Howdy y'all

Happy holidays everyone!  Long time, no see.  I just got back from my longest break from work since I started, to Denver and New Orleans, and I am refreshed.  But after all the holiday decadence, I'm getting a head start on new year's restraint.  We all focus on Christmas as a celebration, "As if to say, 'Well done, everyone. . . we're halfway out of the dark.'"  But don't all the cookies and hams and treats get us ready for the other half, when the produce is hard and tasteless and imported, when the treadmill is a mental health necessity more than a piece of fitness equipment, and when the weather is miserable anyway so we might as well deserve some punishment? 

In that spirit of post-holiday frugality, I'm making an effort to grocery shop less and use the mountain of peppers in the freezer, the odd bits of cheese in the back of the fridge, and the random canned goods accumulated in the pantry, recipes be damned!  Things are about to get fancy* around here.  I might share some of the more spectacular failures or successes.  Also, I've just downloaded a pile of photos from my camera, so watch this space for updates on what's been going on the past couple of months. 

By the way, the farm I subscribed to last year isn't delivering to my area anymore.  So come spring, we will have a whole new adventure.

* Fancy - (adj).  the resulting mess when you just can't resist putting in one or two or five ingredients too many in a meal in an effort to use up whatever's in the fridge.

Week 20 - The end

Peppers
Melon
Greens
Eggplant
Turnips

Well, this is it, another sign that summer is ending.  With Leah visiting last weekend, I didn't have time to take a picture before digging in.  And what a decadent weekend it was!  Champagne pedicures, poolside picnics, naps.  We ate spring rolls, tuna, and spare ribs, or "meat-candy" as Leah likes to call them, at Buku in Raleigh, followed by the Trilogy of Creme Brulee. The trilogy part sounded overly dramatic - until we ate them.   My favorite was the chocolate, while Leah liked the ginger because "it tastes like Christmas."  We had the special at Bella Mia, which featured some kind of insanely creamy mozzarella flown in fresh from Italy.  This place is dangerously delicious - yesterday they tweeted an almond gelato and pumpkin beer float. 


As for this weeks produce, which came in a bag instead of a box, we pureed and froze the melon and enjoyed it in a slushy poolside cocktail.  The peppers are waiting patiently in the fridge for another round of chopping and freezing.  The turnips are still in there too, testing my end of summer resolve. 

And speaking of the end of summer, Katie sent along a reminder that we should all have a Hurricane (recipe from About.com) while they are still in season.  Hope everyone is enjoying that magical part of the year when we can both wear shorts and watch football.  I've got a few things to report on between now and spring, like how that freezer slaw turned out, or if I made it through the peppers, so this blog won't be completely silent.  I can't wait to do this all over again next year, but until then, enjoy the root vegetables and citrus and holiday meals that lie ahead.

Week 19

Whoops, this post is way overdue.  Somehow I forgot to hit publish...

Eggplant
Basil
Melon
Peppers
Greens
Radishes

+ the peppers Janice got last week and gave back

It's already the penultimate week!  I'm starting to realize how spoiled I've gotten on the farm fresh veg, and how challenging it will be to shop in the grocery produce section again for more than onions and bananas.  But let's focus on the present.  I breaded the eggplant for a kind of parmigiana, it got a little greasy but tasted ok.  As much as I would have liked to try something different, this is a busy week, so I used the radishes on sandwiches to bring to work for lunch. Most of the peppers have joined their brethren in the freezer.  I'm still planning on making a hot sauce out of a bunch of them.

And speaking of peppers, I had a yummy stuffed pepper with goat cheese at Tasca Brava in Raleigh over the weekend.  It's a Spanish restaurant, authentic down to the sloooow service.  It's hard to get upset though, when the animated server is giving out passionate dissertations on the wine list, the agricultural regions of spain, and the proper way to eat Padron peppers to everyone in earshot.  Yup, the diabolical peppers from a couple weeks ago.  We ordered some for the table, and he started explaining how they are "Spanish roulette" because you can't always tell the hot ones until it's too late.  I mentioned the one that set my ears ringing the other day.  "Oh, where did you have them?"  I replied that they were grown here - "No, these only grow in one place in the Universe."  I did not argue that they'll grow wherever they are planted, but I'll admit the imported Spanish peppers looked much smaller and darker than the NC version.  Curiosity won in the end and I ate several of them, all mercifully mild.

