CSA Week 9

Our CSA group took a brief break which happened to coincide with our "break." Jeff had to switch shifts for a week, and it threw us both for a loop. We only had dinner together on a regular basis for about a year of our seven years together, and even then it was literally just dinner. Various life events and new apartment locations made dinner together nearly impossible until my hip surgery. When you're forced to use a walker for a month, you almost need your husband to come home for dinner. And then, it meant going into work early. Needless to say, last week was weird. I don't adjust well to such schedule shifts either. My body basically says, "No." We had dinner plans, but they almost never worked out.

We had a lovely box though, and we did manage to make a few items. My step-dad got a belated father's day gift from the cucumbers. 

We used a simple three-day refrigerator dill pickle recipe. This is our first time making pickles, and I think it was a success (Jeff did most of the work on this one because I loathe the smell of pickles and pickles in general!). Of course, I only did a smell test since I don't eat pickles. Jeff said the thinner sliced one are better. If we make them again, one of us might use the mandolin to get a thinner slice. Overall, at least as far as I know, this recipe is solid.

Jeff also put together a salsa. It was supposed to be used for various meals throughout the week, but Jeff ended up munching on it because of our lack of dinners. 

We still have extra tomatoes so he's going to whip up another batch for this week. I'm quite excited! Next week I'll post the salsa recipe along with other interesting concoctions we make now that we're back into the groove (We made a vegetarian version of a Pioneer Woman pasta recipe today, but I forgot to take a picture :( It was so yummy! If we ever make it again, I'll be sure to snap a picture so I can share our modifications.)!

I'll see you tomorrow for Tuesdays with Maggie, and I'll see you next week with CSA creations and recipes using week 9's box! 

CSA Week 7

The week got away from me-- clearly. While I love when Jeff gets a day off work, it always throws my schedule off a bit. All the housekeeping and work items I'd normally get to just sort of get thrown aside out of excitement of spending time with him during "normal people" hours. Ah, the life of being a college instructor married to a newsie!

Moving on to our week 7 box... we got a lovely bunch of carrots, blueberries, beets, cabbage, a tomato, yellow squash, garlic, oregano, and some red lettuce.

One of the first things I made was a yeast risen carrot bread. I've made it before-- it's great for breakfast also makes for a good French toast.

The recipe I use doesn't have exact measurements for every ingredient-- namely the yeast and water. My bread turned out well, but I'm still working towards getting it just a touch lighter. Normally I would try out another recipe, but this one is among the healthier carrot breads I've seen. It also uses yeast which seems to be a rarity among carrot breads, at least as far as I've seen. I hate not posting a recipe, but I'd rather get it perfected with the best measurements first. 

The rest of our plans involved taco inspired meals as well as a more traditional dish using the left over kohlrabi and some of the squash and cabbage. 

We did a vegetarian take on crispy bacon covered cabbage wedges with a traditional German kohlrabi dish (I don't have a link because I did a quick Google search, and I just sort of picked and chose what I wanted from a handful of recipes-- it's basically kohlrabi in a white sauce with some spices), and summer squash casserole. We subbed in some liquid smoke for the worcestershire. We also made everything dairy free, but if you don't have an allergy or an intolerance, there's no need. If you are like me though, I recommend Tofutti for the casserole. Their sour cream and cream cheese are the best non-dairy substitutes I've found. Both have passed for real dairy to unknowing individuals! 

Our first taco-ish meal was inspired by The Pioneer Woman. 

We are all about getting some veg into our meals (strictly for health reasons!). So we topped her egg in a hole recipe with roasted and briefly sautéed beets (roasting them gets rid of the notorious "dirt-like" taste), sweet potatoes, a bit of cabbage for crunch, colby jack, and salsa. 

Later in the week we did a bit of mixing and matching to make zucchini, summer squash, and corn open-faced tacos (yes, I made that up) with an avocado chimichurri. 

I was a bit skeptical but hopeful. I knew the filling would be fine-- I'm a fan of squash, and I've never gotten a bad recipe from Two Peas and Their Pod. We didn't follow their recipe exactly, leaving out the avocado so we could try out an avocado based chimichurri. Despite loving everything we've tried from Cookie and Kate, I was worried because I've never been a huge avocado fan. I'm glad we went for it because it offered a bit of a texture difference as well a bit of kick.

Jeff and I cooked up pasta with our favorite red sauce too. We usually use dried oregano but the fresh was a nice change of pace. 

