OPB’s “Superabundant” explores the stories behind the foods of the Pacific Northwest with videos, articles and this weekly newsletter. Every week, Heather Arndt Anderson, a Portland-based culinary historian, food writer and ecologist, highlights different aspects of the region’s food ecosystem. This week she offers a recipe for the North African stew shakshuka — a perfect way to celebrate summer’s tomatoes, peppers and overachieving backyard hens.

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It happens to the best of us: Every spring, you promise yourself you’ll only plant a few tomatoes and you’ll stick to just a couple pepper plants — there are so many interesting heirloom varieties! You can squeeze in one more! Then August rolls around and welp, here you are, buried in your broken promises. Sure, you can eat a few more BLTs, maybe put up a few jars of sauce. Or you can make shakshuka — a stewy egg dish that works for breakfast, lunch or dinner. What do shakshuka, bibimbap and chop suey have in common? Read on to find out!

Note: We’ll be taking next week off to enjoy the last bit of summer break before it’s time to polish apples for the teacher. 🍎✏️📚 See you soon!

Concerns for cattle ranchers and soil conservation, free PPS school meals, eating the weeds, pizza parlors managing hype and good things in markets, gardens and kitchens

Ranchers are worried

For cooks, smoke and char are usually great for beef — not so much if you’re on the ranching side of things. OPB’s Alejandro Figueroa writes that as the smoke clears following over a million acres of wildfire, ranchers in Eastern Oregon are scrambling for a place to graze their cows.

Free lunch and breakfast for all PPS students

Free breakfast and lunch return to Portland Public Schools for the 2024-25 school year, bringing back the program to all students regardless of family income. Originally set in place during the pandemic, funding provided by the Student Success Act will help ensure all Portland’s public school students have access to two free meals every school day.

Newsworthy Portland area pizzerias on surviving success

OPB intern Julia Boboc has a new story featuring three local Portland area pizzerias that had to learn to manage the challenges of receiving national and international recognition for their outstanding pies this year.

Farmlands: not that great at absorbing greenhouse gas after all

A new study suggests that claims of soil carbon sequestration on farmlands may have been somewhat overestimated, and that these (sometimes depleted, overworked) soils aren’t actually sufficient for achieving agriculture climate change goals. However, they caution natural resource agencies to not throw out the baby with the bathwater — soil conversation is still a valuable investment in the future health of the farm’s soil.

The new flavor of species conservation

Late notice, but if you’re in the Corvallis area on Saturday, Aug. 17, stop by the Invasive Species Cook-Off to taste how professional chefs handle ingredients that have worn out their welcome in Northwest landscapes. Or don your own apron and participate in the amateur chef cook-off. Get tickets here — proceeds benefit the Institute for Applied Ecology.

Good things in markets

Cucurbits (a more concise/nerdy/fun way to say “members of the squash, melon and cucumber family”) are still the stars of the produce stands. Squash blossoms are still an ephemeral delight, too — to keep them fresh a little longer, set them on a damp paper towel inside a container with a lid (this is a great use for clamshell to-go boxes). Tomatoes and peppers are coming in hot, inspiring this week’s recipe.

Fresh albacore tuna is at its prime, so now’s the time to stock your freezer and pressure canner. Halibut is also at its peak, but a little on the spendy side in stores. Though they don’t have a season per se, fresh filets of farmed Columbia River steelhead are good right now (we stocked up when they were on sale for $8.99/lb at QFC last week).

In the “Superabundant” garden this week

With slightly cooler and shorter days, the blackberries are ripening more slowly now, which means fruit flies will soon end the season. The golden raspberries’ new crop is sweet though, even if we only get a handful of fruit every few days. The Schwartzbeeren (black nightshade) are ripening and are headed for the freezer for future kuchen.

The cucumbers are going bonkers, so we’re pickling a few quarts a week. The Fuyu persimmon has dropped a little unripe fruit, and the crispy texture and slightly tart, sweet-grassy flavor have us thinking about trying them pickled, too — maybe as a summer kimchi or an oily, sour and spicy achaar (Indian pickle) similar to aam ka achar made with green mangoes. Bonus: picking and preserving them now, while they’re green, saves you the trouble of trying to use them all when they’re ripe in a couple months.

Lately, in the “Superabundant” kitchen

The very full “Superabundant” freezer died last week, and after we Tetrised most of its contents into the (also very full) chest freezer, we still had three gallon-size bags of blackberries, a few quarts of roasted figs and about a dozen bananas in various states of thaw that needed to be rescued. Prepper brain: ENGAGE!

