Spring sandwich with black bean tempeh

At yesterday's Portland Winter Market, Jaime Berhanu of Lalibela Farm offered me a sample of her latest experiment: black bean tempeh. Right away I was intrigued by the exotic black and steel color.

The flavor was mild and went well with the ginger-lime marinade I created. The texture is softer than soy tempeh, however, it crisps under high heat just like soy tempeh.

Black bean is the third sample I've tried, after navy bean and garbanzo bean. Jamie and her husband, Andy, are testing a variety of beans to see which one makes the best soy-free tempeh.

Each one's flavor reflects the bean it's made from while still offering the classic tempeh taste. Of the three, the garbanzo's texture was most similar to soy, but right now I'm feeling partial to the black bean.

After I let the black bean tempeh slices marinate for a couple hours, I cooked them on the griddle. Using toasted slices of a whole grain loaf I bought at the market, I served the tempeh with Raye's Mustard, mixed greens, fresh basil leaves, green onions and sliced red onions (my last storage onion from the fall). It was the perfect spring sandwich, and a wonderful testament to all the great food at the Portland Winter Market.

Farmers' market on a stick

With the recent gorgeous weather, Adam and I have been spending quality time with our Weber grill. The compact unit is ideal for small city lots and works well with hardwood charcoal. Adam gets the fire going by lighting newspaper drizzled with vegetable oil. Once the wood begins to burn, the curling smoke lacks the acrid aroma of petroleum-laced briquettes, and instead matches the tantalizing smell of the ever-growing legion of Portland restaurant wood grills.

When the coals glow red hot, I bring down the food.

One of my favorite ways to cook on the grill is with skewers. Pretty much any plant can be pierced with a stick and roasted over flames. Mushrooms, tempeh and fried tofu all work well too. A set of metal skewers makes a good investment, and wooden skewers work in a pinch, but it's a good idea to soak them in water before you add the vegetables.

At this time of year, I pick up fingerling potatoes, red peppers, onions and baby squash at the Portland Farmers' Market. I head home dreaming about how they'll taste caramelized and infused with smoke. To me it's the sweet flavor of Maine's waning summer days, and a taste I'll recall fondly when the frozen days of February arrive.

Late Summer Farmers' Market Skewers

15 fingerling potatoes
2 red peppers
6-8 mixed baby squash
2 red onions
Extra virgin olive oil
Maine sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Dried basil

Cut each to roughly the same size and place in a bowl (setting aside the onions so they don't fall apart). Coat the vegetables with olive oil and then toss with salt, pepper and basil. Drizzle olive oil over the onions. Using a metal skewer (or a wooden one first soaked in water) add the vegetables one at a time. Add to the grill and cook 15-20 minutes. Turn after 10 minutes. Test the potatoes with a fork to be sure they're cooked through. Serve hot.

Red hot autumn

Apples and cranberries show up for the short days and cool nights of autumn. Their vivid red skins add instant color to the Portland Farmers' Market and make a lively addition to many meals. While the apple's sweet juice is worlds away from the bitter cranberry's bite, the two share the season's tart, sassy taste. And when combined, they're heavenly.

I use the fruits together in salads, salsas, pancakes and even vegetable roasts. But one of the easiest ways to combine their complementary flavors is in a simple cran-applesauce. I leave the apple skins on and add a touch of maple syrup to create this quick and easy dessert that boasts the season's best tastes.



Chunky cran-applesauce

4 Macintosh apples, chopped
1 cup fresh cranberries
2 cups water
3 Tbsp. Maine maple syrup

Combine ingredients in a sauce pan and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and let it simmer for 30-45 minutes, until most of the water is evaporated. Serve warm or cold.

Hot soup for cold days

When it gets cold in Maine, a warm soup is the ideal way to shake the chill from your bones and chase the damp out of the air. These lovely farmers' market carrots, parsnips and leeks make excellent additions to any vegetable soup.