I'll try to stay on task next week with a new CSA post on Thursday or Friday. I'll also let you know when I have the carrot bread recipe perfected. For now, I'll see on Tuesday for Tuesdays with Maggie!

CSA Week 6

We had so many plans for this beautiful box of goodies. Jeff loves blueberries, and I believe he just ate these, plain and simple. I was most excited about the kohlrabi. What's not to love about trying such an alien looking veggie?! I'd even found a promising recipe for the radishes that involved the garlic scapes and part of the dill. Unfortunately, many of our ideas and recipes never came to fruition-- if you read my last post, you know it's because of our dear Maggie.

It's hard to remain excited about trying new recipes while waiting on a pathology report. It's even harder to maintain it and follow through on cooking the chosen recipes once the pathology report comes back with bad news. We still managed cook up some goodies despite everything that's going on with our sweet girl (and yes, I do have a pillow that resembles her!).

First up on the list was a garlic scape pizza. We love pizza around here, and we needed a new way to use the scapes. We love everything we've tried so far, but part of the joy of a CSA box is trying new things. So when I ran across a recipe for a garlic scape pizza made with a beer crust, I could not resist! We didn't really follow the recipe since we lean towards a vegetarian diet, but it was certainly a source of great inspiration. It also offered a way to create your own beer dough which was important since such specialty items are often not available in our area.

We halved the dough recipe since we were cooking for two. We'd hoped to use a local beer, but the store was out of single bottles. We went with a Fat Tire since that has worked well in other recipes. Other than following the dough recipe, everything went along as any other make your pizza might go.

I topped mine with the garlic scapes, a bit of kale we snagged at the Farmer's Market, and some fake bacon along with our favorite combo of mozzarella and freshly shaved parmesan reggiano. Jeff's is the same, but he added some oyster mushrooms left over from last week's CSA box.  I highly recommend this "recipe" because the scapes made for a flavor topping, and the dough offered a light yet tasty crust. Plus, the great thing about homemade pizza is everyone can pretty much do whatever he or she wants with it.

Another highlight this week were the summer squash sandwiches (from Earthy Feast) made with both CSA and Farmer's Market goodies. The recipe came with an aioli recipe, but we ended up using a more basic aioli recipe and adapted it to use the scapes. I really just didn't feel like buying a jar of mayo that would probably not get used again. I'm sure it would taste great though as the squash turned out excellent! As a side we made cooked up some garlicky dill fries-- sweet and regular (forgive the awful picture!).

Finally, we managed to try out the kohlrabi. Saveur had a recipe for a warm potato and kohlrabi salad. I really wish it had a different name as the term "potato salad" brings terrible images to my mind. I'm sorry if you love it, but I just think of warm mayo on a hot day. Blah! Thankfully this was far from it!

To change it from a side dish to a main dish (keep in mind, we also halved this recipe too), we topped it with an egg. Our local supply is supposed to be okay despite the national shortage. I hope it remains true because an egg is such an excellent way to round out meals! We also added some of the kale because our kohlrabi didn't come with the greens, and like many people say, "Everything is better with bacon." Except we used fake bacon. It still makes everything better!

We get a new basket this evening. Hopefully with the new basket and some encouragement from Maggie (despite being a feline, she manages to inspire us because she is that awesome!), we'll be better about cooking and keeping track of it during week 7.

CSA Week 5

This week has been a whirlwind. I'm teaching a block class this summer which basically means I will be insane in about four weeks. It doesn't help that I'm not a morning person, and this class starts at 8 AM. Alas, I shall prevail! Especially since my favorite coffee shop opens at 7:30 giving me enough time to grab a hit of caffeine to help me pretend 8 AM is an excellent time of day.

Needless to say, I'm tired, and thus, my brain is fried. I reviewed some photos of this week's CSA concoctions to help jog my memory... so here we go!

I wasn't kidding about my mind-- it was going down the tubes before teaching started because I was in the middle of prepping for the block class. So I forgot to take a picture of our goodies until after we had already dug into some of them. Thankfully not too many! 

We ended up with another round of garlic scapes (I'm sad that it's our last round until next year), cucumbers, radishes, sweet white turnips, one last round of collards, romaine lettuce, a red lettuce mix, cilantro, and a jar of strawberry rhubarb jam. We also got a dozen eggs and oyster mushrooms as an add on (we do it every fourth week). 

