Will the real Miss Beadle please stand up?

I am lucky enough to call Miss Beadle my friend, the REAL Miss Beadle.

Seventeen years ago my friendship with Ms. Charlotte Stewart was struck. She had already finished her role of Miss Beadle on Little House on the Prairie, and was now a famous Beverly Hills/Hollywood party planner. Charlotte was getting ready to celebrate a birthday with a party and asked me to supervise the food for it. Through the planning of her party we became friends.

It is hard to believe it has been so long. I am so lucky that Charlotte and her husband, David, are like family to me. I just got back from having dinner with them at their house in Napa. It really was like being with...family!

Charlotte has had an incredible career. It started in 1959 when she was crowned Miss Yuba City, then she had parts on the tv shows: My Three Sons, Gunsmoke, Bonanza, then a movie with Elvis, Speedway, a few more tv shows and then...Eraserhead, the famous David Lynch movie. WOW!!! Check out her bio. You will also see that besides the tv shows and David Lynch movies, she was also in Tremors with Kevin Bacon. See how close you are? You can play the game, 6 degrees of Separation from Kevin Bacon and score! (I am 1 degree away from Kevin Bacon, you are now 2!)

A couple years ago Charlotte set up a website, Liquid Butterfly. On that website she sells great memorabilia from her time on Little House, along with other periods. You should check it out!

I have to admit that my personal favorite is this poster:

Charlotte opened a store on Santa Monica Boulevard across the street from a recording studio, where, coincidentally, Jim Morrison/The Doors would record, among others. She would make clothes and embroidered jeans. To this day Charlotte is still sewing great things. Right now she is sewing and selling mini shoulder purses using "recycled" jeans and gives 10% to breast cancer research. Charlotte is a proud survivor of this nasty disease and does fund raising for the research.

I am currently in negotiations for some of these purses! I would like to sell them on my future website: www.eastsidefarm.com
As you will see it is under construction...soon!

Happy Easter! Eat Farm Fresh Eggs!

Taste of Sonoma and the Steel Chef

This past weekend was the annual Taste of Sonoma showcase held at the beautiful McMurray Ranch (think Fred McMurray) in Healdsburg across the Russian River valley from our little farm. Farmer Chef Jeff was invited to present food from Zin Restaurant and Wine Bar (our restaurant!). I decorated with produce from the farm, eggs from our girls, homemade Santa Rosa plum jam and the infamous Zinfandel grape jelly that Farmer Chef Jeff uses to fill his warm jelly donuts at Zin.

Part of the entertainment was a cooking competition, "Sonoma Steel Chef". Farmer Chef Jeff was one of the contestants. Each chef was given a bag of mystery ingredients and a time limit of 20 minutes. CAN YOU IMAGINE???

For the first heat, Jeff made Shrimp and Grits. He went so far as to make his secret ingredient for the grits, corn stock. At least I think it is the secret to the best grits on earth! His second dish was Roasted Pork Loin with a Fig and Nectarine pan sauce.

During the second heat, he made Curry- Rubbed Grilled Rack of Lamb with grilled Belgian Endive and Mock Ratatouille with a Pinot Noir sauce. The other dish was a Grilled Lamb Loin with grilled Portobella mushrooms and roasted fingerling potatoes, served with a Santa Rosa Plum Port Wine Sauce. HEAVENS!!!

The Winner? Farmer Chef Jeff!!!! HOORAY!!!
(Farmer Chef Jeff declared winner by Clark Wolf, renowned restaurant consultant)

Not only did he win bragging rights, he also won a case of wine and a very nice gift certificate from Castino's Restaurant Supply in Rohnert Park.

Here are a couple of the recipes.

Grilled Lamb Loin with Santa Rosa Plum & Port Wine Sauce, Roasted Fingerling Potatoes & Grilled Portabella Mushrooms

(4 servings, cooks in 20 minutes or less)

1 boneless lamb loin, trimmed of silver skin
Olive oil
1 pound Ripe Santa Rosa Plums
½ cup port wine
4 portabella mushrooms
1 pound fingerling potatoes
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
Kosher salt and fresh ground pepper

Prepare grill for grilling.
Preheat oven to 350.

