Welcome back to Farm to Dish, the bi-monthly blog where I share some background about my favorite vendors at the Old L.A. Certified Farmer's Market, and then show you how to use those ingredients to make healthy, delicious meals. 

Last week, I featured farmer and friend Sabrina Bohn, who runs Shear Rock Farms in Santa Paula. Sabrina produces all sorts of greens and beautiful heirloom winter squashes in the winter and amazing heirloom tomatoes as well as peppers, cucumbers, squash and eggplant in the summer. She also offers freshly pressed Arbequina Olive Oil from a friend's orchard in Dinuba, up in the San Joaquin Valley. 

Before we get down to the directions, I'd like to share a little story about one of the ingredients we'll be featuring in this week's menu--lamb's quarter.

When I was young, my grandmother cooked lamb's quarter as a guisado    sometimes. She called it quelites in Spanish. I remember because it was never a veggie that was found in the markets, but sometimes a neighbor or cousin would give her a bunch they had grown or foraged.

Whenever she was able to get some, it was a real treat for her, and me. She became familiar with the weed while growing up on a rancho in Zacatecas, Mexico. As a child, she would collect quelites, which grew freely on the margins of her father's fields, for her mother to cook.  She was a big fan of its flavor--which is somewhat like spinach--and what she described as it's curative properties. It was years later that I found out about how healthy and nutritious lamb's quarters/quelites really are. Thanks for the wisdom, Nana!  

Now, for the dishes. 

Lentil soup: I love lentil soup, especially in the winter. I learned how to make this soup from my mother, who learned it from my grandmother and on down the line. My grandmother simply called the dish lentejas, lentils in Spanish, which is a well known Mexican soup.

Lentils were brought to Mexico by the Spanish, but they were likely brought to the Iberian peninsula by the Romans in the 1st century and also by the Sephardi Jews in the 3rd century and the Moors in the 7th. 

Lentils are one of the oldest cultivated crops, first farmed in the Middle East. As a high protein legume, they were an extremely important food source for ancient people. They are even mentioned in the Old Testament, famously, lentil pottage was the collateral Jacob used to trade for his brother Esau's birthright in the book of Genesis. 

I've taken my grandmother's basic recipe and changed it a bit. While her lentejas were more consistent to Jacob's pottage, I've cut back on the lentils--using one cup instead of one pound--and added more liquid. I've also added a leek, which my grandmother never used. I prefer the light broth of this recipe to the heartiness of her thicker soup, though sometimes I cook it in her style for nostalgic purposes. Feel free to try both. 

In cooking this soup, no stock is needed as the lentils impart their own flavor to the broth. I start by sauteing the veggies in a blend of olive and canola oils, in this case I sauteed classic mirepoix (onions, celery, carrots) plus leeks. I love the aroma of mirepoix sauteing and it adds a richness to the soup that just isn't there when you simply add chopped veggies to the pot of boiling water. Once the onions and leeks are translucent, add a clove of garlic, sliced, a cup of green lentils and 7-8 cups of water and cook at a simmer for about 45 minutes. Once the lentils are tender, season with salt, pepper and a splash of red wine vinegar, add the finely chopped cilantro, parsley and lamb's quarter garnishes and the soup is ready to ladle out.

Roasted Beet Salad: This has become a pretty standard salad at many restaurants. It is best served with butter lettuce, but it does great with Sabrina's fresh baby lettuce mix. You can even opt out of the lettuce entirely as the beets and oranges stand pretty well on their own. 

Roasted beets have a wonderfully complex and earthy sweetness that canned beets just don't have. Sabrina gave us beautiful Chioggia Beets, an Italian heirloom with beautiful concentric circles of white and magenta, which taste just a little sweeter than the standard ones. To roast a beet, simply cut off the beet tops--save for another use, they are like swiss chard and are great as a garnish to sopa de fideo!--and root ends and place the beets in an oven proof dish filled a little less than halfway with water.

Cover the dish loosely with foil and roast in the oven at 350 degrees for one-and-a-half hours. When they're done they should be easily pierced with a fork. Allow them to cool and then simply peel the skin off with your fingers, slice and add to the salad along with orange segments (without membranes), walnuts and goat cheese. You can really add any citrus to this dish but I tend to like the straightforward sweet tartness of a fresh navel orange. Blood Oranges have their own complexity that I feel muddles the flavor of the beets, and grapefruits are a bit too tart--their aftertaste overpowering. Mandarins are a good choice, but it's tough to cut them out of their membranes since they're so small.

Radicchio, Fennel and Radish Salad: This salad really highlights the diverse flavors of the season. Simply slice the fennel and radishes as thinly as you can manage and toss them with the lettuces and radicchio. The radicchio adds the bitterness, the fennel the sweet licorice, the radish the spice and the lettuces a mild evenness to the dish. The combination of all of these flavors makes this one of my favorite salads. A citrus based vinaigrette is a must, as the light, sweet-tartness of the citrus really compliments the fresh ingredients. Again, I find that oranges are the least overwhelming. If you can't find radicchio, the bitter endives frisee and escarole also work. 

Citrus Dressing: This is a simple salad dressing that works great for either of the salads. Simply mix together some extra virgin olive oil (Sabrina's works great!), fresh orange juice, a splash of red wine vinegar, salt, pepper and emulsify. 

Spanish Tortilla: I wanted to cook a vegetarian entree that offered a complete protein and The Cityfarm's hens beginning to lay again. We are still in winter but the daylight hours are increasing--they have been since the Winter Solstice on December 21--signalling to the hens that it's time to get back to work.  

A college classmate from Madrid taught me how to make this dish at 2am one night and I will be forever grateful. The key: lots of olive oil. Sabrina's oil is better saved for fresh use, so I used some extra virgin olive oil of Spanish origin procured elsewhere. You can use a non-stick pan to make it easier but remember to keep the heat at medium-high or lower.

To start I sautee a medium potato, thinly sliced in olive oil for about five minutes. Then I add a medium onion, chopped and cook it until the onion is translucent. I prefer not to caramelize the onions for this dish, but feel free. Next, beat five eggs in a bowl, add finely chopped lamb's quarter and Italian parsley, salt and pepper. Drizzle a little more olive oil just before adding the egg mixture. After adding the eggs, cook them for about 2 minutes, all the while pulling them from the outside in. Once the eggs set, flip the whole thing over by sliding it out onto a plate and then using the plate to help flip it back onto the pan. If you're feeling adventurous, try to flip the whole tortilla over at once in the pan, but beware, the consequences of missing are severe.

With the tortilla flipped, lower the heat to low and cook the tortilla for an additional five minutes. From there, I just slide it onto a plate, slice it up like a pizza and garnish it with a little chopped italian parsley. 
 
Well there you have it: a Midwinter's feast, with local, seasonal, fresh ingredients from our Farmer's Market. I hope that this column has helped to highlight some of the great produce at the Old L.A. Certified Farmer's Market and maybe even inspire a meal or two. This Tuesday, Jan. 31, think about heading down to support the Market and some of the great vendors there. If you do, say hello to Sabrina!