The Food For All Collective (TFFAC) is "a collectively-run bulk food buying club that seeks to make humane and sustainable choices accessible to everyone." Some of the Co-op organizers have been involved with TFFAC for a while and have participated in their bulk food orders. In our household, for example, Alison often orders from them and we are currently enjoying, among other items, several pounds of organic, fair trade coffee beans through TFFAC.

TFFAC is different from a Co-op in many ways but philosophically we're all in tune with the desire to bring good food to as many people as possible.

To that end, they are hosting their first ever Spring Potluck on Sunday, May 29 from 1pm to 4pm at Jefferson Square Park (Washington Ave between 3rd and 4th Street). Rain date will be announced if necessary.

Please visit the Facebook event page for the potluck to RSVP and for more information.

Here a simple and tasty kind of Mediterranean recipe. Try it and the sun will shine for you - at least in your belly. :)

Tomato-Rice-Feta dish (for 2 people)

You need:

• 1/2 onion

 

• 2-3 tomatoes

 

• 6 mushrooms

 

• vegetable or chicken broth

 

• 1 cup of rice (basmati works the best)

 

• feta cheese (Trader Joes-Israeli feta)

 

• cilantro

Preparation:

• Cook rice.

 

• Cut the onions and fry them in a pan.

 

• Add tomatoes and mushroom, cook for 5 min, add broth and let simmer for another 5 min.

 

• Add rice and cook on low for 5 min.

 

• Cut feta cheese into little blocks and stick them into the rice mixture. Cover the pan so the feta cheese can get soft; let it sim for another 10 minutes.

 

• For decoration add cilantro or parsley.

Dish can be served with cold home made peppermint tea. Enjoy!!

You can follow Katrin Bahr at her blog (which is in German) or on Twitter (in English).

A few years ago I became really interested in making my own bread. I received this beautiful book from a friend and was compelled to try every recipe, well, except for puff pastry.  But the cinnamon rolls, challah, and dark pumpernickel-raisin bread - they were delicious and I was hooked.  There is something so satisfying about the end result.

But homemade bread is a lot of work and when life picks up and I don't have time to wait on several rounds of rising dough, I turn to "No-Knead" bread.  I'm sure you've heard about it by now, the master recipe was written up years ago in the New York Times and featured over and over again on the internet and Mother Earth News magazine (which is where I discovered it). But if you haven't actually tried making it yet, I highly recommend it.  It's tasty and rewarding, crusty on the outside and chewy on the inside.  And the best part is that it's easy.  Here's the recipe and what I do.

Recipe: No-Knead Bread
Adapted from Jim Lahey, Sullivan Street Bakery

• 3 cups all-purpose or bread flour, more for dusting
• ¼ teaspoon instant yeast
• 1¼ teaspoons salt
• Cornmeal or wheat bran as needed

(Around 9 or 10 pm at night) 1. In a large bowl combine flour, yeast and salt. Add 1 5/8 cups water, and stir until blended; dough will be shaggy and sticky. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rest at least 12 hours, preferably about 18, at warm room temperature, about 70 degrees.

(The next day when we get home from work, around 4pm) 2. Dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles. Lightly flour a work surface and place dough on it; sprinkle it with a little more flour and fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest about 15 minutes.

3. Using just enough flour to keep dough from sticking to work surface or to your fingers, gently and quickly shape dough into a ball. Generously coat a cotton towel (not terry cloth) with flour, wheat bran or cornmeal; put dough seam side down on towel and dust with more flour, bran or cornmeal. Cover with another cotton towel and let rise for about 2 hours. When it is ready, dough will be more than double in size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger.

(Around 6pm) 4. At least a half-hour before dough is ready, heat oven to 450 degrees. Put a 6- to 8-quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic) in oven as it heats. When dough is ready, carefully remove pot from oven. Slide your hand under towel and turn dough over into pot, seam side up; it may look like a mess, but that's O.K. Shake pan once or twice if dough is unevenly distributed; it will straighten out as it bakes. Cover with lid and bake 30 minutes, then remove lid and bake another 15 to 30 minutes, until loaf is beautifully browned.