I used them in a lentil rice soup for a party at my sister's house. These portions demand a crowd, so be sure to dial back the measurements if you have fewer mouths to feed. If you want an easy garnish, just reserve a handful of the parsley, celery tops and leek tops, chop coarsely and sprinkle in each bowl.


Market Root Soup


1 onion, diced
1 bunch celery, diced
5 carrots, diced

18 cups water
4 cups lentils
2 cups rice

1 head garlic, chopped
1 bunch fresh parsley, chopped
4-6 tomatoes, diced
2 potatoes, diced
3 leeks, sliced in coins
2 jalapenos, sliced
1 parsnip, diced

1 cup vegetable stock
6 oz. tomato paste
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
salt and pepper, to taste

Add a quarter cup of oil to a large stock pan over medium high heat and add onions. Saute for 8-10 minutes, until the onions begin to caramelize. Then add diced celery and saute for 3-5 minutes, then add carrots and cook another 3-5 minutes.

Add water, followed by lentils and rice. Then add garlic, parsley, tomatoes, potatoes, leeks, jalapeno and parsnips. Add vegetable stock, tomato paste and rest of olive oil. Cook at least one hour before serving. Season with salt and pepper.

Inspired by cabbage

When I spotted a gorgeous head of Nappa cabbage at the farmers' market, the thought of stir fry quickly filled my mind. Suddenly I could taste the cabbage's earthiness balanced by a sweet and tangy sauce. I grabbed a few market staples, paired them with my pantry staples of canned black beans and brown rice and I had dinner on the table in less than a hour.



Cabbage & carrot stir fry

2 cups brown rice
4 cups water

2 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
4 carrots, julienned
1 onion, sliced lengthwise
1 pepper, sliced lenghtwise
1/2 head Nappa cabbage, sliced thin
1 cup black beans, canned
4 cloves garlic, slice

Sauce:
1 cup soy sauce
2 Tbsp. Maine maple syrup
1 Tbsp. toasted sesame oil
1/4 cup finely diced onion
1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp. red pepper flakes
1 Tbsp. black beans, mashed
1 Tbsp. sesame seeds

Combine water and rice on stove. Bring to boil, then cover and reduce heat to low, cook 30-45 minutes until all water is absorbed. Mix sauce ingredients together and set aside. Heat wok or stir fry pan and add olive oil and garlic. Saute 1 minute then add sliced onions. Saute until they begin to soften, then add carrots, peppers and sauce. Stir for 5 minutes. Finally add black beans and cabbage. Cook until cabbage wilts. Spoon stir fry over cooked rice. Serves four.

Bye-Bye Berries

Here they are: The last of this season's farm fresh berries. I picked up the blueberries at Wednesday's farmers' market, and I'm trying to make them last as long as possible (which won't be long). When I was at the market yesterday, I learned that the blueberries are officially done for the season and that the raspberries I was buying marked the end of the line.

It will now be a good 8 months before I can buy fresh, Maine-grown berries. But I'm thankful that the frozen Moon Hill Farm berries are back in the freezer case at my local grocery store. They'll give my taste buds the needed sweetness and tang to make it through the coming winter.

Roasted summer tomatoes

Frost crept into Maine this past week, killing off many a tomato plant. Farms near the water and down here in the southern half of the state were mostly spared, so it doesn't spell the complete demise of this year's juicy globes of sunshine. But I can no longer deny the end of summer is near.


At the Portland Farmers' Market, uniformly red and perfectly flawless tomatoes are the exception.



Instead we feast on the sweet goodness of purple, green and yellow beauties that come with the battle scars I know well from my dad's organic garden. With the end of tomato season in sight, I couldn't help but stock up at Saturday's market.

Today with tons of tomatoes in hand, I fired up the oven and roasted a spicy summer sauce. Roasting is a quick way to bring out the sweet tomato flavor and keep the texture of the other vegetables. I add it to sandwiches, on top of baked potatoes and alongside mujaddara.

It will work wherever you enjoy tomato sauce. But, be warned, this recipe is sure to give your tongue a kick.