Mrs. Leah K. will be visiting this weekend (shoutout!) just in time to taste the last of the fresh veggies.  I'm pretty sure we're gonna "eat till we bust" so I'll let you know what was worth having.

Satan's freezer

Since I'm going out of town, I figured I'd deal with the refrigerator drawer full of peppers.  It started innocently enough, with a gallon ziploc full of grilled bell peppers and onions going into the freezer. 

But then there were the jalapenos, and the last few evil Padron peppers to deal with:

Originally, I was going to put the cayennes in with the jalapenos, but when I was finished chopping them my fingers were tingling. Definitely need to stay segregated.  I'll make them into hot sauce when I get back, but for now, into the freezer of pain.

Lastly, I roasted the banana peppers (don't let the innocuous name fool you, these are evil banana peppers) and the poblanos, about half a dozen each, and froze those too.

Weeks 16 and 17

Week 16:
Tomatoes
Eggplant
Red potatoes
Melon
Peppers

Week 17:
Melon
Peppers
Tomatoes
Basil
Green onions



These two weeks have been dominated by hot peppers.  I roasted some of the banana peppers last weekend to make a potato soup I saw a while back on Mexico: One Plate at a Time (recipe).  I made a perfectly mediocre salsa with some tomatoes and jalapenos.  And then I went for the Padrons.  These little peppers came with instructions.  Traditionally, they are sauteed in olive oil with a little salt, perhaps stuffed with cheese.

"Os pementos de Padrón, uns pican e outros non" (Galician for "Padrón peppers, some are hot and some are not") - Wikipedia

They ain't lying.  The description said that the bigger they are, the hotter, so I started out muching on a little one.  It was sweet and tasty, so I moved on to a bigger one.  The first bite tasted spicy immediately, and only got hotter in my mouth.  Fast forward a minute and I was swigging half-and-half, stuffing my mouth with crackers, my ears ringing.

I'll be down in Louisiana visiting family later this week, so no box.  Instead I'll be sweating in the August heat, enjoying some of the more land-based delights the area has to offer.  Fishing has resumed, and shrimp season is opening this week, but what's available is expensive and hard to come by.  So I'm planning on enjoying some Italian, a nice steak, and Doberge cake in honor of my December graduation.

P.S.  Check out this elephant man tomato:

Week 15

Corn
Peppers
Basil
Melon

I have been opinionated about food since a young age.  At some point before I can remember I decided that the dish composed of canned green beans tossed with Italian salad dressing should be known as "terrible recipe"  Some of you may agree that this is indeed a terrible recipe.  Others may wonder why that particular name was reserved for this innocuous side dish instead of this abomination that I was also served regularly.  Anyway, the name stuck in our family, even though I remember liking terrible recipe enough to eat it by the bowlful.

In honor of terrible recipe, here's a non-terrible recipe for corn salad.  It's almost just as easy as pouring Kraft Italian over green beans, but way better.

6 ears corn
1 small onion, diced
1 jalapeno, diced
1 banana pepper, diced
juice of 1 lime
handful of cilantro, and one of basil
pinch of salt

Remove kernels from the corn.  The trick comes from Rachael Ray (don't hate) - put a small bowl upside down in a big bowl, stand the corn on the small bowl, slide the knife down the cob, and voila, the kernels fall into the big bowl.  Toss the corn with the onion, peppers, herbs, salt, and squeeze the lime over.

Like I said, not much of a recipe, but it's versatile.  I've eaten it this week as a garnish for curry chicken, mixed with grape tomatoes as a salsa with corn chips, and piled over half avocados for a salad.

Week 14

Tomatoes
Basil
Peppers
Green beans

Does anyone have something in mind that they've always wanted to make with a whole pound of hot peppers?  I'll probably get even more this week, so maybe some green chili experiments are in order.  Or I could try out some recipes for sofrito, which i just learned about from the Man vs. Food Puerto Rico episode. 

