a break in the action

i'm not gonna lie--i'm pretty psyched that we have a week off from our CSA this week. i'm a little overwhelmed with roots!

we got a beautiful share last week:
Orange Storage Carrots; Cippolini Onions; Celeriac; Mars Onions; Bunch Curly Parsley; Mixed Gold and Chioggia Beets; Bag Claytonia (Miner's Lettuce); Sorrel*; Leeks; Red Norland Potatoes; Red Shallots; Carnival Squash; Tullochgorum Popcorn; Pete's Greens Kitchen Applesauce; Champlain Orchards Macintosh Apples; Champlain Valley Creamery Triple Creme Cheese; and Elmore Mountain Flax Seed Bread.

the cheese was mind-blowing. the popcorn is beautiful (but apparently looks normal when it's popped, darn!) and the applesauce is just sweet enough.

so what have i been making: i made a lovely root vegetable and cabbage soup inspired by this recipe with carrots, parsnips, potatoes, celeriac and beets with some savoy cabbage thrown in. it was so satisfying and really flavorful.

the rest of the cabbage went into slaw for tacos with chile-braised beef and beans.

we had a nice salad with the claytonia, orange, radishes and bell peppers last night with our tacos.

today i'm making irish lamb stew--i can plow through some of the roots and potatoes and i defrosted some lamb that's been languishing away in my freezer for much too long.

ooh--i made a yummy egg bake the other morning. i was cleaning out my fridge and had these things:
*bread ends that needed to be used
*a little breakfast sausage
*portobello mushrooms
*heavy cream
*egg whites left over from cookie baking
*sundried tomato tapenade

so i cooked the sausage and cooked a mushroom in the sausage fat. i sliced and toasted the bread ends and spread them with tapenade. those lined the bottom of a baking dish. i sprinkled those with the sausage and mushrooms then poured over a mix of egg white, eggs, cream and milk and sprinkled that with sharp cheddar--YUM!

what an awesome evening

we had such a great evening. dan's been SLAVING away at his 2 final take-home exams but we still had some friends over for dinner tonight. was probably a great break for him--he's been locked in his office since noon, with barely a break (i finally made him take kayla for a very short walk before dinner). anyway, it was really great to hang out with pj & katy tonight and i was able to make an amazing dinner with many of our CSA goodies.

*salad of claytonia & spinach w/ pomegranate seeds, toasted pine nuts, salad turnips & champagne vinaigrette
*red wine braised roots over barley
*homemade pumpkin pie with rum-scented whipped cream--i roasted the pie pumpkin we got a few weeks ago and followed the JoC recipe with an all-butter crust and threw in a slug of appleton reserve rum and cinnamon when i was whipping the cream

i'm not a pumpkin pie fan, but apparently mine was good--dan said he could never go back to canned pumpkin and provided me with this analogy: it was like always eating the peanut butter you find in reese's peanut butter cups, then eating REAL peanut butter for the 1st time--you could never go back to eating the reese's peanut butter.

my only beef was that the crust was sog-o-rama--but apparently that's normal? i can't even tell you one time that i've ever had pumpkin pie so i wasn't prepared for taht. i didn't blind bake the crust but it said not to. maybe i will next time?

i was so excited too--my friend/coworker nicci has been using all the root vegetable recipes i developed for my last feature to use her bounty of roots she's been getting from her csa. i have been getting tons of roots as well, but haven't been using my recipes--not sure WHY i haven't, but pulling out that braise tonight was perfect--especially because i was cooking for a couple with one vegetarian and the other who wasn't eating cheese or spicy food (there went my trademark mexican night!) but i'm glad i had those contraints because dinner was delish!

and the company was even better :) we rocked out to hendrix, drank wine and enjoyed a good meal--to me, there isn't much better in life.