Hot roasted summer tomatoes

2-3 medium sized heirloom tomatoes
1 organic red onion, sliced
1 bunch organic baby shallots
1 head garlic, peeled and ends trimmed
1 organic jalapeno pepper, sliced
1 organic sweet red pepper, sliced
extra virgin olive oil
salt & pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 450. Cover bottom of roasting pan with a thin layer of olive oil. Slice each tomato into similarly sized pieces and place in pan. Add red onion. Remove tops from shallots and cut bottom sections into 1 inch chunks. Add to roasting pan. Add garlic cloves and pepper slices. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Cook for 30-40 minutes. Serves 2.

Rainbow roast

At this time of year here in Maine, the farmers' markets are overflowing with wonderful veggies ready for roasting. And with the cooler nights, it's the perfect time to crank up the oven. I love roasting vegetables. It's super easy and the results taste like I slaved over that hot oven all day. The only secret is making sure everything is cut to roughly the same size. Pretty much any vegetable can be roasted, but here's the run down of what I had on hand the other night.


Roasted vegetables

2 cups baby squash, chopped
1 head cauliflower, cut into florets
1 cup rainbow carrots
1 red onion, sliced
1 sweet red pepper, sliced
extra virgin olive oil
salt & pepper

Preheat over to 400. Place all the vegetables in a mixing bowl and toss with olive oil until everything is well coated. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Put in a baking dish in a single layer and place in oven. Stir frequently. Roast until tender, about 25-45 minutes.

Breakfast for dinner

With such an abundance of vegetables filling the farmers' market these days, sometimes I can't help but want to eat them all at once. A tasty way to do this is with a crispy vegetable hash. Even though this is traditionally a breakfast dish, I serve it for dinner every once in awhile.

This recipe uses the vegetables I had on hand, but anything from squash to eggplant to tomato would work well in this dish. The quantities are flexible too, in case you don't have 10 carrots to spare.

Market Vegetable Hash

1 onion, diced
6 medium red potatoes, cubed
6 oz. smoky tempeh, diced
1 sweet red pepper
1 ear corn, cut from cob
3 cloves garlic, diced
1 cup green beans, snapped into 1-inch pieces
10 rainbow carrots, diced
1 tsp. onion powder
1/2 tsp. cayenne powder
salt & pepper to taste

Place potatoes cubes in a vegetable steamer and cook until fork tender. Meanwhile, heat a large cast iron frying pan over medium high heat. Add the diced onions and cook until they begin to caramelize. Add the tempeh and fry until crispy. Add red pepper, corn and green beans. Cook, stirring constantly, 2 minutes. Add carrots, stir for a minute, and finally add the garlic and cooked potatoes. Fry until potatoes get slightly crispy. Sprinkle on spices, salt and pepper. Serves 4.

Blondes have more fun

The Boothby Blonde is one of the fun heirloom vegetables you can find at the Portland Farmers' Market. The tiny cuke is grown from seeds saved by five generations of the Boothby family of Livermore, Maine. Each nugget is sweet and cold, with the crispness of approaching autumn.


For lunch today, I thinly sliced two cukes, laid them on a serving dish and drizzled them with red wine vinegar and extra virgin olive oil. I finished with a sprinkle of salt and a few grinds of pepper. I left the skins on, but because they're so light they look like they've been peeled.

Eating cucumbers this way always reminds me of being in the spacious kitchen at my grandfather's dairy farm. I can see him sitting at the long table, skillfully slicing a garden-fresh cucumber into a white bowl. He liberally splashes vinegar over the coins, before shaking first the salt and then the pepper over the slices. The taste is absolutely delicious.

Today these vinegar blondes made the perfect accompaniment to the quick mujaddara salad I put together. As I've said before, I absolutely love mujaddara because it's so flexible. You can morph it into wraps, pitas, veggie burgers and tacos. Or you can serve it the traditional way, as the base for a salad. Here I paired it with market lettuce and a bruschetta made from juicy heirloom tomatoes, this season's garlic, Maine sea salt and fresh basil.