In the meantime, I've been eating tomato pie at least twice a day.  I used the spelt and cornmeal crust recipe from the turnip green tart I linked to here.  The filling recipe is pretty standard, sliced tomatoes layered with a mixture of mayo, green onions, basil, and shredded cheddar.  I used some of the tips from America's Test Kitchens to keep it from getting soggy (recipe is behind a pay wall, but the tips are free):

1.  salt and drain the tomatoes
2.  put some cheese in the bottom of the pie shell to make a barrier from the tomato juice
3.  place the pie in the bottom of the oven on a preheated baking sheet to crisp the bottom

Tomato pie is a Southern kind of thing, but I first had it in Maine.   My lovely friend and former roommate Megan, who grew up there, said the long winters make them appreciate summer more in New England.  She would come back to school in the Fall with freezer containers of pesto made from the overgrown basil "trees" in her parents backyard, and if we made it up for the short tomato season, she'd ask her mom to make tomato pie.  It's one of those things that makes perfect sense once you've tried it, so I suggest you make one while tomatoes are ripe.


Since it's a short list this week, I'll leave you with this timely nugget.

The disadvantages involved in pulling lots of black sticky slime from out of the ground where it had been safely hidden out harm's way, turning it into tar to cover the land with, smoke to fill the air with and pouring the rest into the sea, all seemed to outweigh the advantages of being able to get more quickly from one place to another -- particularly when the place you arrived at had probably become, as a result of this, very similar to the place you had left, i.e., covered with tar, full of smoke, and short of fish.  - Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

Week 13

Tomatoes
Grape tomatoes
Melon
Hot peppers
Green beans

The theme of this week is frugality.  No grocery store runs, no specialty ingredients, if it's not on hand, it's not an option.  Early this month, I went ahead and made some large, long-planned purchases, and then boom (literally) I had to buy four new tires.  So until payday, I'm cutting back where I can. OK, I already cheated and picked up a couple things.  More avocados for sandwiches, because there's no beating an avocado and tomato sandwich while the tomatoes are ripe, an impulse buy bag of BBQ chips to go with the sandwiches, and a bag of romaine for caesar salad (but I made the dressing >smug<). 

Cutting back on the groceries is perhaps a good idea anyway.  Why did I decide that I needed so many blueberries last week?  They are really good, and were probably on sale, but I bought way too many.  So this week it's blueberry cobbler for dessert and blueberries and melon with breakfast.  No fruit purchases required.  I roasted all the little tomatoes I had over the weekend to throw together with red onion, the jalapenos, the green beans, garlic, and parmesan with spaghetti.   That's a few days worth of meals right there, plus a good refrigerator clean-out.

One last thing to mention, over the weekend, I turned a bunch of the tomatoes into tomato jam.  I used a recipe from a cookbook, but this one from bigoven.com is similar (recipe).  I used some of the jalapenos and a habenero (since the zucchini relish turned out very un-spicy) so it's got a nice kick.  It turned out sweet and spicy and intensely red, and I'm excited about putting it on everything.

Link dump

Canning:
I mentioned a while back that the parts of the internet about canning can be slightly scary.  Christian housewives that proclaim canning as destiny.  Off the grid stockpilers.  Homeschoolers that refuse to feed their children anything processed.  Older folks with pages of a style you haven't seen since the heyday of geocities.  While the agricultural extension sites have tons of good information, the recpies are kind of uninspiring.  Here are a few spots with more exotic ideas.

Sweet onion marmalade, from OregonLive.  This is the same site I got the pickle recipe from, and there are lots of other tasty looking canning recipes there.  Like these more adventurous recipes.

Food in jars, a canning blog.  There are also lots of canning links here, including the best named put up or shut up.

Saving the season, a more pretentious canning blog.

Lindsey's luscious - Found!  This is where the zucchini chutney recipe came from. The canning recipes are mixed in with lots of other stuff, but she gives lots of explanation.

Oh, and I caught a segment on last week's The Splendid Table about making jam.  The recommendations for changing it up were whole vanilla beans and wine/liquors.  Apologies that I can't find the exact segment, my station is apparently not on the standard schedule.

Other stuff:
Garlic broth recipe, with links to other garlic soups, from the New York Times.

Clean out the fridge frittata, from Tea & Cookies.  This is more of a formula than a recipe, and how pretty are her photos?

Cook's Illustrated Summer Grilling 2010.   I picked this up in the grocery store line, even though I have no grill.  The Baja fish taco recipe sold me, can't wait to try it.

