Christmas Cherry Chutney

The land I live on had an acre of old cherry trees when I bought it 22 years ago. Now after clearing for a garden and a driveway, I have about a dozen tress left. This last summer they had cherries by the bushel. I invited friends and family to pick all they wanted, they did, and still an embarrassing amount was wasted. I’ve always thought that Royal Anne cherries were just good fresh. I tried canning them years ago and didn’t really like the result. This year Robert and Dee, who raise 60 kinds of apples, told me about cherry chutney. I looked up some recipes, made a couple of alterations to the one I had the ingredients for, and the result blew me away.

When you see fresh Royal Anne cherries at the fruit stand or the grocery store you can be fairly certain they’re local. These delicate things bruise when touched and brown where bruised. Most of the trees that grow these were planted, like my nearly 50 year old trees, when fruit wasn’t chosen for its shipping qualities but for its flavor. You can get them fresh during the summer but if you want to save a bundle keep your eyes open for what looks like old orchards. South and west of Salem I noticed a number of small orchards that, like mine, aren’t commercially harvested. If you happen upon one of these next summer, stop and ask at the nearest home and you may end up picking a bunch for very little. In the meantime, canned, frozen and dried cherries can be had from numerous local processors. Check the list after the recipe.

Jeannie’s Christmas Cherry Chutney

5 cups frozen, fresh or canned sweet cherries. If making this with tart cherries add ½ cup of sugar. If using canned cherries leave out some of the sugar.
1 cup chopped dried tart cherries.
1 cup walnuts
1 cup sugar
¾ cup vinegar, I use white but you can probably use others.
2 tablespoons finely chopped candied ginger.
½ teaspoon each of ground cinnamon, ginger, cayenne pepper and salt.
¼ teaspoon of ground cloves.

Bring it all to a boil and then cook over medium heat for 30 minutes.

I serve this with crackers and cream cheese. I’m sure it would be great over baked brie or with pork, turkey, duck or chicken.

Cherries and Walnuts Locally Grown

Cherry Country has dried tart cherries – check the link on the right.
Willamette Valley Fruit has frozen tart cherries and Roth’s, EZ Orchards and Aspinwalls carry them.
Oregon Fruit has canned Royal Anne cherries and Roth’s has them.
Bauman Farms has frozen cherries as well.
Truitt Brothers also cans sweet cherries.
Walnuts – check the previous post. EZ orchards, Asplinwall’s and New Seasons in Portland all have local walnuts.

Walnuts worth the Cracking

I love walnuts. They’re healthy, they’re just right on oatmeal and I eat them several days a week. Like most foods, the price of walnuts has been increasing lately. But when I recently paid $8.99 a lb for bulk walnuts, that turned out to be stale, in the “natural foods” section of a local grocery story I realized it was past time to look for local walnuts.

I know there aren’t many walnut farms around the valley but I had a memory of a small handmade cardboard sign advertising walnuts on Silverton Rd east of Salem last year. The Saturday after the stale walnut purchase I set out to find it and thought I’d stop at EZ Orchards on the way to do some Christmas shopping (check the link in the farm stands section.) After loading up my cart with Oregon Wheat Growers soft white wheat pancake mix and berry syrups from around the valley for the out of town relatives I happened upon a bin of walnuts in their shells for ONE DOLLAR A POUND. I bought a few pounds. I’d read that the actual nut makes up about 48% of the weight of walnuts in the shell so I figured this was about $2.10 for each shelled pound. I would have bought more but I was worried that they were such a good deal something must have been wrong with them or that shelling walnuts was such a pain no one in their right mind would buy them in the shell.

I broke out these walnuts one morning when I was cooking that awesome Christine and Rob’s oatmeal from Aspinwall’s. I cracked one open, it broke apart with ease, and I popped a half in my mouth. It was entirely different from any walnuts I’ve ever eaten. It was crisper, light and kind of delicate. Most importantly, it was sweet.

I took the other half to my boyfriend and said “here taste this.”

“What’s on it?”

“Nothing, I just took it out of the shell.”

A quizzical look came over his face.

He thought that walnut must have been sugar coated.

Not long after this we set out to find the farm with the sign I’d remembered to see if we could buy more walnuts direct. East of Salem on Silverton Rd not far beyond EZ Orchards there it was, a small piece of cardboard with “walnuts” and an arrow indicating a left turn. We missed the turn and had to pull over and turn around. A ways down that road there was another sign, another arrow and down that road another sign pointing us down a gravel road. Finally there was a house, with a sign in front of an open garage. In the garage were a couple of those large square wooden farm bins. One had walnuts and one had hazelnuts. The walnuts were $1.50 a pound, still a great deal and since I’m buying more direct at least I know a farmer is getting the profit. I bought $11 dollars worth since that’s the cash I had. We stopped at EZ Orchards on the way home and found the walnuts there were now $1.99. It turns out those fabulous first walnuts I had were last years. Apparently it can takes years for walnuts to get stale if they’re left in the shell.

The more I eat these walnuts and learn about growing them the greater appreciation I have for the farmers who grow them. They’re so good I’ll be stocking up soon so that I’m never stuck with stale, expensive, grocery store walnuts again. I’m also looking at walnut trees, they take lots of room and often don’t produce a crop for the first 10 years. Imagine the commitment of a farmer who plants a few acres of these and then makes nothing from them for 10 long years of watering, weeding and pruning. I reflect on it and think “I should have paid him extra.”

For those to the North here is the walnut page from tri-county farms.

http://www.tricountyfarm.org/oregon_walnuts.asp

and their list of farms

http://www.tricountyfarm.org/crop_availability.asp

Welcome

Welcome to Eating Local in the Willamette Valley. It’s about my passion, food grown in Oregon’s beautiful Willamette Valley. I’ve lived in rural Marion County Oregon for 22 years. I love the amazing bounty of local foods here. I’m not a purist about eating local, I just try to build my diet around as much local food as I can and visit the farms to buy it direct whenever that makes sense. While the farms I go to tend to be close to my home, near Independence, I scan the papers and the internet and make special trips for things like u-pick peaches, walnuts or pastured chicken. There is so much to find when you spend just a little time looking.

I’ve filled this blog with the resources to help you find great food here as well. Along the right hand side you’ll find web resources for local food. Most of these links are lists of farms that sell direct or search engines meant to help you find farms near you. If the listing has an address and specifies when the farm, or stand, is open to the public, then it’s pretty safe to just head out there. But, if you want to be sure that you can get what you are looking for, call first. Some of the farms have websites, and I’ll keep adding links to those. But most farmers are too occupied with growing food to maintain much of a web presence, hence the usefulness of lists like these.

My favorite farm stand section is currently focused on those open in the winter, but I’ll add the spring and summer ones as the seasons change. Some farm stands sell only produce from their farm, and sometimes a few nearby farms; others sell a mix of their own produce and products from around the world. If you see bananas, you can assume they buy from a traditional distributor in addition to moving their own goods. So ask where the item you want is from. Most farm stands are proud of their fruit and vegetables and will happily tell you about their origins.

I also include local processors here in creators of great local food. Oregon’s bounty is often canned, frozen or turned into jam. It’s still local, and buying it supports jobs both on the farm and in the processors. I love to buy fruit and vegetables fresh in their season, but I’d rather eat a canned bean that traveled around the valley a bit than one whose origin is a mystery. We also have an abundance of small specialty processors here from Cherry Country to Wandering Aengus Cider to Christine and Rob’s whose oatmeal really is different from anyone else’s.

I hope you enjoy my stories about finding local food and the farms it comes from. Please feel free to add your own stories of Willamette Valley food and farms.