arrive early at GCM to score some of this amazing flour. My personal favourite is the whole wheat. It is a courser ground flour that is delicate enough for pancakes and hardy enough for cakes and breads.
13. LAST WEEK for Nordic Creamery’s summer butter!!!! Freeze it and have delicious grass-fed cow’s butter the whole winter!
14. Seedling’s cinnamon apple cider
15. LAST WEEK for peaches!!! Grab some Flamin’ Furys
16. Pumpkin-on-a-stick AND the adorable wreaths from The Flower Garden: Because adorable comes on a stick. In pumpkin form. Get on that!
If you have a favourite autumn item, let me know and I will post it up!
Rich injecting pig parts with juices. Sounds appetising, no? :o)
Of course, the highlight of last week was when I helped out at Mado, a restaurant in Wicker Park run by Rob and Ali Levitt! There I got to see what goes into butchering pigs and I picked up a ton of useful skills like how to cube bread, follow a “hero”, slice beets, etc. It was an invaluable learning opportunity and I really enjoyed myself. It is so cool to see what goes into preparing a kitchen for dinner time.
Sous chef Chris was hilarious, picking on me for taking FOR.EV.ER to cut things into tiny pieces, but finally rewarding me with some of his corn chowder that was perfect. Where do these people come from?! I will be joining the Mado team again this week! I wonder what we will be butchering?
More photos below!!! Click link to see more butchering! Mmmm-mmmmm!!
Dev xx
While volunteering for Green City Market at Chicago Gourmet, we had a lot of people come by to try the market gazpacho and rave about the taste. The secret? Fresh, local, sustainable fruits and veggies that can be found within 300 miles of Chicago!
The ingredients: heirloom tomatoes, onions, garlic, cucumbers and fresh herbs. GCM tries to keep it less spicy to make it more appealing to a wider audience. All of the ingredients are raw and then pureed down to a smooth, cold soup. Delish!
You can find it at Abbey’s Crepes at the market tomorrow if you really liked it!
Now for a look at GCM’s tent at Chi Gourmet. See if you can make out who is on that closest billboard in the red shirt:
It’s yours truly!!! Imagine my shock and delight when I saw my silly self on a blown-up picture! What an honour! In this picture I was giving a tour to elementary school children who stopped by the market on a field trip! LOVES!
Dev xx
Who is ready to brave the mud and the rain and join me at the Chicago Gourmet Festival!? I have the honour of helping out Green City Market at our tent and assisting with the Silent Auction.
Since I am helping out on both days, I plan to keep you all updated via Twitter (updates via Twitter pop up on the left hand side of this screen!) and with blog entries that will feature pictures and video!
Get excited, gourmands!
Dev xx
Who said a local breakfast had to be boring?
Well my Locavore friends, we have come to the end. Sadly, the Locavore Challenge for Green City Market ended today (Wednesday) but that doesn’t mean that a Locavore Challenge for you has to end. You can keep incorporating local, sustainable foods into your every day menu.
This does not have to be hard. It can mean using Blue Marble cream in your coffee for breakfast, salad greens from Granor Farms for lunch and Heartland Meats beef hamburgers for dinner. Easy. Delicious.
Simple, right?
Today, to mark the end of the LC, I bought a crisp and sugary sweet sticky roll with pecans from Floriole.
For lunch, I had a burger (so did Ruthie!) from Sunday Dinner! In case any of you have had these heavenly burgers, I thought I would take a picture of the SD menu board for you. PS, the cheese used on the burgers is a cold packed horseradish cheddar cheese spread from Brunkow ($6)!
In order to be as Locavorish as I can, I stocked up groceries for the rest of the week. Gee, who said eating locally was hard?! Is it so hard to buy fresh croissants, chewy ciabatta bread, sweet cream butter, Michigan peaches, creamy horseradish cheddar cheese spread and sticky buns?! No. And I bet the stuff you buy at Green City Market will taste better and be better for you than anything you can buy at the Jewel.
Yesterday, I also had the pleasure of giving tours to kindergartners from St. Monica Academy. They were too adorable and believe me, as they were at our tasting table munching on Asian pears, grapes, pineapple ground cherries, purple carrots and cilantro, they made eating local look easy.
….And they were 5 years old!
For dinner, as a final hurrah, my friends and I ate lamb bratwursts with fresh, whole wheat bread from Bennison’s. As lamb grease dribbled down our chins, we both spoke excitedly about the amazing local dinners to come.
I can almost taste them.