I love picking up basil at the market. Because most of the farmers sell it cut and tied together and sitting in fresh water, I take it home and let it do double-duty as a fragrant bouquet.

Beet me

I've made many a delicious pizza with sliced and fried potatoes. But this was the first time I used beets. I noticed the beets sitting in my crisper (sad and neglected) when I reached for a few potatoes. I couldn't help but slice one up, fry it and add it to the pizza.


I'd been eager to make a pizza ever since I bought some Maine-made Spelt Right frozen pizza dough. This was the first time I used it, and I was very happy with the results. The crust was crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside. The flavor was pleasing and delicate.


Unlike the crust, nothing was subtle or delicate about these market peppers that I sliced up and piled on the pizza too. The red one was sweet, and the green one, of course, was a tongue-burning jalapeno. Ouch!


You can see I didn't shy away from topping off the pizza with those fiery green rings. But to be honest, I couldn't eat more than two of them. Thank god Adam can handle the heat better than I can, because I'd hate to see any of this delicious pizza of market veggies go to waste.


Farmers' market pizza with smoky tempeh

16 oz. Spelt Right dough, thawed
1/2 cup organic marinara sauce
1 medium red potato, sliced
1 medium beet, sliced
3 cloves garlic, sliced
1/2 sweet onion, sliced
1 medium tomato, sliced
1 hot pepper, sliced
1 sweet pepper, sliced
6 oz. smoky tempeh

Preheat oven to 475. Heat two cast iron frying pans on medium high. Coat each pan in olive oil and add potatoes to one pan and beets to the other. Cook 15-20 minutes, until the potatoes and beets are easily pierced with a fork.

Meanwhile, shape the dough into a pizza pan. Spread sauce across the center of the dough. Add a single layer of potatoes. Once you remove all the potatoes from the pan, throw in the garlic slices and stir fry for 2-3 minutes. Add the garlic to the pizza and then cover with a layer of beets. Then add a layer of sliced tomatoes.

Add olive oil to a frying pan and fry until crispy around the edges. Remove from pan and crumble. Add to pizza. Top with onion and pepper slices. Place in oven and cook for 15-20 minutes.

Beans, bald benefits & beautiful brides

Summer in Maine is all consuming. Outdoor concerts, lawn parties, beach outings, alfresco dinners, sipping drinks on the back deck - the entertainment options are limitless. As a result, Adam and I seem to fill each precious day to its maximum capacity.

This often means we have a short window of time before, between or after the evening's festivities to cook up and enjoy the amazing bounty we're buying each week from the Portland Farmers' Market. Fortunately for us, these Maine grown veggies are so tasty, they need very little fussing with to bring out their exquisite flavor.

Fresh beans are a terrific example. The green ones dominate the market stands here in Portland, but I can often find exotic and heirloom varieties, such as these purple beauties. I frequently use my garlic-soy stir fry on whatever kinds I have on hand. It takes less than 15 minutes and tastes like a million bucks.

Notice how much of the purple fades out of the beans when they're stir fried. Still they remain delicious, even without their royal glow.

Two staples of Maine farmers' markets at this time of year are corn and potatoes. As a result, they tend to show up in many of our dinners.


The last couple weeks I've been on a mashed potato and corn-on-the-cob kick, as a way to take advantage of these yummy treats. I leave the skins on my mashed potatoes, giving them a twist on the white-washed classic. Just chop, boil, season and mash, and I've got a substantial dish on the table. We paired the two with a salad before heading off to the hysterical Comb Overs for Kids benefit this past Thursday.

Subjecting themselves to the frowns of Portland's fashionistas for the past six months, Allen Fritzler, left, and Marcus Payne grew serious comb overs. Why would they do such a thing? To raise money for the Barbara Bush Children's Hospital, of course. And they surpassed their $5,000 goal at the really fun finale at Margarita's this past Thursday.


Around 8 pm, Marcus and Allen were freed from hairstyle hell by the stylists at the Men's Room. Allen also got a full shave (after the crowd voted to get rid of his beard).


