Yesterday we went to the Old Strathcona Farmer's Market because Cakes wanted some bison meat and there are a couple of very good organic bison producers there. We also bought a gorgeous organic, free range chicken there. The girl manning the chicken booth was (I think) the daughter of the chicken farmer and she spent a good 10 minutes talking to us about their chickens. Apparently, when their chickens get a sore or a scrape, instead of antibiotics, they clean the chicken's wounds with apple cider vinegar. Who knew? pre-marinated chicken! They also don't inject their birds with salt water, the way a lot of producers do (by law a chicken producer can inject a chicken with up to 17% its weight in salt water!).
We were doing a final pass through when we walked past the dairy guy. I stopped in my tracks. He was selling real farm cream in jars. 45% milk fat cream! Which you just can't get here. The fattiest cream you'll find in the grocery here is 35%. I haven't seen anything fattier since we left Australia last May. I bought 2 jars.
In celebration of the new-found supply of sweet, fresh and fatty cream I decided to make an old favourite: cream-poached eggs. I jazzed it up with some shreds of red chard (from another market: "you pay three dollars I give you whole box chard!") and halved baby tomatoes. Cakes licked his plate. Then again, he does that quite a lot. You'll have to trust me that it was good!
- 1 Tbsp butter
- 1 tsp flour
- 2 cups shredded spinach, chard or silverbeet
- 1/2 cup full fat cream
- 1 cup halved cherry or grape tomatoes
- 2 eggs
- salt
- pepper
melt butter in a non-stick skillet over medium heat. Saute shredded greens in butter until wilted. sprinkle flour over greens and butter. Stir until flour is absorbed into butter. Pour in cream and stir to combine well. Gently Stir in tomatoes. Add a little milk to thin if necessary. Use the shredded greens to help you create 2 little wells in the cream. drop an egg into each well and put a cover on the pan. Cook until eggs are poached, spooning hot cream over tops of eggs to cook if necessary. Use a large slotted spoon to remove eggs to a plate. Spoon vegetables and cream mixture into soup plates and top with a poached egg. Sprinkle with sea salt and fresh pepper.
Would love to know if one can still buy fresh farm cream in the Edmonton area.
Posted by: Ken D | December 13, 2007 at 07:57 AM