Eating Green: Sustainable food in PDX

My new favorite book is Animal, Vegetable, Miracle from Barbara Kingsolver. I have always been a person that loves food, but I am starting to appreciate more and more that these days, farmers are the rock stars, not chefs.

I am incredibly lucky to live in an area that grows a lot of its own food. If the entire world were to plunge into a deep spiral of financial troubles and that finite resource we call gasoline were to dry up, Oregonians, for the most part, would still be able to eat!

Sure, it would be harder to get things from farm to table, but we could all grow food in our back yards, too, to supplement the crisis because we get so much rain. In the sunny desert, it may be beautiful, but as this book mentions, those cities are just living on borrowed water. And time.

Did you know that Inc. magazine’s latest issue (yet to hit newsstands) is touting the global water crisis as the next big thing, just like “plastics” was in the movie “The Graduate?” Getting access to potable water is getting harder every day - about one in six people in this world have no access to clean and safe drinking water. If we continue to follow the current trend, by the year 2025 two thirds of the people in this world will not have sufficient access to clean water. Hence the opportunity to create machines that desalinate, divert, and filter the water we do have.

Local food systems, in addition to conservation of all that we have (water, energy, etc.), is imperative in this continually evolving world. I plan to make it my mission to educate people just how important this is, just as Barbara Kingsolver is doing.

Sassafras will soon be featured on the Cooking Up a Story Web site. We were filmed in our kitchen a few weeks ago for two segments: how to make a pie crust and how to make a tomato pie.

We had a blast and can’t wait to see the final cut - thank you Rebecca! Until then, here are a few photos of our shoot.

We are very excited to finally be participating in the Portland Composts! program. I have learned a great deal in the recent past about how commercial composting works, where to source compostable products, and why we should even be participating in a commercial composting program in the first place.

The biggest reason we participate is because as a food business, we can divert a great deal of biodegradable material from the landfill, where it creates a highly-polluting methane gas upon breakdown.  Not only that, I can then purchase bagged compost that come from the Cedar Grove Composting Facility at my local Home Depot and Lowe’s stores. Talk about closing the loop!

Does your workplace participate in a the Portland Composts! program? I’d love to hear about it.

Overall winner, and savory pie winnerOriginally uploaded by Lelonopo

Wow. I am truly honored. I almost did not go to the Portland Pie-Off yesterday because I had family in town and paella to cook for 100. But, I saw some beautiful heirloom tomatoes while shopping early in the morning, and I knew I had to enter.

The tomatoes were red, green and yellow, but only the reds and yellows tasted good enough to make the pie. While distracted making the paella, I kept forgetting about the onions I was caramelizing (pie topping), and had to re-make them twice. Third time’s a charm, as they say…

So I’ll get to the point now. I won the grand prize at the Portland Pie-Off: Best Overall Pie. What? A savory tomato pie beats out all of the fruit pies in the peak of berry and peach season in the Pacific Northwest? You bet it did. I was more proud of that pie than I have ever been about any pie I have ever made.

I am elated yet incredibly humbled at the same time. Thank you, everyone, for your compliments. And thanks to all of my friends and husband who have been guinea pigs over the past few years - I’m sure you’re tired of this pie!

#mmmpie!

Here in the Pacific Northwest, we love tomatoes.

Unfortunately, our season is much shorter and later than other places in the country, so while the peak of the season is here for most, we are still waiting for our little backyard patches of green to turn to red.

However, you can find some wonderful heirloom tomatoes now (that have been grown in greenhouses) in specialty grocery stores everywhere.

I am really looking forward to Thursday’s virtual Tomato Fest with Deb over at Dinner Tonight and Margaret at A Way to Garden. I have just stumbled upon these sites and could not be more excited about it!

One idea for those tomatoes: make a pie. Pie, you say? Yes. Tomato Pies are a Southern specialty, as far as I can tell, the recipe originated from the Lowcountry, or coastal region, of South Carolina—and they are amazing. I have only been able to find a recipe for this delicacy in a few cookbooks - and both of them were from the Lowcountry area.

Being from South Carolina myself, I have my own variation on this recipe (see below). Two of my sisters and my stepmother have their own variations, too, and they are all to die for.

We recently started selling Tomato Pies at the Montavilla Farmer’s Market in our neighborhood (see photo), and the response has been incredible. Most people that walk by our booth and ask, “What’s a Tomato Pie?”

Our answer: Tomato pie is made with a traditional pie crust filled with tomatoes and basil, then topped with a mixture of cheese and mayonnaise, topped with caramelized onions.

The best part about these pies: they freeze like a dream!

Using the local ingredients of the season is not only satisfying, but cheaper and healthier, too. What a great way to use up all those extra tomatoes!

Tomato Pie Recipe
-5 large tomatoes, peeled, cored and sliced 1/4 inch thick
-1 10-inch pie crust
-1/4 Teaspoon dried basil
-1/2 Cup medium cheddar cheese, shredded
-1/4 Cup mayonnaise
-2 Tablespoons butter
-1 1/2 Large sweet onions, sliced in 1/4 inch rings (Vidalia or Walla Walla sweets work best)
-1 Teaspoon sugar
-1 Tablespoon spice mix (Italian herbs or other favorite seasoning)
-1/2 Teaspoon cracked pepper
-Salt to taste

Directions:
1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2) Melt butter in a saute pan and add onions. Cook at medium low for about 30 minutes until carmelized, stirring every few minutes to avoid burning.
3) Lightly salt tomatoes and drain in colander for 20 minutes.
4) Mix cheddar with mayonnaise and 1/4 Teaspoon of the cracked pepper and set aside.
5) Pre-bake pie shell for 10 minutes in 350 degree oven with pie weights to avoid bubbles.
6) Add one layer of tomatoes to pie shell and cover with dash of salt, pepper, sugar and basil. Add the rest of the tomato slices and seasonings in layers.
7) Spread cheese mixture evenly on top of tomatoes.
8) Sprinkle dressing mix on top of cheese.
9) Add carmelized onions to the top of the pie in an even layer.
10) Bake pie at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Cover with foil if the crust begins to burn.
Makes 6-8 servings.