Dan made dinner last night. He was miffed (I think) that I defrosted a whole chicken this weekend and didn't get around to roasting it myself. But he's done it before, I knew he could!
I arrived at home to a chicken roasting away (and smelling delish!), chopped rutabaga and potatoes on the cutting board, cooked bacon and minced rosemary and garlic. He was going to mash the rutabaga and potatoes, I knew. And he had called asking about bacon cooking. I couldn't believe how delicious the bacon-rosemary-garlic-mashed rutabaga & potatoes were! Wow. I whipped up a red wine gravy from the roasting pan to go along with it. AND he warmed up some applesauce with fresh apple chunks in it for another side dish. What a guy I have, huh? I wish I had taken a picture of his beautiful bird.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Monday, September 28, 2009
Mexican Stew + Fresh-Baked Bread = Divine Fall Dinner
I'll have to take a picture of the stew I ended up making for dinner last night--so divine! This is what I did:
Sauteed onion and celery. Added salsa I froze last summer plus a can of fire-roasted diced tomatoes (one of my favorite convenience foods), diced potatoes and some water. Let that cook a bit. Then I added sliced seeded yellow crookneck squash, chopped collards and lacinato kale, diced roasted red pepper chicken sausage and cooked white beans. Oh my! Topped with a bit of sour cream and some hot sauce, it was the perfect dinner for a rainy fall evening.
My bread was pretty much a success. Perhaps I didn't bake it long enough--though it sounded hollow when I tapped it, it was a little soft. It was slightly challenging to cut. That being said, between dinner last night and breakfast this morning, it's almost gone. The rest of the dough is hanging out in the fridge. Maybe pizza tonight? I'll have to bake another loaf tomorrow I imagine.
Sauteed onion and celery. Added salsa I froze last summer plus a can of fire-roasted diced tomatoes (one of my favorite convenience foods), diced potatoes and some water. Let that cook a bit. Then I added sliced seeded yellow crookneck squash, chopped collards and lacinato kale, diced roasted red pepper chicken sausage and cooked white beans. Oh my! Topped with a bit of sour cream and some hot sauce, it was the perfect dinner for a rainy fall evening.
My bread was pretty much a success. Perhaps I didn't bake it long enough--though it sounded hollow when I tapped it, it was a little soft. It was slightly challenging to cut. That being said, between dinner last night and breakfast this morning, it's almost gone. The rest of the dough is hanging out in the fridge. Maybe pizza tonight? I'll have to bake another loaf tomorrow I imagine.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Fall is here in Vermont
Fall is here. It's a hard time for me because I love fall, it's my favorite season by far, but I don't love winter. I like it enough but I wish fall was longer and winter was shorter. Here are my musings for the day.
Our CSA this summer got hit by late blight. We received nary a tomato. The wet weather also made it a low harvest season. But I feel I still got my money's worth. I was saddened when they sent out an email telling us how hard each crop was hit by the blight or the weather. And one member told the farmers they were upset they joined this CSA again this year. How dare she. That's part of the fun, the adventure, the risk. Welcome to reality.
Our garden was an interesting experiment. The community garden we're in also got hit by late blight. I did manage to get a few tomatoes from the pots at our house. The things that did really well were mustard greens, ground cherries, beets, green beans. We grew head lettuce for the first time. We were too busy to preserve much this summer. We got things in too late and we end loaded our summer with out of town activities to do any meaningful putting up projects. Hopefully next summer we can do more.
Dan made me sad the other day when he said he didn't want to do the winter CSA. He said he's sick of having to eat what we have. I guess we've been in a CSA for over a year now. I can see how he feels that way. He wants to make things that involve other produce we're not getting from the CSA and it's hard for me to justify buying more produce when we can barely eat what's in the crisper now. I guess I have to indulge him occasionally so he'll indulge my love of eating locally.
Today's rainy and blah. I'm trying a new bread project today. I've already made the basic recipe from Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day. IT was fine, but I really want a whole-wheat bread recipe. I found Alexandra's Kitchen blog yesterday, who wrote about successfully making the recipe with half whole-wheat flour. So, that's working right now.
I also have a pot of beans simmering away on the stove and a chicken defrosting. I plan to roast the chicken later so we can make pho this week (one of the dishes Dan's been craving). Then the beans will go into a Mexican-inspired stew. I defrosted some salsa still lingering in my freezer from last summer that tastes more like chili base than salsa. I think I'll put potatoes and mustard greens in the stew and some chicken sausage along with the beans.