Catching up

So, I was out of town a lot--I was in Jamaica for a work trip then came home for a few days before heading to Michigan to see my family for Thanksgiving. Let's do a little catch up here:

week of 11/25
Yellow Potatoes (Some Russets and Other Mixed In); Bunch Kale (Maybe, see below*); Shallots; Mars and/or Torpedo Onions; Turnips -or- Rutabaga; Pie Pumpkin -or- Red Kuri; Parsnips; Brussels Sprouts; Bag of Greens (Probably Mix of Claytonia and Tatsoi); 2 Mini Decorative Pumpkins; Butterworks Farm Early Riser Cornmeal; Fresh Cranberries from Vermont Cranberry Company.

week of 12/3
Sugarsnax Carrots; Chioggia and/or Red Beets; All Blue Potatoes; Brussels Sprouts; Sweet Salad Turnips; Yellow Storage Onions; Bright Lights and/or Ruby Red Chard; Mix of Claytonia and Spinach; Ploughgate Creamery Acer Cheese; Champlain Valley Apiaries Raw Honey; Elmore Mountain Multigrain Bread.

week of 12/10
Orange Storage Carrots; Parsnips; Garlic; Mars Onions; Bunch Curly Parsley; Red -or- Green Cabbage; Bag Mesclun; Bright Lights Chard;* Butterworks Farm Yogurt; Pearled Barley; Oyster -or- Shiitake Mushrooms from Amir Habib; and Red Hen Squash Bread.

some comments
*the acer cheese was AMAZING. similar to brie but much better flavor
*love the claytonia/spinach mix, but the claytonia has longish thin stems (edible) that make it a little unweildly to eat--please don't think i'm complaining, as i'm so happy to be getting greens in mid-december!

still have
*honey
*cornmeal
*barley
*pie pumpkin
*sausage
*cranberries
*lots of turnips, potatoes, parsnips and carrots in my fridge!

i'm really glad that i did the winter share. it's SO challenging. more challenging than i ever thought. see, here's the thing, in the summer, i can make a meal out of anything--greens, tomatoes, zucchini--ANYTHING.

but how do you turn brussels sprouts into dinner? parsnips? it's a challenge. we don't eat a lot of meat to enjoy these delicious vegetables as a side dish with. roasted vegetables are great--but what do you serve it with? i'm trying to make as much of our meals as i can using only what i'm getting from our csa--but i don't want to serve starchy vegetables with a side of starch.

some things i've made lately:
*roasted turnips, beets, blue potatoes, carrots & parsnips
*a soup with potatoes, frozen corn, tomato puree, cilantro, crushed red pepper & lime juice
*chicken sausage with marinara, red wine-braised onions and chard over toast with parmesan
*curried squash soup

oh, here's a fun experience i had: so i had a glut of squash and i thought i'd make my curried squash soup (super simple with coconut milk, red thai curry paste, lime juice & brown sugar). i thought it would be easier to roast all the squash instead of peeling it and cooking it in water like i normally did. but maybe i didn't roast it long enough, the skin didn't come off super easily. so THEN, i thought, oh, i can put it through the food mill and the skin would stay in the food mill--BUT the skin was so soft, it got milled along with the squash. of course, i didn't realize this until i got through 1/3 of the squash, so i had to toss it. so lesson learned: peel squash before milling it!

slacker...

i know i'm a slacker. i'll try to update this weekend--been out of town a lot. this week's pick-up:

Orange Storage Carrots; Parsnips; Garlic; Mars Onions; Bunch Curly Parsley; Red -or- Green Cabbage; Bag Mesclun; Bright Lights Chard;* Butterworks Farm Yogurt; Pearled Barley; Oyster -or- Shiitake Mushrooms from Amir Habib; and Red Hen Squash Bread.

This Week's Pick-up

So excited--check it out:

Mixed Colorful Carrots; Kale in Same Bag as Mesclun; Garlic; Celeriac; Leeks; Winter Squash; Kohlrabi; Napa Cabbage; Manchester Cheese from Consider Bardwell Farm; 1/2 Gallon Champlain Orchards Apple Cider; Elmore Mountain Honey Oat Bread.