Let it cool on a wire rack - if you can wait (I usually can't).

My favorite summer dinner - a salad and homemade bread with butter, radishes and sea salt.

If you are intrigued by this no-knead method, but aren't a fan of white flour, I highly recommend buying Jeff Hertzberg and Zoë François’s book Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day because they provide healthy recipes made with less white flour, lower refined sugars and gluten free options.  I should also mention that the Fair Food Farm Stand in the Terminal Market sells a variety of different flours.

Try it this weekend!

Hello again!  There has been exciting progress this past week.  First, here's the garden:

And now...flowers!

 

Those are both from the same plant, my monster beefsteak that has always been the biggest one.  (I think it needs a name...Beefy?)  But the other beefsteaks are getting flowers, too!

Flowers are exciting because flowers mean fruit.  Hopefully good-tasting fruit.  Gotta wait and see!

It's been raining since Saturday so I haven't had to water at all and I'm hoping for some sunny days this weekend so everything doesn't get too waterlogged.  But the rain has been, for the most part, light and frequent which is how watering should work anyway, so I'm actually kind of thankful for it.

I realize I've been focusing largely on the beefsteak tomatoes because they're the biggest, but the beauty queens are getting larger and I'll do a closer look at them in the coming weeks.  The eggplants are still pretty small but I think it's still a bit cold for them.  They apparently do well in hot weather, so once we actually start getting summerish weather I think they'll be happier.

On Sunday the rain gave us a bit of a break, so I went outside and retied some of the tomatoes to their stakes and did some weeding.  Now containers usually don't need too much weeding since you use new soil each time, but my big metal planter has had soil in in for a while and look!  Little weeds:

So I pulled those little buggers out, trying to get as many of the roots as possible.

And now my tomatoes and eggplants can grow undisturbed (you hear that, eggplant?)

While I was weeding, I debated whether I should take the little lower branches and the suckers (that's the actual term, I'm not making stuff up this time) off some of the larger tomato plants.  Suckers are the little shoots that grow from the intersection of the main stem and branches of the tomato plant, and I've been told both to prune them and to leave them on.  Basically it comes down the this:  if you do take those suckers off (ha), the remaining branches get more nutrients and therefore produce bigger fruit.  But if you leave them on you'll get more fruit, though it might be smaller.  If you have a short growing season you probably want to take them off since they'll take nutrients from the rest of the plant and probably not mature in time to produce fruit.  They also tend to make the plant top-heavy, so if you're growing in a small space (yup) they might get too unwieldy.  What to do??  I eventually compromised by pruning some plants and leaving the others undisturbed.  Since then I've decided that I'm going to leave the majority of them on since it's only May and the growing season here is quite long.  If things get too top-heavy then I'll reassess.

The plan for this weekend is to plant some of the basil outside, since it's getting quite crowded in its little indoors pot:

I know it hasn't reached the two-sets-of-leaves phase, so maybe I'll just thin it out a bit since I actually don't need 40+ basil plants.  Maybe one of my dedicated readers wants some?  Let me know!

One little basil also somehow crept in to my feverfew...

Don't know how that happened.

As always, I'll be back next week.

Sarah DeGiorgis has lived in Philly for five years and is finally starting to feel like a true Philadelphian, though she still detests cheesesteaks.  She enjoys reading, watching bad tv, eating and cooking good food and digging in the dirt. Catch up with her continuing efforts to grow food in South Philly by clicking here.

It's getting to be the end of oven season, but of course, I've said that before.  It's actually chilly and rainy now, but for two weeks, every other day Sous Chef Brian has been planning on setting up the air conditioner in the bedroom, and then by nighttime it's no longer a priority.  The weather is iffy.  But soon oven season will be over.   So let's bake up some dinner.

It's not quite time for these veg in our part of the world, but when it is time, it's also not oven time.  I get so adamant about not buying tomatoes until they're here (oh, and they're here) but when Sous Chef Brian came home from the grocery store with eggplant and summer squash, I just accepted it and decided to bake this up.   Of course it'd be better in July.

Take veg, slice thin, coat in panko, bake, layer with sauce and cheese and bake.  There, we're done.

