Chicken Cobbler

I've been jonesing for Chicken Pot Pie. Every time I brought it up, Dan wrinkled his nose. So when I saw Mark Bittman's recipe for Chicken & Vegetable Cobbler I thought maybe he'd like that.

First, let me start off my saying I made many tweaks. Swapped a smallish yellow onion for the leek. We got oyster and shiitakes in our CSA this week, so I used those instead of the button mushrooms. Along with the sliced carrots, I added a few diced parsnips. (Shh, don't tell Dan.) Dan had roasted a chicken earlier in the week, so I pulled the rest of the meat off the bird instead of using thigh meat. I also used white ww flour and regular milk in the topping.

I'd say we were both slightly disappointed. The flavor was decent, but next time I'd make it with white flour and make more gravy.

The star of the meal was the salad: the base was our shoots. Then I added some bean sprouts still had hanging around from pho night. Next came some grated daikon. Then a smattering of dried cherries my mom gets me from Traverse City, MI (the best cherries ever!). I made a ginger-miso-tahini dressing made with miso from our CSA and real gosh-darned tahini from a Middle Eastern market in Detroit. I thought I might've stepped over the edge on weird combinations, but it was awesome. Dan even declared it one of the top 3 salads he had ever eaten. Knowing how many salads he's eaten just in the time we've been together, I'll take that as a compliment.

Pasta Night!

It was pasta night at Chez Tesini. We got local whole-wheat (or ww blend?) linguine from VT Pasta Co in our share today. I made a delectable sauce based on tuna pomodoro. I sauteed a couple of small diced onions in olive oil, then added 2 large sliced garlic cloves, a hefty pinch of crushed red pepper and a bit of dried rosemary and thyme. Then I added some diced tomatoes I froze last summer, plus a couple of handfuls of frozen cherry tomatoes from this week's pickup and the juice of 1 lemon. Oh and I added 2 tomato paste "ice cubes." After that thickened, I added a bunch of sliced kalamata olives, 2 cans of drained chunk light tuna and the zest of the lemon. Served that with plenty of grated Parm over the linguine.

three thumbs up!

Dan's Best Dinner Ever + This Week's Pickup

Go Dan Go! I had an appointment last night and knew I wouldn't get home until at least 6:30 but really wanted to roast the chicken I had defrosted from last week's meat share. So I sent Dan the recipe for Whole Roasted Lemon-Herb Chicken on a Bed of Vegetables from the latest issue of the magazine and asked Dan to start it. We didn't have the exact ingredients to make it, but Dan would rather improvise anyway. He chopped up the remaining red norland potatoes, a celeriac and a beet or 2 for the vegetable portion. I made a salad with most of the remaining shoots, clementines and olives. It was perhaps the best dinner Dan's ever made.

This week's pickup includes:
2 lbs Parsnips
2 lbs Purple Top Turnips
1 lb Valentine Radish
1 Bulb Garlic
2 lbs Yellow Storage Onions
Frozen Tomatoes
Bag of Shoots/Claytonia Mix
Elmore Mountain Flax Bread
VT Pasta Linguine
5 lbs Organic Rolled Oats

I'm laughing a little about the oats because I got 20# of oats last year from Quebec and we're still not even half-way through. Guess I'll be making some granola and then some this weekend! I'm looking forward to the pasta--that's a new thing from my experience last year! We're also getting mushrooms today--were supposed to get them last week but they didn't have enough I guess.

Leftovers Done Right

Finally got around to making something with the leftover smoked pork chops and cabbage. I diced 2 celery stalks, 2 carrots, 1 kohlrabi and 3 or 4 red norland potatoes, simmered it in beef broth with some dried thyme, then added the diced leftover smoked pork chops and the cabbage mixture. Dan said it was surpisingly good :D

Dinner Tonight: Smoked Pork Chops & Cabbage-Apple "Kraut"

MMMMM! I love smoked pork chops! They were from the pig we went in on from the farm we bring our compost to. Delicious! For dinner, I sauteed some sliced red onion in olive oil, then added 1/2 a medium head of thinly sliced red cabbage and a slice Macintosh apple. I poured in some apple cider and cider vinegar as well as a big dollop of whole-grain mustard. I let that cook a bit then put in the smoked pork chops, covering them with the "kraut." When they were hot, they were done!

Dan gave it 7.8/10 stars. He doesn't like bone-in meat.

3.3.10 Pickup

This week's pickup...
1.5 lbs Red Thumb Fingerling Potatoes
2 lbs Red Beets
1 lb Celeriac
2 lbs Kohlrabi
3 lbs Green Cabbage
Frozen Braising Greens Mix
Bag of Shoots/Claytonia Mix
On the Rise Pizza Dough
Amir Hebib's Oyster and Shiitake Mushrooms
Maplebrook Fresh Mozzarella
Pete's Applesauce

It's also our first meat pickup! I'm so excited. We're getting...
a chicken
lamb loin chops
hot italian YAK sausage
ground beef

I still have carrots, some shoots, a daikon and a head of cabbage in my fridge, plus peppers in my freezer. I decided this week that I'll make a menu on Tues pm/Wed am to help use stuff in a timely manner.

Using what we have on hand and in this week's share I came up with....
smoked pork chops with quick homemade kraut and roasted potatoes

pizza with mozz, yak sausage, greens and salad

roast chicken and vegetables/potatoes

salmon with celeriac-carrot salad

chicken tacos with cabbage slaw

Dumpling Soup

This is in no way local but I have to write this down for posterity's sake.

Dan has a little sinus infection going on and wanted something spicy and brothy for dinner. This is what I made.

I was already poaching chicken, so I used the leftover poaching liquid and added more chicken broth to it, along with minced ginger, chile-garlic sauce, soy sauce and 5 spice powder. I first added sliced celery, diced carrot and diced onion. After a bit I added diced purple snow peas and shredded cabbage. Then I added Ling Ling dumplings! After the dumplings were done, I stirred in whole cilantro leaves and topped our bowls with sliced radishes.

SO GOOD!