Weeks 10 - 12

Week 10:

Potatoes
Tomatoes
Basil
Summer squash
Cucumbers
Cabbages (the onslaught continues)

I ended up with a lot of now-or-never stuff in the fridge to deal with before I left for Canada. Here's the rundown:

Damn good garlic dills from OregonLive.
Squash chutney, but I've lost the recipe (that's what I get for being two weeks behind).  I don't know that I would make this recipe again though, because it turned out completely not spicy.
Three cabbages worth of freezer slaw.
More pesto ice cubes.

I did make an effort to follow the processing instructions for the pickles and chutney, but I'm keeping everything in the fridge since I was not so precise with the measurements.  Everything left over went into a  vegetable stew that I served over the potatoes. 

Week 11:
No veggies, I was at a conference in Montreal, where we were served some interesting box lunches. Like the first day I picked up my roast beef sandwich and hidden underneath was a tiny, artichoke sandwich. Everyday, along with your choice of sandwich, there were grapes and cheese and olive bread, pasta salad, vegetable salad, and dessert, plus a random assortment of quiche, sushi rolls, summer rolls, pizza, and who knows what else all in one box.

Week 12:
Grape tomatoes
Heirloom tomatoes
Basil
Wax beans
Cantaloupe

No picture this week, since I started eating things before I got the chance. What a slacker!  I just couldn't keep myself from butchering the melon and trying out a tomato right away.  There's no point in turning on the stove when there's ripe tomatoes.  Lunch this week is avocado, lettuce, and tomato sandwiches with Swiss cheese and mayo. Dinner is a Nicoise-ish salad with the wax beans, tomato, basil, tuna, olives, and egg.

Quickly now, I've got a paper to finish

Man, I'll never really get to stop saying that.

From epicurious:
Cucumber gazpacho with shrimp and melon.
mmmm...shrimp garnish. Gingerey, herbey, summery. Made muffins with some squash and basil to go with this.

Summer squash sloppy joes.
This is obviously designed to hide vegetables so kids will eat them, but putting squash in everything is the only way it's going to get eaten. I added extra vegetables and subbed cayenne for the paprika.

The rest of the basil got turned into pesto before it could be forgotten in the fridge. While I had everything out, I also made pesto out of the big bunch of cilantro I'd bought for last week's tacos. Froze it in ice trays, dumped em in a ziploc.

I started looking for ways to deal with the onslaught of cabbage, and found recipes for canned slaw and freezer slaw. Both these methods use vinegar, sugar, and spices with the veggies, and are supposed to stay crisp. Mayo can be added when you use the slaw, if you like it creamy. The canned version sounds more appealing, because I imagine it getting all pickled in the jar, but that recipe assumes a lot of knowledge. I browsed around for different versions of the recipe, and let me tell you, the corners of the internet where people make canned coleslaw are kinda scary. So then I looked the National Center for Home Food Preservation to learn about head space and how to seal the jars, but really just learned how easy it is to give yourself botulism. I think I'll save that project for a weekend when I have more time, so freezer slaw it is.

Headed up to Montreal on Tuesday to present the paper, so there will probably be no box next week. Will do my best to get today's box posted before I leave.

Week 9

Onions
Radicchio
Cabbage
A lot of summer squash
Cucumbers
Basil
Greens

Just when I thought I was getting caught up, here comes a bunch more squash, more cukes, and another cabbage. Plus I've still got last week's beets, not that I'm complaining. But here's the problem - last weekend I cooked up a storm preparing meals for the week. Really enjoyable meals. Then Wednesday I ran to Trader Joe's (hungry, big mistake) and came out with a packet of the plump, juicy, tasty hot dogs they were sampling. On the way home I realized, "when am I gonna eat hot dogs?" I had a fridge full of nice meals. So I put the wieners in the freezer for a future grocery emergency.

On the one hand, I had hoped that joining the CSA would force me to eat healthier. Barring the amount of butter it takes to make turnips enjoyable, I have been eating more good stuff and less take out. On the other hand, using the produce efficiently requires a lot of planning and doesn't leave a lot of opportunities for satisfying spontaneous Thai food cravings. I'm still working on finding a strategy that allows me to waste as little as possible, while being flexible during the week.