Ooh, two bakes in there.  Yeah, this takes a minute.

I started with an eggplant, a small yellow squash and a zucchini.  I cut them into discs with the mandoline, but a knife works too.  I feel like the mandoline is safer for thin slices, but I also gave myself a bit of an accidental manicure in the process.  The yellow squash was actually cut into longer slices, not discs.  I like having different shapes to fill a pan without the gaps left by circles.   I also thought I had way too much veg - this was four baking sheets worth, and I figured I'd be freezing some, but that was not the case.

Preheat the oven to 400.  Get some sauce going, or get ready to open a jar.  This is my go-to red sauce, when I don't have a bounty of tomatoes to work with.

Beat up a couple eggs in some milk.   I  used two eggs and just enough milk to almost cover them.  This was plenty for my eggplant and two squashes, so if you're using less, you can get away with one egg.

Set out the breadcrumbs in a flat dish - I use a pie pan.

I'm a believer in panko but other breadcrumbs are fine.   I typically either make my own or use panko, and my freezer supply of bread ends is too short to make breadcrumbs right now.  I started with about 2.5 cups of breadcrumbs, but kept adding, I think I used a total of four cups or so. Sprinkle in the types of seasonings you'd use in Italian food - I went with red pepper flakes, salt and pepper and dried oregano and basil.

Fork that together so the spices are mixed in. Dip veg in egg, shake it off, press it into the bread crumbs, flip it, press it in again, and throw it on a baking sheet.

Repeat.  Like I said, I had four baking sheets worth, which for my oven, is two rounds of baking.

Put the veg in the oven for 10 minutes and flip, then about 10 minutes more.  The aim here is crispy.  You can oil your pan, or spritz your coated veg with oil, if you want them to get pretty and golden, but I'm not in it for looks.

And these are fairly golden sans oil.

At this point, we have a dilemma.  Use a big baking dish, or eat a ton of them and use a smaller one.  Also, if you want to eat now, you can cover them with cheese, set them under the broiler to melt it and serve them on top of pasta.  Or just eat them.  But let's go on and make a casserole. Coat the bottom of a baking dish with sauce, and then layer them - sauce, parmesan, veg, repeat.

I'm missing a cheese shot here - sorry, but I imagine you know what "sprinkle with cheese" looks like. Use the various shapes to fill in holes, or if you're using all eggplant or all zucchini or something, layer it a bit to avoid gaps.

I had three veg layers. Top with cheese, tent with foil and into the oven for 30 minutes.  Take the foil off for the last 10 to let it brown a bit on top.

Yeah, like that.

This makes many servings, 12-15?  And it freezes very well.  I cut individual servings, wrap in foil, label and freeze.

The cat doesn't believe there's no meat in our dinner.

This recipe is cross-posted at Saturday’s Mouse, where I’m working on making food out of food.

Veggie Parmesan Recipe
Yield 12 servings, very scalable.

• 1 Eggplant, sliced thin


• 1 Zucchini, sliced thin


• 1 Yellow Squash, sliced thin


• 4 cups Panko breadcrumbs


• 3 cups Pasta sauce


• 1 cup Parmesan cheese, grated


• 2 Eggs


• 1/4 cup Milk


• 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes


• 1 teaspoon dried oregano


• 1 teaspoon dried basil


• 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt


• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper

Instructions

• Preheat oven to 400.


• Beat eggs together with milk (Non-dairy milk is fine here, as long as it's unsweetened). Prepare breadcrumbs in a shallow dish.  Mix with herbs.


• Dip sliced veggies into egg, shake to remove excess and then coat in breadcrumbs.


• Lay on baking sheet lined with a silicone mat, or covered with foil or parchment.


• Bake 20 minutes at 400, flipping once midway through. Aim for crispy and somewhat golden.


• Turn oven down to 350.


• Coat the bottom of a baking dish with sauce.


• Add a layer of breaded veggies, arranging for complete coverage without gaps.


• Top with cheese and sauce, layer again.


• The top layer should be breaded veg covered in cheese.  Tent with foil.


• Bake 25 minutes at 350.


• Remove foil and bake another 10 minutes to melt cheese.

