So on Thursday I went on a three or four hour car ride to go to my cousin Ellen's house in Pennsylvania. Since I usually hate long car rides I wasn't exactly so happy about being stuck in a car for about three hours while I was sitting next to my oh so annoying little brother, but it was worth those pretty abysmal three hours, because Ellen has almost every kind of cooking thing that you could possibly think of and also she's just a lot of fun to cook with, oh and did I mention she has a pool with a diving board? Anyway so on Thursday we made Meyer lemon chicken with risotto, yesterday we made grilled steak ( Ellen did that), the grilled steak was amazing by the way, and I made the roasted potatoes, plus farro, I helped make the corn on the cob too. But unfortunately I can't eat corn on the cob because I have braces so my mother dearest has to cut the corn off of the cob for me ( sigh...) so I'm having a pretty good time here so far and my mother ( or Ellen) will tell you where to get these recipes and tonight we're making peach crisp - one of my all time favorite desserts.
Ambika:
I LOVE my cousin's farm. I've been going there since I was a child and have many great memories of family meals cooked and shared there. For those of you who would like to know what farro is here is the Wikipedia definition. Basically it seems to be another type whole grain wheat, rather like spelt. We cooked it in chicken stock like rice - 2 cups liquid to one cup grain. We sauteed onions first, then added the farro and chicken stock, and cooked it until liquid was absorbed (there seems to be some debate on exactly how long we actually cooked it for - 20 - 30 mins). We then added lots of butter and parmesan cheese. I love farro and was introduced to it by Ellen years ago at an Italian restaurant. Frankies Sputino makes great farro btw if you want to try it and are in Brooklyn or NYC. I will make this at home for sure.
The chicken with Meyer lemon from the night before came from this recipe from the NY Times and was delicious! We substituted thyme for the rosemary because my husband hates rosemary and didn't use leeks because we didn't have any. I don't have any pics of that dinner, sorry. Here is a pic of the wonderful stove at the farm.
Some of the family at the dinner table.
Our cousin Katy showed us this great trick for buttering corn. First put a big pat of butter on a slice of bread and then butter your corn on the buttered bread!
Dinner was oh so yummy!!!
Our cousin Herb made a great salad and Lila made balsamic vinaigrette.
Lila will write about the peach cobbler in the next post.
Here are a couple more pics.
Ellen at the grill:
Lila tasting the farro:
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