I do have some new reference material for this mission. In the car today, The Splendid Table was interviewing Tamasin Day-Lewis about her new cookbook. It's about making the most out of scraps like bread crusts, chicken bones, and leftovers. I was not impressed at first because a) yeah right she's eating leftovers and b) Daniel Day-Lewis doesn't eat food, so his sister can't be that great a cook. But she was convincing enough, and I was close enough to the bookstore to stop and check it out, since I'm trying to use more of what I have. Then there on the shelf next to her book, was the sequel to Twelve Months of Monastery Soups, Twelve Months of Monastery Salads! Just like the soup book, it's arranged by what's seasonal each month. I'm looking forward to trying June's Pesto Deviled Eggs and picking out some recipes for all that squash.

Week 8 - 6/10

Dill flower
Cucumbers
Beets
Baby leeks
Fennel
Cabbage
Celery
Squash

Remember how excited I was last time I posted (far too long ago) about getting caught up on lots of leftovers? And that I was going to make awesome zucchini tacos, and not has a cheezburger by Friday? Yeah, about that. I had the soup for lunches, and the tacos for dinners so I did eat a lot of veggies, but both dishes were just, meh. With the zucchini, I put beans, tomatillo salsa, and sour cream on the tacos, which sounds great, but was really just a mushy mess. The tacos were so uninspiring that I never got around to making the mystery cabbage accompaniment. Cheeseburger happened.

So I set out to learn from my mistakes. I now bring you veggie enchiladas, with not one, but two cabbage sides.



Mystery cabbage 1: cabbage salsa
1/2 small head of cabbage, shredded
1 tomato, diced
2 Tbsp cilantro, coarsely chopped
juice of 2 limes
chopped pickled jalapenos, black pepper to taste

These proportions are just estimates, I like a lot of jalapenos and cilantro. I used about *four* limes because the ones I had were so dry.

Mystery cabbage 2: the one with carrots
I found this recipe while looking for the cabbage salsa. I added black pepper, because I'm used to seeing it with the little flecks, and a pinch of sugar. Also, this recipe is written for a really big cabbage. Since mine was small, I ended up with too much liquid.

Veggie enchiladas:
I sauteed four small zucchini, sliced, with a small onion, diced, a couple minced garlic cloves and dried oregano. when the zucchini was lightly browned, I added a can of hatch chilies and a can of black beans, drained and rinsed. Once the filling was cool, I rolled it up in 6 flour tortillas, placed them in a baking dish, poured over a bottle of enchilada sauce and topped it all with shredded jack cheese.

Other projects from last week: I made vegetable stock with odds and ends I'd been saving in the freezer. I got the idea from this post at 30 bucks a week. I browned everything before adding the liquid, and froze the resulting broth in one cup increments.



Sorry turnips, you don't get your own post this time. I made a gratin with the sliced turnips, a white sauce made with a couple of the baby leeks, and a topping of gruyere and breadcrumbs. This was really good in a "gotta cover it up with a bunch of [cream and butter]" kind of way. When I cut into it, the pink turnips looked like ham, which made me think this would be even better with bacon. I ate it for dinner with strip steak (with Jeannette's amazing African rub) and this salad recipe from Epicurious that used the kohlrabi. At first I wasn't sure about the salad, but by the end of the plate I decided I could potentially live on it. It's got crunchy and salty and oniony and lemony, what more could you want in a salad?

Week 7

Cabbage
All orange carrots
Escarole
Red and white onions
Zucchini

It's a slow week for veggies, between the spring and summer seasons. The timing couldn't be better, since I'm a bit behind (looking at you, turnips) after being away for two weekends. And looking back at all the deep-fried, chili-smothered, and cheese-stuffed tasty I had on those trips, catching up on the healthy stuff is in order. So this week, I'll be making an effort to use up more of what I've got so I'll be less tempted to go out for cheeseburgers when Friday rolls around.

I've already made a big pot of vegetable soup with the escarole, some carrots, one of each color onion, and a couple little zucchinis, plus some odds and ends from the pantry. I searched for uses for carrot greens, but most of what I found described them as either excellent compost or inferior parsley. So I took my chances and chopped up a few of them with some basil and threw that into the soup at the end.

Being in a healthful mindset, I'm trying to forget that I ever read this:

44. Make a crisp grilled cheese sandwich, with good bread and not too much good cheese. Let it cool, then cut into croutons. Put them on anything, but especially tomato and basil salad. This you will do forever.

I firmly believe the author that I would do this forever. Doesn't this sound like the perfect thing for a bowl of soup? The tip comes from a list of 101 salad ideas from the New York Times last summer.