Every 3rd Monday of the month, the group Transition Philadelphia (the local arm of "a movement of people making their communities more resilient in the face of peak oil, climate change and plain old economic hard times") hosts educational events that seek to inform about how to prepare our homes and neighborhoods for the end of cheap fossil fuels. Tonight's event is about permaculture or, as their website puts it:

...learning to modify natural, self-contained ecosystems to produce a yield for us to eat while at the same time continually enhancing soil fertility and biodiversity, and managing food forests of perennial plants, familiar and new

Go to Transition Philadelphia's website for more info on the program (a short film with a guest speaker) and how to RSVP. Event begins at 6:30pm with a potluck dinner and main program starts at 7. I've actually just started learning about permaculture over the past few weeks and am therefore a bit disappointed that I can't make it tonight at the South Philly Older Adults Center (northwest corner of E. Passyunk Ave. and Dickinson Street). In fact, not to tread on Sarah's beat, Alison and I finished planting our garden this weekend taking special care to include plenty of flowering annuals and some perennials (a new butterfly bush, for example) that will, in theory, attract pollinators and predators to fertilize our tomatoes, cucumbers and zucchini while protecting them from the white flies, black flies and worms that we had last year. And, unlike last year when our garden was almost all green, we have some great purples, reds and yellows going on (pictures to follow if everything we planted actually takes hold and thrives). Though not exactly permaculture since we didn't plant in such a way to keep us from having to add nutrients to our soil from compost, it is an ecosystem in the making. (Now, if only those good bugs can find their way to us!) So if you're interested in figuring out how to take that bare patch of concrete behind your house and turn it into a self-supporting ecosystem, tonight's event is for you.

Come on out for another Sunday evening at Philly Community Wellness (1241 Carpenter Street) on May 22nd from 6 pm to 9 pm. This week we'll be catching up on co-op news as well as having some cookbook fun. Did you miss the Spring Community Forum and want to learn more about the South Philly Food Co-op? Looking to trade in some of your tired neglected cookbooks for some new-to-you dish descriptions? Want to meet your neighbors who are also interested in bringing more local, healthy food options to South Philly? Come to our May Community Event: we'll give an update on our progress thus far, talk about our next steps, and then have a cookbook swap (participation in the swap isn't a requirement for attending). If you like, bring 1-3 cookbooks and we'll swap them out Yankee Swap style. Make a trip to your local used bookstores if you don't have any cookbooks that you are willing to part with. Please RSVP on our Facebook page or email [email protected].

The following South Philadelphia event for tomorrow came across our desk and we thought it would be worth sharing. This is a great example of the community doing more to take control of its own food production. Efforts like this and the co-op can help bolster food security and promote health, security and equity in our neighborhoods. SOUTH PHILLY TEEN ORCHARD PLANTING When: Tuesday, May 17 @ 4pm Where: 2029 S. 8th St, South Philadelphia Join in on this orchard revitalization and replanting! United Communities, PHS, PUFFA, Teens 4 Good, and POP are collaborating in redeveloping this orchard site as a vital community gathering space. We'll be mulching and planting with the Youth Leadership Council and other community volunteers. Click here to RSVP for the event. Rain date: Tuesday, 5/24 @ 4pm.

It was over 130 years ago, not long after a group of South Philadelphia immigrants opened the first co-op in America at 917 Federal Street, that another group of immigrants, this time Italians, followed their friends and neighbors to South 9th Street to sell fresh fish, fruit, and vegetables. Next came butcher shops, serving the best meat in the city, and eventually cheese shops, restaurants, and bakeries. Together these entrepreneurs formed the Italian Market, the largest outdoor continuous market in the country. Though the character of the market has changed significantly with a diversifying popultion of Mexican tiendas and taquerias, Asian eateries and groceries (hmmm....pho), and even music clubs, the Italian Market remains a Philadelphia landmark.

If you haven't been, this weekend is the time, as it's the annual Italian Market Festival, Saturday and Sunday from 10am to 5pm . Check out the Procession of Saints, live music from the WMGK house band, a brand new half ball tournament to benefit the Mummers, and so much food and ice cold Peroni that even your Nona might think everyone is full enough. If you love sausage (and who doesn't), Esposito's Meat is celebrating its 100th year in business by stuffing a 100 foot sausage. It's the kind of event that just might entice you to make your home in South Philly like it did me.