I have decided to update this blog to include a section of recipes and meal ideas from local chefs and Chicagoans. Keep on reading Making Chicago Home for more updates on what to eat!
Dev xx
My post for Sunday is going to be pretty bland because I forgot my camera and do not really feel like reporting much! I ate a delicious Bennison’s croissant for breakfast and then headed to Arlington Heights with Tim to celebrate his 25th birthday with his family!
We watched the Bears play (what can be more local than cheering for your local team?!) and munched on Brunkow’s dill and garlic cheese curds and Brunkow garlic cheese on crackers.
For dinner, Tim’s mom fixed a delicious crown pork roast with green bean and sweet potato casseroles. Probably not local, but you cannot deny it was a tasty dinner.
Tim wanted a vanilla cake with Oreo frosting that I made from scratch. Ummm, it was not a local cake. Sorry!
Day 13 was spent catching up with this blog and the only thing I have really eaten is a Honey Crisp apple. I guess we all have to have a break day!
I have pictures…somewhere…but to tell you the truth, I probably will not post any.
Told you this would be bland.
Dev xx
I am going to admit it right now: I was not on my ‘A’ game Saturday morning. I was exhausted from Tim’s birthday dinner the night before, not to mention the crazy guys in my apartment building shouting at each other until the wee hours of the morning. Ugh.
Instead of coffee, though, I decided to pep myself up with Floriole’s ham and cheese croissant. That did the trick. It was still warm when they gave it to me and the Brunkow cheese was melty and rich. Yum!
Later during the day, I got word that there was a puppy belonging to one of the vendors at Green City, so I went over with Laura to see what was up and what we found was the most adorable Jack Russell Terrier puppy, Flynnley (sp?!). She is only 10 weeks old and the Burton’s Maple folks painted her little claws to match her collar (big awww!). She attracted big crowds and I had the pleasure of getting to hold her to show her off. I took lots of pictures that you can see if you “click to read the rest of this article” at the bottom!
The gorgeous flowers that Jerry and Jill from Stoney Run Fields gave me!
One of my favourite parts of Green City Market are all the kind volunteers, workers, vendors and shoppers who love chatting with you about sustainable food or their products. Jerry and Jill are two of my darlings and always make time to chat with me when I walk by their stall. They are so passionate about growing the most beautiful country flowers and I love listening to them talk about whatever! :-)
For lunch, Tim stopped by the market and we enjoyed Sunday Dinner’s delicious, local, sustainable and seasonal pre-prepared food. Tim ordered the delicious burger, made from Heartland Meats ground beef, topped with Growing Power’s baby green mix, Brunkow cheese and mayonnaise, all on a Bennison sesame seed bun. Tim said it was one of the best burgers he has ever had!
I had the lamb bratwurst, which was also so delicious, I am going to invest in some for this weeks’ dinners!
Make sure to check out more pictures of Flynnley on the next page!
Dev xx
For breakfast on Friday, I had a huge, crisp and juicy Honey Crisp apple from 1st Orchards and Greenhouses in Michigan. As one person aptly put it, Honey Crisp apples are the Mercedes of apples.
Friday was a big day because I had to finish up my shopping for my friend’s birthday on Sunday. Since I was trying to stick with the local theme, I found a hilarious card by a local artist who goes by the title Rovenko. You can find her stuff on Etsy.com, but if you want to buy from a local store, then you can find her stuff at Paper Boy on W. Belmont.
Since I was on the run practically the whole day, I did not have time for a full lunch. Instead, I opened the bag of dill and garlic cheese curds I bought from Brunkow Cheese of Wisconsin from GCM, and snacked on those. Later, I had some delicious sweet corn on the cob from 1st Orchards.
Perfect Corn on the Cob:
For perfect corn on the cob, bring your water to a boil first then add the corn for only three minutes! It is not necessary to keep the cobs in for five because if you boil them too long you start to break down the sugars into starch and the corn starts to lose its sweetness. Drain the corn and then slather on Nordic Creamery’s sweet cream butter (it is lightly salted) and eat immediately while still steamy!
Dev xx
Day nine, or Thursday, started really early and ended very late! Since I was up at the crack of dawn, I made myself raspberry yoghurt, sprinkling the very, very last of the season’s raspberries atop of organic Wallaby vanilla yoghurt. Now, Wallaby is not local, so this is cheating a bit, but I must say that it was bought before the Locavore Challenge and had to be consumed before I had to write a post titled, “When good yoghurt goes bad”.