Now that I've acquired a cabbage, I think it's time to work on that mystery cabbage (slaw? salsa?) I mentioned a couple weeks back. Maybe with some veggie tacos?

Vacation, part 2

I had the pleasure of spending memorial day weekend at the Outer Banks. Here's the Bubba Gump litany of the marine life we ate: boiled shrimp, steamed shrimp, shrimp with garlic cream, fried shrimp, fried softshell crabs, crab dip, oysters, seared scallops, seared tuna, grilled mahi mahi, mahi mahi tacos, and fried gator. We learned that the Outer Banks really likes Jamaican jerk seasoning, which is fine except when the dish claims to be tacos. We also learned not to go hiking in the swamp, no matter how nice the nature preserve looks in the guidebooks. Several thousand insects are writing blog posts right now about the delicious tourists they enjoyed Sunday morning.

Somehow, between all of those meals, we managed to squeeze in a beach picnic. I made us some sandwiches with this week's zucchini and romaine, cut up the multi-colored carrots for dipping in hummus, baked some cookies from the freezer, and experimented with chili lemonade.

Zucchini sandwiches:
1/4 cup olive oil
1 Tbsp red wine vinegar
1 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 Tsp herbes de Provence
2 small zucchini
1 baguette
1 4 oz packet goat cheese
5 cloves roasted garlic*
lettuce and sliced tomato

Whisk together the first four ingredients with salt and pepper. Slice the zucchini on the diagonal and toss in the vinaigrette. Grill for a couple minutes per side. While the zucchini cools, mash the roasted garlic together with the goat cheese. *Discovery: while I was checking out the salad bar at the Whole Foods looking for interesting snacks, I noticed that they have whole roasted garlic cloves. I packed as many as I could into a salad dressing container and it came to a whopping 32 cents. Back to the recipe, I used about 3/4 of the baguette. Spread it with the goat cheese mixture, top with two layers of zucchini, tomato slices and lettuce. Drizzle the other side of the bread with a couple spoonfuls of the leftover vinaigrette. The one problem is that with all the slidey stuff, the sandwich lacks structural integrity. You might want to try scooping out one side of the baguette.

I thinly sliced the rest of the baguette and toasted it for serving with some jalapeno cilantro hummus I got from the prepared foods section of Whole Foods. It was respectably spicy, and we enjoyed it with both the colorful carrots and the toasts. The cookies were a last minute thing, I remembered that there was dough hiding in the back of the freezer made according to the New York Times recipe. I went a little overboard with the sea salt, but the general consensus was that it's impossible to go overboard with the sea salt. Three girls in three days ate the whole dozen giant cookies.



I decided on lemonade after seeing the "magic juice" cocktail recipe at design*sponge, via notmartha. By a happy coincidence, Chris emailed last week to tell me he was working on some chili lemonade, and the wheels started turning. While I won't reveal Chris's recipe (which was probably a lot spicier), I'll say that my version used Arbol chiles, involved a potato masher, and came out a sinister shade of orange. We enjoyed some of it on the beach with lunch, and the rest in the magic juice cocktail at sunset on the sand dunes. For the cocktail, I substituted white rum (since Brooke doesn't like gin), and made versions with and without strawberries. While both were really delicious, the no berries version tasted a lot like orange Crush. In a good way.

Week 6

My trip to Colorado was glorious. But first, this:



Purple carrots!
Hot pink turnips!
Baby zucchini
Ruby chard
Kohlrabi
Lettuce

This is the most cheerful box so far. I've never bought a kohlrabi before, so I'll have to figure out what to do with it, plus another turnip recipe is needed. As good as the slaw was last week with the carrots, these are all too pretty to muddle up. It's getting pretty hot out here, so some chilled marinated zucchini sounds pretty good, maybe on a sandwich? with some nice cheese? I like where this is going.


And now, about last week's vacation. I managed to just miss monsoon season, and it was sunny and mild the whole 5 days. By some other coincidence, everyone I wanted to see was in town and available, which made for a busy week. I caught up with lots of friends while catching up on my Mexican chow consumption. I had nearly forgotten about how lots of places put a bowl of mystery cabbage on the table with the chips and salsa, and some even put a different mystery cabbage on the side of your plate. I need to remember this stuff for when cabbage arrives in my box. I also need to learn to make green chili, because they just don't smother everything with it here like they do out West.