That's not to say you shouldn't also check out Jazz on Colorado Court at Lucky Olds Souls on Saturday. We'll have co-op members there on hand with plenty of information and smiling faces.

Not for nothing, but youse are gonna have a great weekend.

 

Welcome back!  This will be short because I don't have too much to say (finally!).  Things are moving along and I'm happy to say that thanks to all the sunny days my waterlogged plants have finally dried out and I'm trying to stick to the schedule of watering them lightly every day.

I'm being totally serious here when I say that watering every day will be the hardest part.  Mostly because of my job which keeps me away from the house from 8-6 Monday through Friday and my tendency to not go directly home after work.  I'm on the lookout for some sort of self-watering system so I don't have to completely change my lifestyle (and kill my social life) so if anyone has any ideas, please let me know!  Sadly I don't have a hose (or even an outdoor spigot) so I'm looking for ideas with some sort of reservoir for the pots.  But for the foreseeable future I'll by relying on my two friends here:

And hey!  Some of the mint was used for juleps on Saturday

But there's still a lot of it.  I have a feeling I'll be cutting this back all summer.

Because I can never leave well enough alone, I have been noticing some strange things going on with the lower leaves of some of the plants, like this:

I'm hoping this is from transplanting and the leaves getting stuck to each other rather than little insects or slugs, but I'm going to keep an eye on it.  Also I've noticed that some of the little eggplants have what look like little bites in the leaves:

But again, I'm going to watch them and see where that goes.  I'm obviously not going to use any pesticides but I know that there are some gentler solutions like diluted soap and water that can help if things really get out of control.  For now the eggplants look pretty good and lots are getting new leaves:

This one, however, is worrying me:

I think it got pretty wet and maybe never dried out.  We'll see!

I've also been reading this book:

And it's pretty informative!  It's definitely geared more toward those who have an actual yard and garden as opposed to containers, but it has lots of tips on composting, pest control using natural methods, and just general gardening knowledge.  ALSO they totally endorse using your hands instead of a spade to work the dirt (the chapter is called "Spadework?  No Thanks!") since spades disrupt the natural layout of the soil and plants already there.  So hey, getting your hands dirty is fun and helpful!

One more random thing:  as I was walking through the Gallery on Sunday I noticed a Pennsylvania Horticultural Society display and stopped to look.  There was no actual person there because the Gallery is eerily empty on Sundays (what's with that?  I love the Gallery) but the display was all last years winners of the City Garden Contest.  Here's the website and pretty much anyone can enter as long as they have a garden!  I'm actually thinking of entering just for fun because sadly there's no cash money prize.  But if anyone's interested the deadline to enter is June 10th and then judging is during July and August.  You can also volunteer to be a judge if you want.  I think it's cool that they have a container garden category, as well as garden block and urban farm categories.  And there's also a children's garden category for all you young gardeners.  Anyway, the rules are basically that the garden has to be within the city limits and it can be an individual or community garden.  I highly recommend checking out the display at the Gallery (it's right inside after you go down the stairs at 9th and Market) if you're interested - I can't seem to find any pictures of last year's winners online but there was one grandfatherly-type man who grew insanely large squash in his little backyard.  I also think it's cool to see what people can do with just a little space.

On the indoor front, my feverfew and basil have sprouted and are ADORABLE as little baby plants always are.  I especially like the basil (shh don't tell feverfew!) because they already smell like little mini basils.

Since they're still babies I've been misting them and I'm just waiting until they're big enough to put outside.  I've still got more things to start inside so hopefully this weekend is the time for that.

That's it!  I'll be back next Thursday with another update.

Sarah DeGiorgis has lived in Philly for five years and is finally starting to feel like a true Philadelphian, though she still detests cheesesteaks.  She enjoys reading, watching bad tv, eating and cooking good food and digging in the dirt. Catch up with her continuing efforts to grow food in South Philly by clicking here.