Our CSA this summer got hit by late blight. We received nary a tomato. The wet weather also made it a low harvest season. But I feel I still got my money's worth. I was saddened when they sent out an email telling us how hard each crop was hit by the blight or the weather. And one member told the farmers they were upset they joined this CSA again this year. How dare she. That's part of the fun, the adventure, the risk. Welcome to reality.
Our garden was an interesting experiment. The community garden we're in also got hit by late blight. I did manage to get a few tomatoes from the pots at our house. The things that did really well were mustard greens, ground cherries, beets, green beans. We grew head lettuce for the first time. We were too busy to preserve much this summer. We got things in too late and we end loaded our summer with out of town activities to do any meaningful putting up projects. Hopefully next summer we can do more.
Dan made me sad the other day when he said he didn't want to do the winter CSA. He said he's sick of having to eat what we have. I guess we've been in a CSA for over a year now. I can see how he feels that way. He wants to make things that involve other produce we're not getting from the CSA and it's hard for me to justify buying more produce when we can barely eat what's in the crisper now. I guess I have to indulge him occasionally so he'll indulge my love of eating locally.
Today's rainy and blah. I'm trying a new bread project today. I've already made the basic recipe from Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day. IT was fine, but I really want a whole-wheat bread recipe. I found Alexandra's Kitchen blog yesterday, who wrote about successfully making the recipe with half whole-wheat flour. So, that's working right now.
I also have a pot of beans simmering away on the stove and a chicken defrosting. I plan to roast the chicken later so we can make pho this week (one of the dishes Dan's been craving). Then the beans will go into a Mexican-inspired stew. I defrosted some salsa still lingering in my freezer from last summer that tastes more like chili base than salsa. I think I'll put potatoes and mustard greens in the stew and some chicken sausage along with the beans.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Today's Pickup
Since I don't get emails about what we're getting, let's see if I can remember what I got this week!
salad greens
onions
kohlrabi
broccoli
carrots
red russian kale
dill
cukes
zucchini
leftover from last week: broccoli, onions, cukes
tonight i made:
salad greens
onions
kohlrabi
broccoli
carrots
red russian kale
dill
cukes
zucchini
leftover from last week: broccoli, onions, cukes
tonight i made:
Salmon with Cucumbers & Dill
to use up some of those cukes from last week. it was pretty good actually!
to use up some of those cukes from last week. it was pretty good actually!
Thursday, June 4, 2009
1st june pickup
wow, it's so exciting as the growing season gets warmer here in vermont. things have picked up the past few weeks thanks to pete's greenhouses. our pickup last night included:
Mesclun Greens; Head of Green or Red Lettuce; 2 lbs Nicola Potatoes; 1 Bunch of Basil; 1 Bunch Sweet Salad Turnips; 1 Bunch of Beet Greens; 1 Bunch of Sorrel; 1 Bunch of Wild Arugula; 1 Bunch of Easter Egg Radishes; 1 Bunch of Pac Choi, 1 Bunch of Parsley, 1 Bunch of Red Giant Mustard, Vermont Cranberry Company Balsamic Vinegar; Vermont Butter and Cheese Fresh Goat Cheese;
and Elmore Mountain Bread Pizza Dough!
so last night we had a beautiful salad with leftover greens from last week, the salad turnips, grated carrots and beets (beets from a week or 2 ago). then i was strapped for time from staying so late at work so we had pasta with tomatoes i dehydrated last summer, pesto from last summer and chopped olives. yum.
tonight was a salad of shredded napa (from last week) and sliced cucumber, carrots and radishes with a miso vinaigrette (we got miso twice this winter) and frozen dumplings (ha).
i'm very excited because i seem to have finally found a whole-wheat bread recipe that i think i can work on and improve. it's from bob's red mill's baking book. stay tuned for more on that.
Mesclun Greens; Head of Green or Red Lettuce; 2 lbs Nicola Potatoes; 1 Bunch of Basil; 1 Bunch Sweet Salad Turnips; 1 Bunch of Beet Greens; 1 Bunch of Sorrel; 1 Bunch of Wild Arugula; 1 Bunch of Easter Egg Radishes; 1 Bunch of Pac Choi, 1 Bunch of Parsley, 1 Bunch of Red Giant Mustard, Vermont Cranberry Company Balsamic Vinegar; Vermont Butter and Cheese Fresh Goat Cheese;
and Elmore Mountain Bread Pizza Dough!
so last night we had a beautiful salad with leftover greens from last week, the salad turnips, grated carrots and beets (beets from a week or 2 ago). then i was strapped for time from staying so late at work so we had pasta with tomatoes i dehydrated last summer, pesto from last summer and chopped olives. yum.
tonight was a salad of shredded napa (from last week) and sliced cucumber, carrots and radishes with a miso vinaigrette (we got miso twice this winter) and frozen dumplings (ha).
i'm very excited because i seem to have finally found a whole-wheat bread recipe that i think i can work on and improve. it's from bob's red mill's baking book. stay tuned for more on that.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Spring!