Never had the cheese before, so I'm freaking out to try it!

I'm feeling overwhelmed with squash--I have 3 kuri (or 4?) and an acorn. I'm going to a potluck on Thursday so I might just roast it all up.

Tonight I got home late so it was a non-CSA dinner (except for our salad). Tomorrow I hope to make the nummy fish dinner idea I posted yesterday.

Perishable items from last week to use up: brussels sprouts and salad turnips and cilantro--hope they'll all be gone tomorrow!

CSA PICKUP WEEK #4

pickup last week was:
Red Kuri Squash; Russet Potatoes; Mixed Medium Beets; 2 Stalks Brussels Sprouts; Torpedo Onions; Bag Mixed Spinach and Claytonia; Green and/or Purple Pac Choi; Bunch Cilantro; Sweet Salad Turnips; Rolled Oats from Quebec; Butterworks Farm Whole-Wheat Pastry Flour; Red Hen Pain au Levain; Dozen Eggs.

i was in jamaica so luckily dan picked it up. i just got home last night so i did some cooking today finally with it. sauteed the pac choi with an onion, leftover carrots and some salad turnips and served chicken & vegetable dumplings over it for a yummy quick dinner. i steamed the beets to have for salads this week. on the menu tomorrow: seared flounder with cilantro pesto and baked potatoes and roasted brussels sprouts.

Oh, sweet kale...

We heart kale at our house. We lovingly refer to any dark leafy green as DLGs but kale might be our favorite. Tonight, we had DLG tacos--I learned how delicious they can be thanks to my favorite Mexican cookbook author, Rick Bayless. We published his chard tacos in an issue of EatingWell and we make them all the time at home.

So tonight, I braised the kale and served it in corn tortillas with the green tomato salsa I made yesterday, feta and hot sauce. I made some homemade black beans and roasted some delicata squash for side dishes.

Really surprised at how much we're enjoying the green tomato salsa. I'll have to remember that next year.

A Perfect Pizza

Why don't I take pictures of what I cook???

I made a beautiful pizza on Friday night. I made pesto with the sorrel, the remaining supermarket basil and the rest of the parsley from week #1. I sauteed the chard with onion and garlic. Then thinly sliced the buffalo mozzarella. I roasted a delicata squash. That was the pizza.

The dough we got was WICKED wet. I liberally coated my peel with flour and when I went to put the 'za on the peel, it was stuck like glue. We ended up folding it over and making a calzone, then I made the 2nd one on parchment paper. But it was so good. Made a salad with the lettuce we got, some salad turnips, pine nuts and pomegranate seeds.

Today I'm making Italian Peasant Soup with Cabbage, Beans & Cheese. And I made a delightfully tart green tomato salsa with sweet onion, garlic and cilantro. Tomorrow we'll have some Mexican food with that.

Veggies Galore

While I had no problem with my summer CSA, I am not able to keep up with the winter one. I guess I don't *have* to keep up, most of the stuff we're getting now keeps more than what I was getting this summer. But it's still making me feel bad.

For instance, I still had the pac choi from week #1 left, and finally cooked it up tonight. Most of the outer leaves needed to be tossed, but it was alright. I made pho, using tilapia instead of the beef (I think I liked it better!), added a pinch each of 5 spice powder and ground ginger to the broth, and since I didn't have enough pac choi, I chopped enough savoy cabbage to make up the difference. The result was my favorite batch of pho ever.

I also sauteed the shiitakes. I have a bad history with shiitakes. When I was a kid, my friend and I made this authentic Chinese dinner that used a bunch of dried mushrooms. I was 12 then. The next day, I could not get the smell of the mushrooms off my hands. It made me ill. To this day, I can't handle the smell of them.

So the shiitakes are all him. Which is sad, because these were the most beautiful mushrooms I've ever seen. I sliced them all up and sauteed them for Dan. He added a bunch to his soup tonight and he can use them the next few days.