As always, we went to the Farmer's Market, and we picked up a few more items to round out our box: red and white onions, blueberries (a Jeff favorite!), raspberries, sweet potatoes, zucchini, and green beans. I was thrilled that we made it in time for the blueberries because I was hoping to try out a fruit salsa recipe from How Sweet It Is.

Rather than use all blueberries, we did a mix of half raspberries and half blueberries. We also used a little less lime because we didn't feel like running out for another. Plus, we figured the raspberries wouldn't need as much. We also added a jalapeno for a spicy kick and omitted the avocado. I'm not one to sit around and eat chips and salsa (I know. I'm a weirdo.). So the plan for this was to use it to go with some "fish" tacos with the CSA romaine as the "taco." More on the tacos later!

First up: a light dinner including the sweet white turnips. We braised them in honey and butter, and wilted the greens just before all the liquid cooked out. It was a bit sweet for me. It needed some red pepper flakes or a spicy pairing. But this is one of the joys of being in a CSA-- learning and trying and learning from mistakes in case you get a repeat item! We'd had a heavier lunch while out and about so we just steamed some green beans and butter poached the lion's mane mushrooms. I was not pleased with the mushrooms. I don't think I will ever find a mushroom I like. At least I tried it!

On Sunday we made the collards again-- they are just so good! We had some more of the local beans along with potatoes made with a homemade garlic scape and thyme compound butter.

The recipe we used, from The Farm Girl Cooks, called for lemon thyme, but we used plain old thyme since we are more likely to use it again. I wish I had known compound butter was so easy to make-- I'd have been making it along time ago! I also made a bit of raspberry compound butter. For both I used Vegan Buttery Sticks by Earth Balance (always an excellent substitute for vegans or those of that are lactose intolerant, at least in my opinion), and it worked just fine. Great actually. Since it's just Jeff and me, I split both up into smaller servings so I can use them at a later date when I'm craving something other than regular butter.

Finally! The tacos!

As a mostly vegetarian gal (who still remembers what fish is supposed to taste like), our "fish" was pretty on point as a substitute for a white fish. If you'd prefer to use actual white fish, this recipe will work just fine as long as you omit the hearts of palm and Bragg's seasoning, and cook the fish however you would for this type of fish dish. I'm guessing we'd have used a bit of lemon juice, EVOO, and a bit of salt and pepper as the salsa was there to amp up the flavor. The only thing I didn't like was our lack of veggies. But with me starting my new semester along with a few unexpected problems, we just didn't about it until it was too late. I would have added some of the radishes had I been thinking and something to boost the protein level. All in all, a solid meal considering the circumstances.

"Fish" Tacos:

• 1 can hearts of palm
• Romaine lettuce (between four and six leaves)
• 2 small sweet potatoes or 1 large sweet potato
• Other veggies of your choice
• Corn tortillas (at least 2)
• Bragg's Sea Kelp Delight to taste
• Salt and pepper to taste
• EVOO
• Fruit Salsa (I recommend adding a jalapeno even if you do all blueberries and keep the avocado)

Now I was the coordinator of this meal rather than the chef as I was at work. I came home about midway through the process. So the order of these steps is a little sketchy to me (sorry!).

1. Peel and chop the sweet potatoes, and prep any other veggies you plan to use. 
2. Cut corn tortillas into strips, and coat with EVOO. Bake until crispy, turning them over about half way through the baking time (need the bake time? I can ask Jeff).  
3.  Sauté veggies with a bit of EVOO, salt, and pepper.
4. Coat the romaine leaves in EVOO, and either grill them or quickly sauté them in a pan on the stove top.
5. Prep the hearts of palm-- it should just sort of fall apart into a shredded meat looking appearance-- and cook it in a bit of EVOO and Bragg's Sea Kelp Delight. 
6. Once everything is done, assemble your tacos and top with the fruit salsa!

We did a few other things this week, but I've got a kitty to snuggle with today! So... until next week!

CSA Week 3

Generally I would wait to update considering today started week 3 of our CSA adventures (we've got summer crisp and red lettuce leaf heads, cucumbers that are HUGE, more spinach, red kale, a lettuce mix which had a bit of hidden bok choy, green onions, green garlic, and homemade parmesan bread with green garlic and sea salt that smells delicious), but we are on the verge of our move. I fear if I do not share our newest adventure now, it will get lost amongst boxes and totes and everything else that comes along with moving day.