1. Season lamb with salt, pepper and olive oil.
2. Season mushrooms with salt, pepper and olive oil.
3. Bring potatoes to a boil in lightly salted water and cook for 5 minutes.
4. Remove from water and slice in half and place in roasting pan with unsalted butter. Roast in preheated oven for 15 minutes. Season with salt & Pepper.
5. Grill mushrooms for 5 minutes, or until done, set aside.
6. Place plums in blender with port and puree. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
7. Grill lamb to desired temperature. Let rest 4 minutes then slice.
8. Slice mushrooms into strips.
To Plate: Spoon potatoes onto plate, then add mushrooms. Arrange sliced lamb around mushrooms & potatoes. Drizzle with Plum Port Sauce.

Serve with a Sonoma County Zinfandel or Syrah.

Shrimp & Grits
4 servings, cooks in 20 minutes or less

For Shrimp
24 gulf shrimp, peeled & cleaned
1 Andouille sausage
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 anaheim pepper cut small dice
2 cloves garlic, sliced
1 ripe tomato chopped
1 clove garlic sliced
½ cup white wine
¼ cup catsup
½ cup heavy cream
½ bunch chopped parsley
Salt and pepper to taste

1. Split sausage lengthwise and cut into half moons ¼ inch thick.
2. Render sausage in oil in sauté pan until golden brown. Add shrimp, anaheim pepper, garlic and tomato. Saute over medium heat for 1 minute.
3. Deglaze with white wine. Add cream and catsup. Cook until shrimp are done and sauce has reduced a bit. Check seasoning and add parsley.

For Grits
1 cup coarse grain cornmeal
4 cups boiling water
2 ears sweet corn
1 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
Salt and pepper to taste

1. Shuck corn and drop in boiling water and cook for 1 minute. Remove from water and cut kernels off cob.
2. Add cobs back to the water and cook for 4 minutes to make a corn stock. Remove cobs from stock.
3. Add 3 cups of the corn stock to small pot with the cream, butter and 1 ½ tsp kosher salt and bring to a boil. Stir in the cornmeal.
4. Cook for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally and adding more of the corn stock if it gets too thick. Stir in reserved corn kernels. Season to taste.
To Plate: Mound grits in center of plate and spoon shrimp and sausage mixture over the top. Serve with a Sonoma County Sauvignon Blanc.

Back in the Saddle Again!

I am thrilled to be blogging again! We are busy with all kinds of things, one of which is the garden! Farmer Jeff and his garden elves planted over 250 tomato plants (36 varieties), 200 peppers and chiles (5 varieties), green beans (3 - 60 ft rows!), a 60 foot row of yellow beans, a 60 foot row of rainbow chard (silver beet) , a 60 foot row of collard greens and then squash!
(The picture above is of the squash rows covered with green plastic)


There are 70 foot rows of squash ...4 rows. We have 8 varieties of summer squash including some named "8 ball", "1 ball", "flying saucer", "star ship", Romesco, and yellow patty pans. (This is a picture of flying saucer squash)

We have also planted basil "Genovese", opal basil and lots of sunflowers! Just this year we also started raised beds in aluminum horse troughs! We have 8 troughs with arugula, raddichio, red romaine and red leaf lettuce. It is such a treat to pick greens and eat them just minutes later. My favorite salad these days is red leaf lettuce, arugula, thinly sliced fennel, tossed with lemon juice and olive oil, then topped with shaved parmesan. YUM!!! It tastes like summer ...and Italy!



Some of our other pursuits, all in our spare time, of course, included giving a cooking demonstration at the Windsor Farmer's Market on Sunday, May 13th (Mother's day).

Farmer Jeff showed how to make a swiss chard, bacon and goat cheese frittata, in honor of our trip to Italy.

I made Migas which is a breakfast dish made with sauteed corn tortillas, onions and peppers with eggs scrambled into it.

We topped it all off by making strawberry mint agua fresca.(A Mexican beverage) It is so easy to make! You can really make it with any fruit. We especially like Watermelon Agua Fresca.

Strawberry Agua Fresca – makes about 8 servings
1 cup Sugar
1 cup Water
3 sprigs Mint
6 cups Strawberries, washed and hulled (or any other fruit, such as melon or pineapple)
Juice of 1 ½ to 2 Limes, or to taste
Ice water – about 4 cups
Ice

Method:
Heat sugar and water together to create simple syrup. Drop in the mint sprigs once the sugar has melted. Cool.
Put strawberries in blender and pour 1 cup of simple syrup over the strawberries. Blend.
Add the lime juice. TASTE!
Add ice water and/or simple syrup until desired consistency and sweetness is reached and it tastes balanced.
*There is no exact measure as it all depends on the sweetness and water content of the fruit.