So tomorrow, this is my plan: make pesto with sorrel and the rest of the basil I bought for the pho, use that instead of red sauce to top a pizza that will have delicata squash and fresh mozzarella on it. Maybe some sauteed chard too? I'll probably use that beautiful head of lettuce to make my new favorite salad: greens, pomegranate seeds and pine nuts with champagne vinaigrette.

Now that I know what I'm doing with the sorrel, I need to look for cabbage recipes...

CSA PICKUP WEEK #3

Red Kuri Squash; Acorn Squash; Garlic; Walla Walla Onions; Head Lettuce; Green Tomatoes; Bag Mixed Spinach, Baby Tatsoi and Claytonia; Bunch Sweet Salad Turnips; Bunch Kale; Bunch Sorrel; Oyster or Shitakii Mushrooms from Amir Habib; Bufala di Vermont Mozzarella Cheese; Elmore Mountain Pizza Dough.

a cooking marathon

Yesterday, I had a cooking marathon. By 9:30 am a pot of curried carrot soup was finished. While that was cooking, I made a plan on what to make with the rest of my CSA goodies.

On the list:
stuffed cabbage rolls
lasagna
peanut noodles

OK, that was easy, so now on to prepping. I sliced mushrooms and diced an onion for the lasagna sauce and julienned daikon, carrots and kohlrabi for the peanut noodles. Took the dogs for a walk and headed to the grocery store for the rest of the provisions needed for dinner.

Upon returning home, I prepared the lasagna--with ground turkey, parsley, mushrooms, onions and tomatoes layered with ricotta, spinach, mozzarella and parm--and made the stuffed cabbage rolls as close to how my Aunt Elaine had taught me as I could remember (I think I'd use less rice next time and I cooked the cabbage which I might not do--or do less--next time). I realized after I put the water on that I didn't have spaghetti for my peanut noodles, so I'll finish that project tomorrow.

And it didn't take me that long! I was able to do laundry and other chores in between food projects. At 3ish, we decided to head out on a bike ride. Dan and friends found a really easy way to get to Red Hen bakery in Middlesex, a 14-mile round-trip ride. We got warm drinks (it was way colder than expected!) and a cookie and headed back. When we got home, the cabbage rolls made a warm and cozy meal. I quickly roasted a delicata squash and a sweet potato for the side and we opened a bottle of McNeils Imperial Stout--yum!

And now we have food for most of the week--leftover cabbage rolls, the whole pan of lasagna and the soup.

Baked Tostadas rule

Tonight I made baked tostadas, topped with mashed homemade black beans, sauteed onions and peppers (from last week's csa pick-up), jack cheese, salsa and avocado. On the side we had slaw. I also made the leftover roasted potatoes into a southwestern potato salad with hot sauce, mayo and chopped pickled jalapenos. Dan wasn't a fan of the tostada--he doesn't like "messy" food (insert eye rolling here) nor did he like the potato salad (more for me!) But it was delicious.

Now I need to figure out what to do with the rest of the food in my fridge! A project for Saturday morning...

WINTER CSA PICKUP--WEEK #2

This week's pickup is so very exciting!

Kohlrabi; Sugarsnax Carrots; Bunch Leeks; Daikon Radish; Savoy Cabbage; Red Kuri Squash; Delicata Squash; Red Mars Onions; Bunch Bright Lights Chard; Bunch Bull's Blood Beet Greens; Bunch Cilantro; Butterworks Farm Plain Yogurt; Champlain Orchards Liberty Apples; 1 Pete's Chicken

From last week I still have pac choi, onions, shallots, delicata and bell peppers. I won't be home for dinner tonight, but tomorrow I must use the bell peppers before they go bad.

I've been wanting to make Singapore chicken rice for a long time, so I think I'm going to make that with the chicken then do some sort of Asian slaw/saute with the Asian-y stuff I have.