Nor do they serve burritos on pizza-sized plates.

Then there were Wahoo's fish tacos, which would put the taco place by my house out of business in one afternoon, easy. And a dazzling afternoon spent eating lunch on the deck at Fossil Trace golf course, watching the hang-gliders take off from Mt. Zion. And multiple trips to the Golden Diner for good measure.

As hard as it was to come back from such an excellent vacation, I've got a little something to look forward to - this weekend I'll be on the Outer Banks! I'll report back real soon about my attempts to eat my weight in seafood, plus the fate of this week's vegetables.

Off week

No box this week! I am visiting sunny Golden, CO for a few days, the fabulous Miss S. will be collecting the veg. I'm excited to find out what she does with it!

Week 4

More strawberries!
Another head of escarole
Snap peas
Ruby chard
Green lettuce
Two small bok choy

Thoughts:
I hadn't ever had farm fresh peas before today. I grew up thinking peas came from a silver Le Sueur can, and were supposed to be brown. These are so mood-alteringly sweet that I don't know if I have the heart to cook them at all.

Look at the cute little tops:


Speaking of cute, the little cabbages are also adorable. And the little strawberries are still sweet and juicy.

I've got some of last week's escarole soup in the freezer, but that fact might not stop me from trying another soup recipe with this bunch. Even though it's getting pretty warm out, soup is just a nice thing to come home to.

This is why we're friends

One of my lunch buddies stopped by my office the other day, looking for a snack (still sharing this year's haul of Elmer's). When he asked if I had lunch plans, I confessed there was nothing in my fridge except condiments and a bunch of turnips.

J - "I don't know that I've ever had a turnip."
L - "They're kinda funky, you'd know if you had"
J - "Well, that's when you gotta cover it up with lots of mayonnaise."
L - "This is why we're friends."

After this bit of inspiration, I went home to tackle the turnips, top to hairy bottom. The roots went into a slaw with carrots, that I found at Coastal Living magazine while looking for something that also incorporates dill. The greens recipe, from 101 Cookbooks, surprised me as a headline on gmail, and like that, an all turnip meal was devised. There's no mayo involved, but the turnip greens get mixed with cream, eggs, garlic, and herbs, and baked in a buttery pie crust with Gruyere melted on top. Disguising the turnips, mission accomplished.

Here's a photo of the finished product, on a bunny plate:


The slaw was flavorful, and the spiciness of the turnips came through while the funk was well hidden. I think the dill, cumin, and garlic dressing would translate well to all sorts of shredded veggies for a light, summery side. The tarte recipe is written for two shells, with one going in the freezer for later. As much as I would have liked to stash a second crust in the freezer, my food processor is exactly big enough for one pie crust. The recipe, with white and spelt flours and cornmeal, is worth doubling up on for future savory applications, if you have the capacity. Everything went smoothly, until the rolled-out dough got stuck to the counter while i searched for the bottom piece of my tarte pan. Still tasty!

Surprise visit

This week's trip to DC may have been for work, but the real point of it was to take Brooke and Kate out to dinner. Kate, always up for such a task, compiled a long list of restaurants she's been eager to try, read the tea leaves, and chose Policy. This was a very wise decision. We had a great time catching up with each other, and we attacked a good portion of the small-plates style menu.

Kate and I proposed raw oysters, which Brooke insisted she didn't eat...until she tried one and decided to claim her share. Next was pork belly, because no one complains about bacon. When the tuna tartare came, we forgot to be civilized and dove straight in. There were green beans, because Kate (the recovered vegetarian) insisted on a vegetable, tender beef medallions, and a duck and spinach salad. For desert, we had a coffee cake with ice cream, which I barely remember because of the s'mores cheesecake. Graham cracker crust, chocolate filling, and a puddle of burnt marshmallow happiness.

But the real standout was the beet salad. It was lovely, with a swipe of green dressing, a mound of dark beets, and an airy dollop of cheese. But fancy presentation aside, the magic combination was beet, blue cheese, pistachio. This must be remembered for when beets show up in a few weeks.

What a treat it was to see two wonderful friends who share an enthusiasm for beets, and now oysters!

Week 3 (already!)