✨ We put up six pints and 10 half-pints of blackberry jam — running it all through a medium-mesh food mill and reserving the seeds and pulp for turning to blackberry vinegar. Since we also had a bowl of key limes to use up, we added the zest and juice to some of the jam, cacao nibs to a separate bit of the jam and left the rest of it plain.

✨ The figs were stewed with black slab sugar, balsamic vinegar and chile flakes to make a thick and sticky spread for smearing on cheese and crackers (a blatant copy of the exquisite but pricey Divina chili fig spread) — we processed a baker’s dozen (13) 4-oz jars of this preserve.

✨ We baked three loaves of banana bread with mini chocolate chips and walnuts (plus a little chia seed and flax meal to sneak in some nutrition) and gave one loaf away, half out of altruism and half out of desperation. Protip: you can disappear an additional banana by slicing lengthwise and nestling it on top of the batter before baking.

Recipe: Shakshuka with garden-fresh tomatoes and peppers

One of the nicest things about summer is all the fresh nightshades that abound — but after weeks of the salads and sandwiches that heat waves demand, maybe you’re ready to cook again. Sometimes you go out of town and return to a plentitude of overripe or banged up tomatoes and peppers. That, friends, is why we have stew.

The Maghrebi stew shakshuka is often billed as an egg dish, but it’s also a splendid one-pot way to work through an over-productive tomato patch and backlog of chiles. It’s redolent with garlic, cumin, coriander, harissa and other Ottoman spices, and the dish thrives on riffing — go ahead and add a little turmeric or fenugreek and see what we mean. The name is similar in meaning to the Korean “bibim” (as in the rice bowl bibimbap or the noodle dish bibim guksu) or Chinese tsap seui (aka chop suey) — it just means a dish that’s all mixed up.

If you’re feeling fancy or want to stretch the meal a bit, merguez sausage is a welcome addition; conversely, if you don’t eat eggs you can sub silken tofu, sundubu or falafel. If you do eat eggs but don’t like them runny, you can scramble them and make menemen instead. You can also make shakshuka green — use green peppers, green or yellow tomatoes and gobs of spinach and herbs. Here we’ve added tiny lamb-millet meatballs and topped it with crumbled feta and garden herbs (dill, coriander, mint and parsley). We like this with warm pita for scooping and dunking into the yolk, but it’s also divine (and gluten-free) served with rice. Serves 4-6.

Note: if you want to make lamb meatballs for this dish, combine 1 pound ground lamb with ⅓ cup uncooked millet, 1 beaten egg, 1 clove minced garlic, a few pinches of salt and pepper and 1 teaspoon each of ground coriander seed and cumin. Form into 1-inch meatballs. You can freeze these on a tray for later use or cook them now. They make a nice addition to a full mezze or you can eat them on pita with a slather of tzatziki.

Ingredients

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 white or yellow onion, chopped

2 red or green bell peppers, chopped (or a mix of smaller sweet peppers to yield 2 cups chopped)

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 pound merguez sausage links or lamb meatballs (optional; see note)

3 pounds fresh ripe tomatoes, chopped (about 6 cups; you can sub canned diced tomatoes)

Salt and pepper

1 teaspoon coriander

1 teaspoon cumin

1 teaspoon paprika (hot or mild)

½ teaspoon turmeric

½ teaspoon crushed caraway seed (optional)

Red pepper flakes (optional)

6 large eggs

½ cup chopped herbs such as parsley, cilantro, mint and/or dill

Instructions

1. Warm the olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat, then add the onions, peppers, and garlic and saute until they become glossy and fragrant, about 5 minutes. Add the merguez sausage or meatballs (if using) and cook, turning occasionally, until evenly browned, about 5 more minutes.
2. Add the tomatoes and spices and bring to a simmer. Reduce the heat to medium-low, cover and simmer until the tomatoes have broken down into a chunky sauce, about 20-30 minutes (this can vary depending on how watery the tomatoes are). Taste and adjust seasoning to your preference.
3. Make six evenly spaced indentations with the back of your spoon and gently crack an egg into each well. Cover and simmer over low heat until the whites are set but the yolks are still runny, about 5-8 minutes (if you prefer less-runny eggs, simmer a bit longer). Sprinkle with the herbs and serve.

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