Week 1--Winter CSA

so we took the plunge and got the winter csa from pete's greens. it's a little pricey, but the first week's pick-up was well worth it!

our booty:

Fennel; Bunch Sweet Salad Turnips; Mixed Sweet Peppers; Walla Walla (Sweet Onions); Bunch Mizuna; Green and/or Purple Pac Choi; Delicata Squash; Bunch Curley Parsley; Red Norland Potatoes; Shallots; Vermont Cranberry Company Dried Cranberries; Maplebrook Farm Ricotta Cheese; and Elmore Mountain Pain au Levain bread.

we had leftovers to consume last night, so we didn't cook anything up yet. i'm not worried about using anything, except maybe the parsley. that's the one herb i don't do much yet. seems to cold to make tabbouleh (and i much prefer to make it with flat-leaf parsley) so i don't know if i'll use it. SO EXCITED about the ricotta! i can't decide if i should eat it with poached figs or make lasagna....

Enchis Enchis Enchis!

what an amazing dinner this evening. i had a decent crop of tomatillos this summer that i made rick bayless' essential roasted tomatillo-serrano salsa with. it freezes beautifully. i defrosted some and made enchiladas with chicken and chard from a local farm, pepper Jack cheese and yellow onion. i also busted out my new mortar and pestle to make guac (which, sadly, was too small for guac making) and made a lovely cabbage-bell pepper slaw.

if i had softened butter, i'd be busting out an apple cake right now, but alas, it'll have to wait til tomorrow.

Taking the plunge

Man, have I been horrible about updating this!

The Eat Local challenge totally fizzled--it was 2 weeks before our wedding and I wasn't prepared and had too many things going on that week to really commit. I'll be ready next year though!

Today, karma hit—I've been waffling about getting a Pete's Greens CSA—I participated the first time they did a winter share and I was really disappointed. BUT I think kinks have been worked out so I'm trying again! I emailed to see if they had any spots left and lo and behold, they had 2--and I know the woman who's in charge so she said she'd hold one for me. I'm warily excited :) Starts on Wednesday!

I've been going through the last of my CSA produce the past few days. Last night I made one of my favorite soups—so easy and vegan as well. I cooked a peeled cubed acorn squash and red kuri in water. When it was really tender, I put it through a food mill and put it back on the stove with fresh lime juice, red Thai curry paste, coconut milk, brown sugar and salt--DELICIOUS!

I have a few delicata calling my name too—want to save those for just roasting later this week.

Day 2...

day 1 did not end well. after caving in, starving, to a cider donut (the cider was local and the donut was made locally), we ordered pizza for dinner (again, a local joint, not dominos). like how i'm justifying all this? i'm not trying to do that, really. it's just much harder than i imagined.

i didn't prepare well enough this weekend. i'm hoping the rest of the week goes better. i had an all local breakfast. snacks were all local. lunch was leftover potato salad with potatoes from my csa and homegrown herbs--tossed with not-at-all-local mayo... but it was leftover and it needed to be eaten and i was in a hurry this morning.

also throwing me off is that i work at a food magazine and we're testing recipes for our next issue. i can't not taste them, they're new recipes, so i knew this was never going to be perfect. but alas. tonight is local chicken (which will help with lunches and meals the rest of the week) with some local roots. should be delicious and get us on track for the rest of the week.

Day 1 of the Eat Local Challenge

So, yesterday was supposed to be Day 1 of the Eat Local Challenge. But Saturday, a behemoth zucchini called to me so I made a batch of Chocolate-Zucchini Muffins. I work up yesterday and ate one. Most of the ingredients weren't local, and quite honestly, I wasn't mentally prepared for the Challenge yet, so I decided I'd start today.

Let me start off my saying that almost all the produce I eat is local (at this time of year at least). Most of the meat is. I exclusively buy local eggs. But I wanted to see if I could go the extra mile and only eat locally for the week. The group that organizes this effort locally plays by "Marco Polo rules"—i.e. anything MP carried on his journey, like spices, were fine. They also allow up to 5 wild cards per person. Well obviously coffee was one of mine!