Thursday snuck up quick this week:
Mixed greens
Turnips
Spinach
Garlic
Green onions
Dill
Very ripe, very juicy, very cute little strawberries

Everything is much less "baby" this week - the greens, turnips, and garlic are all heftier than before. I'm curious to find out how the garlic in particular is developing. Ripe strawberries are always a treat, I ate about half the carton while putting away the rest of the vegetables. The root vegetable, dill, and green onion combo feels Eastern European, so I might look in that direction for something to do with the turnips.

Now, back to last week. I had a short jaunt to DC for work, so I processed as much of the produce as I could over the weekend. The escarole and green garlic went into soup with some potatoes and an onion. It ended up very green and springtime tasting, and I served it with some grated Parmesan on top. Last week's tuna salad hit the spot, so I made more with the radishes. My first attempt pickling the radish greens was not really a success - they gave the less-than-pleasant impression of eating wet newspaper. The arugula went into pasta salad with roasted tomatoes, olive oil, and teeny bocconcini. As fun as the big bumpy kale looked, I knew there wasn't time to get to everything, so I froze it, following these instructions from notmartha. I skipped the salad spinner step, since I don't have [room to store] a salad spinner, so I took more care with the kitchen towel. I'll report back on how this turned out when I get to use it.

Week 2

It's a big week for greens:
Escarole
Mixed baby greens
Arugula
Dinosaur kale, rawr
More radishes
Baby beet greens, 90% confidence

Thoughts:
I had no idea what the beet greens were when I opened the bag. This guide to greens on epicurious was really helpful. Also, this page from The Splendid Table describing the growth stages of greens is pretty neat. I love beets, so I'm pretty excited for the baby version.

I haven't gotten to the radish greens from last week yet, but since I have another bunch, it might be worth trying out that pickling recipe.

Also, the green things from last week have been identified...they're green garlic! This requires further investigation.

A cure for turnips

Can I say that I don't really like turnips? I buy them some times because get them mixed up with parsnips, what with them always being next to each other in the produce case. I like parsnips, and I think that's what I've got until I take a take a bite of funky turnip. I figured I'd deal with them in the most foolproof way to get me to eat anything, which is lots of butter. I found this recipe, and hoped the Algerians know something about the turnip. They do! The turnips were still turnip-y, but the lemon made them tolerable. And the butter and breadcrumbs didn't hurt. I would make this again if faced with turnips, though I wouldn't go out of my way to buy them.

The turnip recipe is part of a whole Algerian menu from Gourmet magazine. Since I was wary of the turnips, I decided to make this flatbread recipe. I didn't have whole wheat flour on hand, so I used all-purpose. The process was not hard, and only used the one bowl, a rolling pin, and plastic wrap, but it was a fair amount of work - the dough gets rolled, spread with spiced oil (ok, two bowls), coiled into spirals, rolled again, and cooked like pancakes. It was totally worth it. I've been eating these for lunch with a tuna salad that uses the radishes, red leaf lettuce, and cilantro, with black olives and scallions. And with dinner. And for snacks. There are some devious plans brewing for this recipe to come in the near future.



Here's the recipe for salmon with bok choy in a curry sauce I made Tuesday. Based on the comments, I put the salmon straight in the oven and did the bok choy in a skillet, letting it steam a minute and then sauteing. This cabbage was probably the mildest and juiciest I've ever eaten. I left out the fish sauce since I didn't have it (moving really messes up your mental pantry) and didn't want to go out. With some rice and those flatbreads, it was a nice, satisfying meal.

Week 1

Here's what I got this week:

Spinach
A giant red leaf lettuce
Turnips
Radishes
Bok choy
Cilantro
Baby leeks?

Thoughts:
- Are radish greens are edible? Apparently yes, and pickling is recommended. This thread at Chowhound has lots of ideas. Since I don't have that many, and there are turnip greens to deal with too, I think this will wait for another week. I might try the potato soup recipe, maybe with some of the other greens?

Hello

This blog is meant to record my experiences subscribing to a Community Supported Agriculture program. I need somewhere to keep recipes and ideas, and I might as well share the information. I've never participated in a CSA before, but I've read about them online, things like "sigh, whatever will I do with all this kale the CSA sent?" I am excited about having that problem, it's like a weekly box of Iron Chef challenge. The plan is to document what I get, what I make, and what I learn each week, along with some (probably blurry) photographs. Wish me luck!