Casey O’Neill is a farmer and owner of Happy Day Farms in Laytonville, Calif. The opinions expressed in this column do not necessarily reflect the views of The Mendocino Voice. If you’d like to write your own column for The Mendocino Voice, send your idea to info@mendovoice.com.
I love winter cooking because we use the oven much more than in the warmer months when we don’t want to heat up the house. We have an old, clay Romertopf deep pan with a lid that makes amazing braised roasts and whole chickens. I like to cut up chunks of carrot and potato to go in with the roast, seasoning with salt, thyme, rosemary, parsley and sage from the herb bunches we dry in the summer months. Sometimes I’ll quarter a cabbage and put it underneath the roast to soak up the juices.
I sear the cuts of meat in the cast iron on the stove top, then into the pan with the veggies and spices. Add a couple of inches of water in the bottom and into the oven at 350 for several hours. Often I’ll turn the oven down to 250 and go to bed, letting it slow cook overnight or shutting it off if I wake up in the night. This method works great for any large chunk of meat: beef, pork, lamb and poultry such as chicken or duck.
When we’re using the oven for roasting, I also like to add in a covered pot full of whole potatoes and an open Pyrex with a handful of whole butternut or delicata winter squash. I poke a few knife or fork holes in the ‘taters and squash to prevent them from popping in the oven. Once they’re roasted, I keep them in the fridge and eat them over the next several days as additions to stretch meals and add heartiness to meat and vegetable stir-fries.
Each morning I make breakfast from leftovers in the fridge. I try not to have to cook from scratch in the mornings because the extra time is hard to find with morning chores bearing down on me, but if I have meat that’s already cooked, it’s easy to throw together a hot breakfast. I start with chopped mushrooms and onions in a hot cast iron skillet with plenty of olive oil or lard. As they start to brown, I dice up some of the roast meat from the fridge, adding it to brown with the onions and mushrooms while I chop heartier vegetables like cauliflower, cabbage, broccoli or brussels sprouts.
Once the mix has browned nicely, I start adding in the heavy veggies, and as they begin to soften I stir in chopped mixed greens like kale, collards or any of the Asian greens like the choys or mustards. As these begin to wilt, I peel and chop half a butternut that I add in towards the end of the stir-fry along with salt and seasonings.
I cut two or three smaller potatoes into bite-size pieces and add them into a separate hot cast-iron skillet with plenty of olive oil or lard. Then I take a mason jar and smash the pieces in the pan into a mash that I stir briefly with the metal spatula to unstick the ‘taters and spread them evenly. They’ll brown nicely in about five minutes; then I flip them over and fry for another couple minutes before turning off the heat.
While the stir-fry and potatoes are cooking, I heat a third pan for sunny-side up fried eggs, cracking them into hot oil and then adding a lid over the pan to help them cook on top. To serve, I first lay out the potatoes on the plate and season them, then the stir-fry over the top, finally the eggs nestled into the stir-fry so that the yolks run down into the meal and the potatoes make a nice crunch with each bite.
On mornings when I have fully prepared stir-fry leftovers, and I don’t have to cook the veggies, I’ll start by scrambling eggs in the big skillet. Once they’re about ready, I’ll add in the cold stir-fry to warm up. The additional eggs stretch the stir-fry and add protein, and along with the fried potatoes and chopped winter squash, I can make a proper meal even if there isn’t much of the main meal to start with. Leftover rice also works really well to stretch things out.
I cook enough that Amber and I eat it for breakfast and with a tuppy for lunch or for my dinner after the farmers market. By stretching meals and making larger volumes I’m able to cut down on the overall amount of time we spend cooking. Amber often makes dinner and I make the breakfast/lunch combo. Having a pile of already roasted ‘taters and squash goes a long way towards keeping prep time down, and working with large chunks of meat or whole chickens gives us multiple meals out of one roast dish. I find that I digest these meals better and have better energy levels during the day, and I’m not so tempted towards processed snack foods and sugar.
The wet fall and sunny winter have made for excellent cover crop growth, and I’m already mowing and beginning outside bed prep for the spring. Yesterday I mowed and put down compost on two of the wide terraces that will be cannabis in the late spring, but with this early start I’ll be able to pull a full vegetable run out of them first. Tomorrow I’ll broadfork and run the BCS power harrow over the beds, lay out the drip and then cover with old dep tarp for a few weeks to decompose the cover crop and germinate and kill weed seeds. Then it will be planting time! As always, much love and great success to you on your journey!
YUM!