While the Comb Overs will live in infamy for years to come, this week's most memorable event was without a doubt my friend Denise's wedding. She had a beautiful ceremony and a rockin' reception at the Martindale Country Club in Auburn. Her new husband, Dave, made the gorgeous arbor that framed their ceremony.


After dinner (where Denise had the kitchen make me a delicious vegan stir fry), the girls (some of whom are pictured here) kept things moving on the dance floor.


So did Denise, even though her breathtaking dress had quite the train on it. Here Lisa T. is trying to tie it up and get it off the floor. After multiple attempts, it still kept slipping lower. But it didn't matter that a satin hazard was trailing behind her, Denise cut it up with the best of them.


It was an auspicious start to their journey together, and I'm so glad I was able to share in their happy celebration.

Market indicators

There's lots of talk these days about the slumping economy (and I certainly hear my share of it working in the publishing industry). But you wouldn't know money is tight by checking out the Portland Farmers' Market. Here popular items frequently sell out and we patiently wait in long lines to buy the amazing food grown by our local farmers.

I snapped this photo while standing in the middle of the line to buy corn at today's market. Sure, it was the first time corn was available at the Wednesday market (it debuted at the market this past Saturday), but I stood in line to buy lettuce too.


Since this seaside city is filled with foodies and progressive thinkers, it's no wonder so many of us realize that eating real food (as opposed to the processed and packaged variety) is the key to maintaining life-long health. The trick at Portland's booming farmers' markets is just getting your hands on some ...


But when you do, it's only a couple quick steps to deliciousness. Tonight, we whipped together a super simple market meal. I took advantage of this evening's rain and cooler temps to crank up the oven and bake a handful of lovely red potatoes. Then I threw together a vinaigrette, and Adam chopped up a salad. A few ears of corn on the cob finished this meal that came together in a flash with minimal prep time.


And the taste is the sweet flavor of summer itself.

Whip up your walnuts

I absolutely love this quick, creamy recipe. It even appears in this year's update to the Hill Family cookbook (which puts it in very good culinary company!). Here I use the pâté as the base for a sandwich, pilling on sliced cornichon pickles, sweet and sour market beets and farmers' market lettuce.

By using walnuts (feel free to substitute your favorite nut) this pâté is a tasty and a very versatile, whole food. I use it as a dip for veggies, a topping for baked potatoes and a spread for wraps. You can mix in whatever fresh veggies you have on hand.

Right now with the market overflowing with produce I have everything from jalepeno peppers to peas to broccoli to choose from. But I kept it traditional with green onion tops and carrots. Storage carrots remain a favorite of mine in the winter, when I also like sundried tomatoes.

Walnut Pâté

2 cups organic walnuts
1/2 cup organic extra virgin olive oil
1/2 cup pickle juice (or vinegar)
1 Tbsp. organic soy sauce
2 Tbsp. Maine maple syrup
2 organic garlic cloves
1 small, organic onion, chopped & sauted
1 bunch, organic onion tops, chopped
4 small, organic carrots, chopped
salt and pepper to taste

Add olive oil, pickle juice, soy sauce and maple syrup to a food processor bowl. Then add walnuts, garlic and sauted onions, and blend. Once well blended add onion tops, carrots, salt and pepper. Mix until carrots and onion tops are evenly distributed. Serves 4-6.

Wednesday market scene

Not only is the Wednesday Farmers' Market in Portland the best place to pick up tasty eats, it's a great place to see the creative economy in action. Here artist and city councilor Dave Marshall captures himself capturing Samuel James and Meantone's weekly steel guitar jam session outside the Public Market House during today's market.

But by the time I got around to snapping this photo, the real Samuel James was nowhere to be seen.

Two weeks ago, Dave was the subject matter for cartoonist and West End News publisher Ed King. Ed's wonderful rendition appears in this ad in the current edition of the WEN.


At the other end of the square, Mark Finks and friends entertained the market-goers with their swinging sounds.






But once the lunch hour arrives, don't be surprised to find some of the veggies sold out at this popular market.