Part of the LC is to not let anything go to waste.
For lunch, Tim and I decided to head over to our favourite spot in the city, Bittersweet, located on 1114 W. Belmont Ave. in Lakeview. I have told you guys this before and I will tell you again that Bittersweet is, by far, the best lunch in Chicago. Oh yes, yes, yes…we all coo over the Bourgeois Pig and do flips over Al’s deli sandwiches (not technically in Chicago proper, but close enough!) but Bittersweet does everything right for a good price, great location and even more amazing pastries.
So, as you can see from the above picture, I started with the matzo ball soup. The matzo dumplings were tender and flavoured with chicken fat. They came in a bath of vegetable soup with chicken stock and was a light and delicious first course. That is one of the best things about Bittersweet: You never leave the cafe feeling like there is a brick in your stomach. Everything satisfies your hunger without making you feel like you have be rolled down the street afterward!
For my main dish, the chicken dijon salad was just calling my name! This sandwich, which obviously has mayo in it, also has a generous helping of dijon mustard, making it a more complex chicken salad. Pair that with the diced carrots and celery thrown in the mix and put it on freshly baked wheat bread and you have yourself a thick sandwich that tastes zesty and sweet.
For the finale, may I suggest the lemon and chocolate Parisian macaroons? A French favourite, and something that is hard to find not in a rolled coconut form, these Parisian macaroons are made from blanched almonds and egg whites. The filling is made of egg whites and butter. However simple these may seem, do not be fooled: Bittersweet has put a twist on these classic favourites by flavouring them with lemon and chocolate! At first, the crunchy shell breaks under your teeth, but then you sink in to a chewy interior, making these macaroons crispy like a cookie and moist and crumby like cake.
The chocolate ones are not to be missed. They taste like brownie edges and have a rich taste that will stick to the roof of your mouth!
In addition, they have a ton of gorgeous little sugar cookies shaped into cute objects, like the Crayon above!
Bon appetit!
Dev xx
I know I should have updated yesterday, but I had such a fun, full and busy day that I just had to take a break and put it off until today (and I still will have to post more tomorrow about Day 8 AND 9!!!
In honour of Melon Fest, there were chefs and mixologists at Green City Market handing out samples of melon salad with goat cheese and melon soups. Sound good? Yes. Sound safe? Yup. But then there was this renegade chef who was handing out samples of his goat cheese and dill ice cream in a watermelon corn soup (picture above)! Goat cheese dill ice cream!? Come again? After I took my first bite, all I could think of was that my tastebuds were confused but happy. I thought the dish was perfect.
Can anybody identify the chef in this picture (the man on the left!)
Ten points goes to the reader who can identify the chef on the left in the picture above. Someone needs to give this man props for his weird and wonderful creation!
The inside of Cafe Brauer
On Wednesday, I was incredibly honoured to give a Green City Market tour to the chefs who attended Chefs Collaborative’s Summit. I am so thankful to the amazing and hard-working Laura Watkins, marketing and communications coordinator at GCM, for letting me give the tour!
Before the tour started, Rich Hawley, another awesome GCM employee, took me around to each vendor and I found out some interesting and fun stuff that makes them unique! Since this is stuff I did not know before, and information that really impressed the chefs on the tour, I thought I would share it with you!
I was lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time Wednesday afternoon and am very, very thankful that Mark, who works with Green City Market, invited me along to the Chefs Collaborative lunch at Cafe Brauer.
Cafe Brauer, as I learned, is an example of Prairie style architecture that originated in Chicago!
Sauteed swiss chard with shiitake mushrooms
Goodness help me, there has been so much going on that I almost plum forgot to post up my recipe for last night’s dinner! I had sauteed swiss chard with sauteed mushrooms and this delicious Pappardelle’s Southwestern pasta I scored from the Arlington Heights farmers market.
Sauteed swiss chard with shiitakes
- Coarsely chop 4-5 leaves of swiss chard (no worries, it will sautee down!)
- Chop up shiitake mushrooms into bite size pieces
- Heat up olive oil in a pan for about a minute on high heat
- Throw in your mushrooms and cook for about 2 minutes
- Then toss in the swiss chard and cook for another 1 1/2 minutes.
- Salt and pepper your mixture while it is in the pan
- Serve hot!
The pasta is so delicious and flavourful that all it really needs is to be cooked properly then tossed with some of Nordic Cream’s sweet butter and topped with freshly ground pepper – enjoy!
Dev xx