Spring is here and we're getting more and more fun stuff! Lots of segues have been happening. There are less shoots in our bag of greens, more other mixed greens, more and more spinach. We got our first sunchokes, which we've enjoyed raw in salads (were delicious instead of celery in curried chicken salad!) We got a bunch more parsnips much to Dan's chagrin. When I was cutting some up tonight to make roasted roots, he was like, more parsnips? Poor guy, he has been such a good sport.
So tomorrow we're getting
So tomorrow we're getting
Nicola Potatoes; Carrots; European Greenhouse Cucumbers or Baby Salad Turnips; Pac Choi; Mesclun Mix*; 8 oz of Pete's Onion Puree; 1 Dozen Farm Fresh Eggs; 1 Pint Bonnieview Ewe's Feta; Bag of Champlain Orchards Red Delicious Apples; and...one basil plant!
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Pasta Night
Yes, yes, it's been a while. Life is stressful and blogging isn't my top priority right now. But here I go!
The snow has mostly melted and I'm thinking about all things spring and summer. We went to a seed-starting workshop 2 weeks ago and tiny sprouts of hungarian wax peppers, broccoli and basil are coming up. The chocolate peppers are taking their sweet time. I'm starting to collect seed starting paraphenelia in anticipation of planting boxes and our community garden plot. It's hard to believe I'll be growing my own food again!
Still have Pete's CSA. Our vegetables are dying off, and that's sort of ok with I'm pretty much over root vegetables. I still have rutabaga and celeriac in my fridge and we just got more parsnips this week. Here's what else we got:
Red Onions; Mixed Colorful Carrots; Parsnips; Mixed Greens and Shoots; Frozen Strawberries; Japanese Style Miso from Les Aliments Massawippi; Oyster -or- Shitaki Mushrooms from Amir Habib; Butterworks Farm Cornmeal; Butterworks Farm Buttermilk; Grafton Classic Cheddar Ends
I had defrosted some of my homemade marinara for dinner tonight, so I seared the oyster mushrooms, sauteed a bunch of chard, added some red-wine braised onions leftover from last night and dumped in a jar of my sauce. We had that over pasta. Nom Nom.
I've also made homemade bread the past few weeks. The first week I tried a no-knead recipe from Mother Earth News. The flavor was incredible but the bread was short. Last week I adapted a honey-wheat bread recipe from Allrecipes that tasted great. I experimented with a loaf, a round loaf in a cake pan and a free-form loaf on a pizza stone. It was a tad sweet for me, I'd cut down on the honey next time. Now I have a chef starting for a pain de campagne from a bread cookbook. It takes 4 days to make, so I guess Saturday we'll enjoy it.
The snow has mostly melted and I'm thinking about all things spring and summer. We went to a seed-starting workshop 2 weeks ago and tiny sprouts of hungarian wax peppers, broccoli and basil are coming up. The chocolate peppers are taking their sweet time. I'm starting to collect seed starting paraphenelia in anticipation of planting boxes and our community garden plot. It's hard to believe I'll be growing my own food again!
Still have Pete's CSA. Our vegetables are dying off, and that's sort of ok with I'm pretty much over root vegetables. I still have rutabaga and celeriac in my fridge and we just got more parsnips this week. Here's what else we got:
Red Onions; Mixed Colorful Carrots; Parsnips; Mixed Greens and Shoots; Frozen Strawberries; Japanese Style Miso from Les Aliments Massawippi; Oyster -or- Shitaki Mushrooms from Amir Habib; Butterworks Farm Cornmeal; Butterworks Farm Buttermilk; Grafton Classic Cheddar Ends
I had defrosted some of my homemade marinara for dinner tonight, so I seared the oyster mushrooms, sauteed a bunch of chard, added some red-wine braised onions leftover from last night and dumped in a jar of my sauce. We had that over pasta. Nom Nom.
I've also made homemade bread the past few weeks. The first week I tried a no-knead recipe from Mother Earth News. The flavor was incredible but the bread was short. Last week I adapted a honey-wheat bread recipe from Allrecipes that tasted great. I experimented with a loaf, a round loaf in a cake pan and a free-form loaf on a pizza stone. It was a tad sweet for me, I'd cut down on the honey next time. Now I have a chef starting for a pain de campagne from a bread cookbook. It takes 4 days to make, so I guess Saturday we'll enjoy it.
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