In yesterday's update I shared my excitement about the baby bok choy I happened upon. I was so excited about trying it that I actually opted out of going to brunch at my favorite vegetarian cafe and coffee shop. I suppose it helped that Jeff did bring me coffee on his way back from dropping stuff off at the new place, and we will likely hit them up tomorrow and Sunday. What can I say? I love them.

I had my heart set on grilling the bok choy rather than mudding up its natural flavors in a stir fry. I had no idea what to do until I stumbled upon an orange sesame grilled bok choy from Phoo-d. It sounded like something both Jeff and I would like as well as something that would allow the bok choy to retain its Asian origins (is that where it actually originated, or is it just used in Asian cuisine?). Now, bok choy on its own wasn't going to work for me. I needed something "hearty" to go with it. We generally aren't meat eaters at this stage in our lives so thankfully I stumbled upon a Korean BBQ marinade that was designed to be used on either ribs or tofu. I'm not a fan of many fake meat products and have found that hearts of palm can sometimes be used as an excellent substitute if your recipe needs the shredded quality of a pulled pork or taco filling. The Kitchn's recipe from Emily Han was not designed for this, but I had high hopes. 

We followed the bok choy recipe exactly as it was other than swapping out the sesame oil for EVOO and some toasted sesame seeds because we ran out of sesame oil. We did make minor changes to the BBQ recipe though. Because we have a plethora of green garlic, we used it rather than buying bulk garlic. We also used grated apple instead of pear juice. We had apples on had, and a few commenters said they actually preferred grated apple. So why spend the extra money?

Ingredients:

• 1 14 oz can of hearts of palm (whole, not pre-cut)
• 1/4 cup soy sauce *see last paragraph*
• 1/4 cup freshly grated apple 
• 2 tablespoons sesame oil
• 2 cloves green garlic, chopped finely
• 1-2 scallions, chopped
• 1 1/2 teaspoons grated fresh ginger 
• 1 tablespoon brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon toasted sesame seeds (we toasted them on the stove top for 3 to 5 minutes)
• Dash of black pepper

Directions:

1. Mix all ingredients in a bowl.
2. Peel off the outer layer of the hearts of palm, shred it up (will do this easily), and toss in the marinade. You don't need to let it set long as the hearts of palm soaks up the flavor easily. 
3. Once you are ready (we needed to make sure the grill and bok choy were good to go), toss it in a pan to heat up, caramelize, and let some of extra juices cook out. 
4. Toss onto the grilled bok choy* 

It turned out well (it looks disgusting, but my good camera is packed away, and barbecue, even with real meat, doesn't make for a sexy photo anyway). However, in retrospect, we really needed to add some rice or cut back on the soy. The soy from the marinade plus the soy from the bok choy baste offered quite a high salt content. We will likely do this again sometime, but we will either add a bit of rice to soak up the extra liquid or simply cut back on the soy. Overall, we deemed it a success since most recipes need some fine tuning, and this was our first time using bok choy.

Do you like bok choy? If so, let me know if you have any go-to recipes!

CSA Week 2

I'm a bit late, but we are in the middle of moving so things are a tad bit crazy. If you saw the update from the last blog you know our second week was a pretty good one.

We got chives, green garlic, spinach, a spring lettuce mix, radishes, strawberries, and bok choy. I was incredibly excited about the bok choy, but because we haven't adjusted to a schedule of getting new produce on a Thursday, it wilted by the time we got to it. I was hoping to grill it, but... I'll just have to try it this week because our new box had a bit of baby bok choy snuck in with the spring mix!

In terms of how this box went, I'd say okay. It was a solid box, but I just wasn't a fan of the recipes we tried. The spinach went to good use though-- I love green eggs (we use this recipe minus the ham)! Who wouldn't love eggs that are chock full of nutritious spinach that still taste like regular scrumptious eggs?! 

Overall, joining the CSA has been a money saver so far. Right now we are getting a ton of greens which is in no way a problem, especially since good salad greens and kales are quite expensive at the grocery store. The green garlic is useful too. It can be used in unique ways (including a green garlic soup that I was not a fan of at all), but we've mostly used it in place of fully matured garlic. 

Shopping at the Farmer's Market is also quite helpful. This past week was quite the week too. We hit up the market and then went strawberry picking. As a kid I was not exposed to this wondrous task. Even as an adult, I thought I hated strawberries. As it turns out, I VERY much LOVE them. 