The local localvores also had a kit you could buy with some basics. I picked mine up yesterday. It was packaged really nicely and had dried cranberries, Maine sea salt, sunflower oil, apple cider vinegar, wheat berries, black beans, oats and flour, all in a nice canvas bag. I defrosted a chicken I thought we'd roast for meat throughout the week and cooked up some wheat berries and black beans. I skipped my regular favorite bread for a whiter version from the same bakery that was all-local, bought a 1/2 peck of apples from a local orchard plus a pint of Italian (but locally-grown) plums.

I thought it would be easy but honestly it's just like dieting. You want what you can't have and you have to spend time to prepare. The chocolate zucchini muffins were on the counter this morning and I wanted one (but didn't have one). I made a wheat berry & black bean salad with leftover grilled veggies (from my CSA) this morning for Dan & I for lunch.

I have no idea what we're having for dinner--I'll most likely be at work too late to roast the chicken and Dan won't be home until 6:30 either. I used almost all our summer vegetables for dinner last night. My CSA pickup isn't until tomorrow and all I have for veggies are root vegetables, which I'm not really in the mood for. I'll scare something up.

Wednesday's Dinner

Last night was all about keeping it simple--but it was so stunning and colorful. At the cabin last weekend, I pulled up some basil and made pesto. I grilled a couple summer squash and chopped tomatoes from the CSA, supplementing with some from our own pots. I tossed all that with ravioli and served it with grilled Mad River Grain bread (the.best.bread.ever). The yellow squash, green pesto and red tomatoes was picture-perfect (of course I didn't take a picture...)

Frost threatened last night but I was hopeful we wouldn't get any. I did harvest any close-to-ripe tomatoes and tomatillos and pulled up the basil from the tomato pots. We were able to bring our herb pots inside, but wanted to protect the spinach, chard and kale seedlings (we just replanted our boxes a few weeks ago). On our porch was an egg crate mattress topper I had posted on Freecycle. The guy had missed 3 pick-up times and Dan and I looked at each other and knew that it would provide awesome insulation. Dan cut it in half and we covered the 2 larger boxes with the pieces, strapping it to the boxes with our canoe straps (my, aren't we handy?) A recycling bin went over another box and a fleece blanket over another.

But the tomatoes--we have like 8 or 10 tomato and tomatillo plants in pots and there was no way we were covering them, let alone hauling them in the house at their present height. Super pysched that the frost skipped our town last night, thanks frost!

This Week's CSA Pick-Up

I've been writing Facebook notes about my CSA and decided to do something a little more formal. Here it goes!

this week's pickup was stellar again. i scored:
a bunch of cilantro
2 pounds of heirloom tomatoes--i got some that look like the red version of green zebra plus some larger red ones
1/3 pound salad greens
3/4# tomatillos
a rutabaga (!)
2 pounds potatoes
a cantaloupe
2 summer squash
6 ears of corn
a head of cauliflower
a green pepper
3 amazing red Italian frying peppers
1 cuke

those frying peppers were incredible. i actually kept the seeds to try saving them for next year. they look similar to cubanelles but are intensely sweet. i used them tonight--i caramelized an onion from last week's pickup, adding the red pepper at the end along with a slivered huge clove of garlic i picked up at the farmer's market. i made a pizza on the grill, which i think i've not mastered to my liking (see more below) with sliced tomatoes, grilled chicken sausage, the sauteed peppers/onion and some fresh local mozzarella. we also had a salad with a cuke and more tomatoes.

the corn has been stellar--i actually had some friends over last weekend for dinner and had some of the csa corn and some other corn from a farm near work and kate traded her farm-near-work ear for a csa-ear! and we've been getting 6 ears a week for several weeks--we've been really lucky.

so my new pizza technique: i've been making the Easy Whole-Wheat Pizza Dough, which is SO EASY to roll out. I use half the dough for a pizza. I grill one side directly on the grate, then flip and top. I've been cooking the heck out of it on the second side, which makes it really nice and crispy and mottled. DELICIOUS!