I was not lying. The top flat is from the market-- they are my freezing berries. The bottom two are from a solid hour of hard work in a field. If I had picked much longer, Jeff would have physically carried me away! I'm not even that good at it-- Jeff goes twice as fast since he grew up on a farm, and an older couple flew right past me! I like to think I'm just thorough, but I'm just a city gal who is hasn't quite mastered the art of quickly picking berries. But who cares? At the end of the day, I had all of these to eat (some did end up in a cobbler)! 

I also picked up some crooked neck squash at the market-- it turned into a lovely bread. It's not even wildly unhealthy (the initial recipe calls for white chocolate chips, but I just left them out). 

It's good on its own, and I'm hoping to use some of it for French Toast topped with a fresh strawberry syrup. 

CSA Week 1

Update:
I just wanted to share a few pictures as well as a preview of this week's CSA box.

One of the first items (after the cakes of course) we tried was a green garlic and asparagus soup. Getting the CSA box a few days before the Farmer's Market is quite handy as it gives us a day or so to think about how we can use the week's box and what we should keep an eye out for at the Farmer's Market to help fill in potential gaps.

 We made a few of our go-to meals such as a pasta with a tomato sauce, using the box's oregano. Jeff ate several salads, and I made some pancakes using the spinach-- it's surprising how well it hides behind the pancake flavor!

Since we were at the Farmer's Market, we picked up a flat of strawberries. We froze about half of them, and we munched on quite a few. However, I managed to save enough to make what I am for now calling a pretzel crumble. I basically took parts of three different recipes I liked to make a riff on pretzel salad. It's got a sweet yet salty pretzel crust, a sweet cream cheese layer (I used organic sugar and vegan cream cheese since I'm lactose intolerant, but regular would certainly suffice!), and a strawberry pie filling recipe from my mom. It must be topped with fresh berries too! I don't have time now, but perhaps later I can type up the recipe.

For now, here's a preview of week two:

We got chives, green garlic, spinach, a spring lettuce mix, radishes, strawberries, and bok choy. I can't wait to try out the bok choy because I've never had it outside a restaurant.

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First off: I know it's been A LONG time. I've said that the last few times, but I did have surgery (two surgeries right in a row actually). And then I had a long recovery that involved a walker for an entire month. Then I got to move to crutches. I'm finally getting back into the swing of things-- 5 months later. Pro-tip: don't develop adult hip dysplasia! If you do, have a fun surgery, and try not to tear your labrum while waiting for surgery!

Anywho. I'm going to do my best to keep up with this. Jeff and I joined a CSA, or a Community Supported Agriculture Group (General info and a place to find one in your area, but do beware that some of the info is outdated: http://www.localharvest.org/csa/). I wish I had known more about them before as I love local produce. I also like to support the local farmers and therefore the local economy. Our particular CSA is listed, but the information is not completely up-to-date. I recommend calling the farm or head farm (or find them on Facebook like I did!) with any questions you have about how it works since each one is slightly different.

So, with this new CSA adventure, I'm hoping it will be easier to keep up with the blog since we will be discovering new ingredients, and therefore recipes, as well as finding new ways to use familiar ingredients.

Welcome to week one!

It’s already been an adventure with our first box of goodies. Since it’s early in the season, this first round included lots of greens along with a few other items: red russian kale, spinach, a lettuce mix, radishes along with their greens, green garlic, fresh oregano, homemade croutons, and this lovely japanese spinach-- komatsuna.

From the research I did today, it appears to have overwinterized. According to the interwebs, it's nice to do this sometimes because the flavor changes ever so slighlty, and you get lovely edible flowers to garnish your salads.

I had no idea what to do with it other than use it in a salad or a stir fry, but I then I stubbled upon a website that mentioned using it in place of corn and parmesean in something called mushi-pan, a Japanese steamed cake. It was kind of like falling through the rabbit hole as I stumbled from there to here and finally to a recipe with American measurements.

I followed Namiko's recipe, subbing a cup of crudely puréed komatsuna (we do not have a good food processor), used almond milk since I am lactose intolerant, and hoped for the best.

I hope we can obtain a solid food processor eventually, especially since our mini one is practically busted. But for now it served its purpose as the mushi-pan turned out to be quite tasty! It's like a semi-sweet cross between a cake and a muffin. I hope to make another variety-- maybe Namiko's chocolate version with a few greens hidden away!